I want to throw up [homeopathy]

The BBQ Pit
161

[QUOTE=fessie]
That’s the problem with having to delete most of the story (sorry about that, fluiddruid, I really dropped the ball). If you’d read the whole article glee, you’d know that they DID adjust for other factors. Duh.

[/quote]

I think it would be pretty difficult to remove all the other factors.
If I took a bunch of people whose parents lived long lives, who had no serious inheritable conditions, who ate well, exercised regularly, avoided stress and dangerous hobbies and got them all to worship Satan :eek: , would I prove that devil worshippers live longer?

[QUOTE=fessie]

That’s not what “healing touch” is actually about, at least not among people of my acquaintance. It’s about being able to read and respond someone’s energy, and some people’s ability to offer a bit of healing. Really it’s not THAT wacky, it’s not like “oh, I touch you, BING, now you better”. All kinds of studies HAVE shown that people need hugs, really truly need them – “healing touch” operates along that principle.

Energy is where prayer works, where healing touch works, where faith works.

[/quote]

Well this is a claim, so you need some evidence. Cite?

[QUOTE=fessie]

You can’t tell me you’re completely immune to this - surely you’ve walked into a room and known instantly that something was wrong (or right).

How do you know when to kiss the girl, if you can’t feel an electricity between you?

And since everything else happens along a bell curve, why wouldn’t the capacity to detect and respond to energy be the same, with some people on the far right?

[/quote]

Can you detect your ‘energy’ field? Can you detect anyone else’s?

I have indeed walked intro a room and felt ‘something’. Unfortunately I am sometimes wrong!
Similarly I have sometimes been told off because I thought we had chemistry and she didn’t.

One problem to watch for is only ‘remembering the positives’. If I dream about an airplane crashing, then nothing happens the next day, I forget the whole thing. But if an airplane does crash, I am likely to think my dream ‘predicted’ it.

As for the ‘bell curve’, I assume you mean the normal distribution.

Not everything fits this distribution pattern. For example, cultural pressure or wealth in society can easily affect it.
Certainly it does not apply to an imaginary ability!

[QUOTE=fessie]

Which is a good thing, keeps the charlatans and hucksters at bay - but you’ve put all your faith in one specific methodology. And you don’t know everything. Keep in mind that plenty of other things existed long before we figured out how to “prove” it.

[/QUOTE]

The scientific method has taken us to the Moon. It has cracked our genetic code, built the Internet, pretty much eliminated smallpox and works every time we use it. :cool:
Alternative New Age ideas have never worked. Not even once. :smack:
We have no successful dowsers, teleporters, faith healers, psychic surgeons, psychics, remote viewers or homeopaths.

It’s true that scientists don’t know everything. But they can prove what they do know and they are researching all the time. Just think how transport, leisure and communication keep changing. All because of science.

162

[QUOTE=glee]
I think it would be pretty difficult to remove all the other factors.
If I took a bunch of people whose parents lived long lives, who had no serious inheritable conditions, who ate well, exercised regularly, avoided stress and dangerous hobbies and got them all to worship Satan :eek: , would I prove that devil worshippers live longer?

[/QUOTE]

I didn’t read the article, but it is possible to remove factors like that. Say I was a devil worship researcher, and I wanted to do your study. I could see previous studies showing that people with long living parents lived X years longer on average, and people who ate well, etc.. lived Y years longer on average. I could then take the average years of the healthy good gened devil worshiper, and subtract X and Y, and compare that to the average.

Of course, it would just be easier to take a slice of the average devil woshipping population, and not have to deal with that, but we obviously can’t do that when the variable we want to control for is life saving treatment.

163

Homeopathic Therapies strike me as being medicines for narcissists - as in, “Look at me! Everyone! Look at me! I’m so special that no ordinary medicine will work. I’m so special I have to take something that normal people don’t take! Look at me!”

OK, a broad brushstroke there - clearly there are shitloads of gullible people who take homeopathic therapies too, but crikeys I’ve known more than a few narcissistic people who take them just so that they can draw attention to themselves.

164

[QUOTE=fessie]
I’m really curious to see if you empiricists will go through your whole lives without ever experiencing a significant spiritual moment.
[/QUOTE]

I’ll take you up on this. By your standards, I’m an empiricist.

I’ve also been actively treating a sprained knee for a week or so. When I realized I had indeed done some damage, even though I know a very good applied kinesiologist, I called my doctor, not her, and am following his recommended course of treatment. His course of treatment involves using a knee brace I have from a prior injury to it, moist heat 3 times a day, and ibuprofen. I have a coworker who’d be happy to sell me glucosamine condroitin among with other nostrums and remedies. On the other hand, when I injured my knee before, I asked my physical therapist about it and she said that in studies, it was no more effective than a placebo.

I’ve battled clinical depression over the years. I looked into St. John’s Wort, in typical empirical fashion, and found that, in blind studies, it was no more effective than other medicines. It also has to be taken on a daily basis for several weeks to be effective, which would have left me with the net effect I was trying to avoid – taking some form of pill or medication for months or years.

You’ve accused the pharmaceutical industry of trying to make money. I won’t argue with that, but the companies which sell natural remedies aren’t any purer in my mind. Because they have fought legislation which would regulate the contents of their remedies, i.e., making sure something which says it contains x mg of St. John’s Wort actually does so, I’d say they’re even less pure and, from what I recall of my last visit to the local Whole Foods, they’re no cheaper, either.

Still, I’m sure you’ve heard enough from empiricists. What you were wondering about was whether they’ve ever experienced a “significant spiritual moment.” I’ve experienced several, including one which may have saved my life. I suspect a few church members may be praying for my battered knee right now. I’ll even admit to sensing the energy fields you speak of, although I’d prefer to do so quietly around here. I’m not relying on them to heal my knee or, for that matter, provide effective birth control. When I take something, I want to know how it works, why it works, and what the known side effects are. Until and unless alternative medicine is willing to give me that evidence, I’ll do my research and go with what’s known.

165

Any assertion of base commercial motives that can be levelled at doctors can likewise be levelled at alternative practitioners. The difference is that doctors have the smarts and the dedication to work pretty damned hard for a medical degree, whereas ISTM that pretty much anyone can peddle snake oil, copper bracelets, and a nice line in technophobic patter.

Some - many? most? - alternative healers may very well have sincere intentions. But IMHO they are still guilty of trying to get the warm fuzz that comes from ministering to the sick without the tedious hard work that goes into either formulating officially-approved medicine or prescribing same.