From: gordon@tramp.Colorado.EDU (GORDON ALLEN R)
Subject: Re: War cry of the scientific
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: 24 Dec 92 16:06:18 GMT

schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) writes:

>>the disease itself and the medicine, herb or treatment. Rather the 
>>treatment works to bring the body back into balance allowing it to correct
>>the dis-ease naturally.

>This sounded good, before people knew anything about how bodies work.
>We have no such excuses today.

>>Because there is an unclear relationship between the actual bacteria, virus,
>>or whatever, and the medicine or treatment, there can never be the kind of
>>'proof' that some of you are demanding (or at least I am led to believe
>>based on my begining knowledge of such things).

>Nuts. Anyone with no knowledge of computers can nevertheless be shown
>that computers work. A complete explanation of mechanism, while helpful,
>is not required to demonstrate effectiveness. It was easy to prove in the
>1700s that limes or sauerkraut prevented scurvy, long before anyone ever
>heard of vitamin C.

When you get right down to it, the same argument can be applied to a great many
types of drug therapy as well.  For example, aspirin works to alleviate the
symptoms of headache pain.  Yet, even though it was very widely used, for a longtime, NO ONE could tell you how it does this (I'm not sure if the mechanism has
been determined, but back when I was a graduate student, no one knew).  It was 
used and it was/is effective for what it was supposed to do.  Similarly, many
`alternative` modalities are effective for what they are supposed to do.  
Traditionaly Chinese Medicine is effective for the range of pathologies that
it deals with.  It does not need western scientific proof to validate it.

>>Then again, this is all easy for me, I'm employed and well insured. I have
>>choices. Many others don't

>Now we get to the crux of the matter. Alternative medicines are fads for 
>dilettantes, and last resorts for the desperate. What sane person with a
>choice would treat, say, ventricular insufficiency or a tetanus infection
>with alternative medicine? Alternative medicine types were getting hypnotised
>for gout in the 1700s, buying magnetic corsets for treating backaches in the 
>1880s, taking radium mud baths for abdominal cancer in the 1920s, and using 
>Eastern medicine for everything at all times. The scams and self-delusions
>change only in form, not in substance.


>Sorry to be so cranky about this, but we should not tolerate loose talk and
>careless thinking when peoples' health and lives are at stake. Some naif might
>mistake some of what passes here for actual wisdom.


For years, I have had only the bare minimum insurance that the university pro-`
vides.  It doesn`t cost me anything in terms of payroll deductions and is 
automatic.  IMHO, having insurance locks one into the belief system that is at
odds with any healing modality that differs from the `norm`.  It gives one an
'out'.  Instead, I have been fortunate to have been able to vigourously pursue
a lifestyle that supports health, not one that avoids illness.  Yes, I have 
been treated by western medicine, but only for those maladies in which it
excels, eg., I cut myself with a chainsaw and needed stitches.  BTW, this was 
not paid for by insurance.  I'm also not trying to set myself up as something
special.  I'm trying to say something about the paradigm.  
-- 
Allen Gordon 		         *If the folly of but one of us was changed to*
Research Associate         	 *intelligence, and divided amongst a thousand*
gordon@tramp.colorado.edu   	 *toads, each would be more intelligent than  *
				 *Aristotle				      *