3 ms·

Yes, but read up a bit: > For thousands of years, diseases had been seen through the lens of kampo, traditional Chinese herbal medicine. In kampo, disease was

Yes, but read up a bit: > For thousands of years, diseases had been seen through the lens of kampo, traditional Chinese herbal medicine. In kampo, disease was caused by heat or evils and was treated with herbal remedies. > Sometimes the medicine was hokey, but other times it worked—as was the case with azuki and barley supplements for beriberi. We can find, using science, if some folk medicine is hokey or useful. That is the key. Ground rhino horn still doesn't cure squat. Science fights "pre-scientific human knowledge" here in an uphill battle that will probably result in extinction of rhinos before this "pre-scientific human knowledge" is countered by science and reason.

Bartweiss 7y ago
My favorite demonstration of the value of science is scurvy. Before scurvy was lastingly solved, the cure was discovered at least three distinct times within a century. In every case, the discoverer found a cure (like oranges, lemons, or raw meat) then made an untested assumption about the active agent (like acid, or avoiding tainted meat). They never tested those theories, but simply relied on circumstantial evidence and logic. The resulting treatments like lime juice and better food hygiene conformed to their theories, but did nothing to prevent scurvy. From the present, it's easy to underestimate the power of the scientific method. We tend to think of it as what happens at universities, or as a format for writing a paper with a hypothesis, data, conclusions, and so on. The mere concept of testing one's theories seems too obvious to be a modern breakthrough. But that simple idea - that a theory shouldn't be accepted until its specific claim has been tested - was regularly ignored as late as World War One. It's hard to blame the Army for insisting on experimental evidence when "traditional medicine" and "statistical speculation" had been leaving soldiers with easily-curable scurvy only 20 years earlier.
- emiliobumachar 7y ago
  A great write up on part of that history: https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

Bartweiss 7y ago

My favorite demonstration of the value of science is scurvy. Before scurvy was lastingly solved, the cure was discovered at least three distinct times within a century. In every case, the discoverer found a cure (like oranges, lemons, or raw meat) then made an untested assumption about the active agent (like acid, or avoiding tainted meat). They never tested those theories, but simply relied on circumstantial evidence and logic. The resulting treatments like lime juice and better food hygiene conformed to their theories, but did nothing to prevent scurvy. From the present, it's easy to underestimate the power of the scientific method. We tend to think of it as what happens at universities, or as a format for writing a paper with a hypothesis, data, conclusions, and so on. The mere concept of testing one's theories seems too obvious to be a modern breakthrough. But that simple idea - that a theory shouldn't be accepted until its specific claim has been tested - was regularly ignored as late as World War One. It's hard to blame the Army for insisting on experimental evidence when "traditional medicine" and "statistical speculation" had been leaving soldiers with easily-curable scurvy only 20 years earlier.

emiliobumachar 7y ago
A great write up on part of that history: https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm