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Are you talking about the scientific method or the marketing of the institution of corporate Science, which increasingly looks like a religion? As far as "quac

Are you talking about the scientific method or the marketing of the institution of corporate Science, which increasingly looks like a religion? As far as "quackery", that sounds analogous to "blasphemy". Some techniques work & some don't. Some techniques are not in the financial interests of mainstream industries to be studied. Another issue is, who can afford to create a "valid" peer-reviewed article? It seems like you need a lot of money to do so now days. Who has the money? --- Edit: But again, such concerns are not critically thought about due to groupthink (i.e. a reductionist, evidence-driven philosophy). It's like manipulation & gamesmanship of the market is inconceivable...How naive.

sk5t 12y ago
Scientific method = develop a testable hypothesis, design an experimental protocol, crunch the numbers, repeat, repeat, repeat, document it, work with peers to replicate the experiment if the results look useful. Quackery = employ contextually meaningless words like "low-oxygen" or "energy work," profess there is an effective plan of treatment that vested interests would like to hush up. Guess what, people dying of cancer will try almost anything to get better. If massage or interpretive dance worked better than chemo, it wouldn't remain a secret.
- briantakita 12y ago
  > Scientific method = develop a testable hypothesis, design an experimental protocol, crunch the numbers, repeat, repeat, repeat, document it, work with peers to replicate the experiment if the results look useful. We are in agreement about the scientific method. The thing is institution of Science is an organizing body that publishes research. Most of the scientists are paid by corporate interests. As with Tobacco scientists in the 1950s, there have been some shady practices with the FDA & related corporate scientists. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/02/fda_inspections_fraud_fabrication_and_scientific_misconduct_are_hidden_from.single.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... > Quackery = employ contextually meaningless words like "low-oxygen" or "energy work," profess there is an effective plan of treatment that vested interests would like to hush up. It's more like hand-waving on my part. I'm pointing out that there are other theories out there that have not been fully explored. > Guess what, people dying of cancer will try almost anything to get better. If massage or interpretive dance worked better than chemo, it wouldn't remain a secret. Part of the problem is it's difficult to have a controlled experiment with all of these alternative medicine techniques, due to variability of practices. Also, less established practices do not have the capital & institutional mindshare to facilitate proper scientific studies. Another possibility is cancer is a complex phenomena that does not have simple causes.
  - sk5t 12y ago
    Cost of testing should work to the benefit of alternative approaches, shouldn't it? It's not very expensive to give a massage or lead meditation. The problem is, whether due to variability of practices or some other factors, in the best case, practitioners cannot reliably say if their treatment offers any benefit. Without statistics there is simply no way to identify a useful treatment; people are horrible at correctly identifying correlations on their own when the data are in any way nuanced. So, it seems morally and intellectually hazardous to suggest alternative medicine when there is no credible way to show that helps anyone other than the purveyors of crystals, water-molecule-aligning bottles, wellness seminars, etc. But ah, we do know that placebos have some benefit. So have a placebo instead!

sk5t 12y ago

Scientific method = develop a testable hypothesis, design an experimental protocol, crunch the numbers, repeat, repeat, repeat, document it, work with peers to replicate the experiment if the results look useful. Quackery = employ contextually meaningless words like "low-oxygen" or "energy work," profess there is an effective plan of treatment that vested interests would like to hush up. Guess what, people dying of cancer will try almost anything to get better. If massage or interpretive dance worked better than chemo, it wouldn't remain a secret.

briantakita 12y ago
> Scientific method = develop a testable hypothesis, design an experimental protocol, crunch the numbers, repeat, repeat, repeat, document it, work with peers to replicate the experiment if the results look useful. We are in agreement about the scientific method. The thing is institution of Science is an organizing body that publishes research. Most of the scientists are paid by corporate interests. As with Tobacco scientists in the 1950s, there have been some shady practices with the FDA & related corporate scientists. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/02/fda_inspections_fraud_fabrication_and_scientific_misconduct_are_hidden_from.single.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... > Quackery = employ contextually meaningless words like "low-oxygen" or "energy work," profess there is an effective plan of treatment that vested interests would like to hush up. It's more like hand-waving on my part. I'm pointing out that there are other theories out there that have not been fully explored. > Guess what, people dying of cancer will try almost anything to get better. If massage or interpretive dance worked better than chemo, it wouldn't remain a secret. Part of the problem is it's difficult to have a controlled experiment with all of these alternative medicine techniques, due to variability of practices. Also, less established practices do not have the capital & institutional mindshare to facilitate proper scientific studies. Another possibility is cancer is a complex phenomena that does not have simple causes.
- sk5t 12y ago
  Cost of testing should work to the benefit of alternative approaches, shouldn't it? It's not very expensive to give a massage or lead meditation. The problem is, whether due to variability of practices or some other factors, in the best case, practitioners cannot reliably say if their treatment offers any benefit. Without statistics there is simply no way to identify a useful treatment; people are horrible at correctly identifying correlations on their own when the data are in any way nuanced. So, it seems morally and intellectually hazardous to suggest alternative medicine when there is no credible way to show that helps anyone other than the purveyors of crystals, water-molecule-aligning bottles, wellness seminars, etc. But ah, we do know that placebos have some benefit. So have a placebo instead!