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No, but downvoting people who does not share you opinion is. Double-plus for downvoting people that calls you on your hypocricy. The terapeutic modalities you

No, but downvoting people who does not share you opinion is. Double-plus for downvoting people that calls you on your hypocricy. The terapeutic modalities you have label under the collective label of "bullshit" is a valid options for millions of people in America alone. And the reason this is so is because doctors distill hubris in their interactions with everyone else (like you), and then when they are found in a mistake or in some sort of self serving scheme, they pretend nothing happened (like you) and try to blame someone else (like you). What to help science win? You need to win back the hearts of all those millions of people that got disillusioned with modern medicine. And the way to do so is to treat people with respect and let the strenght of your arguments set the direction of the debate. Once you have to resort to censorship and name calling, you have already lost.

jamiek88 9y ago
The rules aren't an API to work around. They have a spirit and an ethos. You can't say 'yah boo you guys have to listen to me by your own rules' and not expect to get called out on it. Not all opinions are equal. This place has its faults but tolerating pseudoscience especially quack medicine is not one of them.
dpark 9y ago
> Once you have to resort to censorship and name calling, you have already lost. I'd like to live in a world where this is true, where voiced opinions were all fairly evaluated and the right decision made. But I don't. People hear bullshit and believe it when they should know better, and silencing dissenting opinions actually works quite well.
- crpatino 9y ago
  Thank you for engaging, dpark. You mentioned elsewhere that the (HN) audience collectively decides. You are right, I have taken a small punishment in my karma numbers, but I am willing to pursue this regardless. You claim that people hear and believe bullshit. That itself is a symptom; mainstream medicine has been unable to provide adecuate healthcare services, so the quacks come in and fill in the gap. Your chosen side is very eager to throw accusations of malfeasance and stupidity, but in many cases it would be more accurate to say that people is doing a (perhaps misguided) attempt to deal with hard realities with limited options. It does not help that said side is prone to downplay its own pursuit of profit motive. This state of affairs is not new at all. According to Lester King's "The Medical World of the Eighteen Century", this goes back at least to the days of Henry VIII in the English speaking world (and has its roots in the medieval customs and institutions of the guilds and the Church). The problem is fundamentally economic and political (who has the right to ministrate health of their fellow man), but doctors like to hide behind appeals to authority (ancient tradition first, later science). True Science should have no business taking sides on what ultimately ends up being comercial disputes; theirs is to look at Nature and figure out how it works. I am obviously engaged in the Alt-med scene, and I can tell you by personal experience that it does work well enough. The problem is that, being a low status subject, the ranks of its practicioners are filled with anti-intellectual types; and yes, this means there're lots of bullshit being peddled out there, and even the stuff that seems to work does probably work according to principles that are unknow to the people that use them. And it is an herculean taks just trying to figure out what's complete bonkers and what's real phenomena waiting to have an actual explanation.
  - dpark 9y ago
    > You claim that people hear and believe bullshit. That itself is a symptom; mainstream medicine has been unable to provide adecuate healthcare services, so the quacks come in and fill in the gap. Your chosen side is very eager to throw accusations of malfeasance and stupidity, but in many cases it would be more accurate to say that people is doing a (perhaps misguided) attempt to deal with hard realities with limited options. I fully believe that many of the people promoting and peddling treatments that don't work honestly believe that they do work. Nonetheless, if the treatment is worthless, it's still bullshit. The problem isn't that modern medicine provides insufficient services. It's that modern medicine is fundamentally unable to cure or even treat many conditions, because we simply lack the knowledge. "Alternative medicine" rushes to fill the gaps because people desperately want something. So they buy into vitamins to cure cancer and homeopathy to treat virtually everything but in the absence of evidence of efficacy, these are just snake oil. There's also carryover effect where some people assume that if medicine can't cure everything, then they have to doubt it's effectiveness for even the things it can cure. People also like to believe that they have secret knowledge. People enjoy imagining that they know things that even the doctors don't know. Plus conspiracies of knowledge suppression etc. > True Science should have no business taking sides on what ultimately ends up being comercial disputes; theirs is to look at Nature and figure out how it works. I'm not sure what you mean. Science is on the side of proof. Any "alternative" medicines that have proven effectiveness aren't alternative any more. > I am obviously engaged in the Alt-med scene, and I can tell you by personal experience that it does work well enough. Personal experience just isn't very meaningful. There are two many confounding factors and biases involved. You can find people who swear by the effectiveness of pretty much anything. What matters is verifiability. The ability and willingness to put medicines through double blind studies is what separates medicine from alternative medicine. > The problem is that, being a low status subject, the ranks of its practicioners are filled with anti-intellectual types; and yes, this means there're lots of bullshit being peddled out there, and even the stuff that seems to work does probably work according to principles that are unknow to the people that use them. And it is an herculean taks just trying to figure out what's complete bonkers and what's real phenomena waiting to have an actual explanation. The problem is that its ranks are filled with people who don't practice actual medicine.
pavel_lishin 9y ago
> Double-plus for downvoting people that calls you on your hypocricy. If you're referring to yourself, 1) I didn't downvote you, 2) your accusation of hypocrisy is baseless and false. > What to help science win? You need to win back the hearts of all those millions of people that got disillusioned with modern medicine. I don't want to help science win. If I do want anything in this ludicrous debate you're trying to single-handedly have with me, it's to stop snake-oil salesmen from harming people with either bad products, or completely useless products that prevent them from actually getting help they need. Every $100 you spend on glyconutrients is a $100 you don't spend on actually making yourself healthier. This is me signaling that I'm done with this conversation.

jamiek88 9y ago

The rules aren't an API to work around. They have a spirit and an ethos. You can't say 'yah boo you guys have to listen to me by your own rules' and not expect to get called out on it. Not all opinions are equal. This place has its faults but tolerating pseudoscience especially quack medicine is not one of them.

dpark 9y ago

> Once you have to resort to censorship and name calling, you have already lost. I'd like to live in a world where this is true, where voiced opinions were all fairly evaluated and the right decision made. But I don't. People hear bullshit and believe it when they should know better, and silencing dissenting opinions actually works quite well.

crpatino 9y ago
Thank you for engaging, dpark. You mentioned elsewhere that the (HN) audience collectively decides. You are right, I have taken a small punishment in my karma numbers, but I am willing to pursue this regardless. You claim that people hear and believe bullshit. That itself is a symptom; mainstream medicine has been unable to provide adecuate healthcare services, so the quacks come in and fill in the gap. Your chosen side is very eager to throw accusations of malfeasance and stupidity, but in many cases it would be more accurate to say that people is doing a (perhaps misguided) attempt to deal with hard realities with limited options. It does not help that said side is prone to downplay its own pursuit of profit motive. This state of affairs is not new at all. According to Lester King's "The Medical World of the Eighteen Century", this goes back at least to the days of Henry VIII in the English speaking world (and has its roots in the medieval customs and institutions of the guilds and the Church). The problem is fundamentally economic and political (who has the right to ministrate health of their fellow man), but doctors like to hide behind appeals to authority (ancient tradition first, later science). True Science should have no business taking sides on what ultimately ends up being comercial disputes; theirs is to look at Nature and figure out how it works. I am obviously engaged in the Alt-med scene, and I can tell you by personal experience that it does work well enough. The problem is that, being a low status subject, the ranks of its practicioners are filled with anti-intellectual types; and yes, this means there're lots of bullshit being peddled out there, and even the stuff that seems to work does probably work according to principles that are unknow to the people that use them. And it is an herculean taks just trying to figure out what's complete bonkers and what's real phenomena waiting to have an actual explanation.
- dpark 9y ago
  > You claim that people hear and believe bullshit. That itself is a symptom; mainstream medicine has been unable to provide adecuate healthcare services, so the quacks come in and fill in the gap. Your chosen side is very eager to throw accusations of malfeasance and stupidity, but in many cases it would be more accurate to say that people is doing a (perhaps misguided) attempt to deal with hard realities with limited options. I fully believe that many of the people promoting and peddling treatments that don't work honestly believe that they do work. Nonetheless, if the treatment is worthless, it's still bullshit. The problem isn't that modern medicine provides insufficient services. It's that modern medicine is fundamentally unable to cure or even treat many conditions, because we simply lack the knowledge. "Alternative medicine" rushes to fill the gaps because people desperately want something. So they buy into vitamins to cure cancer and homeopathy to treat virtually everything but in the absence of evidence of efficacy, these are just snake oil. There's also carryover effect where some people assume that if medicine can't cure everything, then they have to doubt it's effectiveness for even the things it can cure. People also like to believe that they have secret knowledge. People enjoy imagining that they know things that even the doctors don't know. Plus conspiracies of knowledge suppression etc. > True Science should have no business taking sides on what ultimately ends up being comercial disputes; theirs is to look at Nature and figure out how it works. I'm not sure what you mean. Science is on the side of proof. Any "alternative" medicines that have proven effectiveness aren't alternative any more. > I am obviously engaged in the Alt-med scene, and I can tell you by personal experience that it does work well enough. Personal experience just isn't very meaningful. There are two many confounding factors and biases involved. You can find people who swear by the effectiveness of pretty much anything. What matters is verifiability. The ability and willingness to put medicines through double blind studies is what separates medicine from alternative medicine. > The problem is that, being a low status subject, the ranks of its practicioners are filled with anti-intellectual types; and yes, this means there're lots of bullshit being peddled out there, and even the stuff that seems to work does probably work according to principles that are unknow to the people that use them. And it is an herculean taks just trying to figure out what's complete bonkers and what's real phenomena waiting to have an actual explanation. The problem is that its ranks are filled with people who don't practice actual medicine.

pavel_lishin 9y ago

> Double-plus for downvoting people that calls you on your hypocricy. If you're referring to yourself, 1) I didn't downvote you, 2) your accusation of hypocrisy is baseless and false. > What to help science win? You need to win back the hearts of all those millions of people that got disillusioned with modern medicine. I don't want to help science win. If I do want anything in this ludicrous debate you're trying to single-handedly have with me, it's to stop snake-oil salesmen from harming people with either bad products, or completely useless products that prevent them from actually getting help they need. Every $100 you spend on glyconutrients is a $100 you don't spend on actually making yourself healthier. This is me signaling that I'm done with this conversation.