You Don’t Need a Medical Degree to Question Medical Dogma
There’s a common move in health discussions that shuts conversations down fast:
“Well, are you a doctor?”
It sounds reasonable on the surface. After all, medicine is complex, and expertise matters.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Credentials don’t make claims true. Evidence does.
And history proves this over and over again.
Credential Worship vs. Critical Thinking
Modern health culture has quietly trained us to outsource our thinking. We’re encouraged to defer—to doctors, institutions, guidelines, and consensus—often without ever looking at the data ourselves.
That’s not science.
That’s authority.
Science advances when claims are questioned, not protected.
Some of the most damaging medical advice in history was delivered confidently by highly credentialed professionals:
Low-fat diets for everyone
Sugar as a harmless calorie
Hormone replacement therapy as universally protective
Smoking endorsed by physicians
All of those ideas were once “settled science.” All of them harmed people.
None of them were overturned because a credentialed authority changed their mind voluntarily. They were overturned because evidence accumulated and outsiders kept asking uncomfortable questions.
Reading Studies Is Not Practicing Medicine
There’s a critical distinction that often gets blurred on purpose:
Practicing medicine means diagnosing and treating individuals
Reading and analyzing studies means evaluating claims made to the public
You don’t need an MD to:
Read a study’s methodology
Understand the difference between correlation and causation
Question food-frequency questionnaires
Notice when relative risk is being sold as absolute danger
See when observational data is being treated like proof
If a claim is made publicly—especially one that affects millions of people—it should be open to public scrutiny.
Otherwise, “trust the experts” becomes “don’t ask questions.”
Nutrition Is Especially Vulnerable to Dogma
Nutrition science is uniquely messy:
Long timelines
Heavy reliance on observational studies
Confounding variables everywhere
Strong cultural, ethical, and emotional overlays
That makes it fertile ground for ideology.
Plant-based nutrition, keto, carnivore, Mediterranean—each has people who benefit from it. Each also has evangelists who insist their way is the way.
Once an identity forms around a diet, disagreement stops being intellectual and starts being personal.
At that point, criticism isn’t evaluated—it’s dismissed.
“Do More Research” Is Not an Argument
When someone says, “You need to do more research,” what they often mean is:
“You didn’t reach the conclusion I wanted.”
Real research critiques look like this:
“This study contradicts your point—here’s why”
“That paper has been retracted or updated”
“You misinterpreted this outcome measure”
Blanket dismissal isn’t analysis. It’s discomfort.
If a claim stands on solid evidence, it doesn’t need credential-based shielding.
Why This Book Exists
My book, We’re Not Sick, We’re Being Sold, was never written to replace doctors.
It was written to:
Encourage people to read beyond headlines
Show how weak evidence becomes strong belief
Expose where confidence exceeds certainty
Help readers ask better questions
Every claim is cited. Every interpretation is open to challenge. That’s intentional.
You don’t need to agree with every conclusion to benefit from learning how conclusions are formed—and how often they’re oversold.
A Final Thought
If the only acceptable critics of a system are the people who built it, reform is impossible.
Progress has always depended on outsiders:
Curious readers
Skeptical thinkers
People willing to say, “That doesn’t add up”
That’s not anti-science.
That’s how science is supposed to work.