Philosophy Discussion Forums

Eduk: Your view of modern medicine is also depressing as hell.

Without a care in the world you lambaste the entire world wide medical profession. With nothing to back up your 'opinion'. Doesn't it shame you to draw such simple conclusions with nothing to back those conclusions up?

I dare say that the NHS is so complex that there isn't a single human being alive who could safely say that they understood it (except of course yourself).

puncturing vital organs like the heart! or infection.

Acupuncture has been tested many times and it has failed to prove effective. Also it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It is entirely implausible.

Thinking critical: none of them could say with any confidence whether or not anything was gained or not from going (i.e., to the acupuncturist).

Felix wrote: ↑August 19th, 2018, 6:05 pm

Karpel Tunnel: Sure you can. You stick them (acupuncture needles) in random places, not according to TCM.

That would be unethical, because if acupuncture actually works, sticking needles in the wrong places could harm someone.

Greta: The media has long reported that doctors are grossly overused and that many visits are avoidable, and that too many tests being done, and these are draining public resources more than need be.

As medicine has become industrialized, there has been a trend towards doctors becoming mere cashiers for the medical laboratories and pharmaceutical companies. Gone is the lengthy interview with a patient to make a medical diagnosis, with a lab test or two ordered to confirm it. Now the protocol is to spend just enough time with the patient to be able to assess what lab tests to order to diagnose biochemical imbalances and what drug to use to correct that imbalance. I suppose the end goal is to eventually replace medical doctors with computers and tell them "your services will no longer be needed."

LuckyR wrote: ↑August 21st, 2018, 3:59 am

Felix wrote: ↑August 19th, 2018, 6:05 pm

That would be unethical, because if acupuncture actually works, sticking needles in the wrong places could harm someone.



As medicine has become industrialized, there has been a trend towards doctors becoming mere cashiers for the medical laboratories and pharmaceutical companies. Gone is the lengthy interview with a patient to make a medical diagnosis, with a lab test or two ordered to confirm it. Now the protocol is to spend just enough time with the patient to be able to assess what lab tests to order to diagnose biochemical imbalances and what drug to use to correct that imbalance. I suppose the end goal is to eventually replace medical doctors with computers and tell them "your services will no longer be needed."

Cynical much? But seriously, your description of Modern Medicine is a very common one, especially among folks blessed with good health. Yet in the same breath the rabble usually are chided for going to see their physicians too frequently. Anyone detect a problem with the logic?

Our readings also indicated that the acupuncture meridians were conducting current, and its polarity, matching the input side of the two-way system we'd charted in amphibians, showed a flow into the central nervous system. Each point was positive compared to its environs, and each one had a field surrounding it, with its own characteristic shape. We even found a fifteen-minute rhythm in the current strength at the points, superimposed on the circadian ("about a day") rhythm we'd found a decade earlier in the overall DC system. It was obvious by then that at least the major parts of the acupuncture charts had, as the jargon goes, "an objective basis in reality."

Electrical Conductivity Maps of Skin at Acupuncture Points

We began a more sophisticated series of tests. We planned to record from six major points along one meridian as a needle was inserted into the outermost point. If the DC theory was valid, a change in potential should travel from point to point along the line. However, just as we were entering this second phase, the NIH canceled our grant, even though we'd published four papers in a year. Supposedly it had lost interest in acupuncture, at least in the kind of basic research we were doing on it. Even so, I was fairly satisfied. The input system worked as I'd predicted.

Eduk wrote: ↑August 21st, 2018, 2:05 pm I was reading an interesting survey the other day. Roughly 36% of people, of those polled, believe that they knew more about the causes of autism than scientists and doctors. This unsurprisingly correlated well with anti vaccine. By the way the anti vaccine crowd also has a few outlier scientists supporting it and a massive conspiracy theory mindset against mainstream medicine.
Imagine if you believed you knew more than doctors. And had a couple of scientists you could link. And believed in grand conspricacy theories. How would you get out of this mindset? And there is no use in using logic because your logic is compromised. Plus you dont want to get out of it. Plus you can't rely on the government because you vote for them. It's a pretty hard lock, I see no easy way out.

Felix wrote: ↑August 21st, 2018, 1:37 pm Electrical Conductivity Maps of Skin at Acupuncture Points

We began a more sophisticated series of tests. We planned to record from six major points along one meridian as a needle was inserted into the outermost point. If the DC theory was valid, a change in potential should travel from point to point along the line. However, just as we were entering this second phase, the NIH canceled our grant, even though we'd published four papers in a year..

Thomas Hobbes: They cancelled the grant BECAUSE of the papers they published - obviously.

The present system is in effect a dogmatic religion with a self-perpetuating priesthood dedicated only to preserving the current orthodoxies. The system rewards the sycophant and punishes the visionary to a degree unparalleled in the four-hundred-year history of modern science.

This situation has come about because research is now so expensive that only governments and multinational corporations can pay for it. The funds are dispensed by agencies staffed and run by bureaucrats who aren't scientists themselves. As this system developed after World War II, the question naturally arose as to how these scientifically ignorant officials were to choose among competing grant applications. The logical solution was to set up panels of scientists to evaluate requests in their fields and then advise the bureaucrats.

This method is based on the naive assumption that scientists really are more impartial than other people, so the result could have been predicted decades ago. In general, projects that propose a search for evidence in support of new ideas aren't funded. Most review committees approve nothing that would challenge the findings their members made when they were struggling young researchers who created the current theories, whereas projects that pander to these elder egos receive lavish support. Eventually those who play the game become the new members of the peer group, and thus the system perpetuates itself.

As Erwin Chargaff has remarked, "This continual turning off and on of the financial faucets produces Pavlovian effects," and most research becomes mere water treading aimed at getting paid rather than finding anything new. The intuitive "lunatic twinge," the urge to test a hunch, which is the source of all scientific breakthroughs, is systematically excluded.

Felix wrote: ↑August 16th, 2018, 2:17 am I've had experiences similar to what Greta described, and they were totally unlike any physical pleasure, felt more like I had no body at all. Matter of fact, probably the most dramatic experience of this sort happened in the company of a so-called spiritual healer (that was actually his occupation, although he seemed reluctant to charge people for his services). If I was more credulous, I probably would have been quite willing to put him on a guru pedestal, but the idea seemed blasphemous to me.

Eduk: Also acupuncture has been around for a long time. More than long enough to win over any entrenched naysayers.

Mark1955: So it's important to you that a religious experience comes wrapped in the correct sectarian garb and from an approved supplier otherwise it can't be religious experience however much it feels like one.

producing important but unorthodox results.

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents

So? Many things we do not understand nor have made a genuine effort to understand have been around a long time.

So it's important to you that a religious experience comes wrapped in the correct sectarian garb and from an approved supplier otherwise it can't be religious experience however much it feels like one.

You said: Also acupuncture has been around for a long time. More than long enough to win over any entrenched naysayers.