4 ms·

I was thinking we are talking about all plants in existence, this is a study of 1000 most commonly used herbs, still, I learned something new, so thanks. Still

by stiff 14y ago

I was thinking we are talking about all plants in existence, this is a study of 1000 most commonly used herbs, still, I learned something new, so thanks. Still it doesn't prove your more bold claim that somehow all the potential benefits of using them are already available in a very safe to use pill.

saalweachter 14y ago
My overconfidence is mostly coming from the long tail. Even if there are millions of distinct plant chemistries out there, a small number (say, 100) will account for 90% of the herbal remedies prescribed and taken. These will have been studied by scientific methods exhaustively. The next most common chunk will have received some cursory attention, and then you enter into the vast fields of the unknown. But the fields aren't unknown to just science: they're unknown to cultural practitioners as well. I'm willing to believe that, even without double-blind clinical trials, people were able to find effective treatments with enough trial and error. But "enough trial and error" means "not the long tail". So once you start talking the 1000th most common plant used for medicinal properties, the amount of experience pre-scientific practitioners have accumulated is negligible, and handful of anecdotes at best. Not even enough to ascribe correlation, let alone causation. So on the head of plants of potential value, I'm betting that they've all been studied exhaustively. On the tail, there are countless plants which could have countless benefits, but essentially no evidence to do anything but pick one at random and hope it cures what ails you. The middle, of enough evidence to suspect or know a plant does something, but not how, is going to be fairly small.
- stiff 14y ago
  I agree with your reasoning, but you assume that the outcome of the research on a given plant will very quickly lead to a total understanding of its ingredients and effects and that it will always be feasible to develop a technological process to deliver the same complex of ingredients in the form of a pill, neither of which has to be the case.
  - Nursie 14y ago
    For something to be interesting the outcome of research on a given plant should at the very least be that there is an effect to study, or it's not worthwhile. Nobody says "we don't understand how it works, therefore it doesn't work and we should throw it away".

by stiff 14y ago

saalweachter 14y ago

My overconfidence is mostly coming from the long tail. Even if there are millions of distinct plant chemistries out there, a small number (say, 100) will account for 90% of the herbal remedies prescribed and taken. These will have been studied by scientific methods exhaustively. The next most common chunk will have received some cursory attention, and then you enter into the vast fields of the unknown. But the fields aren't unknown to just science: they're unknown to cultural practitioners as well. I'm willing to believe that, even without double-blind clinical trials, people were able to find effective treatments with enough trial and error. But "enough trial and error" means "not the long tail". So once you start talking the 1000th most common plant used for medicinal properties, the amount of experience pre-scientific practitioners have accumulated is negligible, and handful of anecdotes at best. Not even enough to ascribe correlation, let alone causation. So on the head of plants of potential value, I'm betting that they've all been studied exhaustively. On the tail, there are countless plants which could have countless benefits, but essentially no evidence to do anything but pick one at random and hope it cures what ails you. The middle, of enough evidence to suspect or know a plant does something, but not how, is going to be fairly small.

stiff 14y ago
I agree with your reasoning, but you assume that the outcome of the research on a given plant will very quickly lead to a total understanding of its ingredients and effects and that it will always be feasible to develop a technological process to deliver the same complex of ingredients in the form of a pill, neither of which has to be the case.
- Nursie 14y ago
  For something to be interesting the outcome of research on a given plant should at the very least be that there is an effect to study, or it's not worthwhile. Nobody says "we don't understand how it works, therefore it doesn't work and we should throw it away".