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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnti-woo commentators are a bunch of smug and condescending...
...people who talk to you as if you're an idiot if you dare to question or participate in anything they have deemed to be woo. To the person, that's the case. You are an idiot to be chided, derided, bullied, and laughed at, if you, for any reason whatever, dare to venture into the areas they have declared to be idiocy.
And they show up EVERY SINGLE TIME, many many times as the first respondent, in any thread with a topic they have deemed to be off-limits. They are authoritarian types that believe you should succumb to their will. They are relentless. Why is that? Why do they feel the need to bully others like they do?
I don't know, but they are there every time. It's kinda creepy.
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eqfan592
(5,963 posts)But I'm not shocked you fail to understand the difference.
And believing that science based medicine is the way to go is hardly authoritarian.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)the difference"?
Do you know me?
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)Based on the rest of your post, I found myself not shocked by that fact.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)eqfan592
(5,963 posts)By pointing out that what they are promoting not only isn't supported by science, but is in fact perpetuating a belief that can and has gotten people hurt and killed by directing them to "alternative treatments" that are ineffective and even harmful at times?
Yeah, sorry, but what complete shit.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)talks to people and use their stupid little emoticons to laugh at people that my OP is about.
I'm not into much that can is considered woo. I'm just observing the way some people talk to others, not just here but elsewhere, when these topics come up.
fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)rational questions, or anything at all.
It's like debating religion, most participants start from a position of having already decided, and intent to defend to the death the position they already selected.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)And, they ARE condescending and bullying. I won't name names, but there's one person on here who is very pro-GMO, and he verbally berates anyone who disagrees with him. And, ANYTHING that is not evidenced by mainstream science, is in his target. It gets old.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)when issues around science are brought up is a verbally (never mind that we're not actually speaking to each other) berating bully?
My, how words lose their meaning and significance over time.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)And where is the proof of its validity. Science works, plain and simple.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)It is often the case that the poster cites some anecdotal evidence. Then, the anti-wooer comes in and says, "Oh, that's anecdotal." Of course it is, but it doesn't mean that it's not EVIDENCE. It's not empirical evidence, but it IS evidence. That evidence SHOULD make us ask questions; it should lead us to DO the work to provide empirical evidence to either prove or disprove the hypothesis. But research is now controlled by monied-interests and big business. And if it's against what serves their interests, that research that might just provide that empirical evidence is just never done. So, then, we hear, "There is NO EVIDENCE to support that."
Go back in history; look at just alternative cancer treatments. One physician/researcher (don't remember his name, offhand) had empirical evidence, and you know what they said? They said they didn't believe the evidence because the results were too good to be true.
One guy, head of the FDA (don't remember his name either, I'm getting old) even said that if a new drug comes out and it's NOT promoted by a large pharma, it WON'T get passed. Now, how is that helping to promote research, much less helping people who are sick?
montex
(93 posts)Sorry, but you do not understand the scientific definition of the work evidence. Anecdotal evidence is not the same as scientific evidence. At best, it can only be considered an observation and even then it is an observation that is not under controlled circumstances. And please, if you're going to cite references then at the very least give a web-link so that you claims can be looked at. That is how real science works.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)You see that "evidence" part, right after "anecdotal"? That means it's evidence. Simple. Now, I'm not saying it's conclusive evidence, but it IS scientific evidence. And it needs to be taken into account. In fact, many scientists move from anecdotal evidence on to test their hypothesis empirically. That's why you have so many discoveries come via serendipity, because they LOOK AT ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE.
I know how real science works. I have been studying Cystic Fibrosis for over seventeen years and have published my work both in a medical journal, and in a book.
Orrex
(63,203 posts)It is never the final step of the investigation.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)But if some one asserts "If X, then Y" and I know from past experience that more than once X happened without leading to Y, then I don't need to do a whole bunch of controlled experiments to know that the assertion is false.
Although I would certainly be willing to accept an NSF grant to do so.
Orrex
(63,203 posts)Final, as in conclusive with a very high probility of accuracy? Yes.
In matters of science and medicine, anecdote can never take the place of empirical, reproducible evidence, yet proponents of alternative medicine rely on anecdote and witness testimony to a very large degree. That's terribly irrezponsible at the very least.
montex
(93 posts)I am sure that as a scientist who is published in legitimate medical journals, you would be more than happy to supply a web link to some of your work, thereby proving your claim to be a real scientist. Waiting...
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,988 posts)It is only a pointer, but it should not be ignored in the absence of scientific evidence, which is usually statistical.
However, as soon as scientific evidence is available, usually it is overwhelmingly more reliable than any anecdotal evidence and supersedes it.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)Th1onein
(8,514 posts)It makes it too easy to be attacked by rightwingers. You should know that, yourself.
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)I'd love to see the "scientific journal" that accepts anecdotes as research.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)I study the structure/function of ABC proteins. I am interested in their substrates, particularly. If you know anything about these proteins, you know that there are many of them, but only two--the sulfonylurea and the CFTR--that are supposedly acting as channels instead of pumps. My contention is that they are ALL acting as pumps. I am currently setting up assays to prove this; the substrates matter because some of them are entirely too large to be moved through a channel as opposed to a pump.
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)Something doesn't smell right here.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)on a public forum. I'll send you a private message with the information, but I don't want my name posted publicly.
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)The poster, Th1oneim, privately provided links to a cystic fibrosis article in response to my skepticism of his or her expertise. Th1oneim requested I not post the links. The article did not appear to use anecdotal evidence as any sort of data points in research (which was the essential debate), but it was an appropriate response to the doubt I expressed.
Thank you.
I also offer the following links as supporting arguments that anecdotal evidence does not constitute scientific evidence.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-anecdotal-evidence-can-undermine-scientific-results
http://www.mssociety.org.uk/ms-research/good-research#Anecdotal_evidence
dorkulon
(5,116 posts)I can put the word evidence after bullshit too--"Bullshit evidence." Hey's it's evidence, right?
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)in error or we wouldn't have so many drugs recalled each year, or people dying from bad drugs.
http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/Drugsafety/DrugRecalls/default.htm
montex
(93 posts)I fail to see the connection between pharmaceutical side effects and a flaw in the scientific method. If you're looking for perfection, try studying mathematics. Otherwise, the only people claiming to have the answer to everything are found in those building with the steeples on them.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)those drugs approved by science often kill.
I'm not the one claiming that unless science approves of something it's crap and if science approves it's all good.
montex
(93 posts)Oh my gawsh. I had no idea that every drug ever made had no side effects and could be lethal if not taken properly. Call me astonished!
#sarcasm. because some of you can't tell.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)look at how many drugs have been taken off the market AFTER the FDA approved them and the drugs subsequently killed people. If you think drugs only kill if not taken properly you are not as clever as you think you are.
Shivering Jemmy
(900 posts)Drugs can be characterized by the dosage at which they become lethal for 50% of the drug taking population. This implies of course that smaller (and perhaps normal) dosages of the drug will be lethal for some fraction of the population.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)that pharmaceutical companies were aware of the fact they kill people. That's a helluva a side effect. Vioxx is a good example. It wasn't removed from the market until after 60,000 people died. Science didn't protect those 60,000 people.
I worked as a pharmacy tech and I was amazed at the number of drugs that offer no better or little more efficacy than placebos according to the Physicians Desk Reference. The point is, and which is being ignored, is that pharmaceuticals are often approved because of the influence of pharmaceutical companies, not because medical science (FDA) have found them to be either safe or effective.
Are there harmful herbs and supplements on the market? Yes, there are, but there are many harmful pharmaceuticals as well. Neither industry is free of guilt. I personally don't use homeopathic stuff because it makes no sense to me that something that diluted is in any way effective. I do take some supplements such as magnesium, potassium, vitamin D, and vitamin E....all at the direction of my doctor. I do use DMSO for back pain because I can't take anti inflammatory medicines very often. DMSO was thought to be "woo" until the FDA approved it for use in interstitial cystitis, yet many people have known for years the benefits of DMSO for certain conditions.
It's not all black and white......we don't live in a black and white world.
haele
(12,647 posts)The scientific process itself is not wrong. What is wrong is when bias or profit is induced into the process and affects the results.
Drugs are being recalled because science proves them wrong. Treatments are discontinued because science proves them wrong.
So, yes - there are drugs and treatments in which results in one experiment are fantastic - but they're not able to be replicated.
And there are also drugs and treatments in which results are fantastic, but they end up being orphan drugs/treatments that are only good for a specific subset of conditions, or they are indirect conflict with a corporate point of view. And in both those cases, there is a profit induction into the decision made whether or not to promote those drugs or treatments, and they usually fall by the wayside.
It's not Science that does that, it's PEOPLE. Science and modern medicine developed Lorenzo's Oil. Corporations determined whether or not it was manufactured and went to market.
It's the Profit Margin.
And in the alternative medicine "marketplace", it's the same situation. I knew someone who came up with a "all natural" asthma treatment for a particular situation, so I'll relate what happened in the example below (the names being changed because there's still litigation involved):
Jane McGoody, an experienced RN with a PhD in botany, a BA in Colonial History, and an interest in herbal medicines living in New Hampshire researched and came up with this great treatment for a particular chronic immune system condition that has had success in the clinic she also works at. UNH has done initial lab tests on the treatments, and finds her science sound. However, the companies that fund the Bio-Medical department that can do further research, Lilly and Pfizer brush her off, and there's no money to do more advanced tests or even double-blinds.
So Ms. McGoody, wanting to help, publishes her findings on the internet. She gets contacted by a plethora of alternative medicine companies. Since she knows that one of the critical components is her treatment used the seed pods of a specific type of Queen Anne's Lace grown in New Hampshire just before the end of flowering when a particular chemical and hormone mixture was at a specific balance, she finds and chooses to partner with a reputable alternative therapies company that is willing to both work quickly with her to bring it to market, and promises to "be as true as possible" to her formulary directions when producing and distributing the new packaged treatment.
But, as usual, once you start bringing in marketing and mass production, you lose control and the motivation to maintain strict quality control. The supplier of herbal supplements in the alternative medicine practices, needs to both mass produce the treatment and make a profit. So, what's the difference between that particular strain and condition of Queen Anne's Lace - which would necessitate careful planting, cultivation, and harvesting by hand - and just planting and harvesting a couple dozen acres of generic Queen Anne's Lace more inexpensively out of a hopscotch of fallow burn areas in Brazil, shipping the entire plant (not just the critical seed pods, but leaves, roots, and stems) to China where they'll be processed in pill form along with equally "similar" components required for that treatment.
The mass-produced treatment no longer works the way Ms. McGoody had developed it. At best, it's a partial cure for the problem it had been developed for. In fact, there's some serious side effects that are damaging the liver and kidney functions of some people who are using the treatment. The formulary hasn't "changed"; there's the same ratio of components in the treatment that there were in Ms.McGoody's treatment, however, the components are not the same. They can't be the same; soil, seasonal, and weather conditions affect the chemical compound of natural components, and leaves and roots are not the same as seed pods.
And then, the copy-cats started up. "Queen Anne's Lace" was the new immune system therapy, good for weight loss and insomnia, too, depending on whomever was pushing their new product. Didn't matter where the plant was grown, how much or what part of the plant was used, or how it was processed - it was all natural, so it was all good. Pills made from twigs and sawdust were being sold for $50/$60 for a "90 day supply" at GNC from a MLM company with celebrities and athletes "vouching" for it's miracle properties. Alternative Medicine is an unregulated market, and Dr. McGoody, for all her good intentions, had just discovered the new profitable new magic herb of the year.
Y'know, all the good intentions of natural medicines and alternative therapies tend to come from the times they work - for whatever reason. If you do your research, source your own herbs, and work with a doctor (or at least have access to an understanding clinic with good diagnostic services and labs), and maintain medically sound follow-up, alternative medicine will probably work - for you and those immediately around you being treated for similar problems. However, once money gets involved, all bets are off. And there is no FDA that says "pull it off the market" if something is seriously dangerous in the alternative medicine market. In Europe, or in places where public health is not so profit driven, yes, alternative medicine is good. I'd be far more accepting of alternative therapies in countries where they are tested, monitored, and out in the open.
But here in the US (or even in Canada) - I'd consider the difference between trusting the quality of prescription medicine and alternative medicine in treating what ails me - I'd research the actual medication to make sure it's in alignment with what the doctor diagnosed (and I'm a stickler for test results after being screwed by a worker's comp doctor), and then decide if I'll go with it or suggest an alternative choice. But then, I'm a big one for research, test results, and informed decisions.
Haele
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)What are you talking about? We were talking about people who call everything "woo," and the pharma industry and why alternative medicines aren't even tested for efficacy.
Thanks for your post. I know you spent a lot of time on it, and I agree with much of what you say, but no one here is faulting the scientific process; just those who insist it is the ONLY process, especially those who think both alternative medicine and anecdotal evidence are absolutely worthless.
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)There is a huuuuuuge industry in alternative medicines out there that benefits from actual peer reviewed research. In fact, there is peer reviewed research on some of the supposed benefits of many sorts of alternative medicines, such as certain herbs, chiropractics as physical therapy and such. Crystal gazing and color therapies? Not so much. The reason there is no research supporting woo in these areas is because the research doesn't back up the claims. That's why it is woo.
It's not about being smug. It's about recognizing that people gullible enough to purchase woo are unhappy when people who know better see that the hucksters and quacks have bamboozled the woo-fools (Woofles?) one more time.
If it's any consolation, I've bought woo in the past, but in the past 15 years or so I recognized what a danger it was to support this type of quackery.
CSStrowbridge
(267 posts)"It is often the case that the poster cites some anecdotal evidence. Then, the anti-wooer comes in and says, "Oh, that's anecdotal." Of course it is, but it doesn't mean that it's not EVIDENCE. It's not empirical evidence, but it IS evidence."
The plural of anecdotal is not evidence. Just because you heard from a friend of a friend that homeopathy cured his acne doesn't mean it actually happened.
"And if it's against what serves their interests, that research that might just provide that empirical evidence is just never done."
BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!
There's a shit ton of research done with regards to alternative medicines. Yet there's no fucking evidence that they work. Do you know how many people have tested homeopathy?
"One physician/researcher (don't remember his name, offhand)..."
"One guy, head of the FDA (don't remember his name either, I'm getting old)..."
It's called Google. Look it up. Otherwise you sound like you are making shit up.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)That doesn't make it less true, though.
As for giving you the names, I have time to give you one quote:
In 1982, Crout states again, “I never have and never will approve a new drug to an individual, but only to a large pharmaceutical firm with unlimited finances.” SOURCE: The Spotlight, January 18,
The other one, I believe, was Coley, of Coley's Toxins fame. It, had very high efficacy, and was used for about 70 years against cancer, but in 1963 the FDA reclassified it as experimental. It has recently been reclassified again.
