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I went to an ayurvedic doctor (in India, my friend insisted) and he said the exact same thing. He even said all allergy problems arise because of issuees in the
by sound1 9y ago
I went to an ayurvedic doctor (in India, my friend insisted) and he said the exact same thing. He even said all allergy problems arise because of issuees in the digestive tract. At the time I thought he was just saying it but who knows there might be some truth in what he said.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> I went to an ayurvedic doctor “Ayurveda medicine is considered pseudoscientific” [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayurveda https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayurveda third paragraph
- smallnamespace 9y agoUnfortunately, we're not at the point where science possesses a monopoly on working medicine. Believing that every pre-scientific practice is pure hocus-pocus that should be rejected out of hand seems to be a strange conceit.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> we're not at the point where science possesses a monopoly on working medicine Science is the best mechanism we’ve found for developing towards truth. > Believing that every pre-scientific practice is pure hocus-pocus that should be rejected out of hand seems to be a strange conceit Red herring. I’m not saying it should be dismissed for research purposes. It is a pseudoscience because its practitioners make unfounded, and in certain cases false, claims.
- etiam 9y ago> Science is the best mechanism we’ve found for developing towards truth. Mostly by destroying theories that don't hold up to scrutiny. Possibilities still need to come from somewhere. > I’m not saying it should be dismissed for research purposes. It is a pseudoscience because its practitioners make unfounded, and in certain cases false, claims. Good. We're mostly in agreement then. The nuances of that position were hardly clear from your original short post though, so I sympathize with smallnamespace's remark.
- losteric 9y agoHowever, science does have a monopoly on proven medicine. The scientific method is literally how we understand what and why things work. Traditional medicine is just cultural memory from millennia of blind trial and error... medicinal dogma. Some of it works, but research and clinical trials have repeatedly shown most traditional treatments are placebo at best.
- m_fayer 9y agoA millennia of trial and error vs a century or so of methodical science. Certainly the science is much more effective, but there must be some gems in that great big pile of trial and error too. Also we shouldn't underestimate the healing power of careful attention, empathy, and placebo effects.
- losteric 9y agoYes... that's what I said... finding new treatments is like finding needles in a haystack, and science is the magnet. When it comes to traditional medicine, most of the haystack is really just hay. Historical trial and error told people what not to do, but it did not distinguish between ineffective and successful treatment due to generally high mortality rates and lack of rigorous testing. If you have time, browse through ancient western medicine - you will notice almost none of it passed scientific rigor.
- smallnamespace 9y ago> most of the haystack is really just hay Citation needed? You can't blindly assert that something doesn't work by appealing to scientific methodology and its heavy reliance on proof without actually bringing that proof to the table. Otherwise you're just arguing from your own heuristics and prior beliefs—just like other non-scientific traditions. You might be right, or you might be wrong; but cloaking that claim with the mantle of science is the exact opposite of careful scientific scrutiny. > but it did not distinguish between ineffective and successful treatment due to generally high mortality rates and lack of rigorous testing. And we're sure this is true for all cultures over all times how, exactly? > ancient western medicine This might be much more likely to be true since modern Western medicine developed from pre-modern Western medicine, so early modern doctors were intimately familiar with how effective (or not) those approaches were. How likely is it that Western medicine has rigorously and thoroughly investigated non-Western medical traditions though?
- etiam 9y ago> “Ayurveda medicine is considered pseudoscientific” [1]. I'm sure it is. By whom and why? And more to the point, is it right in this case, regardless of its scientific status.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago“Ayurveda medicine is considered pseudoscientific.[12] Other researchers consider it a protoscience, or trans-science system instead.[13][14] In a 2008 study, close to 21% of Ayurveda U.S. and Indian-manufactured patent medicines sold through the Internet were found to contain toxic levels of heavy metals, specifically lead, mercury, and arsenic.[15] The public health implications of such metallic contaminants in India are unknown.[15]” [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayurveda https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayurveda
- paulie_a 9y agoBy actual science. Ayurveda isn't even pseudoscience. It's complete bullshit and nothing more.
- dang 9y agoPlease don't turn bait into outright flamewars. It's off topic.
- paulie_a 9y ago> ayurvedic doctor So not a real doctor
- dang 9y agoPlease don't do this here, just because someone mentioned something like that. It only leads to predictable places.
- paulie_a 9y agoI don't mind being downed for an unpopular opinion, but calling out fake doctors should not be a reason to get flagged... And yes they are fake doctors.
- dang 9y agoMaybe so, but these discussions are all the same and always turn uncivil, so they're off topic here. There are lots of other places on the internet to argue about them.
- bsder 9y agoThen please flag the original posting as well. Allowing people to promulgate pseudoscience without following up with a strong counter-response is how we wound up with anti-vaxxers.