# Cocaine Mummies & Challenging Conventional Scientific Wisdom **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 27, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300 "2012-11-27T20:29:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/21 "2012-11-28T16:50:32Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > My mother is fond of saying, “Paradigms shift one funeral at a time.” LOL, never heard it put that way! > [@](#): > > and she, at least, is convinced that a number of standard theories in various disciplines became so not because the various giants in the field took an objective look at the evidence and threw out the old models but simply ignored them only to die and be replaced by younger scientists less beholden to ideas like luminiferous aether or phlogistons. Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” gives these examples and others. But, as others said above, plenty of revolutions haven’t required the old guard to die out, especially some of the more recent such as quantum mechanics and relativity. Still, Priestly went to his grave thinking he’d isolated “dephlogisticated air” and denying Lavoisier’s claim that it was oxygen, a new element. Priestly often gets credit for discovering oxygen even though he was dead wrong about what it was he’d discovered. I doubt we’ve seen the last of these “revolution by decomposition” cases. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/22 "2012-11-28T17:09:19Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > Just a point of minor contention: Lewontin ascribes the increase in average human lifespan to increases in agricultural efficiency and food distribution (Tuberculosis and influenza have far higher mortality in the malnourished to this day, as far as I am aware). Both of the accomplishments (distribution and agriculture) were the result of scientific achievements, but are probably not the first things one thinks of in that regard. Lewontin was Gould’s sidekick, right? He should know more about it than me, but I still doubt he got this right. While perusing a 1930s Encyclopedia Brittanica I was suprised to see that TB was the leading cause of death in the developed world ca. 1900, and that the life expectancy then was only about 50. Consider therefore that outside the Russian Empire/USSR famine had been rare to unknown in Europe and the Americas since well before 1900, and that food was plentiful and avaibale, yet life expectancy was not anywhere near its present level in those areas. I believe active TB was at the time usually fatal if not in remission, regardless of diet, and that innoculation and antibiotics, not diet, are most responsbile for reducing the peril. Similarly smallpox was fatal in about 40% of all cases, regardless of diet, The same is true of numerous other diseases of once appalling mortality. Then there are tremendous pharmaceutical advances to account for, as well as advances in surgery and other forms of treatment. Thus I think there are grounds for believing that medicine’s role in increased life expectancy is probably second to none. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/23 "2012-11-28T19:32:15Z")
Lewontin was Gould’s sidekick, right? He should know more about it than me, but I still doubt he got this right. While perusing a 1930s Encyclopedia Brittanica I was suprised to see that TB was the leading cause of death in the developed world ca. 1900, and that the life expectancy then was only about 50. Consider therefore that outside the Russian Empire/USSR famine had been rare to unknown in Europe and the Americas since well before 1900, and that food was plentiful and avaibale, yet life expectancy was not anywhere near its present level in those areas. I believe active TB was at the time usually fatal if not in remission, regardless of diet, and that innoculation and antibiotics, not diet, are most responsbile for reducing the peril. Similarly smallpox was fatal in about 40% of all cases, regardless of diet, The same is true of numerous other diseases of once appalling mortality. Then there are tremendous pharmaceutical advances to account for, as well as advances in surgery and other forms of treatment. Thus I think there are grounds for believing that medicine’s role in increased life expectancy is probably second to none. in case any one is interested, I’m going to report myself here and ask if I’m out of line. I will abide by whatever the moderating staff tells me. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/24 "2012-11-28T20:13:08Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Lewontin was Gould’s sidekick, right? He should know more about it than me, but I still doubt he got this right. > > While perusing a 1930s Encyclopedia Brittanica I was suprised to see that TB was the leading cause of death in the developed world ca. 1900, and that the life expectancy then was only about 50. Consider therefore that outside the Russian Empire/USSR famine had been rare to unknown in Europe and the Americas since well before 1900, and that food was plentiful and avaibale, yet life expectancy was not anywhere near its present level in those areas. > > I believe active TB was at the time usually fatal if not in remission, regardless of diet, and that innoculation and antibiotics, not diet, are most responsbile for reducing the peril. Similarly smallpox was fatal in about 40% of all cases, regardless of diet, The same is true of numerous other diseases of once appalling mortality. Then there are tremendous pharmaceutical advances to account for, as well as advances in surgery and other forms of treatment. Thus I think there are grounds for believing that medicine’s role in increased life expectancy is probably second to none. > > in case any one is interested, I’m going to report myself here and ask if I’m out of line. I will abide by whatever the moderating staff tells me. OK with me, but if you ever took any English Lit courses in poetry or drama they must have driven you absolutely batty. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/25 "2012-11-29T00:54:24Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Lewontin was Gould’s sidekick, right? He should know more about it than me, but I still doubt he got this right. > > While perusing a 1930s Encyclopedia Brittanica I was suprised to see that TB was the leading cause of death in the developed world ca. 1900, and that the life expectancy then was only about 50. Consider therefore that outside the Russian Empire/USSR famine had been rare to unknown in Europe and the Americas since well before 1900, and that food was plentiful and avaibale, yet life expectancy was not anywhere near its present level in those areas. > > I believe active TB was at the time usually fatal if not in remission, regardless of diet, and that innoculation and antibiotics, not diet, are most responsbile for reducing the peril. Similarly smallpox was fatal in about 40% of all cases, regardless of diet, The same is true of numerous other diseases of once appalling mortality. Then there are tremendous pharmaceutical advances to account for, as well as advances in surgery and other forms of treatment. Thus I think there are grounds for believing that medicine’s role in increased life expectancy is probably second to none. > in case any one is interested, I’m going to report myself here and ask if I’m out of line. I will abide by whatever the moderating staff tells me. I don’t think you’re out of line here but this is going further and further away from the original column … but in this circumstance I think that’s okay. Maybe this should be moved to General Questions. 🙂 In any event, I think you do have a point. I also think I read somewhere that the greater availability of clean drinking water was something that did a lot to drop mortality rates and advance the human lifespan to the kinds of numbers we have now. If I wasn’t so busy I’d go look it up but right now … sorry. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/26 "2012-11-29T00:54:52Z")
Yeah, let’s take this to GQ. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/27 "2012-11-29T01:25:37Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > Consider therefore that outside the Russian Empire/USSR famine had been rare to unknown in Europe and the Americas since well before 1900, and that food was plentiful and avaibale, yet life expectancy was not anywhere near its present level in those areas. This is very far from true. I don’t even need to bother hunting down a book on famines. [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famines#Europez) will do. I’m sticking to 19th century and later for these cites. > [@](#): > > Iceland > Iceland was also hit by a potato famine between 1862 and 1864. Lesser known than the Irish potato famine, the Icelandic potato famine was caused by the same blight that ravaged most of Europe during the 1840s. About 5 percent of Iceland’s population died during the famine. > > Finland > The Finnish famine of 1866–1868 killed 15% of the population. > > Ireland 1845-49 > The immediate effect was 1,000,000 dead and another 2,000,000 refugees fleeing to Britain, Australia and the United States > > Elsewhere in Europe > France saw famines as recently as the nineteenth century. Famine still occurred in eastern Europe during the 20th century. … Famine returned to the Netherlands during World War II in what was known as the Hongerwinter. It was the last famine of Western Europe, in which approximately 30,000 people died of starvation. Some other areas of Europe also experienced famine at the same time. > [@](#): > > I believe active TB was at the time usually fatal if not in remission, regardless of diet, and that innoculation and antibiotics, not diet, are most responsbile for reducing the peril. Similarly smallpox was fatal in about 40% of all cases, regardless of diet, The same is true of numerous other diseases of once appalling mortality. Then there are tremendous pharmaceutical advances to account for, as well as advances in surgery > and other forms of treatment. Thus I think there are grounds for believing that medicine’s role in increased life expectancy is probably second to none. Medicine’s role is distinctly secondary to improvements in public health. Clean water, working sewers, healthy food, and instructions in proper hygiene reduced mortality by at least an order of magnitude more than mere medicine. You can argue that these changes were due to physicians, but in fact that’s not always true. Many physicians thought these were unnecessary and the advances were often made by engineers and other non-doctors. Of course, physicians were involved in many cases. Reduction of mortality due to medicine’s triumph over disease is amazingly recent, certainly post WWII even in the U.S. The huge reductions were done much earlier in the century or even late 19th century, as were the beginnings of increase in longevity. ---
**Author:** ![prosfilaes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@prosfilaes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prosfilaes)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/28 "2012-11-29T01:42:16Z")
If I tell you my car levitate, do you want to hear about how Big Auto is suppressing it, do you want me to shrug and tell you I don’t know how it flies or do you want to see good evidence? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I don’t think I deserve to have people pounding on my door because I made the claim that my car can levitate. Personally I have much deeper issues with homeopathy then the physics and chemistry problems. A lack of standardized prescriptions, combined with a lack of side effects, sounds most like it’s doing nothing. Real medicine takes more then “it sounds right” (and thousands of drugs a year get dropped in the pile of “it should work, but it doesn’t” after clinical tests) and you can’t induce powerful changes on a system as complex and variable as the human body without side effects. And the tests don’t scream “it works”; some tests have sort of leaned that way, which will be true if you have enough tests for anything. Accupuncture seems to have some effects, but those explicable in modern science; human attention, combined with triggering endorphine releases, explain what we can see. In particular, the complex charts of qi lines that come with accupuncture, in experiments, are nonsense; it doesn’t really matter where you put the pins. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/29 "2012-11-29T02:10:35Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > My mother is fond of saying, “Paradigms shift one funeral at a time.” and she, at least, is convinced that a number of standard theories in various disciplines became so not because the various giants in the field took an objective look at the evidence and threw out the old models but simply ignored them only to die and be replaced by younger scientists less beholden to ideas like luminiferous aether or phlogistons. I dunno, I’m not super up on my history of science but it makes sense to me. One hopes that people studied in rationality and empiricism could be more observant of our own biases, but we are all human, after all. > [@Andy\_L](#): > > That’s a bit of an exaggeration. In the 19th century it took a while for Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism to become accepted, but in the 20th century, quite radical ideas were accepted almost immediately. For example, Max Planck proposed the weird idea that energy was quantized, in 1900 or so. Some other scientists might have dismissed his work, but in a matter of years, others were building on his work, and he won the Nobel prize in 1918. For what it’s worth, Max Planck himself is the one who essentially originated the quote(/observation) you are calling out. (See [here](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck)) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/30 "2012-11-29T02:16:53Z")
Since this is more about the nature of scientific discovery than the actual factual information itself, it’s better suited to Great Debates than General Questions. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/31 "2012-11-29T07:20:06Z")
I love the idea of Reiki. There is “energy” that ca be transmitted by your hands held close to someone’s body. OK, let’s look at that. Does the energy follow the inverse square law? If the energy is just right at 1 inch, can you burn the patient when it it 100 times stronger if your hand strays to within 1/10 of an inch? How does this energy come out the palm of your hand and not through the top? Is there some sort of shielding in your hand? Does that mean you can’t use Reiki to cure a problem on the top of someone’s hand? How about remote Reiki? How accurate does your aim need to be? At 100 miles it seems like you’d need to be within hundredths of a degree of arc. Do you need to account for the Coriolis effect when you aim or does Reiki energy travel at the speed of light? What happens if you are aiming at someone’s uterine cancer and a pregnant woman walks in front of your Reiki beams: does that kill her fetus? ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/32 "2012-11-29T12:26:14Z")
I don’t have the time, energy, or interest to respond fully to this, but I will say this: New ideas are revolutionary and important only _after_ they have been challenged. The process you’re complaining about - skepticism, challenge, testing, etc - is exactly what SHOULD be happening. It’s the _only_ way for us to make sure that the idea is actually true before we change the way we think about everything we know. If the revolutionary idea is actually true, then after enough testing and evidence, it will become clear that it is true. That’s how science works, and it’s how science should work. It’s ridiculous to criticize scientists for doing precisely what they claim they do. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/33 "2012-11-29T12:35:02Z")
Besides, Reiki and homeopathy are both big giant piles of bullshit. There’s just no reliable evidence that either one is medically sound. Just anecdotal evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/34 "2012-11-29T12:47:42Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Besides, Reiki and homeopathy are both big giant piles of bullshit. There’s just no reliable evidence that either one is medically sound. Just anecdotal evidence. You have to _feel_ it. And you have to believe it to feel it. It’s sort of a spiritual thing – you know, like feeling the presence of God in your shorts. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/35 "2012-11-29T12:59:22Z")
I don’t get why it matters to the OP what a bunch of science-nerds think about his magical healing magnets. Wear all the magnets you want, bub, who’s stopping you? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/36 "2012-11-29T13:39:17Z")
> [@akrako1](#): > > The same basic principle hold true for almost all of the energy-based, alternative healing modalities: Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Reiki, even Magnet therapy and the like. There is clearly some energetic-level to our bodies that Western science just doesn’t understand yet, but won’t admit to. For alternative definitions of the word “clearly”, I’m sure ;). > [@Musicat](#): > > You have to _feel_ it. And you have to believe it to feel it. It’s sort of a spiritual thing – you know, like feeling the presence of God in your shorts. Actually, it’s the practitioner who has to \*feel \*it in the prospective [del]mark[/del]patient. It’s very subtle. A faint aura of gullibility… healthy vibrations emanating wallet-side… ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/37 "2012-11-29T14:12:44Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I don’t get why it matters to the OP what a bunch of science-nerds think about his magical healing magnets. Wear all the magnets you want, bub, who’s stopping you? The security people in the airport. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/38 "2012-11-29T14:38:47Z")
Meh. Contamination by drug-addicted archaeologists, so far gone in addiction they have to pause and snort up some blow, or dip some snuff, even while opening the tomb. Sad, really. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/39 "2012-11-29T14:41:10Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > For what it’s worth, Max Planck himself is the one who essentially originated the quote(/observation) you are calling out. (See [here](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck)) I thought it sounded familiar - should have looked it up before posting. Thanks. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300/40 "2012-11-29T15:23:02Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Meh. Contamination by drug-addicted archaeologists, so far gone in addiction they have to pause and snort up some blow, or dip some snuff, even while opening the tomb. Sad, really. Shows what dreadful state the grant system is in, that archaelogists can’t even afford to snort their dust off the arse of Egyptian hookers and have to make do with their mummies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cocaine-mummies-challenging-conventional-scientific-wisdom/642300.md?page=3)