As for not doing the research on drugs that would be competitive, are you crazy? Why would they? These are large corporations; they care about the bottom line.
It would be completely against their best interests to test a competitive compound.
Homeopathy? Probably works, if at all, due to the placebo effect. I don't support homeopathy, at all, ever.
Please don't be so rude. There is no sense in it. I would hate to have to put you on Ignore.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)Chrom
(191 posts)That is how it works. That is what the FDA is for.
It is not our job to prove GM food is unsafe.
We count on the FDA to protect us through the use of science ie experiments done before it goes to market.
That has not been done.
In places all over the world, the EU, Africa, even China.......they reject our GM food.
Europeans were very angry to find out GM food was being fed to their livestock.
But we should just trust our government??
of which so many institutions have been corrupted....
like for instance how our FDA is being run by former employees of Monsanto....
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)The fear surrounding GMO's comes largely from a lack of understanding of such topics as genetics, biology, and evolution.
And there HAVE been studies done on the "dangers" of GMO's. They just came up empty handed. Hell, even the one study involving pigs that gets promoted by the anti-GMO crowd actually turned out to prove the opposite of what the claimed once the numbers where examined.
What bothers me about the anti-GMO movement is that it largely ignores the one area we know for a fact there is risk, and that is in the crushing of genetic diversity. That IS a real problem, and it is one worthy of far more attention.
Chrom
(191 posts)but you would trust our FDA over scientists all over the world.
Does conflict of interest have no meaning?
Blanks
(4,835 posts)Then later allowed it. I wouldn't assume that something is bad for humans just because countries ban it.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)You come across as smug, arrogant, closed minded,
judgmental, with a distinct lack of warmth or humility.
There seems also to be a distinct lack of creative curiosity,
or wonder.
These points lead me to question whether there is even
any live scientific intelligence therein, or simply dogmatic
programming with a touch of egomania.
This is my impression: seriously ineffective communication.
Indifference to whether understanding is being advanced;
rather only that one feels superior.
If you care about people understanding what you want
them to know, then learn to communicate in a way
that is not insulting, demeaning, condescending in
tone. Practice respect, because you are dealing
with human beings.
My impressions are opinion only, not science based or
peer reviewed, nor intended as a personal attack.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)Refusing to buy into proven bullshit is hardly due to a lack of creativity, curiosity, or wonder.
And no, your opinion is most certainly NOT science based, but the other two are questionable.
1monster
(11,012 posts)If I witnessed any of my students treating another this way, that student would be on the receiving end of a stern lecture about courtesy, respect for one's peers, and the possiblity of a referral to the dean or a guidance counselor depending on the circumstances.
When you use terms that belittle your debate opponent, it is an attempt to shut them up with intimidation and humiliation and does nothing to "educate" the person you are debating. It only showcases a lack of debating skills.
It is possible to respectfully disagree with another's beliefs even if you think it is all "woo."
The fact of the matter is that there is plenty of stuff out there that was once believed to be absolute nonsense that turned out to be true and plenty of stuff that was once believed to be true that turned out to be absolute nonsense.
And there is stuff that is somewhere in between absolute nonsnese and absolute truth.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)I have attacked his/her ideas, but that's hardly the same. However, the op, and others in this thread for that matter, HAVE called those who criticize their ideas "smug" and "condescending." So I guess you could argue there is bullying going on, but not from where you seem to think.
And if you were my kids teacher, with a similar discussion, and you decided to lecture the person not directly insulting somebody, I'd be looking for a new teacher. AFTER you got a lecture of your own.
Response to eqfan592 (Reply #384)
1monster This message was self-deleted by its author.
Pharaoh
(8,209 posts)was the science at one time
bleeding with leeches was the science at one time.
I could go on, but I assume you get the point.
Moonwalk
(2,322 posts)—just like alternative med people do now. That "at one time" was when both woo and "natural philosophy" as it was called, were the same. Both based in hear-say and "this is an ancient cure and so it must work..." Not on whether research, investigation and evidence-based testing proved it did work. So if you're arguing that science didn't work back in the leech and blood-letting days, then all you're saying is that alternative medicine is doing the same as science back in the day—doing what people say will work, not what has been proven to work.
Was that your point? 
As for leeches: the original reason why they were used wasn't science back when, but now that real science has done studies on them, it's been found that they actually do have some medical benefits and they ARE being used in modern medicine for certain things. From here: http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news/science-updates/modern-leeching/
Leeches are used in modern medicine because they work. They're an extremely effective artificial vein in certain situations where uh, a body part such as a finger has been replanted after an amputation, but only the arterial side is working. The, the leech then serves as an artificial vein by drawing off the excess blood or the congested blood, until the person can actually grow back small, venous capillaries.
So, if you're trying to damn science for using leeches...I'm afraid it's still using leeches to good effect right now, so I'm not sure it's so damning.
pnwmom
(108,976 posts)People who want labeling of GMO's are accused of "woo."
People who are concerned about the safety of a new vaccine are accused of "woo."
People who wonder if mercury in the environment could have something to do with autism are accused of "woo."
People who go to acupuncturists or chiropractors or osteopaths are accused of "woo."
It's the all-purpose, bullying label used for just about anyone who questions anything whatsoever about the works of the gods of Big Science, Big Farm, or Big Pharma.
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)is an angry bullying thread.
montex
(93 posts)Everyone is open for criticism. Me. You. Everybody. And it is not bullying. Sorry if your fee-fees are hurt, but grow up and defend your beliefs rather than call everyone who points out the flaws in your argument a bully.
pnwmom
(108,976 posts)eqfan592
(5,963 posts)But the promoters of the alternative medicine? Oh that's a different story all together.
montex
(93 posts)I see in this thread the very same anti-science frame of mind widely found among religious extremists but on the Left wing. We have our Tea-Party, too. Only our tea baggers will embrace fractions of science, just not the whole thing. Let's call them "Woo-baggers". Our Woo-baggers like to pick and choose which parts of the scientific world they are going to support, but then they fall back into the same mysticism that the Tea-baggers fall for, only with a new-age bent. So while they will go to the doctor and get the antibiotics they need for illnesses, they will also buy into the homeopathic remedies for minor aches and pains. Some will even ignore medical science in favor of pseudoscientific treatments because they want cheap and easy solutions to complicated problems.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Authoritarian. That seems to be the big insult to use on DU these days....
zeemike
(18,998 posts)And with the condescending remark of "I'm not shocked you don't understand"
Ms. Toad
(34,062 posts)Last edited Sun Jan 5, 2014, 06:50 PM - Edit history (1)
Your response assumes:
1. Nothing you define as "woo," is supported by evidence
2. Nothing should ever be tried outside of a clinical study unless there is solid proof it works
3. That I am unable to engage in solid research to determine the difference between treatments and substances (whether you deem them "woo" or not) which are (at a minimum) not harmful and perhaps even supported by evidence, or a scientifically sound theory as to the treatment pathway - and those which are harmful
4. The use of alternative medicine inherently replaces using traditional medicine.
5. That evidence based treatments inherently exclude anything you have deemed "woo"
6. That I am unable to engage in solid research to determine when non-traditional medicine is appropriately used as a substitute for traditional medicine - and when it is appropriately used as complementary medicine.
I have a degree in science (physics). Until recently my work has required that I understand and evaluate medical literature. I am also proficient enough that I tentatively diagnosed my daughter's rare medical condition - confirmed later by her physician (her doctor refused to believe she had this condition - or anything serious wrong with her - until he humored me by running the test I suggested), I articulated a disease pathway which is now the accepted disease theory for another of her health conditions (I am not claiming that it was adopted BECAUSE of my - just that, before it was adopted or heard it articulated by any medical authority it was how I was explaining my daughter's disease, and I articulated concerns about adjuvants in vaccines as they related to individuals with a genetic predisposition to - a concern which research is now beginning to confirm using RCTs.
Treating all use of CAM as "woo" and dismissing those of us who believe it can play a responsible role in medical care as imbeciles who need to be protected from our own stupidity IS smug, condescending, and - often in these threads is expressed with an authoritarian tone.
montex
(93 posts)First, point number 5 is repeated.
Second, why would a physicist review medical literature? That would be far out of your purview.
Third, if you seek alternative treatments for your daughter that are not scientifically supported, how do you know that you are not doing more harm? Why would you want to use your own daughter as a science experiment?
Ms. Toad
(34,062 posts)I am also a patent attorney - patent attorneys are not restricted by subject matter (although I, personally, stay away most chemical patents). When I work medical devices or treatments I have to review the applicable medical literature for a variety of reasons - to understand my client's invention, to be able to describe it so that the information about how to practice the invention is available to the public once the patent has expired, to understand similar devices or treatments to make sure my client's invention is not infringing, to name a few.
And - in case you aren't aware - there is a growing overlap between physics and biology. A physics classmate of mine, as well as a later graduate of the department, now both teach biology at prominent universities.
As for using CAM for my daughter - her rare disease has no currently approved medical treatment - the only "treatment" is a liver transplant, so we are not forfeiting the benefits of any established treatments in lieu of alternative treatments. I know I am not doing more harm because I do the same kind of research I did when I diagnosed her rare disease (or evaluate any other treatment for it). Most of my research is done in peer reviewed medical journals. I look to see if the treatment is safe, first (including any interactions/interference with traditional treatment - when there is traditional treatment available). Then I look to see whether there have been studies which support its effectiveness - or which describe treatment pathways which are scientifically realistic. If a potential treatment is safe (generally), none of the research shows it makes her condition worse, and it is relatively inexpensive, we check with her hepatologist to see if he has any objections to her trying it. If he doesn't, and she wants to, she tries it. Even if it doesn't change her medical condition, it sometimes improves her quality of life. That allows her to feel as if she is doing something over a disease which is mostly out of her control (usually I am reviewing an idea she has proposed). In addition, and working through the process of research with her teaches her the skills she needs to eventually evaluate (traditional or alternative) proposed treatments herself.
As for why I would want to use my own daughter as a science experiment - I actually don't have a choice. Her disease has no treatment and there are only 29,000 people with it in the US. No treatment (traditional or CAM) will ever be supported by the kind of rock solid research that will allow her to just follow the doctor's orders because there is not a large enough pool of potential subjects for clinical trials under any time frame which is realistic to provide her with any practical assistance.
Just as an example of her traditional treatment as a science experiment - the initial "best practices" (actually - only available) treatment when she was diagnosed 5 years ago was abruptly halted by most doctors within a year based on a new study which was terminated early due to a higher than expected rate of negative outcomes (death or transplant) in patients using it at a higher dose than she was using. So we had to decide whether to have her stay on it - or take her off. She is still taking it, with the support of her hepatologist who prescribes it for her, because parallel research indicates that the dose she is taking is harmless (close to sufficient research - there is a minor question about its relation colon cancer risk - most studies show none, but some studies show a gender based link which cuts against her). More very recent parallel research suggests (again - insufficient data to prove it) that keeping her Alk Phos blood serum level low (by any means) results in a better prognosis. She is a "responder" to the medication in question (not individuals with this disease all are). It keeps her Alk Phos within normal ranges (which we tested by two trial removals and then reintroductions). So taking it (as long as her Alk Phos remains low) should delay a transplant and/or death. It may slightly increase her risk for colon cancer - but she already has annual colonoscopies to screen for colon cancer and her combined diseases already make her risk level around 50% - with or without the questionable medication. And, because her Alk Phos (and other LFTs) are lower, it improves the symptoms associated with the elevation of those enzymes - so it improves her quality of life.
But no one knows, or is likely to know, in time to help her make a decision about treatment. She is at risk for transplant and death even if we do nothing (directly, or from any of the 5 cancers for which her disease dramatically increases her risk). We have lost a half dozen friends in the last year to this disease. So we can just sit and twiddle our thumbs - or we can be a science experiment - do our best research, talk to doctors all over the country at an annual conference on this disease, talk to her doctor twice a year about our thinking (and his) on the latest researach, make sure (to the best of our ability) that what we are doing does not make the situation worse (or that any increase in risk is balanced by an increase in health or quality of life), and make sure that nothing she is doing would make it impossible for her to be listed for transplant.
But we don't have the option for her not to be a science experiment - even if only evaluated traditional medicine. And, frankly, I see no reason to make an artificial distinction between traditional medicine and CAM when evaluating what might be an appropriate component in her health care. Either way I do the same careful research - and for her, at least, both traditional care and CAM are science experiments.
(I'll fix #5 - I renumbered a couple of times)
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)...then it wouldn't qualify as "woo" to begin with, and your entire post attacking me and others is without merritt. I rally don't get why that's so difficult to understand.
Ms. Toad
(34,062 posts)to apply to medical treatments which are do not have "solid, peer reviewed evidence to support their viability." It is used exclusively to refer to CAM, even when the evidence on CAM is equivalent or better than the evidence on a treatment which is part of traditional medicine. And it continues to be used to dismiss CAM generically (for example acupuncture, chiropracty, and osteopathy) even though there is solid evidence behind using those practices to treat certain conditions - when, in contrast, it is not generically used to dismiss traditional medicine even when traditional medicines are used to treat conditions for which there is no evidence it is effective (e.g. many of the off label uses for conditions for which a specific medication has not been tested).
For example, by that definition you claim to be using, the traditional medicine my daughter is taking is "woo." It was the subject of a study which was halted because of an unexpected correlation with negative outcomes (death and transplant). That study was only random double blind placebo study on the use of this medication for her condition.
If I had just told you she was using Ursodiol (or ursodeoxycholic acid) for a cholestatic liver disease it probably would not even have crossed your mind to check to see if it was "woo" because you would have recognized it as traditional medicine. Had you checked because you didn't recognize the name of the drug, a quick google search will turn up pages and pages of articles suggesting it is an appropriate treatment for a cholestatic liver disease - and because it is part of the arsenal of traditional medicine that would have been the end of it. You certainly wouldn't have done the research to discover the study contraindicating its off label use for my daughter's condition.
On the other hand, if I told you that she was using milk thistle for a liver disease, your immediate reaction would have been "woo," and because it is part of the arsenal of CAM, you would have continued to call it "woo," without ever bothering to do any searching to back up you knee jerk opinion - and likely wouldn't even have followed any links I provided about the research on it.
From a scientific basis, there is more support for using milk thistle to treat liver diseases than for using Ursodiol for my daughter's disease - neither is proven, either way, but there are positive correlations between milk thistle and liver disease and either neutral (prior less rigorous, lower population studies) or statistically significant negative correlations in the most rigorous study for the use of Ursodiol. But the bottom line is that using Ursodiol would ultimately be considered acceptable medical care - and using milk thistle would be derided as "woo," not because one has more scientifically rigorous studies supporting its use, but because one triggers the "woo" reaction and the other doesn't - and no amount of scientific rigor ever changes that in the discussions on DU.
So yes - my daughter is using "woo," to treat a liver condition that will ultimately require her to have a transplant. But the "woo," using the definition you say you are using is the medicine her doctor is prescribing for her - not the milk thistle. But if you are at all honest, you know that is not the one that would be labeled "woo" and not the one I would be told, on DU, that I am a fool for letting her use.
And it is that reality - not the definition you say you are using (because in reality it is not the one applied) - which prompted my response.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)make re their own lives? I doubt it's humatarian. And the same group that I've seen here also attempt to monitor people's reading material eg, how DU works among other things.
Makes you wonder sometimes how anyone has the time to worry so much about everyone else's choices.
eggplant
(3,911 posts)Because when the anti-vax crowd lowers the group immunity levels, it affects everyone, not just them. And even when their prime advocate has been completely discredited for YEARS, they still believe in the nonsense.
Because the homeopaths who believe that you can dilute something down to less than a molecule and have it be effective are never able to answer the question about what else is in all of water they are diluting it in? Surely all of its previous impurities are also in there as well (by the same reasoning). Why isn't it all full of high-powered poop?
Because snake-oil salesmen sell false hope and prey on the weak and suffering, and that sucks. For all the arguments that big pharma is out to just make money off of us, nobody talks about the billions of dollars being raked in by purveyors of quack medicine, with no liability.
But mostly for the same reason I yell at kids playing in the road, even when they aren't my kids.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)has produced some pretty bad 'medicines' that have actually killed and crippled and deformed people. Science has also saved lives. Reasonable people do not reject something because they have 'total faith' in one way or the other.
You want EVERYONE to do it YOUR WAY, but we know that your way has definite risks also. And you want that so that nothing can interfere with what you believe in.
And you simply can't control everyone and it's better to accept that. It causes a lot less frustration when you realize that.
eggplant
(3,911 posts)I *don't* want WOO because it is WOO. It is non-validated bullshit. In many cases, it is validated bullshit.
I am perfectly happy with alternative medicine. That's because it is *medicine*. Meaning that it has science behind it. It can be herbal, it can be massage, it can be all sorts of things. But it has to be demonstrated that it provides well understood results. I couldn't care less whether if comes from big pharma. When some tribe says that treatment X has been used for centuries to cure disease Y, I'm fine with that. That is medicine. It has been replicated over a long period of time and the results seen as consistent.
Hell, scurvy is cured by limes. Does that make me beholden to big citrus?
Stop accusing people who are anti-WOO of being exclusively pro-pharma. It's not true.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)"For all the arguments that big pharma is out to just make money off of us, nobody talks about the billions of dollars being raked in by purveyors of quack medicine, with no liability."
And if I may add one:
Because while you have the right in my book to take any fake medicine you want, I am not going to let you convince other people your crazy ideas are correct or moral.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)montex
(93 posts)Why do we care? Because stupidity should always be debunked and refuted no matter who it comes from. You may think that you exist as an island of isolation, but you are in fact a part of society and the human race. Going around telling people that all their problems can be cured by a magic crystal or a homeopathic remedy causes harm. Here are a few reference links to why we care:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/08/30/another-set-of-faith-healing-parents-arrested-after-allowing-their-daughter-to-die-of-a-treatable-disease/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/herbert-catherine-schaible_n_3138001.html
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/03/wisconsin-court-upholds-homicide-conviction-for-faith-healer-parents-who-let-daughter-die/
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)as Thalidimide or DES eg, doesn't necessarily negate all the positives of science. I COULD do what you are doing and 'use' the faiulres to claim that ALL science is bad but that would be denying reality wouldn't it?
I could claim that science 'pollutes collective knowledge and wisdom' by showing you actual victims of science. But that would be a false claim. Just as your picking out some individual failures to prove that all homeopathic practices are 'evil' is just plain nonsense.
You SAY you have faith in science and 'peer review' yet you demonstrate that this is far from an accurate claim by pikcing and choosing a few individual failures which can easily be attributed to the same danger of 'belief' systems that afflict both aspects of this issue.
On both sides of this issue there are extremes, as your links AND the horrific tragedies resulting from a 'belief' in science have resulted in.
There IS a 'happy medium' which is where people like me prefer to reside in. When Science told my family that my father had no scientific hope of surviving the stomach cancer he was diagnosed with, we refused to accept that. 'Where there is life there is hope'. He was declared dead by the world of Medical Science. When loved ones receive that kind of diagnosis, human natur kicks in and looks outside the world of Medical Science,
If you think that people have no right to do that, AFTER the world of your Science delares that there is nothing further that can be done, then I could not disagree more.
Whatever works, whatever keeps someone alive, hopeful and refusing to give up is fine by me, whether it is Science or althernative medicine. YOU have no right to tell ME I should not turn to other possible resources AFTER the world of Science has said 'there is no hope'. No way!
Pholus
(4,062 posts)This fall a lot of navel gazing was performed on the so-called "Crisis of Reproducibility" where the majority of "Landmark Studies" in cancer research could not be independently reproduced.
It's one thing to consider the scientific process valid, it's quite another to consider our implementation of it trustworthy.
As I see the "anti-woo'ers" snarf their trust in the system I fear that distinction is lost on them.
I often wonder why I waste my time.
Chrom
(191 posts)even the condescending 'shock'
what science is available to prove the safety of GM foods, for instance?
Why do other countries reject GM food?
Yet you expect us to trust the US FDA which is stacked with Monsanto employees?
U4ikLefty
(4,012 posts)good to know I'm not the only one
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)Bit of a difference.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)eqfan592
(5,963 posts)If you can't tell the difference, then I'm not bothering with you at all, ever again. ignore.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)to the 'woo' of GMO 'foods' and thus far approx. 30 countries have BANNED that particular 'woo' enthusiastically promoted mainly by such pillars of society as G.W. Bush Sr. back in the eighties.
I am hopeful that finally we are beginning to see the end of such evil Corps as Monsanto.
I love progress which occurs ONLY when people have access to real information. And once that happened, the 'woo' known as Monsanto is beginning to suffer the consequences it was, for so long, protected from. Science? Yes, I remember all those right wingers spewing the Monsanto Talking points about 'but they would have died earlier' nonsense way back in the earoy
20s.
'Money is the root of all evil'. And truth is the enemy of evil.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)That folks like to ignore it is the sad part.
pecwae
(8,021 posts)I don't understand why you'd be angry and frustrated at the choice someone else makes in reference to their health and well being? How are their choices affecting you?
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)Promotion of treatments that have failed the test of peer reviewed research can and does have a negative impact on society as a whole, both indirectly (through the spread and promotion of non science based medicine), and directly (people choosing these options over science based medicine and thus increasing exposure of others to various ailments). Not to mention the economic waste.
pecwae
(8,021 posts)treatments fail as well. Chemo has been known to kill outright or hasten someone's demise. When those treatments fail do you think of it as economic waste (you brought this into the discussion, not me)? Those who fail treatment should never have been treated at all because of the waste? How does someone's choice of alternative cancer treatment over allopathic spread the disease to others?
Once upon a time those considered learned avowed that the earth was flat. Everyone believed because they said it, their contemporaries said it. Along came this upstart who went against the grain. What was this woo he was spreading?
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)Maybe all caps is the answer.
CALLING OUT GARBAGE ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE FOR WHAT IT IS DOES NOT EQUATE TO A FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE THE DANGERS THAT CAN BE INHERENT IN SCIENCE BASED MEDICINE.
There, that point being shown for the billionth time to be invalid, on to the next.
The earth has been understood to be round since the ancient Greeks by those learned. And they had evidence to support their position (round shadow during lunar eclipses, horizon effect, etc.) They even measured the circumference with a high level of accuracy given the available technique.
I'm not talking about new treatments with a basic grounding in reality that haven't been tested, by rather treatments without said grounding, or that have been tested and shown to be ineffective or as effective as placebo at best.
pecwae
(8,021 posts)I don't care what you're tired of. If you don't want the conversation you might try refraining from posting in the thread.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)I do get annoyed by seeing the same faulty argument made over and over. Note that instead of ignoring you I tried to correct it.
pecwae
(8,021 posts)... it's hubris, and I'm not letting anyone tell me science is and isn't.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)And if you want to make up your own definition of science, then really, i don't think there's any hope of a reasonable discussion. Science is what it is, and just making up shit as you go along and expecting others to go along with it sounds a bit closer to hubris than anything else.
sendero
(28,552 posts)... with morons and if you think drug trials are "science" then the shoe fits.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)I mean, clearly you must have an alternative?
sendero
(28,552 posts).. who live in glass houses should stop throwing stones.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)Glass houses my ass.
sendero
(28,552 posts).. on this several times, I'm not doing it again for your benefit. The FACT is you folks think you are smarter than everyone else and you are not. Hubris.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)Ignore.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)"But I'm not shocked you fail to understand the difference."
pnwmom
(108,976 posts)How many of them take SSRI's, for example, even though the research shows they help only the worst cases, and even with those people barely works better than a placebo?
How many continue to insist that acupuncture is woo, though that has been proven effective in reducing pain in a meta-study of 29 studies involving 18,000 patients, and is practiced by medical doctors at Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, and all over the country?
If it's conventional medicine, they're for it. If it's "alternative," they're against it. Too many of them don't really care about the science-based part. That's just their excuse for supporting conventional medicine and big pharma no matter what.
Blue_Adept
(6,399 posts)Common in the recent porn/feminism threads.
Common in gun threads.
etc.
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)I can't even to begin to imagine the pathetic lives they live.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)And I recognize the dangers of alternative medicine. Oh yes, I'm truly "pathetic."
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)That may be the thread that led to this particular OP, I don't know, I hadn't seen it.
However, if you participated in demeaning, bullying and ridiculing the poster for what ever it was they posted. Then go ahead and wear that pathetic shoe Cinderella.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)Some folks here seem to forget that a lot.
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)is to present a well reasoned argument. Ridicule and derision will accomplish little outside of making one look mean and pathetic.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)montex
(93 posts)I don't think I've ever seen a website showing all the Alternative Medicines that had to be recalled for one reason or another. Maybe you could enlighten me since you seem to know these things. It's almost as though one side has controls in place to protect people and the other side does not.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)only comes AFTER people have died. Surely, someone as smart as you know that.
For recalls, see here: http://www.consumerlab.com/recalls.asp
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)eqfan592
(5,963 posts)But it actually works more often than not, unlike alternative medicine, so the risk/reward is superior.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)I would suggest it is because regular medicine let them down in some way. I could go into my medical horror stories, but I won't, because it's nobody's business.
I don't do woo unless you consider taking supplements a doctor told me to take as woo, or going to a massage therapist as woo, and if you do, I really don't give a shit. If you don't believe in woo, don't use woo.
Insulting people doesn't change their perceptions, as a matter of fact, it usually has the opposite effect.
TransitJohn
(6,932 posts)Way to elevate the discourse.
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)backwoodsbob
(6,001 posts)in the same thread where woo believers complain about people who dont believe being smug and condescending?
Wow
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)backwoodsbob
(6,001 posts)* I can't even to begin to imagine the pathetic lives they live. *
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)"those who dont believe in woo are creepy and lead pathetic lives?"
cali
(114,904 posts)creepy and ugly.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)
dionysus
(26,467 posts)Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)Trash.
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)discussion here. There's plenty of smug, condescending attitudes on any side of an argument.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)I'm not very much into what's called "woo" in these parts, but some of the insufferable pricks who condescend to those who are interested in alternative medicines and the like are, as you say, very creepy.
Texasgal
(17,045 posts)At Sun Jan 5, 2014, 12:33 PM an alert was sent on the following post:
Anti-woo commentators are a bunch of smug and condescending...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024281239
REASON FOR ALERT:
This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.
ALERTER'S COMMENTS:
Calling out other members as "authoritarian" and bullies is insulting. There are more productive ways to deal with disagreements. This kind of OP only leads to trouble.
You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sun Jan 5, 2014, 12:39 PM, and the Jury voted 0-6 to LEAVE IT.
Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Sorry you are insulted. Please grow some thicker skin. This post does not meet this criteria at all. "disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate."
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: I can't believe that this post was alerted on. It's spot on in describing certain postings.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: While I have no doubt this post is nothing more than pathetic whining, the poster didn't mention any poster by name so I can't say as it goes so far as to violate anything I would consider community standards. If the OP wants to blow off steam and demonstrate ridiculousness on their own behalf, I don't see it as an offense worth hiding. Seems more like a SOP issue which clearly falls under "No whining about DU." I suggest alerting on this that way and let the hosts handle it and in the mean time trashing the thread.
Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)I wouldn't have alerted on the OP tbh, but #6 cut through the BS of the OP to the heart of the issue.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)take it is YOUR problem, not mine.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)Sometimes, things just need to be said.
n/t
muriel_volestrangler
(101,306 posts)You also whine in replies:
#11
#20
#26
=23
#35
#32
#37
#54
In this thread, you have created an environment for you to wallow in self-pity.
Cha
(297,149 posts)
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)attempt to disrupt the discussion.
Truth is, I've found myself being adversely affected by the animosity and negativity on this forum and don't like how it tends to rub off on me. That's not really me and I intend to regulate myself.
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)Why is that never enforced?
This thread needs to be locked.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)The OP was whining about DU.
I simply pointed out the SOP of the forum.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)was here and think you can tell me how to play by the rules?
Who do you think you are anyway?
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)God forbid I point out the SOP of the forum.
If you're pissed off about that, don't take it out on me.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)business telling me, who has been here several months longer than you have, what I can and cannot do.
Simple. Nothing to be pissed about.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,833 posts)mike_c
(36,281 posts)...if you consider that intellectual debate-- falsifying mistaken claims with contrary data-- is what scientists do. It's the professional culture we live in. It isn't smugness or condescension to assert contrary conclusions and demand evidence for claims. It's the way science works.
Your comments partly illustrate one of the issues I have with magical thinking, woo, or whatever we want to call it. It is antithetical to science. The intellectual engines that drive scientific inquiry appear "smug and condescending" to true believers. That alone is cause for concern, IMO.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)and I am mostly in that group depending on the topic, communicate in a way that comes across as smug and condenscending.
Funny that when I post an OP that is smug and condescending towards the anti-woo crowd, they come out in droves to pile into my thread with butthurt feelings in order to tell me how hurt they are and what an asshole I am, never seeing those same qualities in themselves.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)We hear that "evidence-based" medicine, science, research, etc., does not support this, or does not support that. What we aren't told is that this or that is not "evidence-based" because those with the money to obtain the evidence haven't bothered to test this or that.
For instance, "This cancer drug works." The reply is, "There is no evidence that that cancer drug works." What is NOT said is that no one has spent the money to test that cancer drug. Then, there follows a lambasting of the "anecdotal evidence," with a complete ignoring of the fact that anecdotes ARE evidence. They are not empirical evidence, but they ARE evidence. What anecdotes DO is give us a hint as to what we should be testing empirically, but it goes no further than that, usually. Instead, we just get "Oh, that's anecdotal."
