How do we know what is true?

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chansen said:
I'm not going to discount that people and corporations fund drug development and trials with less than altruistic intentions. I don't discount that bad science happens, where the findings are the first things written in the reports, instead of the last. But you know how you fight bad science? Good science. You don't say, "Well, those Coca Cola guys are terrible, so let's fight diabetes with 30X diluted tree bark."

What you do, Kimmio, is discount science because some of what comes under the banner of science is bad, and you don't understand it anyway, so you throw in with morons because they talk nice to you.

You're magnifying everything bad you can find about science, and ignoring anything bad you've been presented about homeopathic remedies. I think that's a perfectly religious sort of thing to do, but in the process, you're doing exactly what you tell us you hate - supporting people who come to pre-determined conclusions to support their friends, without regard for what the findings really are. If you cared about truth, you'd have found that no homeopathic remedy has been found to be any more useful to an ill person than tap water. And if it any homeopathic remedy were proven to work, its creator would publish the findings to the world and be running to the bank. We'd be talking about this person in the same breath as Banting and Best.
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Maybe some alternative practitioners really do believe in what they're doing, sincerely care about people's well being whom they treat ...and actually DO NOT want fame or money or to get mixed up in big pharma - maybe they don't want to be part of it - and they are happy with alternative practitioner studies published in holistic journals that only holistic minded people will bother reading anyway. Really, they're out there. They don't make as much money as MDs because they're not funded, and they generally have a small group of patients who see them because they want to and they become reputable by their actual reputation... By their patients' satisfaction.
 
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ChemGal said:
There are tons of anecdotes that if you have sex with a virgin you will be cured of HIV/AIDS. The science doesn't support it. I'll stick to the science.
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If you talked to real, stable minded people who used it for non life threatening conditions and were happy with it their word is worth nil to you? Really? Really?!
 
I'm not talking about curing aids here. I'm talking menstrual cramps and joint and muscle pain and acne and bouts of eczema general non life threatening things that ail us.
 
How can we ever be sure of anything? Who says that I'm not the figment of someone's 13.7 billion year long dream? The human mind tends to think too high of itself and what it is capable of. The only truth is that nothing is ever true in the sense of "certainty" and fortunately science never claims to do so. Empiricism has its limits and to say that there is nothing that is outside of the realm of what can be measured is something even rational scientists don't support anymore. Just look at dark energy.

Truth is a game the human mind has invented in which it creates parameters/scenarios where a thing can be predicted at an extremely high probability.

One day, and I'm convinced of that, we will meet aliens that are 1000x smarter than us and capable of a reasoning beyond the 3-dimensional, linear or pattern recognition that our brains specialize in and they will try to show us how the universe works and we will struggle to wrap our minds around it just as your pet can't understand how a vacuum cleaner can be brought to life by a cord. But, then again who says that I'm saying the truth? I for one love to learn and change my mind when an argument is brought to me that makes more sense than the one I believed in.
 
Kimmio said:
@chansen ...you'll enjoy this. Lol. Figures, the debate was so friggin funny in 2009(!!) it makes me appreciate homeopathy that much more .;) Good on 'em, those jolly homeopaths, for hanging in there for so long...and for trying to explain the water memory thing to a bunch of MPs. Awesome. I love it. Makes me feel better just laughing about it. My knee pain is gone.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/nov/24/homeopathy-science-technology-committee
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Something in there struck me as an interesting study: Divide people with the same non-life-threatening condition into three groups. Give one of them the homeopathic remedy for their condition. Give the second group a homeopathic remedy for something completely unrelated with none of the same lack of ingredient (as stupid as that sounds). Give the third group M&Ms without the colour coating. Then, wait.
 
I think there is this feeling that somehow conventional western medicine is corrupt and bad and all sorts of untested things just be good because they are natural.

That is hogwash

Sure treatments and meds go in and out of favour. But not on a whim. A treatment is tested, thought to be worthwhile, then practice changes that and studies
 
chansen said:
Something in there struck me as an interesting study: Divide people with the same non-life-threatening condition into three groups. Give one of them the homeopathic remedy for their condition. Give the second group a homeopathic remedy for something completely unrelated with none of the same lack of ingredient (as stupid as that sounds). Give the third group M&Ms without the colour coating. Then, wait.
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Well, most people of all groups will get better.

In nature, most organism that are afflicted by an ailment get better. Getting better is far more prevalent than getting worse. How many times have we gotten better without medical intervention? Far more often than not! We die only once, but we get better countless times. Getting better is a save bet.
 
Very true Herman. We have an amazing ability to heal ourselves.

But we don't have a very good ability to heal ourselves for chronic things. So the person with high blood pressure who needs to adjust diet and exercise is great. But then they decide to take some useless water drug instead of the prescribed medication and they don't get better
 
Wanted to comment on the rant against Coke and working on diabetes

There is no question that the switch from water to pop in this generation has contributed to obesity and diabetes.

But there are this of factors including all prepared food, lack of exercise, our "screen" lives, An interesting study looked at how the switch to a low fat diet about 25 years ago, based on mainly one flawed study , contributed a great deal. In fact they now do not recommend a low fat diet in the same way

We need fat for calories and flavour and it was replaced with salt and sugar. Far more dangerous food than fat.

