‘Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there....
It is great to be great, but it is greater to be HUMAN’. — Will Rogers (1879-1935)
In these columns yesterday,I wrote about the birth of a new journal called JOURNAL OF THE SCIENCE OF HEALING OUTCOMES (JSHO). Both Professor B M Hegde and Professor Rustum Roy through their brilliant introductory articles in the maiden issue of JSHO have succeeded in giving us all this meaningful functional message: ‘The only way in which one can make endurable man’s inhumanity to man, and man’s destruction of his own environment, is to exemplify in your own lives man’s humanity to man and man’s reverence for the place in which he lives’.
 |  |
Professor B M Hegde Editor-in-Chief | Professor Rustum Roy Co-Editor-in-Chief |
Professor Rustum Roy in his editorial, ‘Why another journal?’ says: ‘Over the last few decades I have been the Founding Editor of several new journals which are now well-established. ‘The Materials Research Bulletin’ (1966) was the first such in the, then, new ‘interdisciplinary’ field of Materials Research. ‘The Bulletin of Science Technology Society’ (1980), also initially published by Elsevier, was the first journal of any kind to cover this maximally interdisciplinary area. ‘The Journal of Materials Education’ (1982) was the first and the only Journal devoted to education in the flourishing field of research. ‘Materials Research Innovations’ (1996) did not pioneer in a new field (as in the others noted above) but in its review process. Published originally by Springer Verlag and currently by Maney, the journal, now in its 11th year, was the first journal to use the process of super peer review (SPR) to displace the enormously time-wasting and anti-innovation bias, of the (standard) peer-review process (PRP). In each of these cases the justification for a new journal was the fact that we were really breaking new ground in ‘form’, ‘content’, or ‘community’ to be served by the new journal. Following the same justification principle, the ‘Journal of The Science of Healing Outcomes’ (JSHO) is new in several very specific ways. It will be the:
1st peer-reviewed journal of healing case studies using scientific criteria instead of statistical data.
1st professional scientific journal devoted (exclusively) to records/data on human healing, including single case studies.
1st journal devoted to healing outcomes whether caused by body, mind or spirit vectors’.
What makes me a great fan of Professor Rustum Roy is his great observation to the effect that in the ultimate analysis what will matter more for mankind will be more and more of focused science and not aimless accumulation of clumsily gathered and ill-digested and often irrelevant statistics. I endorse his view and that of his friend Professor Andrew Weil that enormous distortion in medical research has been caused by the absolute refusal to follow the path of science—to look very carefully and critically, of course, at all the extraordinary observations that are made by careful honest and public spirited citizens—and professionals of all kinds: MD’s, Ph. D’s, R.N.’s and ND’s (‘no degrees’ like Michael Faraday and Bill Gates).
In this context, Professor Rustum Roy observes with biting sarcasm ‘ ‘Synchrodestiny’ has always been very important in science even in some of today’s healing vectors—one need only think of quinine, Viagra, lithium etc.—but unfortunately not in NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH (NIH)—FEDERAL DRUG AGENCY (FDA) driven type medical research. This journal, abbreviated as JSHO, now opens the door to bringing precisely that genre of advances—as in SCIENCE—into the healing area. This is not to deny that some large population studies may not be necessary for the NIH-FDA to check for side effects safely in large populations, etc. That is normally called engineering’. Life is not living, but living in health
Seeing the refreshingly original approach of Professor B M Hegde and Professor Rustum Roy, I am reminded of the famous observation of Bertrand Russell (1872-1969) who wrote: ‘Intellectual integrity made it quite impossible for me to accept the myths and dogmas of even very great scientists, more particularly of the belligerent and so-called advanced nations. Indeed, those intellectuals who accepted them were abdicating their functions for the joy of feeling themselves at one with the herd’.
In my view, if the intellectual has any function in society, it is to preserve a cool and unbiased judgment in the face of all solicitations to passion. I have often seen that most intellectuals have no belief in the intellect, except in quiet times…. Knowledge is mainly empirical, the result of observation, examination, and analysis. But logic and mathematics go further…. They investigate empirical knowledge and explore the implications that lie in and beyond established facts. It appears from our analysis of knowledge that, unless it is much more restricted than we suppose, we shall have to admit principles of non-demonstrative inference, which may be difficult to reconcile with pure empiricism. We cannot be positive about anything until we have ‘proved’ every phrase as well as every ‘fact’—and, in the meanwhile, we should suspect, or at least cautiously examine, everything we think we ‘know’. A man might spend his life in trains, airplanes and restaurants and know nothing of humanity at the end. To know, one must be an actor as well as a spectator. The good fortune of JSHO is that both it’s Editor-in-Chief Professor B M Hegde and Co-Editor-in-Chief Professor Rustum Roy have been great actors and spectators in many fields of knowledge and wisdom.
