Have a little faith. This shot won't kill ya!

I do not hate going to the doctor's office.  But, I hate the part when I have to strip down to nothing for the examination.  I can't wait for the day when medical technology will have developed so much that I can stay fully clothed, in a gazillion layers!

"Continue doing whatever you are doing" the young doctor said at the end of it all.  "Everything looks very healthy."

But, of course, and now I can worry even more about living way past 100 until 120!

"Would you like a flu shot today?  I strongly recommend it."

In all these years, I have never had a flu shot.  My defenses, er, clothes were down and I was in a gown that seemed to open up at the wrong places all the time.  Feeling cornered, I said ok.

It is not that I am one of those paranoid about shots and vaccines.  Far from that.  I have all the faith in the scientific method.  Which is the very reason why I was at the doctor's office in the first place.

This faith in the scientific method is not the same as "faith" writes Jerry Coyne:

the “faith” we have in science is completely different from the faith believers have in God and the dogmas of their creed. To see this, consider the following four statements:

“I have faith that, because I accept Jesus as my personal savior, I will join my friends and family in Heaven.”

“My faith tells me that the Messiah has not yet come, but will someday.”

“I have strep throat, but I have faith that this penicillin will clear it up.”

“I have faith that when I martyr myself for Allah, I will receive 72 virgins in Paradise.”

I bet you can already see where he is going with this, right?

the third statement relies on evidence: penicillin almost invariably kills streptococcus bacteria. In such cases the word faith doesn’t mean “belief without good evidence,” but “confidence derived from scientific tests and repeated, documented experience.”
You have faith (i.e., confidence) that the sun will rise tomorrow because it always has, and there’s no evidence that the Earth has stopped rotating or the sun has burnt out. You have faith in your doctor because, presumably, she has treated you and others successfully, and you know that what she prescribes is tested scientifically.

A few years ago, my mother asked me why in the news experts suggest doing one thing and then change their stance later on.  She was referring to, if I remember correctly, studies on coffee's effects on health.  She was almost leaning towards "this is why I don't believe all these experts."  I told her that is how science works--we are constantly testing not only new ideas but even the old ideas.

To some extent, we can say that we don't have faith in the finding itself--all we know is that the scientific method leads us towards clarity.

One can dispel the “science as faith” canard in a single paragraph, and I’ll let Richard Dawkins have the honor:

There is a very, very important difference between feeling strongly, even passionately, about something because we have thought about and examined the evidence for it on the one hand, and feeling strongly about something because it has been internally revealed to us, or internally revealed to somebody else in history and subsequently hallowed by tradition. There's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority, or revelation.

So the next time you hear someone described as a “person of faith,” remember that although it’s meant as praise, it’s really an insult.

When my doctor suggested the flu shot, it was not based on blind faith.  He has the backing of the scientific method and all the evidence.  As a reasonably well-informed curious fellow, I, too, am aware of the benefits of a flu shot.  So, why then did I not get a flu shot all these years?  Blame it on the arrogance of youth, when we feel nothing can harm us.  Today, I was caught with my pants down, literally!

Oh well.  I decided to celebrate the clean bill of health by cooking something special ... and I loaded it up with butter and cheese too.  After all, the data suggests that I will live for a lot longer, and I have faith in that evidence ;)