Heroes Not Zombies

An area of drug development is being referred to as “stratified” or “personalised” medicine – it’s about testing for biological markers which help to predict who will get benefit, and who will get side effects. Sounds a good idea? Any maybe it is, but I wonder if that’s all there is to knowing who is going to benefit from a particular drug and who will get side effects. However that works out, what struck me was the comment from the Professor in Glasgow –

We’ve seen spectacular advances in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in the last 10 years,” he said. “But one of the greatest frustrations our patients face is that they’re given medicines which could potentially give them benefit or potentially add to the risk. They don’t know which is going to be their fate. What an easing of the mind if they had some degree of certainty about what their medicine was going to do for them.”

We have a great desire to predict the future and to be certain about what it will be like.

Every other day it seems we hear another round of “economic forecasts” suggesting what’s going to happen in the economy for the months ahead. Some economists are even prepared to predict what interest rates will be, growth rates, unemployment rates etc etc – since the financial crash of 2008, does anyone believe anything economists say any more? What exactly are these “forecasts” other than guesses? Is it possible to accurately predict the future of any complex system?

Certainty is the greatest of all illusions…….The only certainty, it seems to me, is that those who believe they are certainly right are certainly wrong. Iain McGilchrist. The Master and his Emissary

Prediction is impossible. We are complex adaptive creatures, living in a complex universe which co-evolves with us. Continuously, complex systems change so radically that the next phase is termed “emergence” – a phenomenon which by definition couldn’t be predicted from an analysis of the pre-existing parts.

So what to do?

Focus on becoming not being…….

For me, noticing patterns, being fully present during experiences and hearing and creating stories beats the illusions of prediction and certainty every time.