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- Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative
- Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!kaminski
- From: kaminski@netcom.com (Peter Kaminski)
- Subject: Re: War cry of the scientific
- Message-ID: <1992Dec28.050746.11013@netcom.com>
- Organization: The Information Deli - via Netcom / San Jose, California
- References: <1han6gINN4uf@grapevine.EBay.Sun.COM> <schumach.725153887@convex.convex.com> <1992Dec24.025223.9273@netcom.com> <BzvM8p.3uz@ssr.com>
- Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 05:07:46 GMT
- Lines: 47
-
- In <BzvM8p.3uz@ssr.com> sdb@ssr.com (Scott Ballantyne) writes:
-
- >I wondered how long it would take before someone would post this
- >comment here. Scientific discussion is supposed to be welcomed here, I
- >have mail (and copies of articles posted to news.groups by yourself)
- >assuring me that scientific criticism would be welcome and encouraged
- >in misc.health.alternatives.
-
- Applying the scientific method to alternative health is great, and is
- specifically encouraged here.
-
- *Please*, if you have scientific data, discussion, or even criticism
- relevant to alternative health, POST IT TO MISC.HEALTH.ALTERNATIVE!
-
- On the other hand, we're *not* interested in applying Western
- medicine's tunnel vision (or, ideally, *any* tunnel vision, though
- that's probably wishing for too much) to alternative health. That's
- why we're here in misc.health.alternative, and not in sci.med.
-
- (There is, of course, much more to Western medicine than its biases,
- much of which has applicability to evaluating alternative health, and
- therefore, to misc.health.alternative.)
-
- Scott writes:
-
- >I suggest that you should be encouraging posts like Schumachers.
-
- Richard Schumacher had written:
-
- >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.
-
- I'm sorry, but I don't see any science here. Blanket prejudice, yes.
- Scientific data or reasoning, no.
-
- Please, post scientific criticism of alternative health! But criticize
- alternative health scientifically -- not just because it's unconventional.
-
- Thanks!
-
- Pete
-