Lots of work done that looks at the demise of the family dinner as a contributing factor. No one has time to cook. Prepared fast food is cheaper in many ways and sure easier

My mother never, ever served us prepared food, a special treat maybe quarterly was going out as a family to Swiss Chalet


But when a big corporation, that has contributed to the problem, decides to step up and assist with changing the culture , that is is a good thing. Of course they don't do it to hurt their bottom line but coke is into so many products, the decrease in consumption of regular coke isn't going to break them


Do you remember a simpler time when that Coke commercial was on. Seventies I think

The "I'd like to teach the world to sing......" Coke was a treat, not a staple. It isn't coke, it's our life's and how we choose to live them


I am all for companies that contributed to the problem stepping up with big bucks to help solve it
 
Lastpointe said:
Very true Herman. We have an amazing ability to heal ourselves.

But we don't have a very good ability to heal ourselves for chronic things. So the person with high blood pressure who needs to adjust diet and exercise is great. But then they decide to take some useless water drug instead of the prescribed medication and they don't get better
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We all have to die of something, eventually. We can pretty much pick what we'll die from by picking our lifestyle. My son-in-law and good friend just died of a massive heart attack. He smoked, drank lots of coffee, and never saw a doctor. But he was a Buddhist, and life and death were the same to him. He lived and died well.:)

Life is an absolutely fatal condition. In 100% of the cases, it results in death. We might as well accept this, and live as well as we can, while we live. Our anxious avoidance death and disease is a disease in itself that prevents us from enjoying life. Animals, who are not aware of their mortality, probably lead better lives than we.

The awareness of our mortality drags us down. The promise of the snake, "you shall not surely die if you eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge," is very compelling. Blindly believing in an afterlife is one way not to surely die. But blind belief is not for everyone, and science has a better way: it gives us the certainty of being eternal! We are eternal energy! Being eternally creative energy is our ultimate self!

I try to live with that awareness, and life is good, and death will be good.:)


"The only sickness is the sickness of the mind."

-Lao Tsu
 
Lastpointe said:
I think there is this feeling that somehow conventional western medicine is corrupt and bad and all sorts of untested things just be good because they are natural.

That is hogwash

Sure treatments and meds go in and out of favour. But not on a whim. A treatment is tested, thought to be worthwhile, then practice changes that and studies
Click to expand...
It's not above criticism.
 
Lastpointe said:
Wanted to comment on the rant against Coke and working on diabetes

There is no question that the switch from water to pop in this generation has contributed to obesity and diabetes.

But there are this of factors including all prepared food, lack of exercise, our "screen" lives, An interesting study looked at how the switch to a low fat diet about 25 years ago, based on mainly one flawed study , contributed a great deal. In fact they now do not recommend a low fat diet in the same way

We need fat for calories and flavour and it was replaced with salt and sugar. Far more dangerous food than fat.

Lots of work done that looks at the demise of the family dinner as a contributing factor. No one has time to cook. Prepared fast food is cheaper in many ways and sure easier

My mother never, ever served us prepared food, a special treat maybe quarterly was going out as a family to Swiss Chalet


But when a big corporation, that has contributed to the problem, decides to step up and assist with changing the culture , that is is a good thing. Of course they don't do it to hurt their bottom line but coke is into so many products, the decrease in consumption of regular coke isn't going to break them


Do you remember a simpler time when that Coke commercial was on. Seventies I think

The "I'd like to teach the world to sing......" Coke was a treat, not a staple. It isn't coke, it's our life's and how we choose to live them


I am all for companies that contributed to the problem stepping up with big bucks to help solve it
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Buloney. Coke was already fast becoming a staple if not already. It was the 60s, drive ins were around and there was a young population. In the 70s my mom bought Fresca because she was opposed to sugar in pop....but the push was on.


The sugar industry is part of the problem. They are as corrupt as tobacco. They sell to food manufacturers who add more than needed to everything and get people hooked, and coca cola is right in there with them. They helped create the diabetes problem. And they do not care as long as they can stay in business and sell Coke. This is a company that started with cocaine in their products....they have a long history, since the start, at being affective at getting people hooked and it sure has profitted them. If funding health programs is a penance...well somehow I doubt that.
 
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What's balcony. I Greed that our move to sodas instead of water, plus the move to juice instead of water is part of the problem.

I guess if you drank tons of coke in the 60s then your parents were much richer than mine.

Milk, water and a bit of juice ws our liquids. (Born in 58). Coke was a treat. Like going out for ice cream.

Of course the sugar industry is part of the problem. As is the honey industry and all fast food.

I mentioned that one study, caused the big rush to a low fat diet. That study was poorly done, mid fifties I believe and yet it helped push the low fat diet to solve heart disease.

No question that if you have low fat you end up replacing that flavour with something.


And now, companies like coke, getting the message and trying to earned themselves , helping with the diabetes issue. Good. L get them to pay. Why not.
 
I was born in the early 70s and we were not 'rich' but we were comfortable. Doctor family (family practice). Sugar cereals were a no no when my parents were together...when my dad remarried, junk and pop was around all the time. We were consumers of every product marketed to kids - that, too, was big business - and we watched a lot of TV. Sad, but true. I suppose we didn't have junk everyday, but my mom was way more conscientious about what we ate at her house. She caught on, to her credit, to what was happening.

I break a lot of health rules...but I know what I'm doing wrong. My mom taught me well in that regard (which is ironic that my dad didn't really worry about it - I think with 3 pre-teens teenagers in the house he gave up- no time). The problem is, we don't pay attention a lot of the time to how much sugar is hidden in what we buy.
 
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