Quantum medicine: the scam

14 Agosto 2017

• Quantum medicine
• Quackery

Forgive me, believers, but a minimum of common sense is essential. To begin with, let me state right away that I will not defend any concept that uses the word “quantum” in any way other than physics. So, if you are someone who “believes” in anything quantum, you can ignore this post. However, if you have no “formed opinion” on the subject or are just curious and want some coherent information, you can continue—I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Let’s start with an important distinction: the difference between an observation and an opinion. Some people say “science is not an opinion” or “no one can choose whether to believe in science or not,” and I confess that, said this way, they sound quite authoritarian. But it’s easy to clarify this and other misunderstandings if we simplify the issue into two (apparently) obvious concepts: observation and opinion, and the difference between them. In both concepts, we have a common denominator: the subject. Someone observes, someone opines. We also have, in both situations, another common element: an object. Someone observes something, someone opines about something.

To understand the difference between observing and opining, imagine the following situation: you are standing by a river and, throughout the day, you see some people try to cross it. Five travelers try, four fail, and only one succeeds. One of the unfortunate ones who didn’t make it ended up drowning. Then, the sixth traveler arrives and sees you standing there. Assuming you might know something about that river, he asks: “is this river safe?” Based on what you observed, the obvious answer is only one: “no.” Whether you believe in destiny or not, whether you want to defend free will or not, whether you fear spirits or not, none of your beliefs change what you observed. No, the river is not safe, based on the fact that only 1 in 5 people managed to cross it and, on top of that, one ended up dying trying. It’s not your opinion in the sense that it doesn’t depend on what you believe (unless you believe your observations can be false).

Another traveler, the seventh, arrives and sees you and the sixth traveler talking. He comes closer and asks: “should I cross the river?” Before you answer, the sixth traveler replies: “this man believes you shouldn’t, but I have the opposite opinion.” The seventh traveler then understands that there are two divergent opinions and that he must choose between them. Since he doesn’t usually back down from adversity, he prefers to listen to the opinion of the sixth traveler. He then drowns trying to cross the river.

The sixth traveler gave an opinion about what the other man should do. However, it was not an opinion based on observation—who knows what it was based on. The seventh traveler, in fact, misunderstood the situation. He asked for an opinion, a judgment, about the action he intended to take. He didn’t ask about observations. He received an answer that reflected his question, a question that turned out to be wrong because it led him to perish in the river. People repeatedly make this kind of mistake. Instead of asking “what is this?” or “what did you see?” to others, they end up asking “what would you do?” or, even worse, “what do you think I should do?”

This comes simply from people’s lack of preparation to think for themselves, or in other words, to develop critical thinking. Most people have no exact notion of how (or why) to do this simply out of ignorance. They are unaware of the basic elements of reasoning and how to use them to understand the world and its phenomena, or in other words, they have no notion of logic. Thus, they confuse the use of information with the discussion of ideas. A person who has the habit of developing critical thinking, that is, who uses logic to evaluate information and ideas, would not make such a mistake so easily.

An eighth traveler arrives at the scene and immediately asks: “which of you knows this river?” The sixth traveler shrugs, but you can answer: “I spent most of the day here and saw several people trying to cross it. The crossing is difficult and two have already drowned.” Grateful, the eighth traveler gives up trying to cross the river at that spot and goes off to look for a place where the crossing might be easier. He didn’t ask anyone’s opinion about the river. He wanted to know the observations about the watercourse. That probably saved him from drowning that day.

In summary, since science is a method of observing the world, it accumulates information, knowledge. Nothing in the scientific method indicates that the knowledge acquired with its help can be definitive. In fact, part of the method is to seek out the gaps in knowledge, where previous observations do not explain new phenomena, in order to accumulate more and more information. The scientific method does not, however, involve discussion about what to do with the knowledge. The scientific method is a way to describe observations, but not to interpret them. The interpretation of knowledge constitutes another level of discussion, where opinions are important.

Thus, when it is said that no one can have an opinion about science, actually read that as it is illogical to form opinions about observations made with the scientific method. However, it becomes perfectly logical to discuss opinions about what to do with knowledge. For example, the residents near the river could discuss the importance of building a bridge to allow safe crossing. That would be a logical and productive attitude. It would prevent loss of life.

