Science vs Faith: Why Traditional Medicine Refuses to Disappear

If allopathic medicine is based on science, tested through experiments and clinical trials, and has given us some incredible treatments, then why do people still believe in alternative or traditional medicine? Why do people still go to an Ayurvedic practitioner, use home remedies, or rely on something their grandmother told them about? Is it because people don't trust science? I don't think the answer is that simple. Perhaps we need to go back a little, much further back.

Imagine life without science. Imagine a small human clan living thousands of years ago. There are no hospitals, no doctors, no antibiotics, no thermometers, and certainly no Google to search for symptoms. A young and healthy man in the clan would probably be one of the most valuable members of the group because he could hunt, protect the family and bring food back to the clan. He could face a wild boar, survive a difficult hunting expedition and perhaps even protect the group from predators.

And then, one day, a mosquito bites him.

A few days later, he developed a high fever. He becomes weak and eventually dies. Think about how strange and frightening this must have appeared to early humans. The strongest man in the clan, who could fight a wild animal, could be brought down by something so tiny that they could not even see it.

Today, we know that certain mosquitoes can transmit parasites that cause malaria. We know about parasites, mosquitoes, transmission, infection and treatment. But imagine trying to explain malaria to someone living thousands of years ago. There is no microscope, no microbiology, no germ theory and no understanding of how an infectious disease spreads. There is only a sick person, a frightened family and a community trying to understand what has happened. Science, as a systematic way of studying and understanding nature, was not handed to our ancestors on a platter. They had to develop it slowly, through observation, experience, experimentation and, often, trial and error. So, naturally, when you don't have an explanation, you look for one. Human beings do not like uncertainty. When something happens repeatedly, we naturally try to find a reason behind it. The family might think that some supernatural force was responsible for the illness. Perhaps the gods were angry, perhaps some spirit had caused the disease, or perhaps a particular ritual had to be performed to protect the family. And so, they prayed. 

Before going hunting, they prayed for the safe return of the hunter. When someone fell sick, they prayed for recovery. When a family member died, they tried to find some meaning behind the tragedy. From our present-day perspective, this may appear irrational, but we should remember that they were trying to make sense of a world that they did not understand.

Faith gave them something that was otherwise missing: a sense that they could do something in a situation they could not control. It gave them hope when there was very little else available. Survival was the primary concern, and faith became one of the ways in which humans dealt with fear, uncertainty and death.

Then humans started noticing something interesting!

Humans are surprisingly good observers. Someone probably noticed that eating a particular plant made a stomach problem better. Someone else may have discovered that a certain leaf helped with a wound, while another person noticed that a particular bark reduced fever. They did not know why these things worked, but they remembered the observations.

The knowledge was then passed from one generation to another. "This plant helped your grandfather when he had the same problem." "Don't eat that one; it made your uncle very sick." "Boil these leaves and drink the water." Over hundreds and thousands of years, countless such experiences accumulated and became a vast body of practical knowledge about plants, food, injuries, childbirth and illness. Nobody may have known exactly why something worked, but they knew that it had worked before. 

This is where many traditional systems of medicine came from. It is important to remember that ancient people were not sitting around waiting for modern science to arrive and save them. They were experimenting too. They simply did not have the tools and methods that we have today.

They did not have controlled clinical trials, statistical analysis, molecular biology or sophisticated diagnostic equipment. But they observed, they tried, they remembered and they passed the information forward. In many cases, what survived through generations was probably the result of some useful observation, although the original explanation for why it worked may have been completely different from what we understand today.

But there was a problem!

Sometimes the treatment worked and sometimes it did not. Two people could use the same herb, yet one might recover while the other might die. Two people could perform the same prayer, yet one could get better while the other continued to suffer. So what was actually responsible for the recovery?

Was it the herb? Was it the prayer? Was the illness going to disappear on its own? Was the person given the right dose? Was the treatment even safe?

These questions slowly pushed humans towards something much more powerful: systematic enquiry. Instead of simply saying, "This worked for me," people started asking a much more important question: "Does this actually work?"

That small change in the question is enormously important. Once we start asking why something works, we are no longer satisfied with just an observation. We want to understand the mechanism, identify the conditions under which it works, determine when it fails and find out whether someone else can obtain the same result.

Over time, humans became better at observing and recording things. Illnesses could be classified, symptoms could be compared, different treatments could be tried and dosages could be changed. Successful practices could be retained, while unsuccessful ones could gradually be discarded.

Eventually, we developed what we now call the scientific method. Its biggest strength is not that scientists are always right. Scientists are wrong all the time. The strength of science is that it provides a systematic way of finding out when we are wrong.

