My mother is a pharmicist who works at the local hospital, and she is constantly upset by cases of people taking their terminally ill children to alternative medicinal practitioners, only to have them brough back to 'Western' medicine when it's too late. Alternative medicine here is not just a sham, it is criminal. As are the parents, who should be charged with manslaughter for having such reckless disregard for their children's health.
I think that it is a cultural cringe to contrast 'Western' with 'homeopathic' medicines. There is simply good medical practice and bad medical practice. And that is empirically justified medical practice and non-empirically justified medical practice.
Now, I am not of the opinion that some things that do (or have) fallen under 'homeopathy' can also be good medicine - tea, for example, is very good for you, as is aquatherapy.
3) It was curative but not as efficient as another method;
4) It was curative and the most efficient method thus discovered.
Well you could say aspirin doesn't "cure" a fever or "cure" a headache. A headache is caused by tension in the muscles in your head, but aspirin merely blocks the pain receptors, but there isn't really a down side to a headache, so couldn't it might as well be a "cure" for a headache?
I mean we're talking about methods that have been used over and over again, virtually tested scientifically only on humans themselves with human casualties in the case that something consumed was poisonous. Not every alternative medicine may do the thing it claims to do, but I think it's more probable that a specific formula that has been used for for than my lifetime has some positive effect.
Well you could say aspirin doesn't "cure" a fever or "cure" a headache. A headache is caused by tension in the muscles in your head, but aspirin merely blocks the pain receptors, but there isn't really a down side to a headache, so couldn't it might as well be a "cure" for a headache?
Not every alternative medicine may do the thing it claims to do, but I think it's more probable that a specific formula that has been used for for than my lifetime has some positive effect.
Maybe. Homeopathy used to be better than its contemporary 18th-c. alternatives, because drinking "magic" water does nothing whereas leeching, purging, or drinking mercury does bad things. It has since been held over as conventional medicine surpassed it by leaps and bounds. In general, the history of a thing has little bearing on its utility. There should be other independent lines of evidence for that.
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Do I Contradict Myself? Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
There is good and bad to "alternative medicine". Specifically chinese or Eastern medicine has shown incredible results when tested. However there are a lot of other alternative methods that do NOT hold up results. that is the difference.
Good Example-
Acupuncture- works. Go to anyone that has ever tried it. Try it for yourself. Ask anyone who knows about it. (not someone who has no idea about it but thinks they know about it because they heard it existed back in the 70's)
Bad Example
prayer healing- Not knocking religion but no prayer healing has ever had a consistant result of "healing"
Good Example- Reflexology
Bad Example- Rock healing (idk. put rocks on your body and it heals you?)
Good example- Ciropratics. Yeah back in teh 70's and 60's a near unanimous concensus of doctors and so called "medical experts" said that ciropratics was nothing but quack treatments and was terribly dangerous and the ciropractors were con-men. Now is a respected medical field that people are often refered to.
Bad Example- Magic healing. I myself am pagan but I"d rather go to the doctor than cast a spell.......
Acupuncture- works. Go to anyone that has ever tried it. Try it for yourself. Ask anyone who knows about it. (not someone who has no idea about it but thinks they know about it because they heard it existed back in the 70's)
Acupuncture is iffy: the traditional Chinese explanation for why it works isn't supported by science, but there have been some positive findings. It's just sort of hard to make a good solid experiment to make sure it really is the needles, not placebo effect or some bias.
Also, for what it's worth, "asking people" and getting anecdotes isn't the same as collecting data.
Good example- Ciropratics. Yeah back in teh 70's and 60's a near unanimous concensus of doctors and so called "medical experts" said that ciropratics was nothing but quack treatments and was terribly dangerous and the ciropractors were con-men. Now is a respected medical field that people are often refered to.
Chiropractic is a really weird one to me. On the one hand, I used to think that it was just physical therapy for people with back pain. But now I hear that some chiropractors claim to be able to cure all sorts of stuff, just by back-cracking. Apparently there actually are two schools of chiropractic: one mostly woo, and one mostly science (or trying to be, at least).
And we can all ignore the fact that we've drifted away from a free market sector to a corporatocratic oligopoly, that we are ignoring externalized transaction costs in the name of science and that all things should be specialized so people are as dis-empowered as possible?
But that's a red herring in this discussion. We are talking about techniques, not the systems of funding, not the regulatory structures; just the techniques. Because, again, this is about the scientific validity of a proposed remedy. That validity doesn't change if the lab loses funding, gets a billion-dollar grant, gets a cozy tax break, or gets shut down by the government.
Oh, and by the way, I'm not sure what you mean by any of that (well, aside from corporate politics). More and more people are able to do science: the tools are cheaper, and then there's the Internet. Even if an experiment isn't "perfect" (and really, what is) the point is to try honestly for randomization and control. All too often, alt-med studies aren't randomized, aren't controlled, and basically smack of putting the conclusion before the evidence. If they followed the science, homeopathy would long since be a quirky footnote in the annals of medical history. But no, homeopaths keep going on about Big Medicine and "the system" working against them...
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Do I Contradict Myself? Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
Acupuncture- works. Go to anyone that has ever tried it. Try it for yourself. Ask anyone who knows about it. (not someone who has no idea about it but thinks they know about it because they heard it existed back in the 70's)
The best tests we have show that it doesn't work. Tests have been done using "sham acupuncture," using specialized needles that don't actually pierce the skin and allow for double blinding. Studies using these controls actually have the sham acupuncture working better than the "real" thing. This is the kind of statistical noise you would expect when testing a phenomenon that isn't real.
Good Example- Reflexology
Also doesn't work. Same thing, some studies show a result, but the better controlled studies show no result.
Good example- Ciropratics. Yeah back in teh 70's and 60's a near unanimous concensus of doctors and so called "medical experts" said that ciropratics was nothing but quack treatments and was terribly dangerous and the ciropractors were con-men. Now is a respected medical field that people are often refered to.
There's no evidence that spinal manipulation does any of the things chiropractors claim, but there is evidence of plenty of risks involved in the procedure such as causing strokes.
Bad Example- Magic healing. I myself am pagan but I"d rather go to the doctor than cast a spell.......
This one seems like a bit of a catch all. The problem is that just about every alternative medicine is based on magic. Acupuncture claims there are magical chi lines in your body. Reflexology says that the foot has energy zones that map to the rest of your body. Chiropractic says that magical innate intelligence flows into your body from your head down your spine. Homeopathy claims it can produce magic potions. It's all not only nonsense but dangerous nonsense that can kill people.
Specifically chinese or Eastern medicine has shown incredible results when tested.
Psst: What we know as "traditional Chinese medicine" was invented by the Maoists specifically to scam the people because there wasn't enough medicine in China.
However there are a lot of other alternative methods that do NOT hold up results. that is the difference.
Good Example-
Acupuncture- works. Go to anyone that has ever tried it. Try it for yourself. Ask anyone who knows about it. (not someone who has no idea about it but thinks they know about it because they heard it existed back in the 70's)
Placebo effect in better-controlled trials. The traditional Chinese explanation, however, isn't supported by science.
LOL First, it's not "Eastern". It was developed by one Eunice Ingham, basically derived from "Zone Therapy" only even more reductionist. Some reflexology practitioners falsely claim it's of American Indian origins as well. This is because they are racists.
Good example- Ciropratics. Yeah back in teh 70's and 60's a near unanimous concensus of doctors and so called "medical experts" said that ciropratics was nothing but quack treatments and was terribly dangerous and the ciropractors were con-men. Now is a respected medical field that people are often refered to.
You do understand that chiropractors say they can cure everything, right?
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
-Free market. Established companies have a strong interest in strengthening government-enforced standards. These standards have an associated cost, after all, and as this cost grows higher, the difficulty of entering this market becomes higher as well - both in terms of monetary investment and required knowhow. If few to no newcomers are entering the market, oligopolies will flourish. These big companies will also have the greatest knowhow in exploiting loopholes of these laws or avoiding the more detrimental parts to their revenue. They'll have connections with the regulatory agencies.
Yet it's the established companies that weaken regulations. It's the established supplement dealers that passed DSHEA, basically turning dietary supplements into the Wild West.
When you regulate, when you judge certain practices in society, you should judge them and their alternatives for multiple relevant criteria, not just science.
So, you should judge medicine by criteria other than whether or not it works? That's a wonderful idea.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I think that it is a cultural cringe to contrast 'Western' with 'homeopathic' medicines. There is simply good medical practice and bad medical practice. And that is empirically justified medical practice and non-empirically justified medical practice.