When you control what is tested, you control the evidence. It is a stifling of research, at it's best.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)Who is in charge of this vast conspiracy?
And anecdotes are SINGLE points of data, useless on their own, they need to be compiled into statistical studies, at the very least.
Where is your evidence that there is a stifling of research?
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)Are all universities, medical labs, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and governments, worldwide in some vast conspiracy to suppress some "revolutionary" research to cure cancer(for example)? That seems to be what you are saying is happening.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)A very good friend, for example, many years back, was
a progressive neuropsychologist at NIH, had his funding
taken away. Was his research being suppressed?
http://violence.de/
I'm sure there are countless other stories.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)here in Canada awhile back about how some of Canada's most prominent scientists were doing research that had 'conflict of interest' written all over it because of where the funding was coming from. Some scientists even had purchased stock in the companies that owned the drug they were doing research for, or were appearing in ads touting the effectiveness of said drug. In other cases, pharmaceutical companies created many layers of 'consumer groups' or other 'independent' sounding groups to funnel their research funding so it seems like the research is funded by some independent agency, when it's really funded by the company that has a vested interest in the outcome. You can't tell me that THAT is science. Our system has a big problem when the only research being done is the research that is funded by the very companies that need the studies to have certain outcomes.
That doesn't mean I reject medicine. It just means I do my own research about everything. In fact, I've asked my doctor to put me on a particular med because of the research on it that I did...and I didn't bother with a lot of the other, non-western medicine, stuff for my condition because there was very little proof any of it worked. It works both ways for me. And I don't think the current issues with research are part of some vast conspiracy, rather I recognize that the profit motive is strong for many and that may have a huge effect on the outcome of some studies.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)For instance, in another post on this thread, I mentioned the head of the FDA some years back, stating that unless a drug is promoted by a big pharma, it's not going to get passed. That's not a conspiracy; that's just how the FDA decided to do business. But it leaves out small companies, lone researchers, that might come up with something revolutionary.
I don't have time to give you an overview of how a drug is passed through the system. You need to go and inform yourself. Big pharma funds virtually all research and controls academic research as well. They have contracts with universities. If a drug would cut into the profits of one of their drugs already on the market, they simply refuse to fund the research. It's not a conspiracy; it's how business is done in this system.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)may even lead to focusing on drugs that aren't as helpful, but there's a vast difference between that and actually attacking, as you are, the clinical approval process, science itself. You go way too far, into nutty territory. Let me make this clear, just because pharmaceutical companies are run by assholes doesn't mean that herbal remedies all of the sudden work, in fact, those companies that make those "alternative remedies" are just as much greedy bastards, and they are even less regulated.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)Are you kidding? HOW in the world did you come to that conclusion? I'm saying that there needs to be more research done. That the FDA needs to look at the small innovations, not just something like copy cat drugs put forward by big pharmas. That would mean that I'm supporting the clinical approval process, not attacking it.
Listen, if you're going to call me "nutty," I'm going to put you on Ignore. There's no room for that crap in an intelligent discussion of these issues. If you want to go there, we simply won't discuss anything.
No one, NO ONE, is saying what you contend--ie., just because pharmaceutical companies are run by assholes, doesn't mean that herbal remedies all of a sudden work. NO ONE said that. But how are we to know their degree of efficacy if NO ONE IS TESTING THEM?
Anytime money is a part of the system, there are going to be "greedy bastards" who use the system to make money. But just because there is no money in compounds that are natural, or that are out of patent, doesn't mean that we should not research them for the benefit of mankind. And that's what's happening.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)"Evidence" is more likely to exist for the most profitable remedies, not the most effective remedies.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)Response to Th1onein (Reply #125)
JTFrog This message was self-deleted by its author.
mike_c
(36,281 posts)Seriously. Excellent point.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)People always confuse the two. Sometimes I think they do it on purpose, because they want to berate those who disagree with them as "conspiracy theorists." I see it often, on this forum.
Edim
(300 posts)Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)Th1onein
(8,514 posts)
get the red out
(13,461 posts)I try not to get into these battles because they tend to be all or nothing, with us or against us; but you are absolutely correct. Time and time again we get presented some kind of irrefutable "science" only to find out later how it was funded, then there's new irrefutable science that contradicts the first unquestionable lot, and on and on.
Being backed into a corner of all or nothing is my biggest issue with several topics. If I dare say that a nutritional supplement greatly helped a health condition I had suffered from most of my life that is supposed to make me a ridicule worthy anti-science fool who totally rejects modern medicine and never sees a doctor (not true in the slightest). Just like if I admit to having any sort of spiritual belief it makes me a creationist-apologist ignoramus who needs to shut the fuck up now because I obviously support fundamentalism, or if not, then that makes me ignorant of the dogma THEY say I should be following if I dare be foolish enough to believe anything. The all or nothing attitudes are EXACTLY what we get from the right, it's what we claim to oppose, but boy are people bullied to hell and back in liberal areas online by a very vocal, angry crowd.
Whisp
(24,096 posts)I know lizard men disguised as Cheney is a wee bit over the top, but that is what we are told we believe in if there is any question about JFK, 911 and all the rest.
Nevermind that what once were considered crazy woo conspire does turn out to be true too many times.
One can have an open mind about most anything without all your brains falling out - like those accusers accuse.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)it is hard not to be somewhat condescending when someone is promoting alien crop circles or cars that run on water.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)
jimlup
(7,968 posts)I consider myself an educated and informed individual and I have no fucking clue what "woo" is. I infer from the comments that it must refer to some alternative medicine or something.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)truly is "out there".
But my OP is an observation of how the anti-woo crowd bullies and makes fun of people who may or may not be of a mentality or vulnerability that brings them to their beliefs in un-scientifically tested things.
jimlup
(7,968 posts)As history has shown that outrageous ideas are sometimes spot on. Still some of the junk is so obvious... I guess it depends on the perspective. I try to be open minded anyway - can't say I'm always successful.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)that shaking up water a whole bunch of times will make it magically cure your diseases or that bong hits cure cancer or geometric patterns in an English barley field are the result of space creatures.
I mean, really. Some people are just not too bright.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)of someone who believes that crap is not OK. It's just not.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)that one can imply walk away from. It is simply not possible to "bully" someone posting under a pseudonymous name from an undisclosed location.
And why isn't it okay to make fun of someone? They're free to make fun of me all they want. 
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)that they appear in every single thread is creepy. Because it is.
Chrom
(191 posts)n/t
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)If nobody is listening to anybody, nobody will
learn anything new. Then the only point of the
posts, and making fun of somebody, is to be
the superior sarcastic know it all bully.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)won't be learning shit anyway.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)Codeine
(25,586 posts)I'm typing to them on a message board. I'm disagreeing with their delusional and childish worldview.
Seriously, if you define that as bullying then you've so diluted the term as to make it mean nothing at all.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)" I'm disagreeing with their delusional and childish worldview"
Calling someone's views delusional and childish is pretty bad, imho.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)we all obviously agree that doing so is fine. Why is calling a spade a spade a bad thing? And even if it IS a bad thing, it clearly ISN'T bullying.
Response to Codeine (Reply #259)
darkangel218 This message was self-deleted by its author.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Have a nice life.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)You failed your reading comprehension roll.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)When comparing apples with oranges.
But like I said, have a nice life.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)If you want to help people not be delusional, then try a little kindness and patience with the rabble. If you don't care, then have at it.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)put up with it.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)Cleita
(75,480 posts)I cured a case of chronic bronchitis that I suffered from for ten years with an herb cure. No amount of antibiotics or other western medical cures worked. Yet when I tell doctors this they are condescending and even rude about it. Why don't they study these claims instead and subject them to scientific method to prove or disprove them.
I worked for a medical doctor who recommended medical cannabis to cancer patients to help with the nausea with chemotherapy. One of the patient's cancer went into remission after she started using it and she claims it was the weed, yet the medical establishment are not seriously studying the possibility.
My own opinion is that the engineering skills needed to make crop circles are the same as the ones the Nazca Lines builders had and that it wasn't ETs but so far whoever did and is doing it haven't been found out yet.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)They post videos of themselves doing it. It's fairly simple for a person with a working knowledge of geometry and a bit of skill with simple surveying techniques to make unbelievably intricate patterns in a cereal crop.
I didn't mention herbal cures. Some herbal remedies are doubtlessly efficacious to some degree.
Medical cannabis is very useful for nausea. If someone is on chemo and using weed to keep themselves from puking, then they get better, why on Earth would they think it was the weed and not the chemo?
Cleita
(75,480 posts)I know it hasn't been. Twenty years ago if a cancer patient had told their doctor weed helped their nausea, they would have been sent either to rehab or jail. I'm all for science but I want to see an inscrutable scientific study on something before any claims are made about it being woo.
I don't think we know all the good things cannabis can do yet because it's been demonized as an evil drug. I live in the Andes when I was young and the indigenous people used coca which we make cocaine from. They used it for a variety of cures and also for altitude sickness, which they call puma. Yet all we see here is the abuse of cocaine and yet it has many good uses. It should be studied but to us it's another evil drug.
questionseverything
(9,651 posts)25 years ago my mom went into her last chemo treatment,she became violently ill,the doc prescribed so much medication to calm her tummy she went into a coma that she never came out of......there were rumors even then that mj helped calm the tummy from chemo,i never have gotten over the fact that there was a good chance she did not have to die......medical mj is a prime example of science not doing the research(at least not as quickly as it should have)
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)NO medical benefits, was damn near impossible to get legally, and this was from the government, for purely political reasons not related to science, yet who do you blame? Science, which is just fucking stupid.
questionseverything
(9,651 posts)medical mj was considered woo...now it is not
woo can be something we just do not understand yet,or it can be completely false
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)in a clinical setting. Woo is shit that has been shown to not work, or it can't work without violating some of our basic understandings of biology or physics.
THC is the active ingredient in marijuana, and has a pharmaceutical affect, this is known, it was probably known even back then, but again, we had a government that was fucking anti-drug crazy, based on politics, racism, and, oddly enough, lobbying by the paper-mill industry. It was never considered woo, just like how many plant derived medications aren't woo, and never were woo.
questionseverything
(9,651 posts)Humanist_Activist (2,936 posts)
70. Who is controlling what is tested? Universities? Doctors? Dreaded Big Pharma?
Who is in charge of this vast conspiracy?
And anecdotes are SINGLE points of data, useless on their own, they need to be compiled into statistical studies, at the very least.
Where is your evidence that there is a stifling of research?
////////////////////////////////////////
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)there was the equivalent of a moral panic in government and in society about it at the time, similar to the hysteria that lead to prohibition of alcohol, which is another drug that has had and does have useful benefits, medically.
But again, this isn't a fault of the scientific process, indeed it has a tendency to break free from such shackles, and ultimately leads to being able to discern between fact and fiction. Its not instant, or even perfect, but its better than relying on faith or tradition.
questionseverything
(9,651 posts)i guess we will just have to disagree there
doesn't the gov't still classify mj as having no medical value? even with all the benefits science is starting to show?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/marijuana-class-i_n_2528323.html
In the federal system, marijuana is classified as a controlled substance, categorized as having a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical use, together with drugs like heroin, LSD and ecstasy.
The court noted that the DEA denied the petition after the Department of Health and Human Services gave the DEA its evaluation that marijuana lacks a currently accepted medical use in the United States.
"Because the agency's factual findings in this case are supported by substantial evidence and because those factual findings reasonably support the agency's final decision not to reschedule marijuana, we must uphold the agency action," the court ruled.
DEA regulations define "currently accepted medical use" to require, among other things, "adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy."
////////////////////////////////////////////////
i never belittled the scientific process
the point i was trying to make is something might be considered "woo" until science does the research and proves it is not
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)or science, but by argument(in a legal context), which is perhaps the poorest way to discern fantasy from reality.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)Your first paragraph really hits the nail on the head. For sine reason people don't seem to understand the difference.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)establishment has not studied MJ very much at all. I also know what you are saying. My husband suffered bad nausea because of his end stage renal disease and couldn't eat, a necessity in his case to balance the electrolytes in his system, towards the final stages. It killed him in the end. If I had known then the relief it could have given him even as hospice care, his passing would have been so much easier.
questionseverything
(9,651 posts)the US gov't is still fighting even reducing the classification of mj
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/marijuana-class-i_n_2528323.html
Cleita
(75,480 posts)etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)25 years ago I was a hospice nurse (hospice was one step out of a grass roots movement). I can tell you this cannabis was NOT considered woo ....it was not something that we could provide patients with or direct them too (based on legal standards of practice), but it was not something we discouraged in those wanting to use it for these purposes. Anecdotally it helped probably 50% of the folk that used it (for a wide array of symptoms). I must say only a small percentage of people opted to use it at that time.
My point in this, is that it wasn't considered woo by the scientific or medical community it was an unknown and/or an illegal idea.
questionseverything
(9,651 posts)but the doctor that treated my mom still practices,he dismissed medical mj then and still does today
in fact he piss tests patients for mj and denies them treatment if they are not "clean"
at least those on public aid cards)
the pain specialist in town does the same...so while i am glad in your area you are more enlightened,that is not the over riding view even now not alone 25 years ago
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)"in fact he piss tests patients for mj and denies them treatment if they are not "clean" at least those on public aid cards) " ... that is sickening.
Why would anyone seek his services? (i understand it may be a medical community thing in your area)... his practices are just disgusting
questionseverything
(9,651 posts)that accepts medical cards...so there really is not a choice
it is really more the federal gov't that is disgusting,the doc could not get by with his behavior if the dea did not continue to fight re classification and insist on the continuing drug war...which was my entire point to begin with,THEY still think it is woo
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)There are political agendas at play. The feds don't care if it is woo or a wonder drug ... it is political play making.
Whatever the rational it is disgusting ... this from a person that has no interest in recreation cannabis use
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)on the market for years, used to relieve nausea from chemo and other treatments
http://www.rxlist.com/marinol-drug.htm
Cleita
(75,480 posts)side effects that he only prescribed to patients who might have to travel out of states that didn't have medical marijuana statutes but did accept Marinol.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)well before any states had laws allowing for the use of medical Marijuana, so studies have been done about Marijuana's effects on chemo induced nausea, that said there are area's that have or had been lacking in the effects of Marijuana one example would be in the case of type 1 diabetes-does Marijuana have any effects on blood sugar levels?
Cleita
(75,480 posts)Just because synthetic Marinol is being produced doesn't mean that MJ has bee thoroughly studied if very much at all and an expert on This mornings news shows has said it has not.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)but in other areas there was a severe lack, in some cases due to Marijuana being illegal-type 1 diabetes being an example, a broad over-all study has not been done and I'm not sure that our system works quite that way either
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Cannabis is useful for many things and yet the FDA says it has no medical use whatsoever. None. That's the 'official' point of view. If a doctor is recommending cannabis to halt nausea, why would the FDA claim it has no medicinal value? This is a more valid area of inquiry than demanding a sick woman explain her thinking. Even you admit it has medical value. But officially it is without medicinal value.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)I know, some things are nearly impossible to refute without sounding condescending because they are so far out there, but sometimes a line is crossed into outright bullying. Sure, if someone is giving bullshit dangerous medical advice you can refute, I see nothing wrong with being a bit harsh. I think that's a lot different than attacking someone out of the blue who is having an innocent conversation with a like minded individual about some aspect of their religion.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)
intaglio
(8,170 posts)sometimes need to be talked to as if they are idiots.
Alternative medicine kills, harms the health of users and often their children, encourages disregarding real medical advice, uses fraudulent theories ...
... and people who support it want to be treated as intelligent?
polichick
(37,152 posts)have big pharma's approval? Is everything the CDC puts out to be trusted?
If you want to be seen as halfway intelligent, don't post such tripe.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)They may not have "Big Pharma" backing their products but they do have lots of companies making millions out of the nostrums and techniques they recommend. There are also all of the fake medics, dietitians and lifestyle advisors who earn their crust from these frauds and even a few who make millions from the books they publish promoting such trash.
polichick
(37,152 posts)been healed using eastern medicine.
Ethnocentrism is simply ignorance.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)Can you give a historical analysis of the average life expentancy and health for these people over, let's say, the past 500 years, and compare it to western nations of not only the same time period, but also of more recent times, such as the past century?
polichick
(37,152 posts)Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)If you want to criticize are mostly private system for shutting out a lot of people from affordable access to health care, I am right there with you, if you think powdered rhino horn cures something, then we disagree on a fundamental level.
polichick
(37,152 posts)Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)Also, yeah, the link didn't work for me initially.
polichick
(37,152 posts)Eastern or other cultures' meds, as was done in #87.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)You are basically saying science doesn't work there, its a land of magic and dragons, is that what you are saying?
polichick
(37,152 posts)Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)in treating something, then find a way to control dosing better, improve the safety of it, and then use it, just like we did with western folk medicine, and yes, most of both was and will be discarded, with good reason.
But you would also have to use discernment, the example I gave of rhino horn wasn't in jest, its actually used in some traditional folk remedies, and we shouldn't waste resources in testing keratin, which is already present in copious quantities in our own bodies.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Most state run hospitals don't administer TCM as their primary treatments.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Or the millions harmed in China by traditional healers prescribing bear spleen or the ineffective frauds that are acupuncture and acupressure. Yes, the Chinese had a few successes, notably artemisium for malaria, but unless purified properly medicines made from wormwood can cause permanent nerve damage. The most effective tool in the Chinese medicine chest was - as with all other civilisations - clean water and proper hygiene. Western herbalists also had their own successes for example digitalis and willow bark but it needed science to render them safe.
Marr
(20,317 posts)Every location around the globe has their traditional woo, including the west. And science-based medicine is vastly more popular (and expensive) throughout China.
Chinese people who can afford science-based medicine don't seem to be any more crazy about traditional eastern cures than westerners are about curing hemorrhoids with hot irons.
polichick
(37,152 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)Generally speaking, I think they are not-- and a whole lot of woo claims to be based in traditional, eastern medicine.
polichick
(37,152 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Particularly galling about the ascendency of TCM in the US is the myth that is swallowed whole by its advocates. That myth is the very history of TCM, whose true origins are unknown by all but a very few. Contrary to popular belief (particularly about acupuncture), those beliefs do not go back thousands of years into antiquity, when the ancient healing wisdom of the Chinese was supposedly first discovered. In actuality, very few people are aware that the single person most responsible for the current popularity of TCM was not some ancient Chinese healer but rather Chairman Mao Zedong. That’s why an article published by Alan Levinovitz in Slate.com entitled Chairman Mao Invented Traditional Chinese Medicine is so important.
And the article from Slate is here:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/10/traditional_chinese_medicine_origins_mao_invented_it_but_didn_t_believe.html
In case you missed it, Oct. 7–13 was designated Naturopathic Medicine Week, according to a Senate resolution sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski and passed by the Senate with unanimous consent. Among the reasons the Senate cited:
Naturopathic physicians can help address the shortage of primary care providers in the United States.
The profession of naturopathic medicine is dedicated to providing health care to underserved populations.
Naturopathic medicine provides consumers in the United States with more choice in health care.
Mikulski and the rest of the Senate may be surprised to learn that they were repeating 60-year-old justifications of Chinese medicine put forward by Chairman Mao. Unlike Mikulski, however, Mao was under no illusion that Chinese medicine—a key component of naturopathic education—actually worked. In The Private Life of Chairman Mao, Li Zhisui, one of Mao’s personal physicians, recounts a conversation they had on the subject. Trained as an M.D. in Western medicine, Li admitted to being baffled by ancient Chinese medical books, especially their theories relating to the five elements. It turns out his employer also found them implausible.
“Even though I believe we should promote Chinese medicine,” Mao told him, “I personally do not believe in it. I don’t take Chinese medicine.”
Mao’s support of Chinese medicine was inspired by political necessity. In a 1950 speech (unwittingly echoed by the Senate’s concerns about “providing health care to underserved populations”), he said:
Our nation’s health work teams are large. They have to concern themselves with over 500 million people [including the] young, old, and ill. … At present, doctors of Western medicine are few, and thus the broad masses of the people, and in particular the peasants, rely on Chinese medicine to treat illness. Therefore, we must strive for the complete unification of Chinese medicine.(Translations from Kim Taylor’s Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 1945-1963: A Medicine of Revolution.)
Sid
Coexist
(24,542 posts)
bananas
(27,509 posts)Traditional Chinese medicine goes back thousands of years,
only a crackpot would believe Mao invented it!
And only a fraud would claim Mao invented it.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)As in, treatments that actually work as they are administered.
The trouble comes in when there's still a lot of superstition mixed in there as well.
Tell me. Rhinoceros horn. Good stuff, according to Chinese traditional medicine, pretty much a panacea. How much do you have in your medicine cabinet? How do you take it? Is it via soup? Do you snort it? You don't use rhinoceros horn to cure your ills, perhaps? Why not? Ethnocentrism, surely? Or do you just realize that powdered keratin from the face of a large ungulate doesn't do jack fuck for anything that might ever ail a human being?
Mopar151
(9,980 posts)Cuz' that's what it comes down to. Most folks who live in a fact-based universe are pretty paitent with the enthusiasts of frauds and charlatans - up to a point. And it, at least for me, comes, when the "woo-fans" start harming others by pressing lies, misinformation, and bunkum.
polichick
(37,152 posts)Mopar151
(9,980 posts)Who is not being deliberately obtuse, or trying to ignore the FACT (that evil word again!) that post #49 chains back to post #31, which speaks to the OP.
polichick
(37,152 posts)about something I've posted, ask it.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)People throw around terms like authoritarian to shut down debate, I have so far caught bullshit believers in lies too many times to count, even today, they misrepresent science, misrepresent medicine, and are no more than snake oil salesman peddling bullshit to help others make a quick buck. Am I supposed to be happy with this?
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)TroglodyteScholar
(5,477 posts)I started to post in this thread, but you said it.
Requesting evidence for claims, or citing actual research, is not bullying. If one takes it as such, perhaps one ought to be treated with condescension.
Iggo
(47,549 posts)
on point
(2,506 posts)Last edited Sun Jan 5, 2014, 03:59 PM - Edit history (1)
Siwsan
(26,259 posts)My sister, who is in her 3rd bout with cancer, is still alive thanks to medical advances.
My Grandmother, at 80, was put on HRT by a physician who didn't want her to develop a 'widow's hump'. She died of cancer within a couple of years. Same with an Aunt who was prescribed HRT AFTER a bout with cancer. She lasted a few years and died far too young.
My father was diagnosed with MS (at age 67) by some highly recommended neurologists at some very well known medical centers. It was actually a brain tumor and the immune-suppressor medication they put him on killed him.
I have white coat hypertension - a very severe case. They put me on BP medication that caused me to lose 30 lbs (I was pretty slim, to begin with) and it did nothing to control the problem. I stopped taking it, and as long as I'm not near a doctor, my BP is fine. Yes, I monitor it. I also had a chronic ear infection that would not clear up, no matter what the doctor's did. I treated it, myself, with swimmers ear drops - never had another. I used to get serious bronchial infections and faithfully went to the doctor and took every medication they prescribed. They got more frequent and more severe. I finally got frustrated and started treating them, myself, and the last one I had was about 20 years ago.
But, when I developed a very early case of cataracts, naturally I went to a highly recommended eye surgeon who saved my vision.
So, my experience with doctors is, at best, sketchy. I accept the risk of treating most ailments, myself. I figure my best chance at a stroke or heart attack would be IN the doctor's office. I don't judge people on either side of the issue. We should all do for ourselves what we think is best for ourselves, and have to accept the consequences, good or bad.
Logical
(22,457 posts)ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)That does not preclude me from starting a discussion about how some people think they are superior to other people and communicate thusly -- on a discussion board.
Logical
(22,457 posts)ESP
Aliens have visited earth
Astrology
Crop Circles created by aliens
Ghosts
Channeling
G_j
(40,366 posts)don't sprain your arm patting yourself on the back!
Logical
(22,457 posts)Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)nobody is superior to anybody.
Logical
(22,457 posts)Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)A mirror is all that will be needed and you are the one
who will know when that day has come.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)And I'll add Homeopathy to your list.
Sid
Logical
(22,457 posts)
bvar22
(39,909 posts)...chewing Willow Bark DOES make the headache go away.
Until recently, denying that Marijuana had ANY beneficial health effects
was strong among the Anti-WOO brigade.
The problem with the Anti-WOO brigade
is that, like it or not,
they ARE allies and puppets of the For Profit Pharmaceutical Industry.
polichick
(37,152 posts)Some may even be collecting a paycheck for their internet idiocy.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)
MineralMan
(146,286 posts)It has similar properties, but aspirin (acetlysalicylic acid) has fewer side effects than the salicylic acid in willow bark. Look it up.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)so its even more complicated than you mention, though you are still technically correct.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)never pass up an opportunity to preen. Personally I will take the Willow bark anytime I can get it.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)I don't understand this point of view.
MineralMan
(146,286 posts)If you had, your post would have been correct.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Cleita
(75,480 posts)the third world because all manufacture drugs had gone to the war effort. I was living in South America at the time. The western doctors, who found themselves without penicillin and other ordinary drugs, turned to the Brujas (native witch doctors) out of desperation to find out what they were using. Many of their drugs came from the Amazon. Today, many of our modern pharmaceuticals come from the Amazon. You can't dismiss something because it hasn't been scientifically studied until you do just that and prove it's ineffective.
hueymahl
(2,495 posts)There was an underlying scientific principal for the success of the traditional medicine - active ingredients in the plants being used. Pretty sure the doctors took just the plants, and left the dancing and chanting aside.
And that is where the anecdotal evidence comes in. You can observe that a practice has effect. You then use science to separate the coincidence from the active ingredients. It is those that continue to rely upon the traditional chanting and incidental ingredients after showing ineffectiveness scientifically that are engaging in magical thinking instead of science.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)You can't throw out something people say works for them without putting it under scientific scrutiny to separate the real from the fantastical. However there have bee some studies done with the chanting and ceremonial aspect that it too seems to speed up recovery of indigenous people who are treated with western medicine. It seems when the Brujas pray over them it seems to help. I read about it years ago so I don't know if studies continued and what the final results were.
Logical
(22,457 posts)Th1onein
(8,514 posts)And, I have witnessed, here on DU, many times, their rude and authoritarian behavior.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)We're having a pissing match on a message board -- ain't none of us saints.
eqfan592
(5,963 posts)I can be an asshole sometimes, but I own that at least.
Iggo
(47,549 posts)"Yeah, I'm wrong. But you made me sad."
Orrex
(63,203 posts)Magical thinkers never admit they're wrong.
Iggo
(47,549 posts)
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)I like to think I'm kind of a big deal...
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)When did they become angels, companies that package cornmeal in capsules and sells it as St. Johns Wort at a premium, I might add, that shit is expensive.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)some pharmaceutical companies, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)Herbal supplements ... I don't know
Mopar151
(9,980 posts)Makes big pharma look like the ladies aid.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)foxglove was used by herbalists but the dose could not be controlled using unrefined foxglove, lastly wormwood was used by Chinese practitioners but the side effects of wormwood includes nerve damage. It took modern science to make these primitive treatments safe and suitable for normal use and your cannard about mrijuana ignores that it was always was part of the pharmacopoeia in the West; it was the anti-drug campaign that denied those proven benefits.
Now as to your charge that I and others like me who actually look at the science are the "allies and puppets" of anybody then you are merely assuming that we treat medical announcements with the same credulousness as you treat the fantasies of your favourite health guru.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)..peer reviewed Scientific Journal showing that chewing Willow Bark destroys the lining of the stomach?
.
.
.
.
I'll wait.
OR
Are you just posting something on DU that became common knowledge after years of observation?
GOSH!. That sounds like WOO.
Ironic , isn't it.
I'm very glad that the scientists and researchers around the World are studying the Homeopathic cures and Traditional medicines of cultures, looking for effective drugs and medicines.
THAT is precisely HOW Aspirin was "discovered".
It was once a "WOO" medicine.
That leads me to believe that there are STILL many herbal or homeopathic medicines out there that can be effective.
As GOOD as our Science is, it is STILL in its infancy.
It STILL makes mistakes,
and more remains undiscovered than what appears in the Peer Reviewed Scientific Journals.
My Wife & I are BeeKeepers.
We use our Pure, Raw, Organic Honey in several homeopathic "cures" including minor coughs and colds. We avoid running for the anti-biotics every time somebody sneezes like most Americans have been programed to do, but if we get really sick...we will go to a doctor.
Honey and Bee Venom have not been thoroughly studied by our Scientific Community.
I am considering trying the Bee Sting treatment for arthritis.
Unfortunately, it isn't possible to evaluate Bee Sting in a double Blind study,
but I've heard enough anecdotal testimony in our Bee Keeper Community to give it a try.
Think For Yourself.
Question Authority,
and realize that near NOTHING gets done in The West unless a PROFIT can be made.
Remember,
the "Science" behind Chernobyl and Fukushima was peer reviewed.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Basic chemical synthesis course at Volunteer State, Introduction, 3rd Paragraph
http://www2.volstate.edu/chem/1110/Synthesis_of_Aspirin.htm
Homeopathy cures nothing - it is sugar tablets and water
Asprin was researched because willow bark was too damaging and research found a better compound. Chemists and physiologist look for active compound using many sources and, yes, anecdote played a part but these anecdotes were "tested" they were not taken on trust.