If I say, "This medicine cured my fever," that is an observation. Science asks many more questions: Did the medicine actually cause the recovery? Would the person have recovered anyway? Does the medicine work for other people? What is the correct dose? What are its side effects? Can another researcher repeat the experiment and obtain a similar result?

Suddenly, medicine becomes much more than a collection of individual experiences. It becomes a process of verification. We move from "I believe this works" to "Let us find out whether this actually works."

But the journey from faith to scientific enquiry came with a cost!

A modern laboratory needs expensive equipment, trained people, materials and infrastructure. Medical research requires doctors, scientists, technicians, research subjects, data and years of work, and developing a new drug can require enormous financial resources.

Historically, kings and wealthy patrons supported scholars. Later, universities, governments, research institutions and private organisations became important sources of funding. As scientific knowledge expanded, the cost of scientific enquiry also increased. A person could no longer simply observe a plant in the forest and declare that a medicine had been discovered.

Science started producing something very valuable: products. Scientific knowledge could be converted into medicines, machines, ships, agricultural technologies, communication systems and countless other things. Once scientific knowledge started producing economic value, science became deeply connected with the economy.

A simple cycle began to emerge: research leads to discovery, discovery leads to technology, technology leads to products, products generate revenue, and revenue can support further research. This cycle has been enormously successful. It has given us modern medicine, vaccines, imaging systems, antibiotics, sophisticated surgery and countless other technologies.

But there is a catch.

Science may be universal. Access to science is not.

Suppose a scientifically proven treatment costs ₹50,000. For one person, that may be manageable, but for another family it may be equivalent to several months of income. Suppose the best hospital is 200 kilometres away, or the required specialist is available only in a major city. What does a person do when the scientifically proven solution exists but is simply beyond reach?

They may go back to what they know. A home remedy, a local practitioner, an old family practice or something that has been used in their community for generations may become the practical choice. It costs very little, it is immediately available and, most importantly, the person may trust it.

This does not prove that the traditional treatment works. But it does help explain why people continue to use it. We sometimes look at the decision purely from the perspective of scientific validity, while the person making that decision is looking at the problem from the perspective of survival, affordability and accessibility.

We like to think that people make healthcare decisions purely based on scientific evidence, but human decisions are much more complicated. People consider cost, accessibility, trust, previous experience, family traditions and what people around them are saying.

So when someone chooses traditional medicine, it is tempting to say, "Why don't they simply trust science?" But perhaps the better question is, "Does science reach them in a form that they can afford, access and trust?"

These are two very different questions. A treatment can be scientifically superior and still remain practically inaccessible to a large section of society. At the same time, a traditional treatment can be easily accessible and culturally familiar even if there is little scientific evidence supporting it.

So, should we reject traditional medicine?

Not necessarily. And we should not blindly accept it either. There may be traditional practices that are ineffective, there may be practices that are genuinely useful, and there may also be practices whose mechanisms we do not yet fully understand. The sensible approach is neither blind faith nor blind rejection.

It is investigation.

If a traditional herb appears to work, study it. Find out what compounds it contains, determine whether those compounds actually have a therapeutic effect, establish the appropriate dosage, study the side effects and test it properly. If it works, great; we have learnt something useful. If it doesn't work, we should be equally comfortable saying so.

That, after all, is what science is supposed to do.

The journey is not simply from "traditional" to "modern"

Perhaps we have been looking at this whole issue in the wrong way. The story of medicine is not simply "traditional medicine → science → modern medicine." It is a much longer journey in which humans moved from fear and faith towards observation, experimentation and evidence.

Early humans prayed because they did not understand nature. Then they began observing nature. They discovered patterns, experimented, made mistakes and learnt from them. Slowly, they developed better ways of separating what merely appeared to work from what actually worked.

We are still doing the same thing today. The difference is that we now have microscopes, computers, genetic sequencing, artificial intelligence and enormous amounts of data to help us. But the fundamental question remains the same: "How do we know that this actually works?"

And perhaps that is the real beauty of science.

Science does not ask us to believe. It asks us to find out.

Does Astrology Work? A Different Way to Think About It

If you haven't read my earlier article, "Astrology – A Rational Introduction," I recommend reading it first. This article builds upon those ideas from a different perspective.

For the past week, almost all my social media feeds have been flooded with advertisements for AstroTalk. Either the platform's algorithms have somehow concluded that I believe in astrology, or they have identified me as someone with a high probability of subscribing to their app. Whatever the reason, I must admit that their marketing is impressive. Many of their advertisements feature celebrities, seemingly suggesting that if famous people trust astrology, perhaps we should too.

But this raises a fascinating question: Does astrology actually work? Can the course of our lives really be predicted from the positions of celestial bodies at the moment of our birth?

Whenever I look for a convincing answer, I find people sharply divided into two camps. One group firmly believes that the positions of the planets at birth shape our personality, relationships, career, and future. The other dismisses astrology as pseudoscience with no predictive power whatsoever.

Interestingly, many believers go a step further and attempt to justify astrology using science. They argue that the gravitational pull or other physical influences from planets somehow govern the unfolding of our lives, as though invisible cosmic strings are pulling us in predetermined directions.

But does astrology really have a scientific basis rooted in physics or gravitation?

Before discussing this question, it is worth remembering that astrology and astronomy share a common historical origin. For much of human history, observations of the night sky served both scientific and astrological purposes. Over time, astronomy evolved into an evidence-based science, while astrology retained its traditional interpretive framework. 

This shared history explains why astrology and astronomy still have many similarities. Both describe the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets relative to one another. Many astrological concepts correspond to real astronomical events. For example, the apparent motion of Venus sometimes places it ahead of the Sun and sometimes behind it in our sky, giving rise to what astronomers call retrograde motion. Similarly, when the Sun and Moon occupy nearly the same direction in the sky, we observe a new moon (Amavasya), while a separation of approximately 180° results in a full moon (Purnima).

In other words, the celestial bodies shown in an astrological chart are real, and their relative positions at the time of birth can indeed be computed with remarkable accuracy.

The real question, however, is this: Do these planets influence our lives through their gravitational fields?

From a physics perspective, this seems highly unlikely. The gravitational force exerted by distant planets on a newborn is extraordinarily small—far weaker than the gravitational pull of nearby objects such as the doctor delivering the baby or even the walls of the hospital. If gravity were the underlying mechanism, it would be difficult to explain why only planets should matter while countless nearby objects do not.

Perhaps we should be asking a different question.

What if an astrological chart is not a theory of causation at all, but simply an ancient system for classifying people according to the environmental conditions prevailing around the time of their birth?

Researchers have long observed that the season in which a person is born may be associated with certain health and developmental outcomes ([1, 2]). Seasonal variations can affect temperature, humidity, nutrition, sunlight exposure, infectious diseases, air quality, and even maternal health during pregnancy. These environmental differences can leave measurable biological and developmental signatures. A child born during the peak of summer experiences a very different early-life environment than one born during the monsoon or winter.

Now consider the possibility that the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets simply encode the time of year with remarkable precision. In that case, an astrological chart may indirectly capture a wide range of environmental conditions prevailing around the time of birth, without requiring the planets themselves to exert any mysterious physical influence.

In other words, the planets may not be causing events through gravity. Instead, they may simply serve as markers of when we were born, and that timing may correlate with environmental factors that genuinely influence human development.

I find this perspective more intriguing than the conventional debate over whether astrology is "true" or "false." If astrology contains any kernel of truth, perhaps it lies not in the planets influencing our lives through gravity, but in the planetary chart acting as a remarkably precise timestamp of the environment into which we were born.

Perhaps the planets do not control our destiny. Perhaps they merely record the moment our journey began, while the environment associated with that moment quietly helps shape the path that follows.

References:

[1] Vaiserman, A. (2021). Season-of-birth phenomenon in health and longevity: epidemiologic evidence and mechanistic considerations. Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease.

[2] Buckles, K., & Hungerman, D. (2013). Season of Birth and Later Outcomes: Old Questions, New Answers. Review of Economics and Statistics.

The Car That Never Drove!

Imagine you own a car with its fuel tank filled right up to the brim. One day, you decide to move the car from one place to another—but instead of simply driving it, you hire packers and movers. They lift the perfectly capable car onto a truck and transport it for you.

When you reach the new location, you think, “Let me fill the tank again.” But the tank is already full.

So you come up with a strange solution: you drain the perfectly good petrol into a can, toss the can into the trunk, and then refill the tank.

Again, you call the movers, again they haul your car around, and again you drain the petrol into yet another can and store it in the trunk.

Repeat this cycle a few times, and what happens?
The trunk slowly fills with cans of untouched petrol—the “just in case” fuel you never actually use. Eventually the trunk overflows, so you start stuffing cans into the back seat, then under the seats, then anywhere you can find space.

Soon the car is so crammed with unused petrol cans that it can barely move. Not because the engine failed… but because there’s simply no room left.

Now imagine the car is your body, and the petrol is the energy you keep storing without ever using.

And that is why exercise isn’t optional—it’s how you burn the fuel before it takes over the whole vehicle.

Are Alternative Medicines... Medicine at All? A Personal Take

The recent spat between a legendary Indian chess grandmaster and a Twitter-famous hepatologist got me thinking: Are alternative medicine systems like Ayurveda, Homeopathy, or Unani really “medicine” in the scientific sense?

Now, I know this is a touchy subject. So instead of diving into cold stats and abstract arguments, let me share some real-life stories — including one that probably saved my life.

Story #1: The Dog Bite That Could’ve Gone Very Wrong

I was in high school when an unvaccinated stray dog bit me. Terrified and clueless, I bolted home, scrubbed the wound with antiseptic, and rushed to our family doctor.

He calmly gave me a tetanus shot, rang up my parents, and prescribed a series of anti-rabies injections — one each day for a week, all around the navel. Not pleasant, but hey, I'm still here, typing this blog post today. That medicine, backed by years of clinical trials and rigorous research, saved my life.

Honestly, it never crossed my mind to visit an Ayurvedic or Homeopathic clinic that day. And let's be real — who would? In emergencies, almost everyone instinctively turns to modern, allopathic medicine.

So, are alternative medicine practitioners even relevant in such life-threatening scenarios? Would anyone trust them with something like a dog bite? I wouldn't — and that was before I even understood the difference between "alternative" and "allopathic" medicine.

Story #2: But Wait — Is Allopathy the Only Answer?

Not always.

Let me take you back to another memory, around the same time. There was a 60-something woman in our neighborhood — a gentle, unmarried lady who had become increasingly fearful with age. She started believing her anxiety was caused by some kind of spiritual affliction.

Someone told her to visit a temple dedicated to Maa Durga. She invited me along for moral support. The priest conducted a ritual involving neem leaves. After some prayers, he gently tapped each devotee’s head with a blessed neem sprig.

I asked her afterward: “Why not see a doctor?”

She replied, “I’ve tried all the medicines. Nothing helped.”

Did the ritual cure her fear? I don’t know. But a few weeks later, she passed away — peacefully, in her sleep. Did the ritual help her find emotional peace? Perhaps. Who am I to say?

Story #3: Exam Panic and Prayers

Think back to your high school board exams — Class X or XII. Remember that mind-numbing anxiety that made even your favorite subject look like Greek? Did we go to a psychiatrist? Rarely. Most of us did what people across faiths have always done — we prayed. Because sometimes, comfort doesn’t come in a capsule. It comes from faith, ritual, or sheer belief.

The Saline Water Paradox

Recently, I visited a doctor for a common cold. Along with prescribing some tried-and-tested medication, he casually added, “Also, do some steam inhalation and gargle with warm salt water.”

It struck me — these home remedies have been around for centuries, long before “modern medicine” existed. Yet, here they are, still being recommended by certified doctors.

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So, What’s the Point?

Maybe alternative medicine isn’t about replacing modern science, but complementing it — spiritually, emotionally, or even symptomatically in some cases. But when lives are on the line? There’s no substitute for science-backed medicine.

That said, belief has power too. And sometimes, a neem leaf, a temple bell, or a whispered prayer can give us what no prescription ever can — hope.

"Education or Transaction?"

“Education has become a business these days,” sighed my friend over coffee. “Did you know that some private medical colleges are charging over ₹1 crore for a seat?”

That number jolted me. But the comment lingered longer than the shock. Has education really turned into a business?

I let the question marinate.

What fuels any business, after all? Demand. And who’s creating this demand in the education system?

Let’s rewind a bit. How many 17-year-olds truly know what kind of knowledge they want from college? Forget the students for a moment—how many parents or teachers take the time to genuinely observe a young mind, to understand what sparks their curiosity, or to guide them based on that?

Instead, the spotlight is on campus placements. The prestige of recruiters. The size of the salary package. But here's the uncomfortable question: does that pay package align with the student’s passions or curiosity? Or have we quietly taught them to chase a lifestyle instead of learning?

As a parent myself, I’ve attended numerous parent-teacher meetings. They’re all about marks, ranks, and academic targets. Never once has anyone asked: “Does your child enjoy sports?” “Do they light up at the sound of music?” “Are they happiest buried in books or creating something with their hands?” We say education is about shaping individuals, but are schools even giving kids the space to explore who they are?

Here’s the hard truth: when we create a demand for shallow outcomes, that’s what the system delivers. So before we blame colleges or call education a business, we need to ask—did we, somewhere along the way, become the customers of this very model?

If we want change, it begins with a new kind of demand. One that values curiosity over credentials, and exploration over exam scores. Only then can we reshape education into something that inspires rather than merely transacts.