Mad Kally

Give it up Corwin, you're starting to sound like a looney. The name of this forum is "Science and Skepticism"..

Bree

Corwin has a point: there's probably lots of medical knowledge - legit medical knowledge - floating around out there that we don't even know of. Now, I'm not suggesting we find an aboriginal person from some undeveloped country and adopt their medical practises - but I DO believe we should try to broaden the horizons of medicine by being willing to try new things. Experiment, experiment, experiment - see what works and what doesn't. After all, isn't that what medicine is?

Corwin

Kal... look at the posts on this forum. One common theme you'll find is 'person posts question, concept or idea that's a little bit out of the mainstream and ends up having to argue in favor of a bizarre and freaky wrong concept that he or she wasn't suggesting to begin with.' I'm not the only person this has happened to... it's a pretty regular thing.

That having been said... skepticism is a good thing. Knee jerk 'no it isn't' applied to anything that isn't immediately understood is mindless rejection, not skepticism. A skeptic MUST keep an open mind, look at the available facts, and judge based on those facts. Resorting to distortion, obfuscation, and misdirection isn't skepticism. It's trolling. The fact is that the medical establishment, for various reasons, some of them valid, some of them not so valid, has consistiently refused to even look at things like homeopathy, natruopathy, and any herbal medication that doesn't come from some exotic place. (IE any herbal medication that people can grow themselves.) There are a number of reasons for this, ranging from laziness to ignorance to greed to closed mindedness. Over time, enough patients are saying 'enough' that the establishment is slowly being forced to at least look at these practices, and if they don't work to be able to say WHY. It's happening, but it's slow.

Mad Kally

Bree,
That's exactly why more evidence-based research needs to be done to support the safety and effectiveness of many of the things floating around out there.

[ May 23, 2002: Message edited by: Mad Kally ]</p>

Gurdur

Um, Bree, if you don't mind me interupting here; I don't think anyone is denying there is a great need for research and verfication - quite the opposite.

However, what Corwin has been doing is implying throught that "conventional medicine" is willfully ignoring all other avenues, and that somehow the verification and testing general procedures are wrong.
He's also been quite explicit in his attribution of negative motives to the medical / scientific establishment, and he's simply exaggerated a hell of a lot to absurdity.

Medicine is constantly trying new things; research is quite enormous.

I don't blame you personally for feeling ticked off with medicos in your own case; doctors can get it wrong (nobody's perfect, and no-one's omniscient), and everyone needs to make an informed decision as to what exactly is medically right for them.
But medicos, on the whole, try their very level best.

Corwin

Gurdy... you're confusing my feelings for DOCTORS with my feelings for medical researchers.

Doctors you have good and bad, like most professions.

The medical establishment, on the other hand, is largely run by patent lawyers and insurance exectutives.

Synaesthesia

MrDarwin,

The topic, I think, is as much about alternative medicine in general as it is about unambiguous snake oil like homeopathy. btw, the site that I posted has some interesting numbers on how spending is distributed.

My point remains the same: The money is there. If proponents want to validate their practice, they can. If they want to ensure that their treatments are not totally discredited, they can simply avoid rigorously testing them.


Corwin,
In my opinion that is almost, almost as bad as if it were run by quacks.

Corwin

No, actually it's much worse.

I'll take incompetance over actual evil any day.

And DO try to avoid the ad hominems, shall we? Calling alternative medics 'quacks' doesn't solve anything except to prejudice people. I just hope that every time you get sick it's something that 'conventional' medicine has something to treat or cure... if they haven't gotten around to your condition yet.... you're just shit outta luck.

Bree

Yes, I understood what Corwin meant - and I wholeheartedly agree. I'm not saying that the Western medical world is, as a whole, willfully ignoring "alternative" medicine - there are several MDs who include alternative medicine in their daily practises and who recognise the possible benefits there.

However, we are besieged with a few drug companies who, instead of gently exploring these alternative treatments, are instead fiddling with the status quo and prolonging the development of new treatments. Of course, this is America - I'm sure it's different in other countries.

Corona688

Congratulations. You have successfully ignored every last question and every point I raised.