Wolves Revive Yellowstone: Scientists Get Schooled

Reintroducing wolves in Yellowstone National Park drastically improved the ecological health of the area. This amazing video reveals the miracle of nature and the fallibility of science and scientists. When wolves were hunted by the government predator control program during the early 1900’s ecologists believed it was best for the park. They have since learned they were wrong. Deer over population caused erosion, sickness, and the declining populations of other animals key to ecosystem health. Scientists did not foresee the negative effects of killing wolves.

At every age, scientists and doctors always think they know best. Yet they are repeatedly proven wrong:

1. Doctors were infecting and killing women who had just given birth by delivering babies without washing their hands after autopsies.
2. Scientists thought disease was spread by miasmas until germ theory was accepted in the mid-1800’s.
3. Doctors continue to be the worst at washing their hands between patients in the hospital.
4. Overuse of antibiotics in humans and livestock created antibiotic-resistent bacteria and viruses.
5. They thought Earth was the center of the universe.
6. The best way to give birth was drugged up and on your back.
7. All baby boys were circumcised.
8. Lobotomies were used to treat depression, hysteria, and bipolar disorders.
9. The bottle was best for babies.
10. Cocaine was used as a surgical anesthesia.

Each case above, and more, was eventually disproved as best practices. Scientists and medical experts cannot know all the implications, consequences, and interconnections of life. To defer our own judgment without independent research is personally irresponsible and undeservedly treats them like gods. They know some things about some things. Just because they assert something does not make it irrefutable.

After my mom’s stroke the doctor told us brain cells do not grow back, a damaged brain is irreparable. Yet, I have read that neurons find new ways to connect and regrow. How else to explain recovered stroke patients? A man with half a brain who is mostly functional? Autism patients improving their communication skills? These are adapting, repairing, compensating brains. If a neurologist cannot get it right, who can?

Nature finds a way and experts don’t know everything.