<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> </head> <body> but ravi never said medical science should be "tossed over" joanna Carrol Cox wrote: <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid44DA5D0B.3641318F@ilstu.edu"> <pre wrap=""> Miles Jackson wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">On Wed, 9 Aug 2006, ravi wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">To address your argument: there are two points that can be offered to counter it. The trivial counter-argument: the problem of induction should give pause to any sort of absolutism. The substantive argument: the softer the science the less autonomous the units under consideration and less rigid the behavioural variance. </pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> It's this rhetoric, "give pause to any sort of absolutism," that justifies Kelley's critique -- you are now arguing against a position that simply doesn't exist, and this kind of strawman argument pushes _my_ buttons. Miles Jackson wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">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). </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap="">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. </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> 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. Carrol ___________________________________ <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk">http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</a> </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>