If a mystic, however, arrived teaching that scientists are authoritarian materialists and that positive thinking alone would make the universe conspire for people to walk on water, that would probably lead to a record increase in drownings. Reality does not change with opinions. What we do with the reality we have does.

With this in mind, we can talk about Quantum Physics. It is a scientific theory, that is, a way of organizing scientific knowledge acquired through observations and making predictions about what we might find in the future. Scientific theories involve using scientific knowledge to make testable predictions. These predictions will confirm the theory or not. In the latter case, refuting part or all of a theory, the theory must be updated, adapted to the observations. From there, with the new updated theory, more predictions are made. And so the cycle repeats. Scientific theories are part of the scientific method. They are tools to accumulate more and more knowledge.

It is possible that there are divergent opinions about a scientific theory, but only as long as observations have not been made to test the theory. If the observations confirm an opinion (a part of the theory), very well, it stands. The other opinions are abandoned. In the 16th century, Johannes Kepler wondered about the shape of planetary orbits. In his opinion, the circular shape was more perfect and elegant and should be the real one. However, his observations never confirmed his opinion (theory), and he was forced to revise his ideas.

Admitting that the observations could only be explained by elliptical planetary orbits, he created the laws that describe planetary motion. Kepler’s opinion did not overcome observation, because an opinion does not change reality. We have to adapt to reality, not the other way around.

Scientific theories use mathematics a lot to express their inferences. In physics, an essentially quantitative area (in which we deal with phenomena that are measured) and in other equally or partially quantitative areas, the use of mathematics is essential for the development of theories. Mathematical formulas show how various phenomena behave and relate to each other. An example is Newton’s second law, which can be expressed in the famous formula F = ma. This formula shows how a force applied to any body relates to the mass of that body and its motion.

In this formula, the composition of the body does not matter, only the mass quantity. However, the formula says nothing about the nature of mass or why bodies have mass. In fact, it was only recently that physics experimentally confirmed the most accepted theory about why there are objects with mass in our reality (by the way, the quantum theory). An interesting thing about the mathematical nature of Newton’s second law is that a person who understands nothing about mathematics and does not master its basic concepts like force or acceleration will never really understand it.

It is possible to explain Newton’s second law without resorting to mathematics, using analogies or approximate images. But it will never be the same as someone who masters basic mathematics and knows how to do simple calculations, the only thing needed to solve those boring high school dynamics exercises. For most of us, F = ma is banal and commonplace because we understand its mathematics, which is simple for our understanding. We also know that it is just an equation based on observations and has nothing to do with the nature of reality. That wouldn’t stop anyone from, for example, creating the “Cult of the Holy Force,” where we would be taught how the mystical Force creates reality.

You can tell any story, no matter how disconnected from reality, with any physics equation, no matter how simple. You just need to find an audience, a public that doesn’t understand what you’re talking about and will swallow everything you say without questioning anything. That’s how “quantum” quackery works.

Quantum physics is a model that explains the behavior of the particles that make up matter and the interactions between them. This model is based on the observations of countless researchers and the creative ideas of some of them. These ideas are expressed in the form of equations. Several equations have been calculated in quantum physics, each describing a certain set of phenomena. One of the best-known equations is the Schrödinger Equation: Ĥψ = Eψ. This, in fact, is a simplification of it. This equation indicates how to calculate the state of systems that behave in a quantum way. Since I do not master the mathematics of quantum physics, I cannot really explain how to use it.

Quantum physics, as a scientific theory, is considered the most successful in the history of physics. What does that mean? That the predictions made with its equations achieve the highest degree of precision ever obtained with a physical theory. This is a quantitative approach to understanding how appropriate quantum physics is for describing phenomena. However, when a layperson like me tries to grasp what that means, things get complicated. Since I do not master the mathematics, my only choice is to use metaphors and approximate images.

