Honorable disagreement
20250522
My inbox brought me this article with which I really agree – about the importance of exercise as you age. The author, Eric Topol, looked for correlations between long life and genetics, diet and other factors. The most important he found was exercise. Specifically, cardiovascular exercise, 30 to 40 minutes a day. The photos in the article show a very fit guy of 70.
That’s my routine! 30 to 40 minutes per day of cardio. Yesterday I bicycled 12 miles, taking Marianna back and forth to kindergarten, and put in 24 minutes on the exercise bike. As far as strength goes, I regret that bursitis / arthritis – don’t know which – has kept me from formal upper body exercise, but I still do whatever heavy lifting needs to be done around the house.
Now the kicker. This is the same Eric Topol with whom I have consistently disagreed about the Covid vaccines. He favorably cites ongoing clot-shot fan and relentless Bobby Kennedy critic Katelyn Jetelina. Looking at his Substack, I don’t see anything recent advocating the clot shots. I do see headlines for articles with which I would probably agree on the subject of microplastics. His take on red meat – with appropriate citations - contradicts others I read.
My conclusion? This is another of those people with whom I disagree but should nonetheless take seriously and respect. A hard thing to do. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "The test of a first-rate intelligence," he said, "is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind, at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." Holding them in the mind and believing them are two different things, but I should at least hold them.
Which wraps back to yesterday’s piece on Trump/Putin and the comments posted here by streamfortyseven, Joel Hay and others. This is not an echo chamber – I cannot agree with everything – but to the limits possible, given my time constraints – I should remain willing to listen. The criterion is not whether or not I agree, but whether or not the arguments have enough substance to merit my attention. I’m pleased that commenters here do.
And it of course, raises the much larger issue — if a medical expert can be so wrong on Covid how can they be right on anything else? Which raises the even larger question do we have to throw out all of Medical science with their dirty bathwater because it is totally thoroughly contaminated by the Orwellian destruction of truth in the pursuit of profit? Good job, ERIC! You’ve turned us back into the dark ages with your greedy, evil professional deeds.
Well said Graham.
I DO try to hold two disparate thoughts in mind whenever in discussions on politics and religion! It is HARD to actually accomplish and the reason why most folks avoid "heavy" subject discussions. They realize they cannot control their feelings and know they will retort with unseemly (not a word?!) responses. . .
This practice is also called giving the "benefit of the doubt", or being able to "hear" someones side of the story but applying a silent "grain of salt." Without doing so many people fail to learn details that could perhaps make them see the light. Very effective in brainwashing the masses-- make them intolerant of the other side.