How many C do you dilute your honey too 8 or 16? Do you use succussion? Is it a horsehair filled leather pad and have you been taught the use with the precise correct motion? If you do not do this then your "remedies" are not homeopathic.
Oh, you do know what 8 and 16 C means, don't you?
bvar22
(39,909 posts)Chewing Willow Bark destroys the lining of the stomach.
You have produced research that shows that taking aspirin can cause damage to the stomach lining in some people, but CAN be ameliorated by diet or buffering.
Thanks.
I'm glad you chose this "study", because it illustrates my point exactly.
Do you know that aspirin can be taken without causing damage to the stomach by drinking milk,
or eating a slice of bread? This WAS a conclusion in the very study YOU cited.
BUT, the For Profit Pill Pushers got hold of this,
and used it to scare market their newer, coated, buffered, Heart Healthy aspirin (patented) that also costs a lot more,
and BANG...a new BILLION DOLLAR Market is created.
I have taken a daily plain old CHEAP Bayer Aspirin for over 12 years.
I have never had an ulcer or bleeding from the stomach.
There ARE other factors involved, like genetics and diet.
Your research used Pharmaceutical Aspirin, NOT "Willow Bark",
so you have NOT produced the requested research.
Maybe Willow Bark contains a natural buffer?
Could be. We don't know that, do we?
Who is going to fund THAT research?
Nobody who plans on Making a Profit will fund it.
I don't recommend that anybody chew Willow Bark,
because there are other hazards, and plain old Aspirin is cheap and plentiful,
though I have chewed Willow Bark in the past,
and....Here I am... still here...no ulcers, healthy stomach lining, no bleeding.
I used Willow Bark in this instance to illustrate that "WOO" can turn into very useful Medical Products,
and WILL continue to do so.
I am not Anti-Science,
but do believe that it has been corrupted by the Profiteers,
and it is important for everyone to question the "scientific" claims being made on the TV by the For Profit Pill Pushers.
Did you know that "Occasional Insomnia is perfectly normal,
and will increase in frequency as we get older?
But BANG...we now have another BILLION DOLLAR market convincing people that they are sick, and need to take a dangerous patented, expensive medication for this condition?
Do you support THAT kind of "science".
I don't... and NEVER will.
Fukushima and Chernobyl were applications of good science,
but we all know what happened when the Profiteers got a hold of it.
BTW, we measure our honey with a tea spoon,
our Garlic by the clove,
and our onion by the That looks like Enough.
I don't claim to be doing Scientific Research,
but, anecdotally, we have had remarkably good health
with nothing beyond sniffles and a noticeable reduction to pollen born seasonal allergies since
we started Keeping our own Honey Bees, about 8 years ago.
What do you think about Bee Sting therapy as an arthritis treatment?
Now THAT is some serious "WOO" as defined by a lot of people because there is no research to support it.
I wonder WHY that is.
The anecdotal testimony has been around for years,
but I guess it would be hard to market a Bee Sting treatment.
Never-the-Less, I will probably try it next Spring.
Having been a Bee Keeper, I have been stung numerous times over the last eight years,
so I know I'm not severely allergic to the venom. In fact, we have built up a tolerance to the stings,
and they are just a minor annoyance now.
If there is enough of a demand, then maybe Science will catch up.
Without "WOO", we might not have Aspirin today.
The two are not entirely separate as the protectors of the Pill Pushers insist.
In fact, Science usually follows "WOO". It is a close relationship.
I advocate for people to NOT do stupid things.
I do believe that the For Profit dynamic has severely crippled Pure Science in the US,
and the Pharmaceutical Marketing in the USA claiming to be "Science" has hurt or killed more people than "WOO".
We'll keep on living like this,
and I'll stand by the claims I have made on DU over the last couple of days in this thread,
and the other one.
Think for Yourself.
Question Authority , especially the For Profit Pill Pushers,
Go to the Doctor if you are sick.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)You might try, one day, rubbing a little salicylic acid onto you skin - be sure to have some baking soda nearby.
Good luck and good health - you'll need it
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Just because GSK or Lilly can be unethical doesn't mean acupuncture or herbal medicine is scientific.
KT2000
(20,576 posts)I even question some of the posters' motivations. They start the fight and then descend into name calling those who disagree. I have encountered paid trolls over the years, on this topic. I am suspicious of some of those who post anti-alternative medicine here.
In a response to one of my posts, someone said "we know...[whatever] about you" as if there is as formal group on here. It is a strange development for this site.
Gore1FL
(21,127 posts)villager
(26,001 posts)...with a kind of hive-like behavior.
They can't "discuss" a damn thing. They can only taunt and sneer...
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)As I've posted before, my mother nearly died of endocarditis. While she was feeling progressively more awful before she was diagnosed, our family's resident woo peddler told her that she needed to eat better, and do castor oil packs, and have a more positive attitude, and threw a gigantic fit when my mother wouldn't go do some sunrise beachfront meditation that would supposedly solve all of her problems. If my mother had listened to that advice she'd have died. Positivity and clean eating, meditation and the advice of Edgar Cayce are no help at all when bacteria are eating your heart.
Three months of potent antibiotics via IV saved her life, barely. If she'd held off going to the ER for another day or two to follow my weirdo cousin's advice, she'd be dead. No question at all.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)Their mystical, magical, mumbo-jumbo humbuggery kills people and they're never brought to task for it.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)It just shouldn't replace standard therapy. Many things considered woo twenty years ago are entering mainstream therapy today. In my father's day exercising arthritic joints was considered foolish. Instead you were consigned to aspirins and possibly a wheel chair towards the end. Today, I exercise my arthritic joints and lift weights. At my present age my father was using a cane to get around. I ride my bicycle, hike and garden, yet I inherited his osteo-arthritis.
montex
(93 posts)Is it your claim that exercise was Woo 20 years ago? Well I was around 20 years ago and I remember that exercise and diet were always advocated for better health. And I don't think anyone here is claiming that exercise was ever on the same Woo-level as Chakras and Auroras.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)You were called crazy! What did progress and research showed?? That indeed stomach ulcers can be treated with antibiotics!!
Is all woo real? Of course not. But a LOT of what we consider today science, was at a point rejected by the scientific community at the time as being "woo".
Completely rejecting any alternative beliefs is anti progress, imho.
montex
(93 posts)Science will ditch an accepted hypothesis whenever a better one comes along. This is in fact the scientific method. Science is not unbending dogma to the norms of the day, it is a process of refinement. So yes, at one time it was counter intuitive to believe that ulcers were caused by bacteria, until someone came along, did some research, followed by experiments, followed by a hypothesis, followed by per reviewed studies, followed by a new theory. If you think science is static and never evolving then you don't understand the method behind it.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Science is not static, and many hypotheses were considered at some point woo, until proven correct and accepted as being real!!! You remember the Spontaneous Generation theory?? It was considered real, until Louis Pasteur was finally able to disprove it!! After a LOT of his predecessors were not able to!!
All you have to do is look at the history of Science to see how much of what was once considered woo, became mainstream science.
Have a nice day.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)Cleita
(75,480 posts)for arthritic joints prior to that time when he aged. Twenty years ago you would have been arrested for using MJ for nausea. Back in the fifties most of the medicos didn't even know what proper nutrition was which is why the packaged food industry got away with loading their offerings with salt and chemicals. Those of us who were children post WWII got fed a variety of economy casseroles with Campbell's soup as a base and a variety of other canned vegetables, meats and starches as fillers. No one questioned the salt, hydrogenated fats, artificial flavorings in that food.
Things change as we learn about them, but we must learn about them, not discard them with the dish water.
montex
(93 posts)Yeah. I'm not buying your claims. Obviously, you are confusing popular myths with scientific consensus. Right at this very moment, millions of educated Americans cannot discern myth from science. 30% of Americans don't believe evolution is a real thing. So 20 years ago you may have been getting your information from the local professionals who were not up on the current or even generational scientific consensus.
BTW, if the food that has been available in the last century was so dangerous for you, then why has life expectancy almost doubled in the past 150 years?
Cleita
(75,480 posts)All I said was he wasn't encouraged to exercise for his arthritis, which started in middle age for him. He was born in 1896 and died in 1972. He was well crippled by the time he died. I can't believe you don't know when packaged food became a phenomenon. That was post WWII. Today, we have the results of the diabetes and cancers people past 65 are dying from today, but I think you might have known that if you actually read my entire posts on this thread. Whatever you think about what I experienced in my past 74 years of being on this planet I don't care.
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)I don't know if there are any regulations in place in terms of the quality, efficacy and potency of any of the herbal pills that they have in stores.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)I'm sure much of it it ineffective. It's better to grow your own if you can. That way you can control the quality.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Should we be tolerant of climate deniers as well?
Cleita
(75,480 posts)are discredited. Climate Science has already disproved the climate deniers. But much of what was considered snake oil ten or twenty years ago has proved to be correct.
Marr
(20,317 posts)I'll never take the attitude of "all opinions are equal" on medical issues, because medicine isn't art school, and things are either demonstrably effective or they are not.
If you're advocating remedies that have not been proven effective (and in many cases, actually proven ineffective or even harmful), then you should be called on it. Sick people can't afford to waste their time and resources on bullshit.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)to handle the situation. As soon as you communicate in a way that is smug or condescending or bullying, you lose the opportunity to have a reasonable, and perhaps productive, discussion because they go on the defensive and you on the offensive, which is an adversarial stance. It is better to treat them with respect and attempt to work together with them in an attempt to pursuade them of your case, rather than treat them like a red-headed step-child.
Marr
(20,317 posts)At least that puts their wacky scams in the proper light.
People who promote woo don't want to listen, as a rule. If you disagree with their baseless claims you are instantly labeled 'the enemy/big pharma apologist/etc. in their minds and the ears just stop working. I know that I'm never going to convince them, because by definition, they don't much care about proof or logic.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)
- Now the feds have and issue patents on woo:
Marr
(20,317 posts)
But it was woo.
If something can be proven effective, it will be accepted as legitimate medicine.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)They were called alliopaths back then. If you acutally do some research you can find the newspaper articles where cutters like these were derided by most people. These weren't the people you so incorrectly refer to as woo.
- Today we call these people ''doctors.''
Marr
(20,317 posts)I think they'd be more in your camp, personally. You know, people who claim X cures Y without any scientific support to back it up.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)That's where medical doctors came from -- the cutters. The hackers. The bleeders. They were the good vs. bad humors-guys who cut you to let bad blood and poisons out of the body.
- You can find it in all the history books. If you look.....
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts) - And these powerful people wanted it to be because there was much more money to be made in maintaining sickness than in healing people and making them well.
It was the very same AMA who runs the medical industry now that was largely responsible. But people in this country don't know any history. Which is why we keep making the same mistakes. Over and over again......
questionseverything
(9,651 posts)Humanist_Activist (2,940 posts)
150. Actually it wasn't considered woo, it was considered untested or unproved...
in a clinical setting. Woo is shit that has been shown to not work, or it can't work without violating some of our basic understandings of biology or physics.
THC is the active ingredient in marijuana, and has a pharmaceutical affect, this is known, it was probably known even back then, but again, we had a government that was fucking anti-drug crazy, based on politics, racism, and, oddly enough, lobbying by the paper-mill industry. It was never considered woo, just like how many plant derived medications aren't woo, and never were woo.
/////////////////////////////////////////
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)Cannabis has been used successfully to treat a myriad of illnesses for over 10,000 years.
However, Delta-9 THC was not identified until 1968 by Israeli scientists. However, the efficacy of cannabis was know for thousands of years. It's efficacy in killing cancer cells was known in 1974. The endocannabinoid system in humans was discovered in 1988. and the feds began issuing patents for synthetic cannabis in 2003.
Until 1937 when it was made illegal, there had been over 280 cannabis manufacturers, making everyhting cannabis from tinctures, to cannabis oils, and other products in the US alone. What the fledgling AMA wanted however, was MONEY. And to get that money they needed sick people. And all these healers out there using natural methods that worked and who practiced medicine that came from the ancient past and which was learned from Native American Indians in this country, soon found themselves being demonized and called quacks.
That was the beginning of the modern medical industry. It coincided with the advent of the chemical advances that were made after WWII. The one that brought us DDT, and other fine products. Now we have over 90,000 chemical compounds that we're exposed to on a daily basis and for which in large part, no one knows what their effect is on human health.
What we do know is that we've got diseases coming from everywhere you look. And yet everyone's so concerned about having health insurance but no one seems too concerned about having good health first and about not getting sick to begin with.
- This bothers me because its all ass-backwards.
questionseverything
(9,651 posts)thanks for ur post
marble falls
(57,077 posts)montex
(93 posts)Woo is everything that conflicts with Science and the Scientific Method. The original poster would like to say anyone who understands this is attacking their beliefs and bullying them. This is simply not the case. From the Scientific perspective, the world is awash in Woo™ and all effort must be taken to discredit it EVERY SINGLE TIME.
So go ahead have your chakra modulated and your aurora brightened. Just don't expect the scientifically literate to nod their heads in approval.
Turbineguy
(37,319 posts)I am always amazed at the number of times "etiology unknown" pops up. And a few Doctors I know have freely admitted that to be the case quite often.
So there's always a case to be made for balance.
montex
(93 posts)Don't like the things that science hasn't figured out yet? There's an easy solution for that. Too easy. And it never works.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)and the other side(alternative medicine) that makes shit up.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)Do you know that if a compound cannot be patented, because the patent has already been filed for, over twenty years prior, or because it is a natural compound, then it is almost always relegated to the "alternative remedy" realm? Why is that?
Because pharmas will not spend the money to test it, because if they do, other pharmas can make it and compete with their profits. So, now, you've got a system where you don't use most naturally derived (or older) compounds. They are simply lost to mainstream medicine. It's a shame.
Now, if you're lucky, the pharma will take the natural (or out of patent) compound and create a compound that's shaped almost the same, and test it for toxicity and efficacy. This testing takes YEARS, sometimes even DECADES. In the meantime, people are dying. They are dying because the pharma will not test that which it cannot profit off of.
And, then there's you, and others like you, who continually hammer in the idea, which is wrong, that these compounds are "woo." You tie the ribbon on the package, and deliver it to the hopeless, hapless consumer. It's a shame.
I'm not saying that there are not companies out there who take a piece of research on a compound found in nature, and exploit people to think that that compound is a miracle compound. They do that all the time. But the consumer has an obligation to himself, to do their research, to sort through the bullcrap, and come out with an understanding as to whether these compounds will help or hurt them. They also need to do their research and find out exactly how much of the "active" ingredient is in the product that the supplement company is selling. It's a buyer beware market, for sure, but you can at least be thankful that we still have the freedom to GET these compounds. If the pharmas had their way, you wouldn't be able to.
montex
(93 posts)Your issue is with the way pharmaceutical corporations use the patent system to demand huge profits from consumers. None of those systems have anything to do with how the scientific method works. You may not like big pharma, but until a new system is created to replace it then we must suffer with it. Maybe you should direct your complaint to your congress person or Senators.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)(Remember the topic?)
