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I'm a programmer who eats healthy & practices yoga. I don't make money from cancer patients. You are demonizing many techniques. Are you saying that there is o

I'm a programmer who eats healthy & practices yoga. I don't make money from cancer patients. You are demonizing many techniques. Are you saying that there is only one way to medicine, and that is large drug companies & established professional organizations? How do new practices & techniques get off the ground in such an environment? Is it possible to be healthy & treat disease independent of these companies in your opinion? Also, where is the archeological evidence of cancer epidemics in ancient times?

sk5t 12y ago
Well, there are historical records of cancer, but it's a bigger problem now because people are getting old enough often enough to succumb to it, and it is being diagnosed as cancer and not as "dropsy" or who-knows-what in lieu of superficially visible tumors.
stephen_g 12y ago
I think conventional medicine tends to be worth a lot of money because the treatments have been empirically proven to be effective. I'm sure there are valid alternative medical treatments, but it tends to be that when they do turn out to be effective, the actual effective compounds or techniques are found and become conventional medicine, often also becoming far improved and made safer along the way. The problem, of course, is that while valid alternative medicines exist, many aren't valid and are often just practiced to make money out of unsuspecting people...
NovaS1X 12y ago
I think there's a balance, and both naturopathic/holistic and traditional medicine are at both extremes. Antibiotics and surgery are not the answer nor are lifestyle and spiritualism. Live healthy, both emotionally and physically, to take care of the 90%, and seek treatment for the other 10% that truly call for it.
yetanother123 12y ago
Interesting and well thought out point. Would you mind telling us more about your healthy eating and yoga and programming? Would you mind for even half a minute stop and think about the fact that just because you eat healthy and do yoga and failed at math (sorry - are a programmer) does not actually make you an expert any more than the fact that me knowing you've never recompiled a Linux kernel means I am a clearvoyiant in terms of computing compared to you? Oh wait, did I have a point? Seems to you this doesn't matter.
sgift 12y ago
> I'm a programmer who eats healthy & practices yoga. I don't make money from cancer patients. That is very noble of you and I read an implied hypothesis that the approach used by "large drug companies" and "established professional organizations" is worse than yours because their motives are less noble (e.g. companies want to make money, organizations want to further an agenda etc.), but a hypothesis alone is worthless if you cannot show evidence to prove it. I give you that it would be hard to provide direct evidence for this hypothesis (neither companies nor organizations will be very helpful in providing information which could show that they lied for various reasons), so a good approach seems to be the indirect route: Show that your ideas work as well as the established ideas in a study following the established guidelines for scientific quality (double blind, big enough, and so on). Then you have shown that your hypothesis has merit and has a good chance of being sound advice. So far, all we have are your believes, which is not very much when we talk about a topic that could very well change peoples lifes for worse (or better, but it is always a good idea to be cautious with unproved theories).
- briantakita 12y ago
  I'm not a practitioner so I'm not going to make any studies. As far as the holistic crowd, many are artsy people, with a wide range of interests, who have little interest in creating scientific studies. They have to earn a living, which is often difficult. Yes, there is also quackery, though I suspect there are some nuggets of gold in these practices. Among the scientists, it feels like there is a strong sentiment against such holistic practices & a perception that the practitioners are scammers. Judging from the reaction to me in this discussion, it would take a brave scientist to stick out his/her neck to spend years, money, & reputation to research such practices; when Bayer is offering a large grant to study their drugs. There's an old IT saying, "Nobody got fired for using Microsoft". Wouldn't the same apply here?
ElliotH 12y ago
> Also, where is the archeological evidence of cancer epidemics in ancient times? Read "The Cancer Chronicles" - George Johnson for a really interesting few chapters on dinosaur cancer.

sk5t 12y ago

Well, there are historical records of cancer, but it's a bigger problem now because people are getting old enough often enough to succumb to it, and it is being diagnosed as cancer and not as "dropsy" or who-knows-what in lieu of superficially visible tumors.

stephen_g 12y ago

I think conventional medicine tends to be worth a lot of money because the treatments have been empirically proven to be effective. I'm sure there are valid alternative medical treatments, but it tends to be that when they do turn out to be effective, the actual effective compounds or techniques are found and become conventional medicine, often also becoming far improved and made safer along the way. The problem, of course, is that while valid alternative medicines exist, many aren't valid and are often just practiced to make money out of unsuspecting people...

NovaS1X 12y ago

I think there's a balance, and both naturopathic/holistic and traditional medicine are at both extremes. Antibiotics and surgery are not the answer nor are lifestyle and spiritualism. Live healthy, both emotionally and physically, to take care of the 90%, and seek treatment for the other 10% that truly call for it.

yetanother123 12y ago

Interesting and well thought out point. Would you mind telling us more about your healthy eating and yoga and programming? Would you mind for even half a minute stop and think about the fact that just because you eat healthy and do yoga and failed at math (sorry - are a programmer) does not actually make you an expert any more than the fact that me knowing you've never recompiled a Linux kernel means I am a clearvoyiant in terms of computing compared to you? Oh wait, did I have a point? Seems to you this doesn't matter.

sgift 12y ago

> I'm a programmer who eats healthy & practices yoga. I don't make money from cancer patients. That is very noble of you and I read an implied hypothesis that the approach used by "large drug companies" and "established professional organizations" is worse than yours because their motives are less noble (e.g. companies want to make money, organizations want to further an agenda etc.), but a hypothesis alone is worthless if you cannot show evidence to prove it. I give you that it would be hard to provide direct evidence for this hypothesis (neither companies nor organizations will be very helpful in providing information which could show that they lied for various reasons), so a good approach seems to be the indirect route: Show that your ideas work as well as the established ideas in a study following the established guidelines for scientific quality (double blind, big enough, and so on). Then you have shown that your hypothesis has merit and has a good chance of being sound advice. So far, all we have are your believes, which is not very much when we talk about a topic that could very well change peoples lifes for worse (or better, but it is always a good idea to be cautious with unproved theories).

briantakita 12y ago
I'm not a practitioner so I'm not going to make any studies. As far as the holistic crowd, many are artsy people, with a wide range of interests, who have little interest in creating scientific studies. They have to earn a living, which is often difficult. Yes, there is also quackery, though I suspect there are some nuggets of gold in these practices. Among the scientists, it feels like there is a strong sentiment against such holistic practices & a perception that the practitioners are scammers. Judging from the reaction to me in this discussion, it would take a brave scientist to stick out his/her neck to spend years, money, & reputation to research such practices; when Bayer is offering a large grant to study their drugs. There's an old IT saying, "Nobody got fired for using Microsoft". Wouldn't the same apply here?

ElliotH 12y ago

> Also, where is the archeological evidence of cancer epidemics in ancient times? Read "The Cancer Chronicles" - George Johnson for a really interesting few chapters on dinosaur cancer.