Now, I am not of the opinion that some things that do (or have) fallen under 'homeopathy' can also be good medicine - tea, for example, is very good for you, as is aquatherapy.
Well you could say aspirin doesn't "cure" a fever or "cure" a headache. A headache is caused by tension in the muscles in your head, but aspirin merely blocks the pain receptors, but there isn't really a down side to a headache, so couldn't it might as well be a "cure" for a headache?
I mean we're talking about methods that have been used over and over again, virtually tested scientifically only on humans themselves with human casualties in the case that something consumed was poisonous. Not every alternative medicine may do the thing it claims to do, but I think it's more probable that a specific formula that has been used for for than my lifetime has some positive effect.
It relieves headache.
Maybe. Homeopathy used to be better than its contemporary 18th-c. alternatives, because drinking "magic" water does nothing whereas leeching, purging, or drinking mercury does bad things. It has since been held over as conventional medicine surpassed it by leaps and bounds. In general, the history of a thing has little bearing on its utility. There should be other independent lines of evidence for that.
Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
Good Example-
Acupuncture- works. Go to anyone that has ever tried it. Try it for yourself. Ask anyone who knows about it. (not someone who has no idea about it but thinks they know about it because they heard it existed back in the 70's)
Bad Example
prayer healing- Not knocking religion but no prayer healing has ever had a consistant result of "healing"
Good Example- Reflexology
Bad Example- Rock healing (idk. put rocks on your body and it heals you?)
Good example- Ciropratics. Yeah back in teh 70's and 60's a near unanimous concensus of doctors and so called "medical experts" said that ciropratics was nothing but quack treatments and was terribly dangerous and the ciropractors were con-men. Now is a respected medical field that people are often refered to.
Bad Example- Magic healing. I myself am pagan but I"d rather go to the doctor than cast a spell.......
Acupuncture is iffy: the traditional Chinese explanation for why it works isn't supported by science, but there have been some positive findings. It's just sort of hard to make a good solid experiment to make sure it really is the needles, not placebo effect or some bias.
Also, for what it's worth, "asking people" and getting anecdotes isn't the same as collecting data.
Well, a foot massage can be relaxing... but manipulating mystic energy pathways in the body? There's just no evidence for it.
Chiropractic is a really weird one to me. On the one hand, I used to think that it was just physical therapy for people with back pain. But now I hear that some chiropractors claim to be able to cure all sorts of stuff, just by back-cracking. Apparently there actually are two schools of chiropractic: one mostly woo, and one mostly science (or trying to be, at least).
But that's a red herring in this discussion. We are talking about techniques, not the systems of funding, not the regulatory structures; just the techniques. Because, again, this is about the scientific validity of a proposed remedy. That validity doesn't change if the lab loses funding, gets a billion-dollar grant, gets a cozy tax break, or gets shut down by the government.
Oh, and by the way, I'm not sure what you mean by any of that (well, aside from corporate politics). More and more people are able to do science: the tools are cheaper, and then there's the Internet. Even if an experiment isn't "perfect" (and really, what is) the point is to try honestly for randomization and control. All too often, alt-med studies aren't randomized, aren't controlled, and basically smack of putting the conclusion before the evidence. If they followed the science, homeopathy would long since be a quirky footnote in the annals of medical history. But no, homeopaths keep going on about Big Medicine and "the system" working against them...
Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
Psst: What we know as "traditional Chinese medicine" was invented by the Maoists specifically to scam the people because there wasn't enough medicine in China.
However there are a lot of other alternative methods that do NOT hold up results. that is the difference.
Placebo effect in better-controlled trials. The traditional Chinese explanation, however, isn't supported by science.
And anecdotes aren't evidence.
LOL First, it's not "Eastern". It was developed by one Eunice Ingham, basically derived from "Zone Therapy" only even more reductionist. Some reflexology practitioners falsely claim it's of American Indian origins as well. This is because they are racists.
You do understand that chiropractors say they can cure everything, right?
On phasing:
Yet it's the established companies that weaken regulations. It's the established supplement dealers that passed DSHEA, basically turning dietary supplements into the Wild West.
So, you should judge medicine by criteria other than whether or not it works? That's a wonderful idea.
On phasing: