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 10/8/06 12:43 am, joanna wrote:
>
> But you're right about me and Plato. Can't stand the fellow.
>
Me neither! Silly little punk ;-).
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>>
>> Joanna hates Plato, but her argument
>> here is grounded in a Platonic concept of knowledge. Plato claimed that
>> a mathematician wasn't a mathematician when he was committing an error.
>> Joanna claims that physicians aren't physicians when they are committing
>> an error.
I am beginning to think that Carrol is 'trolling' with flame-bait. Or perhaps he has been taking lessons from the Orwellian BushCo speechwriters, for how else can he invert the positions as he does above, without as much as a smiley?
=========== Message 2 =========== Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test
At around 10/8/06 6:42 am, Andy F wrote:
> On 8/9/06, ravi <gadfly at exitleft.org> wrote:
>
>> My claim is not that someone made that exact statement. My claim is: you
>> cannot rule out alternative medication unless you can demonstrate that
>> it has not contributed to any progress in health. (well I gave two other
>> ways you can attempt to eliminate it, if not on empirical grounds, but I
>> pointed out or hinted at the problems with each such approach).
>
> But the article noted some examples where alternative medicine was
> adopted by mainstream medicine. That seems to preclude ruling it out.
>
I mean ruling it out today. The author based on the outcome of two tests, suggests that "we are now learning what happens when alternatives are put to 'objective' testing" (my single quotes) and goes on to say that the results should mark a sea change in how the public views such treatments (note that he says 'such treatments' not these drugs). Even assuming that such tests prove that the alternates are ineffective in all cases, how is this any different from tests invalidating an establishment cure, examples of which abound. Should the reversal of establishment opinion on an establishment cure also cause a sea change in the public view of establishment medicine?
>> IIRC "No Alternative" was the very title of the original article.
>
> I don't find the title terribly representative of the article, and
> I've heard that in newspapers it's not the author's to choose. As I
> wrote, the article noted where alternative medicine was adopted.
But the title is representative of the thrust of the article. In fact that is my problem, including my point about the 'fair and balanced' mention of alternative successes -- the title, the rhetoric, and the leaps of logic betray the purpose of such articles.
>
>> > I don't think I understand the bit about establishment medicine
>> > stealing alternative remedies. Should establishment medicine ignore
>> > remedies that might work? Not even examine and test them?
>>
>> In fact, they definitely should. Opportunism and diversity are the best
>> approaches to expanding human knowledge.
>
> Then could you explain again what you mean by the following:
>
>> I wrote: "alternative" remedies are stolen by establishment medicine and
>> claimed as one of its successes.
>
> Is is that FDA approved -- what we're calling establishment or western
> -- medicine tests some technique without taking the tradition's or
> practitioner's word for it, so to speak?
>
> Is it that establishment medicine is claiming to have developed
> something like acupuncture and come up with it by deduction from
> theory?
>
What I saying is that: (a) there are remedies that originated in the "alternative" world that have worked and continue to work, (b) some of these remedies have been appropriated by establishment medicine, often for profit that in no way percolates to the older practitioners, (c) even as such appropriation continues, the efficacy of "alternatives" is continuously questioned and often ridiculed, (d) the results of establishment application of such remedies is added to the growing "evidence" of the power of establishment medicine (the history of quinine, if I recall correctly, might be a partial example of such things).
>> No, not at all. I wouldn't object to any establishment (western if you
>> like) researcher borrowing the results, findings and methods of other
>> approaches. I do mind their bad-mouthing them while doing so.
>
> Could you give some examples of this? I would think that adopting
> something you once dismissed as bogus takes a certain amount of
> humility. Part of the learning process.
>
I don't know, my friend. Humility is what I think of when I hear someone say 'I was wrong, and thank you', not "No Alternative".
> Reading your other replies, I'm guessing that part of your beef with
> all of this is that alternatives get tested and eliminated while the
> tests come with a level of uncertainty, whether from small sample
> sizes, data points dismissed as outliers, corruption, failure to
> perceive, etc. Is this a correct characterization of your position?
That is part of my position. Let me try to restate it:
a) Alternative medicine (AM) has successes in its history.
b) There is no reason to believe that practitioners of AM (and by this I
do not mean some "hippie" you meet in the Village or wherever, but
the hundreds and thousands of humans who use them and the thousands
who prescribe them) do not modify their theories and practices in
response to empirical results and theoretical errors.
c) A remedy can be eliminated if it has demonstrable ill-effects (but
did you hear Thalidomide is making a comeback?).
d) Tests are useful in making informed choices but:
i) there are simple reasons of logic due to which they can never be
conclusive
ii) the methodology and the testers are not neutral
iii) inter and intra-group variance information is vital
e) Establishment medicine (EM) has failed similar tests for its
prescribed remedies.
f) Not everything can even be subjected to all the rigorous tests
possible.
g) EM is not driven so much by pursuit of truth and objective
methodology as by drug companies and their profit motives.
h) We have no idea how AM would evolve if the current bazillions are
thrown at it as we do today for EM.
i) EM's wrong prescriptions are not just benign but often
counterproductive and even downright dangerous.
Coming at it from another angle, as I have already done: There are four fronts on which (AFAICT) AM can be attacked:
a) Empirical 1: It has a history of failure. Not true.
b) Empirical 2: It has a history of mixed success. Well, same is true of
EM.
Two more (closely related to each other):
c) Foundational/theoretical: it is based on false principles, notions,
ideas. But I am not sure we really want to get into consistency
arguments here. I am willing to if necessary. Further a model is
often just that, unless you are a thorough-going Platonist, and
foundational crises are fairly episodic in sciences and math.
d) Methodological: EM method of discovery and/or justification are
superior. A version of the "science" and "scientific method" claims.
The problem here is that in the broader sense it remains to be shown
that AM does not follow similar methodologies. In the stricter sens
it remains to be shown *formally* speaking how this methodolog is
superior (issues of consistency) and is applicable (issues of
complexity) and applied.
If the guy is saying: look we all came up with remedies using various overlapping methods. Now, just pragmatically speaking without waving my hands about with words like 'objectivity' and 'western', I urge that we test the hell out of all of them and recommend the ones that seem to work and seem to make sense in some framework of understanding we agree upon -- if the guy were to say that, then he would be fair and productive if redundant.
But then redundancy doesn't sell, yes? Titles like "No Alternative", "Higher Superstitions", "The End of Racism", "The End of History", "Intellectual Impostures" on the other hand...
P.S: I am yet to hear an answer that someone (Colin?) posted regarding this bit from his article:
> Diseases. The study found there was no overall statistical benefit
> except for Celebrex. Of note, 60% of the patients receiving placebo
> reported significant improvement.
I would assume that homoeopathy, in EM, would be considered a placebo, and would have significant improvement is 60% of patients, yes? If so, that's a pretty significant success rate, isn't it?
=========== Message 3 =========== Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test
At around 10/8/06 9:27 am, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Aug 9, 2006, at 10:24 PM, ravi wrote:
>
>> Doug, this is getting tiresome for me, and perhaps for you too. The
>> title of the article you forwarded was: "No Alternative".
>
> Authors don't write their own headlines - editors do, and they often
> follow the cardinal rule of journalism, simplify & exaggerate.
>
Well if its published with your named under it, you own it. We wouldn't buy a "dog ate my homework" excuse especially in the adult world! But plenty of other material exists within the article, including the ending section about faith and messiahs.
>> Just the first paragraph with terms like
>> "objective" and "We are now learning" [what happens to these claims]
>> provides enough room for dispute.
>
> Not that much, in my view. When things are subject to experimentation,
> we learn stuff.
My point is not that. People have been experimenting with stuff before establishment medicine and "science" came about. My point is the generalizations he is jumping to right at the outset, about alternatives, based on two studies.
> Yeah, I don't use hippie as a term of endearment, but I was also
> simplifying & exaggerating.
Ok, I am done with this guy. Who's next? ;-)
> As I've said many times, I don't doubt that
> there are many valuable things in the "alternative" armamentarium, but
> they have to be evaluated by independent testing. Quacks like Gary Null
> - who's hardly marginal in the alterna-world - rely largely on
> self-validating testimony by practitioners.
Doug, I don't like Gary Null either. Carrol and Joanna and I hate Plato (well at least AFAIK Carrol's no fan of Socrates). Can we leave WBAI politics out of this? We are pretty much on the same page there. There are a lot of weird people in the establishment world too -- the guy who headed the Genome project just published a book on why he believes in God! Gary Null may be the most successful alternate medicine pimp in the USA, but dont throw out the ladies with the pimp ... er I mean the baby with the bathwater.
Your first sentence demonstrates that we are on the same page on the main issue too. I would add that until you can test, validate, etc use your common sense to make choices, and that after you test and invalidate, keep it around, just in case the theory changes!
Or we continue with you responding to your Gary Null and Hippie hot-buttons and me responding to my "objectivity", "no alternative", "ooh look Western Science" hot buttons ;-).
=========== Message 4 =========== Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test
At around 10/8/06 10:06 am, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> Joanna and Ravi:
>
> 1. You seem to confuse medical practice with medical science. Science is,
> be definition, provisional and uncertain. Practice by its very nature
> cannot be that way - whatever it does, it is definite (one either applies X
> or Y), even if it is based on provisional scientific results. Therefore,
> practice and its potential errors do not reflect in any way on the validity
> of scientific method.
>
The scientific method is not carried out by a Turing Machine, is it? In essence a "practice", except not that of medical practitioners but of medical scientists, or perhaps medical Turing machines. When that idealistic theoretical rubber meets the road, it tends to get sticky. The contingency of Science (or all truth) is Philosophy 101. The need to act nonetheless is what Sartre 101? Or Hinduism 101. How do we act when we make these choices. That's the thing, isn't it? One recommendation is that we act with tolerance, sensitivity and keep our eyes on every alternative. That's probably PKF 101.
We always get into a Phil. Science debate on these matters. We mix up terms like "science" and "scientific method". Worse we do not even have a usable definition of either of them before we jump right it. IMHO, we should just stick to the reasoning offered by the Harvard don and see if it makes sense?
> 2. I get an impression that the way you approach the subject is a kind of
> pissing contest between the "West" and the "rest of the world." I
> understand it is an important element of national identity of many Third
> World nations - I saw that a lot when I lived in Poland for example. In the
> same way, Zionists see everything as a contest between Jews and gentiles,
> Black nationalists see everything as a conflict between black and white, and
> for that matter, Huntington, Hitch and Company see the world as a "clash of
> civilizations."
>
> It is not possible to rationally argue with such a view, it is an
> interpretative frame of reference accepted as given and self-evident and
> thus beyond empirical falsification - but man, what a limited and
> narrow-minded perspective it is!
Yeah, we third-world natives are pathetic, aren't we? Fortunately we have you around to assume the white man's burden.
Let us now see if the strawman watchers step in on any of this.
I get an impression that you approach such arguments as a kind of condescending piss-on-someone contest between you the hard-nosed intellectual and the rest of us misguided emotional children. I understand it is an important element of your personal identity -- I saw that a lot when I encountered those with math or science phobia, for example. So on and so forth. etc, etc.
Yeah, I guess I am mocking you. Its because you seem to be an intelligent person and yet you write stuff like 'important element of of national identity of Third World nations'. As the characters in the movies say... you don't know me, man. So don't act like you do.
--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/