I have no problem with the scientific method, except when people discount every other type of evidence except empirical evidence. And, when people demand that everyone and everything else be ignored, EXCEPT what can be proven correct ONLY by the empirical evidence. Good science is not only a method; it is an ART. Empirical evidence is a STANDARD; it's not the ONLY standard.
Think about this--How well would YOU function if you only believed those things that you had empirical evidence for? You wouldn't function very well, would you? And, if you only walked that straight line in front of you, of empirical evidence, your mind would be closed off to the rest. You wouldn't ask questions that you need to ask; you would assume that what had been proven was the ONLY thing that could possibly be true, and nothing else. It is arrogance, pure and simple.
If all that there is to know is already known, then why learn anything else? Why ask questions? Why pursue new avenues of research?
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)Th1onein
(8,514 posts)DMSO is an even better one.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)some of the more radical claims, such as DMSO being a cancer cure, hasn't been verified through clinical testing. This is through mainstream prescriptions or as OTC medications.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)And I know of no pharma that is working on testing it for any ailment. Neither do you. DMSO is a highly politicized compound that has a good many uses, especially as a protein conformation compound (think misfolded proteins as in genetic diseases), which it will never be developed for because no pharma can make a profit off of it. It is currently used only for interstitial cystitis.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)has been largely ineffective, its more effective to take supplements that encourage the production of it in the body, and THOSE can be found as a prescription drug or generic supplement.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)Truly, you are lost.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)Th1onein
(8,514 posts)I don't know the first thing about correcting Wikipedia entries, though. I'm lost when it comes to those kinds of things.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)chemicals that our body produces itself, and not considered an essential nutrient as a result, here's the Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutathione
Is there anything on that page that is inaccurate?
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)But it is a bit incomplete since it doesn't cover the aerosol method of delivering glutathione. Also, glutathione is much more readily absorbed in the gastro tract, by supplementing it's intake with Vitamin C.
Glutathione is an important, and very prevalent, antioxidant in biological systems. It should be used in quite a few disease states, particularly those involving inflammation. Yet, of course, it isn't.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)
RandySF
(58,768 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)DU ain't beanbag. If you're going to try to defend the indefensible, you deserve all the mockery, ridicule and derision that's directed your way.
Sid
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)to hear you.' They should be pitied because they are lost in their own maze of confusion.
I love to be truly corrected with facts because I learn something new when every time.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)after all, if science knew everything, it'd stop.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts) - It's as though they've never heard of quantum mechanics. Just ignore them like you would any other obnoxious child.....RandySF
(58,768 posts)But I tend to prefer it as a supplement, not a substitute, to that which is scientifically proven.
Leith
(7,809 posts)Is it the initials of a phrase? Because "woo" as a word sure sounds belittling.
montex
(93 posts)If you want to call it "New-Age Spiritualism" or "Psychic Karma" or whatever, it is all Woo. And a three-letter word is easy to spell.
easttexaslefty
(1,554 posts)
Tumbulu
(6,272 posts)which is their MO and smacks of bullying.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts) - K&R
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Trust me, there is plenty of smug on the woo side.
paulkienitz
(1,296 posts)"They are authoritarian types that believe you should succumb to their will. They are relentless."
No they're not. This is a complete load.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)(as can be seen here http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Penn_and_Teller)--it's Stossel's technique
a lot of writers (historians and scientists) sorta end up blaming Thomas Carlyle: there's no sense that there can be any definitions or perspective other than the heroic Childcraft one. this then saddles us with atomic evangelists and <i>The Bell Curve</i> and Kersey Graves and Andrew Dickson White and Satoshi Kanazawa and Larry Summers and cornsugar.com; having two non-Quran-reading Islamophobes wrangle over whether the ideas of the fundiest of fundie Christianity are true just reinforces the claim that there's only fundie Christianity
and what academia's actually doing and discovering is left out in the cold http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/
(sorry about the ramble, I'm doing a book recap on the Flat Earth Society)
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)K&R.
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)darkangel218
(13,985 posts)And people died because of it.
I hope we are not going back to that
Science is always changing , as we learn more about ourselves, our environment, and where we came from.
hueymahl
(2,495 posts)It was the Woo believers, i.e., the church, that killed people when their dogma was challenged. Science led us (and continues to lead us) away from a dangerous age.
Oh, and science does not change. It learns and evloves. The scientific method has not meaningfully changed in quite a long time.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Right now there is not a lot of scientific research done in alternative medicine ( for example) because of big pharma and many others not wanting it to become mainstream. Look at the war against pot. They are only now, after decades of prohibition, admitting that pot has positive effects on one 's health.
How can we move forward if we shut down any progressive ideas??
hueymahl
(2,495 posts)Science brought us out of the dark ages, the most magically thinking time in modern history (or woo, if you prefer). I don't have the time or inclination, but I could cite 1000s of mystical practices that science has saved the world from (at least those who want to be saved).
Pot and big pharma are red herrings. As quite elegantly discussed above, it was morality that prevented science from studying pot. Same thing with LSD, MDMA and other psychoactive drugs that allow you to experience pleasure and can therefore be used recreationally.
Big Pharma traditionally will only study things that they can patent, because you can only make money on patentable items. It is hard to patent wrist magnets and crystals. Big Pharma really could give a rats ass about anything else. And there are BILLIONS being made on fake medicine. Look at the vast supplements industry and every homeopath you meet.
We do need more scientific study of traditional medicine where there is a scientific basis for the action on the body AND there can be proven efficacy.
quinnox
(20,600 posts)Obnoxious know it alls, and most of them don't know what their talking about in the first place. (which makes it worse)
Logical
(22,457 posts)darkangel218
(13,985 posts)As a matter of fact, if eveyone was against any progressive ideas, we would still believe the Earth was flat.
Logical
(22,457 posts)But believing they have visited earth already is Woo.
Believing ESP has been proved is Woo.
Believing in Ghosts is woo.
I know science will find more amazing things. But there is no proof of many things people here believe.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)From the scientific point of view, how can you disprove it did not happen?
There are a lot of artifacts which would side to the idea that the Earth was actually visited. So you can't 100% disprove that.
Logical
(22,457 posts)What is the best evidence you have that aliens have visited earth? I am really interested in what proof you are talking about.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Just like it was outlandish to think the Earth was round , because we couldn't "prove it" at the time. Lol.
No one is asking you to believe. Its a theory. I see it as a theory, considering the artifacts.
What I find really annoying is people trying to dismiss and belittle because a theory has not been proved it disproved yet.
Logical
(22,457 posts)darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Logical
(22,457 posts)Wow, you amaze me.
Lets talk flat earth! People noticed boats sailing out to sea slowly dropped off. They noticed during eclipses of the moon that the earth was round. THAT WAS EVIDENCE!!!
What is your evidence aliens have visited earth.
This is not difficult. Unless you have NOTHING!
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)As the pyramids or murals depicting humanoids in space suits as "proof".
We can't prove one way or the other now. Just like we couldn't prove it in the past, until more research is done.
Mainstream science actually has a question mark on wether aliens visited Earth or not. So I have no idea why you're so dismissive?
Your personal belifs do not make something real or not real.
Logical
(22,457 posts)darkangel218
(13,985 posts)And I'm not arguing one way or the other, just saying that plenty of scientists say it is possible Earth has been visited.
See, that's what you and the skeptics dont understand. We are not here trying to prove you anything , you are the ones attacking us for being open minded. You can deny or believe in anything you want. No one is going after your beliefs, why should you go after others's?
Logical
(22,457 posts)act like their side has proof. Where there is NONE.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)If alien probes possibly visited Earth, then the question still remains.
Logical
(22,457 posts)saying aliens have visited earth is like me saying I have a cure for cancer.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Which scientists have deducted from their studies.
I never said there was proof, I said that the possibility still exists.
Logical
(22,457 posts)darkangel218
(13,985 posts)They all have Conclusions.
We never debated concrete proof, we debated the possibility. And the possibility has been concluded in a quiet large number of scientific studies.
Have a nice evening, Logical! Nice chatting with you.
2naSalit
(86,536 posts)Case in point:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024281484
See responses to my comments, I have placed a certain responder on ignore.
"Witch doctors" lol.. poor thing!
2naSalit
(86,536 posts)the most intelligent response they could muster. I don't have any patience for that kind of (forgive me) woo.
Guess for some it's like a religion... science is all there is and if it can't be explained in charts and graphs, it doesn't exist.
Cha
(297,149 posts)scuffles but read them for entertainment purposes and once in awhile I'll chime in. But, I'm all about the natural healing for myself. I've been exposed to both and the allopathic route just doesn't work for me. So we do what works.
I say good for you helping yourself and your friends with remedies you make from plants. Does the burn healing one have Aloe in it? I have Aloes all over the place around here.. they are magical for healing burns!
No, I don't use aloe because it's hard to keep alive up here at 44N and at 7K ft elevation. I don't like to buy processed stuff like that. But I do use herbs I can grow and make combinations with oils that work really well in high elevation sun and cold. There are a whole bunch of herbs that are good for skin, and some grow here in summer too. Just depends on the type of summer we have as to whether they are worth using. My friend and mentor lives in lower elevations in a near-by state and they share herbs with me, a source i can trust.
Once in a while i get something I don't feel that I cn deal with on my own and then I'll seek help but not always in the for-profit realm.
Guess I shouldn't reveal my personal preferences here, I see that it just gets a lot of woo slinging going needlessly as those who like to poo pooh those ways are certainly not interested in anything other than flaming and chastising others.
Hawai'i has a lot of aloe, I know, and so does SoCal where I first learned about it. But the NAs up here have some cool herbs and roots they won't tell white people about too!
Cha
(297,149 posts)you're not in a climate that would be conducive to a succulent like Aloe Vera.
The Earth is teeming with so many wonderful varieties of different healing plants.. it's bloody well amazing!
I'll just say "Moringa!" Oh, and I support organic farmers and GMO
Wonder what they think about the wonders of Marijuana!? rofl!
2naSalit
(86,536 posts)several references in my library, Cannabis has up to 22 medicinal properties! What's so hard to understand about that? It's almost as ubiquitously beneficial as garlic!
I gotta go, there are chores to do and I've been here for too long today.
Good chatting with you.
Cha
(297,149 posts) LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)but I'd like to point out that 'bullying', condescending behaviour is not restricted to one side of the argument. People who support modern medicine, vaccinations, etc. are sometimes accused of being corrupt; 'pharma shills'; or, perhaps worse, of refusing to take responsibility for our health. Posters have suggested that people who rely on medicine are keeping ourselves dependent on government/Pharma, instead of maintaining healthy lifestyles, or relying on our 'natural' immune systems. Some alternative medicine advocates talk of the 'medical industry' keeping us 'dependent' in exactly the same way that economic right-wingers talk of poor people being 'dependent' on the 'welfare industry'. There have even been posters who have suggested that people with medical problems somehow choose to be ill, and could be healthy if they chose to be!
This can really be very hurtful to people who have genuine chronic health problems. Sometimes it is not that different from the religious right's opposition to e.g. stem cell research: another form of 'my ideology should trump your health needs'.
Also, sometimes people quote seriously right-wing sources in support of their anti-'Western medicine', anti-vaccination views. These sources can range from right-libertarian, Ron-Paul-supporting groups that oppose all 'socialized medicine', to racist conspiracy sites like whale.to.
I am NOT saying that everything that could be called 'woo' by some people comes into any of these categories. Nor am I saying that medicine is perfect nowadays; that doctors know everything; or that pharmaceutical companies are angelic (few people, including most doctors, would say any of these things nowadays). But just pointing out that there are modern-medicine bashers who are just as aggressive as any 'woo-basher'! And are generally much more fundamentally right-wing in the reasons that they give.
CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)....the 'you must be a right-winger' argument. Haven't heard that one for awhile. Presumably if you support the scientific agencies of government (who's only purpose is to get re-elected) and all the free market corporations (whose only purpose is to make more money) then you are a good Democrat.
"There have even been posters who have suggested that people with medical problems somehow choose to be ill, and could be healthy if they chose to be!"
That sounds like me...
"This can really be very hurtful to people who have genuine chronic health problems."
And that sounds like you, inferring that a legitimate alternative medical philosophy is nothing more than a personal attack and a right wing plot to keep you from your 'happy pills'. I hope you are reading this thread in its entirety.
.
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)They borrow science they rarely understand to bludgeon those who posit alternative "heretical" theories. Ironically, if one of those "crazy" theories gained acceptance, they'd simply inscribe it in their woo-buster bible. Lather, rinse, repeat.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Glad we don't have those sorts on DU.
quinnox
(20,600 posts)Well said! 
ancianita
(36,023 posts)were devoted to the clinical studies of the effects, if any, of mj's delta 9 THC and other psychoactive ingredients of other classified hallucinogens on sleep, REM, alpha wave, short and long term memory, perception and psychomoter skills. At least four whole chapters. Clinical studies.
My best recollection is that I saw nothing appear in public media about these studies at that time. That information about those studies, and probably more about mj's effects on cancer, has been out there since the early 70's. I still have the textbook, too.
I think woo's gotten wind of this stuff and just doesn't have access to what probably become "proprietary information."
Cleita
(75,480 posts)if they were aware of them. My mother, who died a painful death from a then incurable cancer in 1977, might have had a different outcome in palliative care and a more comfortable death if her oncologist knew about or took those studies seriously.
ancianita
(36,023 posts)knowledge.
There's much hidden proprietary knowledge and trade secrecy out there, so anyone who is woo is still someone I will gladly listen to.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)You're sounding very smug and condescending.
Maybe you need your chakras realigned. Or a dose of Reiki. Or a prayer or some good vibrations. Or homeopathy. Or any one of those completely-useless-but-reassuringly-expensive "treatments" that the snake-oil salespeople are desperate to sell you.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)And its not pretty. At all.
Berlum
(7,044 posts)...they indulge their fetish to distract people from noting the MASSIVE FAIL of the soul-sucking Scientific Materialist FAIL they are on such intimate terms with.