I am very moved by the historic declaration of Professor Rustum Roy that the JSHO Editors have chosen to focus this journal on healing outcomes in humans. In the last analysis, it is the outcomes that count. Does it work? That is what attracts the educated public. And works largely on humans (not on rats or rabbits!). Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another. Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith, and inconsistent with it. But all science, in fact, rests on a basis of faith, for it assumes the permanence and uniformity of natural laws—a thing that can never be demonstrated. Albert Einstein (1872-1955) rightly said that the whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
When I carefully re-studied in depth all the articles in the maiden issue of JSHO, I was reminded of the famous declaration of Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) in his preface to his Back to Methuselah: ‘Let the Churches ask themselves why there is no revolt against the dogmas of mathematics though there is one against the dogmas of religion. It is not that the mathematical dogmas are more comprehensible. The law of inverse squares is as incomprehensible to the common man as the Athanasian Creed. It is not that science is free from witchcraft, legends, miracles, biographic boosting of quacks as heroes and saints, and of barren scoundrels as explorers and discoverers. On the contrary, the ICONOGRAPHY AND HAGIOLOGY OF SCIENCE are as copious as they are mostly squalid…. In mathematics and physics, the faith is still kept pure, and you may take the law and leave the legends without a suspicion of heresy’. I have no doubt that JSHO would endeavour to protect the innocent common man in the street against the evil designs and effects of the iconography and hagiology of powerfully organised medical science (and of course medical doctors of various hues and colours!) and pharmaceutical companies whose only motto is ‘MAXIMUM COMMERCIAL PROFIT AT ANY HUMAN OR SOCIAL COST’.
The first issue of JSHO contains two very important healing outcomes—one in the area of Cancer relief and the other in the realm of infection control. I share the irrepressible optimism and vision of Professor B M Hegde that ‘It is quite possible that at a future date JSHO might put together a new system of medical care, meta medicine, incorporating the emergency methods from modern medicine clubbed with inexpensive methods from many other systems duly authenticated using hard scientific yardsticks for the management of the majority of illnesses like the minor illness syndromes, hypochondriasis, Doctor-think-you have-a disease syndromes, and, the chronic incurable diseases, making the new system patient friendly, inexpensive, and accessible even to the poor who, incidentally, have the highest incidence of any illness man is heir to’. This great birth of JSHO is not the end, not even the beginning of the end but only the end of the beginning Long Live JSHO!
Finally what is refreshing to see is that JSHO wants to adopt a communication style quite different from the most of the scientific journals that specialise in being obscure to even professionals in the field of science. They are totally (if not by design) unintelligible to the well-educated, very interested public. I can see that the Editors of JSHO want this journal to communicate their findings, their thoughts and feelings clearly, lucidly and elegantly to the larger public. This is not a discovery of Western management scientists. Centuries before the birth of Christ, the Upanishads had sung to the glory and the potency of the WORD. The Indian Epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabaratha—as also the world’s intellectual treasures the Arthasastra and the Panchatantra—brim with allusions to the role of effective communication and its essential attributes. For instance, in the Ramayana, Lord Rama hails Hanuman as a Vakyavisharada (master of sentences) for the beauty of his language, meticulous pronunciation and mellifluous enunciation, use of the right words in the right sequence with the right intonation and inflexion in a well-modulated voice which was neither loud nor inaudible, clarity, cogency and pithiness of expression without being long winded, confused or confusing, and speaking neither too fast nor too slow—all adding up to an irresistibly captivating personality.
From the dawn of civilization, the power of the WORD has enthralled mankind. The ancient Hindu mind has been pre-eminently given over to the glorification of the many-splendored beauty and immense potential for good or evil of the spoken and written word. As Gautama, the Buddha, in his scintillating wisdom made clear 3000 years ago, it is right communication that is the bedrock of the rest of the seven of the eight-fold path that he had prescribed, namely: Right Thoughts, Right Views, Right Intentions, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Living and Right Effort. I have no doubt whatsoever that all the distinguished members of the Editorial Board of JSHO want to be true in the letter and spirit to the timeless wisdom of Gautama Buddha.
(Concluded)
(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
e-mail the writer at
vsundaram@newstodaynet.com
