Messages in this group:
* Re: [lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test
* Re: [lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test
* Re: [lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test
* Re: [lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test
=========== Message 1 =========== Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test
At around 9/8/06 7:28 pm, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Aug 9, 2006, at 7:02 PM, ravi wrote:
>
>> My claim is: you
>> cannot rule out alternative medication unless you can demonstrate that
>> it has not contributed to any progress in health.
>
> No one, not even the NIH or our Harvard med school man, wants to do
> that. So who are you arguing with (or, with whom are you arguing, if you
> prefer)?
>
Doug, this is getting tiresome for me, and perhaps for you too. The title of the article you forwarded was: "No Alternative". What do you take that to suggest? My argument is larger than that and covers the content and thrust of the original article, ranging over claims of history, process, etc. Just the first paragraph with terms like "objective" and "We are now learning" [what happens to these claims] provides enough room for dispute.
But another point: Doug, I think (and correct me) you do indeed heap dismissive ridicule on such alternatives. Hence your use of "hippie" which you, I think, consider a bad word, etc. No?
=========== Message 2 =========== Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test
At around 9/8/06 8:02 pm, joanna wrote:
> but ravi never said medical science should be "tossed over"
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>>> On Wed, 9 Aug 2006, ravi wrote:
>>
>>>> Confidence factors gained from
>>>> limited studies and testing are less representative of individual
>>>> possibilities, I will submit (albeit without the data), without
>>>> knowledge of variance within, across individuals and populations,
>>>> histories, environmental factors (hence my questioning the ceteris
>>>> paribus claims of such studies), etc (there is also a third
>>>> methodological argument based on Bayesian vs other interpretations of
>>>> probability and statistical distributions, but I am nowhere near
>>>> competent to get into the details of that argument, though I am
>>>> convinced its a legitimate one from talking to those who know better. I
>>>> throw it in here in case someone more knowledgeable might wish to expand
>>>> on it).
>>>>
>>> Science is messy and the results of scientific research are never
>>> absolute and definitive, as Woj pointed out in an earlier post. I don't
>>> see how this supports your position.
>>
>> ravi here comes close to an argument analogous to the argument
>> creationists use against evolution. One can find problems and unanswered
>> questions in evolutionary science -- therefore evolution should be
>> tossed overboard. One can find errors and unanswered questions in
>> medical science; therefore medical science should be tossed over. But in
>> each case there is nothing to substitute for the rejected practice.
>>
I hadn't even seen this part of Carrol's post, interestingly a post where he accuses me of constructing a strawman! As Joanna asks, where do I recommend that medical science should be tossed over? This whole discussion is being flipped around, in terms of the claims. Creationist, eh? What the hell, just call me a Nazi and lets be done with this thread ;-).
=========== Message 3 =========== Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test
At around 9/8/06 8:36 pm, Miles Jackson wrote:
> joanna wrote:
>> Miles Jackson wrote:
>>
>>> . In contrast, recent research
>>> on hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women has shown that
>>> the "pump em with estrogen" strategy has no positive therapeutic
>>> effects and actually increases a woman's risk of ovarian cancer.
>>
>> But Miles, when estrogen therapy was introduced, there were lots of
>> tests that demonstrated it was the best thing since sliced bread.
>
> Yes, and it was through continued scientific research that we discovered
> that the original research was flawed. This is a wonderful example of
> the self-correcting nature of scientific work, not a reason to be
> skeptical of scientific research!
>
(a) The above admits to the fallibility of the scientific method in practice, which should lead to the other considerations presented by me in earlier posts.
(b) You will find examples of scientific mistakes uncovered by non-scientific-research.
(c) Why assume that other methods do not have similar corrective procedures? Do you think "alternative" medicine procedures were codified 2000 years ago and never changed, or changed purely due to non-empirical or non-methodological reasons? That burden of proof I think rests on you.
(d) And I am not sure I agree this is "self-correcting", at least in any more sense than my 19-month old is: he tries something, it seems to work, then he realizes it really doesn't, so he moves on to something else.
Miles, it seems to me that this line of scientific idealism is tenable only if one thinks of science as some sort of mechanical theorem-proving system, which doesn't fit well with your pragmatic approach.
=========== Message 4 =========== Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test
At around 9/8/06 9:19 pm, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> (And what about all those Indians and Chinese
> scientists - are they now honorary westerners?)
>
I think I know at least 3 Indian scientists who are willing to be "open-minded" about "alternative" medicine (I am putting "open-minded" in quotes to admit that that is the very question under consideration). One of them, a nuclear physicist, also believes in Hindu astrology and is an expert on horoscope charts.
I have been mostly ignoring the implications of the introduction of "western" (which AFAIK I am not guilty of) into this discussion but perhaps I should make my thoughts known: "western" medicine is not entirely "western", nor is eastern medicine entirely non-establishment. Indian and Chinese establishment doctors are as much establishment doctors (when they are so) as western ones.
--ravi
-- Support something better than yourself: ;-) PeTA: http://www.peta.org/ GreenPeace: http://www.greenpeace.org/ If you have nothing better to do: http://platosbeard.org/