From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Unorthodox treatments are *not* the problem  (was: ... name right!)
Date: 29 Aug 1992 10:46:52 -0500
Organization: U Texas Dept of Computer Sciences, Austin TX
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu
Summary: Same old, same old.

-*----
In article <1992Aug28.153940.1802@island.COM> green@island.COM (Robert Greenstein) writes:
> Then you have a poor memory. It happens all the time on this newsgroup.
> Of course, the poster always claims that its non-scientific nonsense,
> but that's just a convenient way of avoiding the issue.

I am not blessed with the ability to read other people's minds,
so when they claim to object to the unscientific portion of a
post, I have no way of knowing that they *really* object to the
unorthodox treatment it discusses.  Perhaps I do not meditate
enough. 

> Your examples are biased. In Example A, you imply that herb X has
> little value unless 1) some "useful" portion of it is extracted
> and probably synthesized, ...

Nothing I wrote implied this.  Willow bark tea was useful and
valuable centuries before we had any understanding of how it
worked.  What may be fairly inferred from my post is that I don't
find very useful any ancient theory that willow bark tea exerts
an analgesic effect because of the willow's graceful shape.

> In Example B, you betray a common and understandable bias against Oriental
> medicine. Because Oriental medicine is deeply rooted in self-reflection,
> observation of nature, and meditation, its theoretical framework appears
> to be "hooey" to those of us raised in a Western culture. ...

I have no particular biases against self-reflection or meditation.
But I will object to the notion that these (even when backed by a
5000 year tradition) are adequate for learning how nature works,
including ourselves and our diseases.  The history of medicine
(and the other natural sciences) is replete with examples of how
self-reflection, meditation, and tradition fail in this regard. 

What has been found to work best (so far) is a particularly
careful kind of observation of nature, together with an
understanding of how to formulate and criticize theories that
incorporate these observations, i.e., science.  As I said in my
original post, the problem is that some people do not understand
science, or do not like it. 

If Robert Greenstein wants advance the thesis that other
paradigms provide a better understanding (in some cases) than the
scientific one, merely repeating the differences between the
scientific paradigm and that of ancient Chinese medicine serves
little purpose.  His argument from age is also getting
repetitious: does anyone really think that a paradigm is better
just because it is older?  What might be a good first step would
be to provide some examples where the paradigm he recommends
provides a better *understanding* than science of some problem or
phenomenon.  If he cannot do even this, then he is unlikely to
convince any but the credulous.

Russell
From: ron@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Ron Miller)
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 16:57:34 GMT
Subject: Re: CFIDS (was: Re: Re: What are the symptoms of Epstein-Barr virus?)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA