Defensive medicine

This happened this morning … I’ve got time on my hands, as will show. The fall from the ladder resulted not only in a gash in my shin, not right on the bone but beside it, but also in what appears to be a bruised bone, aka contusion, that is very painful and limits mobility. Ergo, I’ve been sitting a lot in my recliner, applying ice, and reading that recovery time could be 3-6 months depending on severity. All that means is that I have to avoid aggravating it, to let it heal, so that I have to gradually return to activities.

So this morning my wife, who is reading about prehistoric matters, mentioned the Paleolithic period, which, of course, I knew nothing about. I knew the word, had a vague idea, but stuff like that does not stick with me. That led to a discussion of Darwin and evolution, and I expressed the opinion that all the man had managed to do was to demonstrate that species adapt, as finches on different islands in the Galapagos developed different features, longer beaks, shorter or longer wings., etc., in response to their immediate environment. But they never stopped being finches.

This led to evolution in general, and the so-called “missing link”, as there are obvious similarities between apes and humans, yet no one has ever managed to explain the jump from them to us. Gorillas are excellent at surviving, and even enjoying their lives, but never develop any interest in timing sunrises or following wandering planets across the sky. They just eat, excrete, mate and die.

Epicurus, I just recently read, wrote about crocodiles, ugly and dangerous, and suggested that they were a sign that the gods were not benevolent. I totally agree.

Anyway, this conversation evolved to giraffes, and I suggested that there could be no evolutionary reason for them to exist. True, their long necks allow them access to high-hanging fruit, but think of the millions of years it would take for mutations to produce that species (that others within that species would not want to breed with) that built such an animal. Every shorter-necked beast in the process would have had to exist on leaves and fruits much closer to ground without looking up. It makes no sense. I have stood in a Toyota Land Cruiser and photographed giraffes, and my only thought at the time was that they were just put here. No form of slow evolution would have time or reason to make such a freak.

But I don’t know, of course. My wife mentioned the cave art found in France and other places, and those were indeed intelligent beings that did that, but, I said, they were recent. How recent? I didn’t know, and so looked up the Paleolithic period, which the caption on the artwork said it came from. Here’s what I found in Wikipedia:

The Paleolithic (/ˌpeɪlioʊˈlɪθɪk, ˌpæli-/ ^ⓘ PAY-lee-oh-LITH-ik, PAL-ee-), or Old Stone Age, is a period in human prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone tools. It represents almost the entire period of human prehistoric technology, extending from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins, c. 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene, c. 11,650 cal BP.^[1]

Do you see what I see? A 33 and two 11’s. Is that an indication that geology is junk science?

Of course, this led to other branches of modern science, and I mentioned that Einstein may have indeed been a genius, but that going to the Moon, had that really happened, would have relied on Newton’s, and not Einstein’s physics. I also mentioned that Darwinism had morphed into neo-Darwinism, so that it too was junk science, along with virology. It appears that any science that is not immediately visible enjoys the benefit of not being disprovable, and so thrives on our campuses and in our laboratories.

Which brings me back to my contusion … I am curious if it is that or a fracture. But I am hesitant to find out, as a fracture would probably mean a cast. I’m already immobilized by the pain of the bruise, so I don’t need that. And I’m hesitant. At the urgent care facility where I was stitched up, they pushed hard to get me to take a tetanus, which would also include vaccines against pertussis and diphtheria. I just said no, to their consternation. But my take on that branch of “science” is that deep wounds, like stepping on a nail or having a dog bite you, are very difficult to keep clean, and can result in an anerobic environment where bacteria can get out of hand and become dangerous. But it’s nothing to do with any fictitious virus. The answer is to keep the wound clean, hard when they are deep wounds. Mine is shallow and visible, and I am in no danger of tetanus any more than I am of pertussis and diphtheria.

But I do think I’ll get an X-Ray and say no to a D-TaP, as I am curious about the extent of the bruise and want to be sure it is not a fracture. I practice defensive medicine, which means to a large part defending ourselves from allopathic medicine.