Originally posted by Moldy CrowYou may have noticed that I responded to some other fellas post, who seemed to agree with you that what you were talking about was chemistry. Do you still think that the body healing through the introduction of nutrients is chemistry?
Todays rant -
(Drags out soapbox, clears throat.)
I never called you an idiot(I'm getting close, however).
In reference to your last several posts- could you explain why we live longer than any humans at any time in history? Why did all of those "indians" with homeopathic systems of healing have a life expectancy of under 50, while societies that ...[text shortened]... It's hypocrisy, and biting the hand that feeds you.
Rant over , carry on.
Hey, I'm not writing off science like people are writing off homeopathy. I'm just pointing out that it is not infallible. Apologies if we differ on this Moldy. This is especially true now when we have sales people offering effectively bribes to doctors to use certain pharma's medicines, whether they are better or not. You can argue that this doesn't happen, but I know the salesman involved. You can also argue that big pharmas don't selectively disregard scientific results, but I know the scientist that was told to do it.
Are either yourself or dweezil arguing that either of these things occur? If so, on what grounds?
As for Indians with life expectancy of under 50s. I'm a little confused. Are you talking about american indians or Indians from India? If Indian Indians, then the life expectancy is 64, not "under 50s" as you made up. This could be due to any number of factors, including poverty, manual labour, lesser safety regulations, etc, and has no bearing whatsoever on homeopathy. If you were referring to american indians, was the life expectancy of under 50 before, during or after the genocide that was carried out against them.
As a matter of interest, during the great spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which killed over 100 million people worldwide, american indians were virtually untouched, mainly due to the fact that their diets were high in echinacea. Echinacea is soon to be outlawed in europe due to legislation introduced at the behest of large multinational pharmaceutical companies. Hey, it might protect you from bird flu, but it affects their profits so it has to go.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,790733,00.html
Now that I think about it, you're probably referring to my attitude towards indigenous people. If you are and you're referring to the people of a few centuries ago, then I'm afraid you've completely lost the plot. But, I'd invite you to the book/debate club in debates to discuss this point further.
D
Very interesting thread, thanks to all.
Darth Sponge proposed that we accept the grey area, both sides can be beneficial to your health. It seems to me that most homeopaths achieve their effectiveness by altering your diet and providing you with natural supplements, therefore it leans away from medicinal science and towards dietary control. Any medicine you get from a practicing homeopath always comes with dietary advice.
Taken in the extreme, if you were in a gruesome car accident, had body parts hanging all over the place, the last person you'd want to see as you fluctuated in and out of consciousness would be a homeopathic doctor.
Originally posted by rbmorrisThat would be 1 and a quarter billion. Why do you feel the need to impose your beliefs on people who are obviously very happy with their medicine?
I'd be happy to to tell one and a quarter million indians that homeopathy is rubbish. Just because a large number of people believe something, doesn't make it true.
My doctor was not my only source of info on homeopathic remedies. I've actually done quite a bit of reading on the subject and have concluded that it's crap.
Your analogy is terrible. ...[text shortened]... ip, does that mean that the hat is effective in winning championships? Absolutely not.
If a pattern emerged in which you wearing your red hat appeared to have an effect on the championship, and this could be shown to be the case statistically, then yes, that is exactly what it would mean. By the way, that would be scientific proof. If you don't agree with that, then you don't believe in science.
D
Originally posted by hopscotchVery true.
Very interesting thread, thanks to all.
Darth Sponge proposed that we accept the grey area, both sides can be beneficial to your health. It seems to me that most homeopaths achieve their effectiveness by altering your diet and providing you with natural supplements, therefore it leans away from medicinal science and towards dietary control. Any medicine ...[text shortened]... you'd want to see as you fluctuated in and out of consciousness would be a homeopathic doctor.
I don't think any homeopath or holistic person would disagree with the fact that western medicine is extremely useful.
D
Originally posted by RagnorakI don't care if 6.5 billion people think something it doesn't make it true.
That would be 1 and a quarter [b]billion. Why do you feel the need to impose your beliefs on people who are obviously very happy with their medicine?
If a pattern emerged in which you wearing your red hat appeared to have an effect on the championship, and this could be shown to be the case statistically, then yes, that is exactly what it would mean ...[text shortened]... be scientific proof. If you don't agree with that, then you don't believe in science.
D[/b]
You go back in time there have been times when maybe 99% of the world’s population have thought something that now is thought of as wrong. You only have to look at the numbers of people who thought the earth was flat. There are billions of Christians that doesn't make them right. There are many(not sure how many) Hindus that don’t make them right.
Science needs to be able to explain something for it to work. Your red hat idea would need an explanation before it would be accepted. Statistics prove nothing without an explanation.
Originally posted by Ragnorakyes, exactly...
Very true.
I don't think any homeopath or holistic person would disagree with the fact that western medicine is extremely useful.
D
both "modern medicine" and "homeopathic" strategies for healing can co-exist.
If I get the flu, I'm going to drink lots of fluids (lots of ginger tea), eat well and sleep. is this "homeopathic"? it works just as well as going to the doctor- who is going to tell me to drink lots of fluids and rest, then charge me lots of money and then sell me some drugs.
if my spleen ruptures, I'm going to a medical doctor. (well, actually, I don't have health insurance, so I'll probably just die in the emergency room.)
it seems to me that the medical industry is moving towards preventative medicine, with more focus on the individual's overall health, including diet and excercise. i consider this to be "homeopathic" since it doesn't require synthetic drugs.
Originally posted by Ragnorak1st off, my reference to "indians" was quoting from one of you posts which was very nonspecific about which indians and in what time peroid.
You may have noticed that I responded to some other fellas post, who seemed to agree with you that what you were talking about was chemistry. Do you still think that the body healing through the introduction of nutrients is chemistry?
Hey, I'm not writing off science like people are writing off homeopathy. I'm just pointing out that it is not infallibl ...[text shortened]... d invite you to the book/debate club in debates to discuss this point further.
D
2nd - I'm disappointed in your fuzzyness re: cause and correlation. This specificly in the area of American Indians not being infected with Spanish Flu due to their consumtion of echinacea. Could it be that geography and demographics had something to do with their exposure or (lack of) to a virus outbreak in Europe? The genetics of those populations of Indians against that particular diet? Could I use your logic and claim that because they were ravaged by small pox for the last 4 centuries ; this proves echinacea actually weakens the immune system? This jumping on to one thing as the "obvious" answer to a complex problem is indulging in sloppy reasoning, and I've seen you decry it and call it out when it's from groups you don't like(evangelical xtians and rebublicans to name 2).Yet you wallow in this mental laziness when it's fashionable or suits you. - Very disappointing, Rag.
3rd- If you are denying that life expectancy is steadily on the rise over the last several centuries, then you are simply being diliberately dense.
4th - I never argued that big profit driven pharmaceutical corps. and politicians don't have their fingers in health care mucking things up. But to use that as reason to regect medicine based in well founded science(like the germ theory of disease) is once again a perversity of logic. Another point you attempt to make-this implied conspiracy of pharm corps actively suppressing echinacea use, sounds quite fishy. Here's some alternate ideas that you don't seem to consider-Maybe it doesn't work. If it did they'd come out with their own version of it as it would be another product they could make millions from. Or maybe it does work, and they know it; but what they're fighting for are some kinds of standards so that people taking it aren't overdosing or not getting it's full benefit.
5th - Yes, I do think that much about our bodies ability to heal through the introduction of nutrients is chemistry. How can anyone have a problem with this?
6th- I never said western medicine was infalible. But homeopathy's been around for 1000's of years and hasn't been able to(reliably) tackle some pretty big health issues that western medicine's been able to handle.
Originally posted by Darth SpongePrevention is 10 times better then cure (or so they say).
yes, exactly...
both "modern medicine" and "homeopathic" strategies for healing can co-exist.
If I get the flu, I'm going to drink lots of fluids (lots of ginger tea), eat well and sleep. is this "homeopathic"? it works just as well as going to the doctor- who is going to tell me to drink lots of fluids and rest, then charge me lots of money ...[text shortened]... . i consider this to be "homeopathic" since it doesn't require synthetic drugs.
Personally I think anything that is proven to work and it is understood why it works is fine with conventional medicine. If you get the flu you know that’s its better for you to get fluids and warm bed rest.
Homeopathy is in essence giving you something that would produce symptoms in a healthy person the same as yours diluted down by massive amounts. There is no proof that this works any better then placebos. When the idea was made they didn't know about the causes of disease.
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Originally posted by Moldy Crow1. I assume that Ragnorak was referring to India, because homeopathy is used widely there. And to modern India, because it was used since the middle of the 19th century.
1st off, my reference to "indians" was quoting from one of you posts which was very nonspecific about which indians and in what time peroid.
2nd - I'm disappointed in your fuzzyness re: cause and correlation. This specificly in the area of American Indians not being infected with Spanish Flu due to their consumtion of echinacea. Could it be that geograp some pretty big health issues that western medicine's been able to handle.
2. That's a good observation. I think almost everybody has a tendency to do this (accepting weak arguments a lot easier if it fits your view), myself included.
3. I didn't see that Ragnorak said something else anywhere. I may have overlooked it.
4. I can't see that anyone in this thread completely rejected traditional Western medicine.
5. I think that's probably fighting about definitions, which is pretty meaningless. I would agree that there is a lot of chemistry involved.
6. "Homeopathy's been around for 1000's of years" - huh? Homeopathy is only about 200 years old. That means it has a much shorter history than traditional Western medicine. That might also mean that it still has a lot of undiscovered potential (I am not saying it does, but we can't know if it hasn't been explored). I agree that there is a lot of weird stuff going on, and I don't believe that a homeopathic medicine which doesn't contain one single molecule will have more effect than a placebo, but not all homeopathic medicines are diluted that much. If there are a lot of people who believe it has helped them, I don't see why it should be written off entirely instead of being researched more.
Originally posted by Darth SpongeDarth, first off, if you have the flu, going to the doctor is mostly a waste of time, unless you are very young or very old or have some other complicating medical factors to take into account. I think most doctors will tell you this. Going to see a doctor for the flu is a waste of his time and your money. As you said, he's going to tell you to rest and drink plenty of fluids, which you already knew. But you took up his time anyway, so of course he has to charge you.
yes, exactly...
both "modern medicine" and "homeopathic" strategies for healing can co-exist.
If I get the flu, I'm going to drink lots of fluids (lots of ginger tea), eat well and sleep. is this "homeopathic"? it works just as well as going to the doctor- who is going to tell me to drink lots of fluids and rest, then charge me lots of money ...[text shortened]... . i consider this to be "homeopathic" since it doesn't require synthetic drugs.
Secondly, ginger tea is not a homeopathic medicine. It is more along the lines of an herbal concoction, which indeed can have more of a healing effect. A homeopathic medicine is one that is diluted almost to the point of indetectability (if there's such a word), so that there are only maybe a few molecules left of the original "medicine".
Originally posted by RagnorakThat's not true. Correlation does not prove causation.
If a pattern emerged in which you wearing your red hat appeared to have an effect on the championship, and this could be shown to be the case statistically, then yes, that is exactly what it would mean. By the way, that would be scientific proof. If you don't agree with that, then you don't believe in science.
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Originally posted by RagnorakSome however are very measured in thinking this. Some believe that conventional medicine should only be used FIRST in cases of accidents or emergencies. In such events there is no doubt that what modern medicine can perform is little short of miraculous, never mind useful, but I feel for those patients who go to the doctor with a sore throat, maybe caused by an allergy to a simple food type. This cause is not investigated as the doctor has quotas to meet for his pharmaceutical contracts and the patient leaves with a mainstream remedy.
Very true.
I don't think any homeopath or holistic person would disagree with the fact that western medicine is extremely useful.
D
They react to this and return to the doctor in the best of faith to be taken off the original remedy and put on a replacement for the original problem, and then another one for the SIDE EFECTS caused by the original medicines. Thus begins a self-perpetuating cycle of problems, prescriptions, more problems, more prescriptions which in so many cases ends in instances of more serious disease.
We are sadly faced with not only this dilemma but the situation where people are very very firmly set in their ways, me included.
And the stats tell a sorry story:
The cancer rate has reached almost 1 in 2 in the Western world, diabetes has reached levels previously unprecedented, mental illness is endemic, TB, once considered cured is reemerging, along with new strains of flu drugs will not treat. Millions abuse drugs and alcohol (considered by holistic practitioners a sign of holistic imbalance), birth defects are on the increase, stress has barely left a family untouched and diseases never heard of other than by specialists are becoming household vocabulary. SOMETHING, SOMEWHERE, has gone very wrong!
In 1926 a doctor performed a post mortem on a lung cancer victim and insisted that all his students watch the PM as he thought it unlikely they would ever see such a case again. We've come a long way since then, but in what direction?
I'll also add just briefly that we need to get a handle on exactly what CURE means. To a doctor, simply being rid of the symptoms is adequate. To a holistic practitioner, the symptoms are not seen as the disease but as a warning sign, the body saying, hey, I can't cope here, do something about it. We have an incredible capacity to ignore the warning signs, often until it's too late. Yet symptom palliation is not curing the disease, it is like switching off a fire alarm because you can't stand the noise. Something somewhere in the patient's whole system has to be dealt with. Symptoms simply suppressed almost always reappear, only in different forms, to which no connection is made, all too depressingly and the imbalance causing the symptoms is allowed to pervade.
Some interesting posts here, thanks for the opportunity to share my views, and no, I don't expect they strike a chord with everybody.
asroma
Originally posted by asromacalcioI've tried modern medicine and spent over 2000 on it.
OK, here's one to put the pigeon among the cats.
I offer to treat one of you 'distantly', or over the ether so to speak. You do not need to tell me the nature of your condition, nor believe I can help you. I imagine that most of you won't given the nature of what I'm saying. Simply PM me and say that you are in need of healing and that you consent to ...[text shortened]... t is your business.
There is no fee whatsoever, you will owe me nothing.
asromacalcio
I'm willing to ttry something new.
D