In discussing Nancy’s cancer
throughout the book, Johnson repeatedly refers to the fact that she did
seemingly everything in her power to avoid cancer, but was simply unable to do
so. He presents a host of Nancy’s activities, such as keeping up to date with
the healthy diets advertized in magazines, exercising, and maintaining good
health overall, but she unfortunately still developed cancer. These
occurrences, in addition to the minimal statistical advantage of all advertized
methods of reducing one’s chances of developing cancer, led Johnson to discuss
the concept of fate.
Johnson’s argument and implication
of fate throughout the book has based on the points outlined above; or, in
other words, the general concept that there is a limit to what one can control.
This could be further paraphrased by saying that there exists a concept of fate
because no one person is capable of knowing everything that will impact his/her
life. It is possible to be knowledgeable of everything in hindsight, but the
reality is that nobody is capable of knowing everything that could possibly
impact his/her future.
This concept of fate is one that is
a battle between scientists and religious folks. At a fundamental level, many
religions were introduced to the world at least partly due to the concept of
fate; due to the idea that people did not like the fact that there existed
events that they could not fully explain, and therefore created religions, many
of which are centered around “superhuman” beings that are capable of
controlling the things that we are unable to control. Scientists will provide
you countless bits of evidence to contradict the ability of these “superhuman” beings
to exist and will propose theories such as evolution that clearly run contrary
to beliefs that are central to certain religions. Regardless of how convincing
these bits of evidence are, it is nearly impossible for scientists to provide
enough evidence to be sure of something (another application of statistics),
and thus, those who favor the concept of fate will never believe the inferences
that can be drawn from these bits of evidence.
From my understanding of this conflict between science and religion regarding the concept of fate is that religion, historically, has been used to describe what science has been unable to describe. I have always thought that it was commonly-held belief that the disease cancer was a result of scientific errors that occur in the genomes of our cells. However, I did not know that religion and fate played in this argument as well.
ReplyDeleteI would support the scientific side of this argument regarding cancer and fate, but seeing as Nancy, the person studied in your book, did "everything right" but was still victim to the disease, I begin to understand the reasoning behind the other faction of this debate. Perhaps more research of the subject will help us better understand the workings of this disease and how it can be cured.
In saying that Nancy was trying to avoid every way in her power is like saying the natives from The Heart of Darkness tried to hide from their British masters as best they could. It is impossible. Cancer and native labor go hand in hand. Neither can be stopped or slowed down. As the number of slave leaders increases throughout the Congo, the less chance there will be for the natives to survive. Nancy's cancer is already existing, she cannot avoid an obstacle that she has already hit. Her hopes of recovering will decrease rather than increase if she still thinks that there is a possibility of avoiding cancer.
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