Can we be so smug?

Yesterday evening as I was driving home, I was listening to NPR and Terry Gross was interviewing historian Ira Rutkow about his new book:

Civil Surgery: 'Bleeding Blue and Gray'

I haven't really read the book and I doubt I have the interest to read this one. One of the things that really struck me during the interview was the sheer disdain in Ira's voice as he dismissed the medical practices of 1860's. It is unarguably true that medicine was far more primitive 150 years ago and I'm sure a respected historian like Ira definitely knows what he is talking about. But are we not being unnecessarily smug and condescending if we do not see the fact that 150 years hence people will ask the same questions of our current medical practices? Maybe we should pause and think a little and maybe give people in our history credit for doing what they did under their circumstances .... just as we would like our descendants to do for us!

Chances are ...

It's been over a month since the last time I wrote anything. I just got tied up doing some other things including updating my other blogs :)

One of the things that I lately found myself wondering about is whether the presence of uncertainty in certain phenomenon are cause for belief in divinity. Let me give an example. In high school physics we learn things like "A body moves when an external unbalanced force is applied to it ....". When we get deeper into science and reach quantum physics, we're then faced with the famous uncertainty principle. Take the example of biology and medicine. Certain things cause certain diseases but not in everyone. Even in day to day life, we do all that is in our control but yet the result is not the one expected. There is always this gap between cause and effect and all we can do is to explain it with the concept of chance (which sounds like a lame invention for things we can't explain in the first place!). Wonder if there is more to it ....