874: Ayurveda | Skeptical Sunday

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1:16Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today, I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host Dave Farina. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. And during the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. On Sundays, though, we do Skeptical Sunday, where a rotating guest co-host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions.

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2:59You can always email me, Jordan at jordanharbinger.com. I will try to point you in the right direction, but the Stitcher app will no longer work for this show. All right, Dave. Now everybody wants to be healthy, right? It seems like everywhere we look, we're met with a barrage of products and services that are meant to help us eat right, exercise, stay fit, center our minds, become the most effective and enlightened cosmic being that we can possibly be. Well, health and wellness, especially wellness, is a multi-billion dollar industry and not without basis since being healthy allows us to enjoy our lives to the fullest, both in terms of longevity and quality of life.

3:31But when this industry overlaps with medicine, the result is not always a paragon of scientific legitimacy. Aspects of marketing and pseudo spirituality sometimes overshadow foundational scientific knowledge and empirical evidence, one such phenomenon that exemplifies this way of thinking is called Ayurveda. Am I pronouncing that correctly, by the way? I think so. Ayurveda. That's how I say it. Yeah. Not that I have to respect it too much because it's a bunch of balonias we're going to get into. But what is this ancient practice? How did it come to be? How is it relevant today? To dissect this, as always, is our resident pseudoscience debunker, Dave Farina of the YouTube channel Professor Dave Explains.

4:08And Dave, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me. I'm ready to go. You mean to a higher plane of existence with the ancient practice of Ayurveda. Yeah, I'm right there with you. Absolutely. Yeah, let's do it. So, Dave, I think a lot of people have maybe heard of Ayurveda, especially if they do yoga or other stuff that's tangential to it. Not that yoga is nonsense. We should do one about that because it has a lot of benefits. But I think a lot of people who are into one maybe Indian pseudo-spiritual thing, they grab onto a lot of this because their classmates are into it. We can talk about that another time.

4:38But I'm not too familiar with this. I've seen it in emails. I've seen it in kooky YouTube comments. As a baseline, can you tell us a little bit about what it is, the foundational ideas and so forth? Absolutely. So Ayurveda is an ancient Indian medicinal practice from India, and it dates back a few thousand years. So this is quite ancient. We're talking before the ancient Greeks, ancient. So that also means that it's before science, ancient. And what this belief system proposes is that disease is due to an imbalance in a person's consciousness. So some kind of stress is being placed on a person's consciousness, and that is manifesting as some kind of illness.

5:16So the correct response to disease, according to Ayurveda, is to partake in certain kinds of natural therapies and lifestyle changes. So we're talking about changing the diet, massage, yoga, meditation, using certain kinds of herbs. And all of this is meant to restore a balance between mind, body, and spirit and get you healthy again. Okay, so that sounds a little vapid, but not totally baseless, I suppose. We know stress causes or exacerbates a lot of conditions and that lifestyle changes can help with that. So yeah, I mean, so far so good, right? Sure. Okay, so what I gave you is kind of the least offensive version.

5:50So obviously it's true that diet is linked with your health and there are some herbs that have medicinal properties and things like yoga and meditation can improve your mental health. And so by extension, they can have some influence on your physical health. But this is as good as we're going to get here. Once we dive into some of the specifics and like the terminology, it gets pseudoscientific real fast. I figured it might. A lot of this stuff does, right? Because it's great to have this whole, hey, you know, you do this for that. And everyone goes, yeah, I guess I do drink tea for caffeine. But so why can't tea cure other ailments?

6:21And you're like, well, and then it's like something, something chakras. All right. So Let's get down to another level then. Let's talk about some of the terminology associated with this system of thought, because it seems to be heavy in its own language system, as a lot of this stuff is. Yeah, heavy on the jargon. So in Ayurveda, they talk about prakriti, which is the body's constitution, which is supposed to be unique to each individual, and doshas, which are life forces. So the goal is to partake in these activities and behaviors which will balance these forces, just like someone else will talk about balancing chakras or things like that.

6:54So additionally, it proposes that the universe is composed of five elements, air, water, earth, fire, and space. Captain planet, plus one. Yeah. Plus, yeah, they're adding another. But these combine in different ways to form the humors of the body. So vata dosha, pita dosha, and kapha dosha. So these control our physiology. So we're talking about different tissues, fluids, metabolism, and so forth. The funny thing is that it's pretty comparable to other ancient philosophies in terms of the composition of matter and of living organisms. which is simply to say that it is profoundly incorrect. I'm glad you mentioned that because whenever we say it has a lot in common with other ancient philosophies that evolve separately, people go see proof that they knew something we didn't.

7:36And it's like, no, it's just a very obvious sort of coincidence that they look around and go, we have air, we have water, we have fire, we have dirt. And you know, I don't know, whatever space. I assume they didn't mean outer space. They just meant space, which is also air, but whatever. Or they got it from each other, but who cares? The point is we moved on. These are wrong. That's not it. Right. I guess a lot of places probably thought that the sun moved around the earth and that doesn't make that true either just because multiple civilizations observed something that made that look like that was happening.

8:05I have to say a lot of those things sound like appetizers and not necessarily spiritual jargon, but I guess that says more about me than it does about Ayurveda. Okay. So you don't see too many people pointing to these primal elements or the humors anymore? Right. I mean, that's the point. We've moved on, right? Science has moved on. We have the periodic table of the elements to tell us what the matter around us is made of. So water is not an element. It's made of hydrogen and oxygen. We didn't know this back then, so the philosophies can't reflect that. But this is something that we've known for centuries now.

8:37So to think that a few millennia ago we had better knowledge than now, it's just insane. So the same goes for humorism, right? We all know about like the bile and the blood and the phlegm. And so this was stuff that, well, you know, it lasted a little too long, but sort of an ancient way of looking at this. And it was a forward step thousands of years ago, in that it was the first time people were attributing illness to actual parts of the body and physical mechanisms instead of divinity and demonic possession and things like that. But it's still completely wrong, which is why nobody performs bloodletting anymore.

9:09But the point is that we have an actual concrete understanding of the human body and how it works now. That makes a lot of sense. I do have to put a little asterisk by bloodletting because I can't remember what show I talked about this on. And I said, that's why we don't do bloodletting anymore. And all these people DM me and they were like, actually, I have bloodletting done because I have a disease that I think it's something with too much iron in the blood. And the treatment is actually bloodletting. Interesting. They don't get it done at a barber shop and let it drip out onto the floor into the streets of London.

9:38Yes, very controlled. Right, yeah. I assume there's some more sort of sanitary ways of doing this at a doctor's office or possibly in a hospital where they get treated, but apparently it still exists. I don't think they call it bloodletting. Maybe they do, actually. So either way, we mostly don't perform bloodletting anymore, except for things that require bloodletting, which are very small, not because he has chills sometimes. Well, what we have to do is drain his blood because he's got vapors in there. Too much blood, not enough phlegm, right? We got to balance the blood. Exactly. All right.

10:09So given what you're highlighting here, it's very clear that we knew very little at the time when Ayurveda came about. And objectively, we know much more now. So in order for people to assign any merit to things like Ayurveda, it seems like one aspect of their worldview has to be about the allure of the ancient way of thought or back to tradition or something like that. Is that a fair assumption? Yeah, I mean, I think that that's definitely part of it. Certain kinds of people are drawn to the ancient world, you know, which in a way makes sense. A lot of us maybe have a longing for deeper culture, depending on where you live.

10:43Like we're pummeled by modernity everywhere we look. I mean, especially in America, we have no antiquity here that we've built around. Like in Europe, you have a sense of the passage of time and things like that. But, you know, over here, there's a lot of strip malls and fast food and cell phone towers, you know, depending on where you live. So there's something enchanting about ancient India or ancient China or ancient Mesopotamia or whatever. It's fun. It's fascinating from a historical perspective, and it's really fun to think about what those people were doing in those times. But this bizarre notion that they held some kind of like privileged or sacred wisdom that is either forgotten or totally unavailable to us now, especially that they knew how to heal and we don't, I mean, this is just ridiculous, not to mention actually dangerous.

11:26You know, thousands of years ago, we were completely clueless as to the fundamental constitution of matter, how the human body works. We didn't know that molecules exist, or cells, or genes. We didn't know that pathogens exist and that they cause disease. We were just totally and utterly in the dark about all of it. I mean, that didn't stop us from trying to develop modes of thought focused around human health, based partially on the trial and error of ingesting anything we could find in nature, and partially on spirituality and mythology. But things are much different now. We have science. Science has been our candle in the dark.

11:59And miraculously, we've developed an immense body of knowledge regarding all of these phenomena. And this knowledge is what we now use to determine how medicine should operate, not mythology, not superstition or anything like that. That does make a lot of sense. I actually want to push back on one thing. What you said, we don't have a lot of antiquity here in North America. We do. we had Native Americans. It's just that a lot of us, consciously or not, look down on that kind of thing because we're like, where are the big buildings? They didn't build it. It's like, well, maybe they didn't do that.

12:30So then people go, yeah, they were spiritual. They lived as one with nature, which is, you know, they were very spiritual. But a lot of modern quacks, we covered this in our ear candling episode, which I think was the first skeptical Sunday that we did. A lot of people who wrote to me were furious about that episode. And they were like, know the whatever Sioux Indians have been doing this for thousands of years. And what my researcher did, Dave Smalley at that time, he went and called the Sioux and was like, okay, I'm researching this. And they were like, yeah, that is nonsense. We don't do that.

13:00People constantly put that on their websites. It's not an ancient tradition. It's what the grifter at earcandling.com is telling his customers because it makes it sound legit. But no, we don't stick candles in our ears and drain them. It's a scam and they're just using our branding, if you will, of our tribe to sell this ancient thing. So actually for all these people that like have nostalgia or long for a more ancient world, they're basically just using that same ancient world to market modern day bullshit and harming those exact cultures and people that they are claiming to represent. It's a side door.

13:37Yeah, it's a hack. Tethering a scam to an ancient culture gives it an air of legitimacy. They know that. Yeah, it's ironic because they're like, we want to go back to the ancient world where these wise people knew. And it's like, no, you're actually doing worse than the people who are ignoring us. You're making us seem quacky. And you're some like white dude from Ohio making money off of us. Like GFY is the PG version. Yes. Talk about appropriation. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like we were better off when you ignored us and let us do our own thing. It is also cute. You just use the word miraculous to describe scientific progress.

14:09So as fun as it seems, the idea that something must be good just because it's ancient, it just doesn't hold any water. Yeah, look, if anything, there's an inverse correlation. What we thought back then is quite unlikely to be accurate. I mean, it could be accurate, but the odds are against it. I mean, we thought the Earth was the center of the universe. We didn't know anything about anything, right? Ancient does not equal good. If you want to balance those doshas, you're going to want to hear from the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by 1-800-CONTACTS.

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16:55You can also search for any sponsor using the AI chatbot on the website as well. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. There has to be another angle people are taking, because I'm not sure that everyone is obsessed with the ancient aspect. It seems like this has a lot to do with nature lovers when you think about it. I'm on the fence here about the ancient versus natural angle. Yes, so that would definitely be the other angle. More than anything, temporal naturalism, there's a lot of allure there, and that's inevitably kind of the centerpiece of the modern incarnation of the system.

17:30so that's more the angle of nature good man bad. I think that's a little silly and I used to get on board with this it was like yeah things are complicated now and it's easier just to be like I like simple I like nature but then when you start learning about nature and you go to the Amazon you realize that a lot of things there can and will just absolutely willfully kill you without any thought whatsoever and things we make can save lives and even people who lived in the Amazon with absolutely no clothes and ate leaves and did things like that that are completely natural. They're like, oh, yeah, you don't want to touch that.

18:04And if you do, you have to go have this shaman help you by sucking the venom out. Yeah, they use smoke and leaves and flowers and paint you. But the real life saving part is him sucking the venom out of that snake bite. And that is a human invention. Yeah, the naturalism. I mean, it's not just organisms that are killing. I mean, we're talking about nature in general. I mean, it's a dichotomy, Nature is the sun and water and trees and it's the lovely, pretty things, but it's also drought and famine and pestilence and plague. It's tidal waves and hurricanes. Nature really sucks sometimes. And what humans have done to understand and manipulate nature on the fundamental level, and we're talking about with chemistry and things like that, it's absolutely incredible.

18:47I think that people do not have sufficient appreciation for modern medicine and our understanding of human physiology. So it's just sort of a primitive and faulty way of thinking with Ayurveda. We now have this much better understanding of how the body works and what diseases are in terms of pathogens and genetics and epigenetics and other aspects of human physiology. So that should totally eclipse any ancient approach to describing these phenomena in terms of elements, life forces, balancing of things, anything like that. Yes, it should. In fact, the balancing thing, right, That's one of the primary myths that needs to be dispelled.

19:21So there's this obsession in Ayurveda with balance. There must be balance of the three doshas, and imbalance is what causes disease. This is totally meaningless. Like, apart from doshas not being a thing in reality, more generally there's this misconception that there's, like, a perfect state that one can attain, and that if you just eat the right thing, and you do the right amount of yoga, and everything will be in this perfect harmony, and you'll be purified and transform into a demigod. I mean, it's just total nonsense. There is no perfection possible with the human body. There's no perfection in the natural world in general.

19:55The body is imperfect. The body degrades. The cellular machinery makes mistakes. There is no magic recipe to transcend any of this. We are decaying meat sacks, and we have to embrace that aspect of the human experience. Now, again, have your healthy diet. Have your exercise routine. have your meditation, have your herbs if you really like them, but it's just that too many people are on this wild goose chase for the perfect state of being, and it's not there. It's a facade, right? Billions of radioactive nuclides are decaying in your body every second of every day and causing mutations in the genome of every cell in your body.

20:34On a long enough timeline, every organism would get cancer for this reason alone. There's nothing about your diet or any of this stuff that can escape the inevitable breakdown of biological systems. What is a nuclide? I don't even know if I've ever heard that word. A nucleus. So a nuclide just means a particular type of atom of that element, essentially. Different isotopes, essentially, yeah. Oh, okay. It could just be a high-energy photon. There are different modes of radioactive decay, but whichever one it is, you've got high-energy particles that are flying out of there, and if it strikes DNA, it can cause a change to one of the bases in the DNA, which then when it replicates, you have the wrong base on the other side.

21:11So there's mutations that are happening all the time, not just because mutagens that we eat or breathe or something like that. It's just happening. I mean, this is beyond the cellular machinery just making mistakes when it copies the DNA. There's that. But there's also radioactive nuclei in your body that are causing damage to the DNA all the time. It's just happening. That's just how it is, you know? Right. And these radioactive materials are naturally occurring, right? It's not because of Chernobyl or something like that. No, no, no. Potassium. Potassium-40 is the most abundant radioactive—I'm pretty sure it's 40.

21:43I should double-check that. But yeah, I think it's potassium-40—is the most abundant radioactive nuclide in your body. But all different hydrogen and carbon, I mean, they all have isotopes that decay, right? Some of them decay much more rapidly than others. They have a shorter half-life. And so you get more disintegrations. But you have so many atoms in your body that these decay events are happening constantly, all the time. Does that mean bananas are radioactive? Or does that mean everything in the world is radioactive at some level? Pretty much everything in the world. I mean, I can't think of anything that would have 0 % of any radioactive nuclide.

22:18I mean, of course, with most things, we're talking about a level that is utterly insignificant, but it doesn't negate the fact that these nuclear processes are happening all around us all the time. So interesting. Probably a totally different show. And thank you for entertaining my tangent here. Sure. So are there people who try to modernize this at all? Are there people who try to blend this with current scientific knowledge to try and keep it alive? I see that happen a lot with, I won't say scams, but I will say any sort of health trend. It's like, look how this overlaps with modern science.