Have you ever noticed that if you're told something totally crazy over and over by experts you will start believing it?

So much so that you may even find yourself dolling out these crazy “facts,” even though somewhere deep down in the bottom of your gut you can hear your intuition’s muffled cries. (Poor intuition — bound and gagged — never stops screaming, "These facts cannot be true!")

For example, I went to the vet recently, and she condescendingly asked me, “Now you don’t ever feed your dog people food do you?”

I could tell that I was supposed to say no so I gave a muffled reply of, “No, not usually.”

She could sense my lie, and so she proceeded to warn me of sensitive palettes and animal obesity. Then she brought me a very small bag of dog food. “This is what you should feed your dog,” she said and handed me the $100 bag of gourmet food.

The front of the bag pictured a hearty Thanksgiving feast complete with chicken, steak, ham, carrots, celery, salmon, and grains, even a pumpkin pie!

Now I understand that I shouldn’t feed my dog French fries, but some steak? A piece of chicken? While the vet was lecturing me, I was looking at my dog and thinking, if she was wandering around wild I bet she would be eating lizards and dirty diapers, so I don’t think that some steak bits are gonna kill her.

I mean, the concept of even buying food for your dog is a fairly new one. Dogs have been surviving on table scraps ever since they were domesticated 35,000 years ago. It wasn’t until the prosperity following World War II that buying dog food became popular.

Are you seriously telling me that it is unhealthy for me to feed my dog any of the things pictured on the dog food bag, but if I pay you to ground that stuff up, spray it with nutrients, mold it into perfectly round pellets and then let it sit on a shelf for years, that’s healthier?

(channel Seth Myers here:) Really?

I just don’t think that’s true.

Another thing I’ve felt suspicious about for years is low-fat dairy products; seems like a bad idea. Low-fat cheese is like paying money to eat cardboard. But after being bombarded with tons of science saying that the healthiest way to eat dairy is to only eat low fat, I finally caved. Low fat is best. Then a month ago I watched the movie "Forks Over Knives," and it said that many of the health problems in America are being caused by the high consumption of LOW-FAT DAIRY!

I knew it! I knew I was right. Why did I ever cave?

Science is why I caved.

And why am I listening to science? Have you ever noticed that science is always changing its mind so that some new student can get their Ph.D.?

We all have our gut instincts about what is right or wrong, but often we ignore our instincts and listen to science.

This is particularly true with parenting. What do the books say we should do?

Hey Books, I’m not sure if you know this but humans have been raising kids for millions of years without you. So I’m not going to listen to your advice to always give kids Tylenol when they have a fever. My gut says a fever has a useful purpose in fighting off colds. That’s why fevers exist. Just because you don’t know why they help fight colds doesn’t mean that they don’t. So there books! I stick my tongue out at you.

My gut says I will live a better life if I listen to my intuition.

And I betcha I can find some research that proves I’m right!

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