From this limitation come the main myths about quantum physics. The most common is that it is counterintuitive and, therefore, must describe a “deeper level” of reality. This myth comes from the fact that laypeople like me or you do not really understand the concepts the theory uses or the phenomena it explains. Fundamentally, quantum physics explains phenomena in the domain of the fundamental particles of matter. One of the most common mistakes is to “understand” quantum physics as “breaking” the view that particles have an observable physical existence. One of the most cited examples is that quantum physics describes the most fundamental parts of matter as being, at the same time, waves and particles.

We laypeople, in fact, see particles as miniaturized macroscopic objects, like “little balls” in a huge fundamental billiard game. To be exact, not even in classical physics are fundamental particles interpreted this way. For physicists, fundamental particles are objects that interact with each other according to predictable mathematical laws. Implicitly, particles were seen as one-dimensional objects, like points without extension. Before quantum physics, the equations said nothing about their nature. From quantum physics onward, particles are understood as the manifestation of an “energy field” (which again is an imperfect analogy for laypeople).

The behavior of these “energy fields” is described by mathematical equations whose results are probabilistic, that is, they refer to a probability of phenomena occurring. A side note: when I talk about “energy fields,” I am not referring to any outlandish notion, it is not “vital energy,” “energon,” “all spark,” “speed force,” “vibrational energy,” or anything you can imagine. In fact, the word “energy” itself is not really adequate, as these fields describe the fundamental interactions of matter (such as electromagnetism and gravity) and not exactly “energies.” The important notion is that the mathematics of quantum physics gives results in the form of probabilities, not being deterministic. From there to thinking that these equations, created to describe phenomena in the subatomic domain, have to do with the “fundamental nature of reality” is a leap that most physicists do not endorse.

The idea of wave-particle duality originates from the probabilistic nature of the mathematics of quantum physics. From this mathematics, one can calculate a “probability” of observing a particle, or of that particle interacting with another, and this probability is graphically described as a wave function. Laypeople end up understanding this duality, which is an abstract mathematical concept, as if particles could be, at the same time, “little balls” and “ripples” (like those on the surface of water). These images are analogies used to facilitate communication with those who do not understand the mathematics, like me or you. That does not mean they correspond to the “fundamental nature of reality.”

Ideas like quantum entanglement, the uncertainty principle, and others are equally misinterpreted to give rise to concepts that cannot in any way be abstracted from quantum physics. It is the misuse of notions from quantum physics, which comes from the fact that few people have a deep understanding of it, that is at the origin of so many misunderstandings.

Likewise, using concepts supposedly from quantum physics (mostly metaphors used to facilitate lay understanding) and applying them to phenomena that have nothing to do even with physics is, at best, pure bad faith. This is the case, for example, with so-called quantum medicine. Supposedly, it would apply “quantum ideas” (which are not ideas, they are figures of speech, and have nothing to do with quantum physics, which is mathematics) in the field of health.

The physics that describes objects in the domain our senses can grasp, the macroscopic domain, is essentially classical physics, which has nothing to do with quantum physics. It makes no sense to try to apply the equations of quantum physics, for example, to a chair or my head. Or to the blood vessels in your arm, or your neurons. These are macroscopic objects that can be described by classical physics, but not by the physics of fundamental particles. It is as wrong to believe that quantum entanglement can occur between two people as it is to think that I can stack grains of sand on top of each other to form a column the thickness of a grain and the height of a building.

Anyone can understand that a pile of bricks and a pile of sand grains behave very differently. There shouldn’t be so much difficulty in understanding that the behavior of electrons cannot have much to do with the functioning of our stomach or our immune system. But, as these are phenomena outside our everyday experience about which we understand little, we have no way to judge claims that our health could be “quantum”.

There is no need to scrutinize the claims of anyone who is a proponent of “quantum medicine” or “quantum healing”. Believing that the laws governing the behavior of protons and neutrons and forces like electromagnetism can be applied to the mechanisms of health and disease in our bodies is, at the very least, a gross error. In most cases, it is also an exploitation of people’s good faith and lack of understanding. Quantum medicine is simply a scam. Don’t fall for it.

P.S.: reviewing this text after almost 8 years, I see that there are some predictable weaknesses and shortcomings, mostly due to simplifications. The overall picture, however, is true enough. Actually, nowadays we are deep in a crisis of science facts misunderstanding and illiteracy. So,this text becomes ever more urgent.