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)montex
(93 posts)Calling people names is bullying.
paleotn
(17,911 posts)Hard, solid falsifiable reality is fail? Now THAT'S funny. And yes, I too am laughing at woo, because it is many times so unbelievable, hilariously stupid I simply can't help it. Never ceases to amaze me what ridiculous shit people will believe.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)The scientific method demands between 30 and 100 or more tries ( experiments, trials) to prove or disprove a thesis. Many of those experiments are nor done due to lack of money or political or economical interests ( I.e. marijuana's health benefits"
Btw, no one is asking anyone to believe anything, you can think for yourself. What the OP was pointing out is the nastiness of some in regard to anything not mainstream.
paleotn
(17,911 posts)...was attacking reality. I was merely commenting on Berlum's hurt feelings, the poor baby. Mainstream has nothing to do with it. I could care less about mainstream. A lot of what's considered mainstream in this society is still unsubstantiated bullshit we're all simply use to. Evidence based, now THAT is what's important. I think that's the distinction the OP is missing.
When someone starts going on and on about some unsubstantiated claim, which is their right, someone is going to call them out on it, which is also their right. Now if said claim is really idiotic, lacking any evidence or basic logic, yes, some of us will point and laugh, which may be considered bullying, but is not. Just my two cents worth.
As for marijuana's health benefits, research is limited since it is an illegal substance in most US jurisdictions, but should be fully explored. I'm sure their are many interesting, novel compounds in marijuana other than THC, but inhaling the products of combustion more than likely far outweigh any benefits. That's simply my personal hypothesis.
IdaBriggs
(10,559 posts)
lunasun
(21,646 posts)They go to the doctor and that is it .
But I have noticed a real anti aleternative crowd . Many insurances like BCross BShield pay for many aleternative treatments now.
I think they ithe health forum here too
closeupready
(29,503 posts)is my best guess, or those teen-in-mind/spirit, lol.
Cheers. K&R
WatermelonRat
(340 posts)montex
(93 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)I knew this dynamic reminded me of something. I suppose it's always the chord that's struck when data butts heads with dogma.
G_j
(40,366 posts)"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
Albert Einstein
darkangel218
(13,985 posts) ancianita
(36,023 posts)
alarimer
(16,245 posts)Woo is utter shit. You believe that stuff, fine, you're only putting your life at risk.
But anti-vaxxers (a form of woo) KILL people. Kids, mostly. And not vaccinating your kids is child abuse and should be grounds for removal from the home.
Throw your money away on "homeopathic" remedies, but know that you are just buying expensive water and sugar pills.
But don't you fucking dare say they are a cure for anything. They are demonstrably useless at best, and dangerous at worst.
You ARE an idiot for believing in UFO's, in acupuncture, in chiropractic (which by the way has killed people too). Or anything not scientifically tested and verified. Again, you're only hurting yourself and I don't really give a shit if you die. But if you advocate it for other people or force it on your kids, you can bet I will call you out as an abuser if you do, because that's what it is.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)
Have a nice life.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)
Igel
(35,300 posts)Esp. when there's a body of people that agree with the nay-sayers.
Could be worse.
There could be groups that revel in deleting the posts they disagree with, chortling about bragging getting such posts deleted, and who mount efforts to get anybody who they disagree with banned.
The name calling is pretty intense. "Woo" is but one of the words used, and that neither all that often nor with the vigilantism seen over other kinds of disagreement.
That said, a lot of the pseudo-science stuff is just offensive and embarrassing.
(Not as offensive as a lot of the "this is person X's Xianity as I see it and think X should implement it--notice that X isn't doing what I think he should be doing, so he's actually an unXian hypocrite" posts. To be sure.)
BainsBane
(53,031 posts)but I am unashamedly part of the evidence based community. I could go based entirely on feelings and deny climate change, the fact Barack Obama was born in the US, or whatever, but if it isn't based on evidence, what is the point? Questions are good, but if people refuse to consult evidence and insist on creating an alternative scenario in their heads based on what they think should be, I'm not interested. In general, few people care about evidence anymore and go entirely off what they want to believe, which is symptomatic of the decline of education and what passes as news coverage in this country. As a result, most conversations on DU go no where. The woo is the last stuff I care about. There is enough bad in the world for me to start worrying about what someone has cooked up in their minds. If they have enough evidence that it passes out of woo into plausible alternative theory, then I'm interested. So no, I don't disrupt the woo threads. I don't care enough to bother.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)Good post.
paleotn
(17,911 posts)...oppressed all over America. War on Christmas and all. Interesting you would recycle an old wing nut meme, applying it to areas of more left leaning woo. Fitting, I suppose. Woo is woo after all.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Would you like a hug?
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Thanks for contributing to their statement.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)But no hug for you, with the vomiting. Did you remember to activate your water this morning? or do you need someone to beat the demons of sickness out of you with a magic stick?
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Probably not much.
I feel sorry for you. 
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Gotta watch out for that colloidal silver, you know.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Your post was vile, but the jury let it stand.
I would say you have bigger problems than turning blue. Good luck in your journey.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Oh, the "demons of sickness" thing? Oh jeeze. You do know that in some "traditional societies," the belief was / is that evil spirits cause sickness, and can be driven from the body by whipping the person with a stick, right?
Who are you to judge their ancient and deep knowledge of medicine?
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)I honestly feel bad for you. I wish you well. I hope some day you will overcome all this negativity.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)What's his latest? "Ayuravedic Quantum Chiropractic Seances and You"?
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)snooper2
(30,151 posts)That nasty POS Margaret Thatcher...A dark hole in the ground because she is dead..
But she doesn't know that, brain hasn't functioned for some time now LOL
NutmegYankee
(16,199 posts)"or do you need someone to beat the demons of sickness out of you with a magic stick?"
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)
Digit
(6,163 posts)Wow, I wish I knew ahead of time where to be at any given moment....
That's it, I just gotta believe those scientific types are in actuality super psychics.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)But I am seriously considering just blocking these people who feel it is okay, within a community, to behave like assholes towards other members.
easttexaslefty
(1,554 posts)Deep13
(39,154 posts)There are legitimate exerts on subjects in this world who really do know WTF they are talking about. The gained that expertise at with great effort and great investments of time, personal sacrifice, and money. Mostly, it is a lot of work. Returning to grad school for history, I worked harder than I have have in my life. At least when I was practicing law, I usually had weekends off and everything was in English! Not anymore. So the experts who actually know how things work have a right to take umbrage at amateurs second-guessing them based on crap some moron said on TV.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)Nowhere in this thread or in my posting history is there evidence that I feel threatened (hahahahahahaha! As if there is a single person on this board that I feel threatened or of whom I am intimidated or feel is any more important that myself or anyone else! LOL! I don't give one flying fuck!) by anyone on this board.
ROFL! 
ETA: Let me clarify: There is not one single person on this board that is better than me and I'm not better than you or anyone else here. I don't give a shit what you or they know, what they do for a living, what their IQ is, what their zip code is... Every one of you shits and pisses just the same as I do.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)
hueymahl
(2,495 posts)This is a joke, right?
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Shankapotomus
(4,840 posts)And more often than not that discussion is comprised of replies of "Wrong" countering what someone has said. The more questionable the statement, the quicker the negative response.
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)I'm not taking a woo-stance one way or another but there are some on DU (and other forums) that don't "discuss." They ridicule, they bully, they stalk threads... people have been banned from DU for doing such things. The "it's a forum, so it's discussion" argument is disingenuous and made by people often refusing to open their eyes to their own actions. To call people idiots for their beliefs is not a discussion, it's name calling (and it's happened in this very thread). I mean, ask the Christians how they feel about the atheists name-calling on DU or vice-versa.
ProudToBeBlueInRhody
(16,399 posts)....when it does not.
Woo is woo. And usually someone is trying to make a buck off it, just like big pharma.
By the way, I rarely participate in woo threads. Some of them are so mind numblingly stupid I don't want to lose IQ points.
Common Sense Party
(14,139 posts)and practitioners (or at least the Christian ones) in any thread which may have a slightly positive tone about religion?
Glassunion
(10,201 posts)
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)I believe that you are in a severe need of auditing.
Please hold onto these prongs while I fire up the E-Meter.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts) AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)My smug and condescending alarm went off. I hope I'm not too late to be a creepy asshole.
Kaleva
(36,294 posts)But instead of an emblem of a bat in the night sky, one sees a creepy looking asshole.
tclambert
(11,085 posts)
fleabiscuit
(4,542 posts)I actually had to google "woo" to find out what it was ('nt). lol
Ah heck, when he was once completely out of alternatives even Spock resorted to an act of desperation.
tavalon
(27,985 posts)And anyone who believes their lore is likely also very authoritarian and yet willing to submit to a "higher authority". My soon to be ex, used to say of me that I was someone least likely to bow to authority. And it's true. I believe in collaboration, an idea that hasn't crossed the threshold of a single hospital, as far as I know. Anyone who has been a patient - remember back to the many ways they made you submit, pushed you to become like a child begging for their attention. I know the game from the inside and still, when I was a patient a few years ago, I felt the pressure. Submit or don't get care.
cvoogt
(949 posts)Otherwise it's woo. OK, just kidding. I agree people can go too far and wind up not treating fellow humans nicely, just because they believe differently or believe at all. I can understand the frustration from the science side, but I also think an open mind is important. The universe is very complex and we have only scratched the surface, and I think the 'final frontier' of science is not "out there" but inside our minds.
Pharaoh
(8,209 posts)they are nothing but close minded rude idiots. Not worth talking to I have found.
abakan
(1,819 posts)I wonder if you perceive concern for condescension?
I once worked advocating for hepatitis c patients. The thing we ran into more than any other, the belief that herbal or alternative medicine would CURE them. I have seen people become much sicker and die from this belief. I knew one person who was convinced Bragg's would cure them of hcv, they got sicker and died because they were afraid of the scientific treatments.
I am not going to tell you not to do what you think is best for you. Just know there are no cures in herbal cures and many are dangerous. Remember if you are betting your life based something someone told you, they could be wrong, but it is your choice as long as you take responsibility for the outcome. Do your home work, keep yourself healthy and safe. Enjoy this new year and many more to come...
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)naturallyselected
(84 posts)This is why the alternative medicine/ anti-pharma posts bother me. They remind me of the Fox News hosts that say global warming is a hoax because they drove to work in a snowstorm.
Has the drug approval process been corrupted by the desire for profit? Of course. Does this mean most drugs produced by the pharmaceutical companies are worthless or worse? Absolutely not.
Could there possibly be very beneficial alternative treatments? Of course. Does someone saying that they successfully stop colds with homeopathic drugs convince me that there could possibly be something to homeopathic treatment? No. Homeopathy cannot work. It's a physical impossibility that water with no molecules of the homeopathic substance could have anything but a placebo effect.
I was raised in Christian Science. Go to your local Christian Science church (if you can still find one - that religion is dying a well-deserved death) on a Wednesday night and listen to the testimonials. "I had what Mortal Mind calls a cold, and I meditated on the perfect nature of our souls and realized that perfect beings cannot have diseases. Five days later my so-called cold was gone."
Science can show whether alternative treatments work or not. Is enough scientific effort put into the objective evaluation of alternative treatments? I don't think so. And the fact that there is more money available for funding research into pharmaceutical drugs is a huge part of that.
A frequent question asked in these threads is that why can't we science folks just leave the alternative medicine crowd alone. On a personal basis, I am happy to. In the bigger scheme of things, I feel obliged to point out that science is not "woo" and never has been. It doesn't matter to me personally whether people believe that humans were created in their present form, but when textbooks delete all references to evolution because of this pervasive nonsensical belief, it becomes an issue to me. If people choose not to get immunizations for themselves, that's their business. When they force these beliefs on their children (remember, I was raised in Christian Science) and infect society at large, it becomes an issue to me. If that Fox News commentator wants to believe that the snowstorm he drove to work in is evidence that there is no global warming, fine. When that belief becomes so pervasive in the culture that there is no good environmental policy, it becomes an issue to me.
Believe what you want, but don't pretend that the anti-science societal attitude it contributes to has no effect on others.
I'll now get off my smug, condescending soapbox, and go find someone else to bully.
hueymahl
(2,495 posts)And I will echo one thought that struck me reading it:
Bible thumpers and Woo trumpeters are different sides of the same coin - both believe in magical thinking and both get pissed when you engage in reality based conversations with them.
CrawlingChaos
(1,893 posts)Many examples have been cited in this thread. Your post contains a lot of contradictions.
While anecdotal evidence is obviously no substitute for scientific research, people should be able to discuss their experiences without being harassed.
Chrom
(191 posts)but often they just don't want anyone else to discuss a topic for some reason, they just won't let it go until they get the topic locked
Is the Official 9/11 story Woo? because the 'investigation' wasn't based on science
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024286775
CrawlingChaos
(1,893 posts)I first saw the term "woo" being widely used to shut down any sort of questioning of 9/11. If you expressed any sort of skepticism toward the ludicrous 911 Commission Report, the same old bunch (on a variety of forums - not just DU) would come out in force to scream "woo peddler!", as well as a host of other insults. You will often find they have a LOT of time to post. The internet is downright lousy with low-grade PR hacks who are paid to push the agenda of powerful people.
On another popular discussion forum, there's a guy who claims to be a physician who allegedly sees dozens of patients a day, but somehow finds time to post lengthy diatribes against "truthers" daily, with a post count in the tens of thousands. I mean, it's just laughable.
Here at DU, it seems to be a broad brush smear that is used as a way to conflate any sort of alternative therapy with the most crazy, outlandish practices out there. And you're either on the side of "woo", or you're not. If you seek any sort of treatment outside the confines of conventional western medicine, you're spreading dangerous "woo" that gets people killed! (Optional: insert irrelevant comment about the moon landing).
So yeah, the term is definitely a red flag.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)with regards to posters. I'm at home a lot and I'm not able to come close to keeping up with many posters. Some of the posters here are like your 'physician' friend, and you are right, it is laughable.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Isn't QM still part of science? Maybe I missed the news report in which it was stated that scientists have now sorted out all the unanswerable questions about that. 
Last I heard, scientists were regarding the universe and reality itself as very relative and all tangled up and dependent upon consciousness in some very messy, unobjective, and unexplainable way. You know, a lot like woo. They must be lousy scientists, I guess.
Like that guy, Niels Bohr for instance, what a fruitcake! And that Schrodinger's Cat fellow, what a looney tune! Them, and all that bunch that used to argue together should be tossed straight in the dungeon. Who needs that garbage cluttering up the place, messing up our nice, orderly, completely known view of things.
When did science become so finished, is what I'm wondering reading these woo threads? How did I miss news that big?
Yes, CTD, "it's kinda creepy" alright. There are so many people who are just certain that they know better, and it's their duty to tell everyone what to think. But then, as a scientific question, I have to wonder... why then were each of us given a brain, if all the thinking is to be done by a few people? Are our one-to-a-customer brains only there to keep our skulls from collapsing? Maybe evolution screwed up on that, hmm?
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts) NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)
egduj
(805 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Or generally make fallacious assertions that show they don't understand the basics of the other argument.
dorkulon
(5,116 posts)It's insulting, makes people feel stupid, and may indeed feel like bullying.
But what's the alternative? Just let them go on believing nonsense?
