Religion and Naive Interventionism
Taleb argues that religious practices can sometimes restrain unnecessary medical intervention by making inaction acceptable. His passage concerns the risk of treatment causing harm; it does not establish when a particular person should forgo care.
THE IDEA
Religion and Naive Interventionism
Taleb presents the following argument about religion and overtreatment:
Religion has invisible purposes beyond what the literal-minded scientistic-scientifiers identify—one of which is to protect us from scientism, that is, them. We can see in the corpus of inscriptions (on graves) accounts of people erecting fountains or even temples to their favorite gods after these succeeded where doctors failed. Indeed we rarely look at religion’s benefits in limiting the intervention bias and its iatrogenics: in a large set of circumstances (marginal disease), anything that takes you away from the doctor and allows you to do nothing (hence gives nature a chance to do its work) will be beneficial. So going to church (or the temple of Apollo) for mild cases—say, those devoid of trauma, like a mild discomfort, not injuries from a car accident, those situations in which the risk of iatrogenics exceeds the benefit of cure, to repeat it again, the cases with negative convexity—will certainly help. We have so many inscriptions on temples of the type Apollo saved me, my doctors tried to kill me—typically the patient has bequeathed his fortune to the temple.
And it seems to me that human nature does, deep down, know when to resort to the solace of religion, and when to switch to science.4
When to use it
Discussing why an intervention is being proposed, what benefit is expected, and what harms it may cause.
Asking what changes would warrant reassessment when observation is an agreed option.
Exploring how spiritual practices affect someone’s anxiety and preferences during a treatment decision.
Discussing the role of personal values when a clinician presents treatment and watchful waiting as options.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Ancient inscriptions of gratitude to gods over doctors
Taleb describes inscriptions thanking gods for recoveries after medical treatment failed. He gives 'Apollo saved me, my doctors tried to kill me' as a typical formulation. These accounts illustrate his argument but do not establish what caused a recovery.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
How have you weighed the possible benefits and harms of an intervention against those of waiting?
How might religious practices serve as a protective mechanism against overtreatment?
What information would you need to compare treatment with observation in a particular case?
Often confused with
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Antifragile (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)