El Cristo Redentor, Puerto Plata, DR
I just returned from an intense week in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. I joined 51 other students to provide humanitarian and chiropractic care in the streets of poor villages. On the long bus rides and during dinner I had some wonderful conversations with students from Life West and Life University.
If you're unaware of my work over at Exploring Chiropractic, there are some notable differences among the 18 chiropractic schools in North America (and throughout the world). On one end of the spectrum are schools like Sherman and Life West that adhere to the early philosophies of the founders of chiropractic. On the other end are schools such as Northwestern University of Health Sciences and, the school I attend, University of Western States. These schools eschew chiropractic tradition in favor of following the scientific evidence.
The conversations I had centered around the key chiropractic philosophy of Innate Intelligence and subluxation, two poorly defined concepts that are difficult to study and discuss. More than once, it led some of the students to mention the concept of Quantum Physics and how current science is suggesting that it may reveal some answers about how the body heals.
I have not yet read much on Quantum Physics (Bruce Lipton's The Biology of Belief is next up on my Audible playlist), and was glad to receive a couple of book recommendations (Joe Dispenza's You are the Placebo and Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself).
I was caught off guard when asked what books I might recommend as an introduction to critical thinking and evidence-based medicine. What a great question! I surprised myself by not having an answer ready. I thought about it for a while and scoured the previously read books on my Kindle to see where I was forming my thoughts and positions on the discussions we had. Here are a few of the books I recommend for students - and anyone - to read as primers on evaluating claims and understanding the natural world.
(I have not finished reading books with an asterisk.)
The Magic of Reality, Richard Dawkins*
The Believing Brain, Michael Shermer
Trick or Treatment, Simon Singh & Edzard Ernst
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan*