It's Come To This

[Deleted]

I'm playing voice's utter conviction that the medical industry is always 100% right, his undying belief in this strange religion of a manufactured panacea for every ill known to man and his hysterical dismissal of any alternative. That's all.

[wetkingcanute]

An interesting post ootlg but voice does not think that.

You made it up.

He is not utterly convinced that the medical industry is always 100% right

[perrykneeham]

How can they be? They're not me.

[voice]

Thing is oolg I know nothing is 100%, there are deaths caused by medical neglect, drugs come on the market that should have not, drugs have unforeseen side effects, but the difference between actual medicine and woo is if there is a problem with medicine we stop using it, if we find something better we use that instead, someone finds out something new, its tested. Its all about the science, new evidence leads to new ideas and change, woo on the other hand, because it doesn't rely on evidence and can't be shown to have any effect in a credible trial, is used in the face of evidence it has no better effect than a placebo, based on beliefs, often the superstitions, such as chiropractors and their subloxones or homeopathy with water that has selective memory. If any one is unwavering in their beliefs its not me, you show me credible evidence about woo and I'll accept it, well until new facts and evidence change the understanding of it.

Again, herbs and plants that have measurable effect upon a condition is called medicine, herbs and plants that don't are called seasoning or natropathy

[flatandy]

Nov 22, 2019 8:17:43 GMT @oneofthelessergods said:

I'm playing voice's utter conviction that the medical industry is always 100% right, his undying belief in this strange religion of a manufactured panacea for every ill known to man and his hysterical dismissal of any alternative. That's all.

All the known "panacaeas" for "ills" known to man are part of modern medicine. By definition.

Everything that falls outside modern medicine either has no proven efficacy above placebo, or is actively damaging. If you have alternative "treatment" in parallel with real medicine, it can be harmless harmless, but most people who believe that the alternatives work don't think they need their chemotherapy or their heart transplant, and therefore even the "harmless" alternatives become damaging.

That's not to say that people don't die (or end up otherwise harmed) when being treated by modern medicine. It's just that many, many more would end up dead, or would end up with long term chronic problems, if they eschewed treatment and went to charlatans instead.

[voice]

"Granddad, what did you do before vaccines and antibiotics"

"We died, lots of us died son"

[Deleted]

Nov 22, 2019 9:25:24 GMT wetkingcanute said:

An interesting post ootlg but voice does not think that.

You made it up.

He is not utterly convinced that the medical industry is always 100% right

I was exaggerating of course, but you've clearly got your virtue-signalling hat on.

I've had amazing treatment at the hands of various conventional medical services as have most people I know. It constantly amazes me that others care so much about us. I just don't get voice's constant vitriolic attacks and insults on those who offer an alternative. For a start, ayurvedic medicine has a lot to offer, as does herbalism. I related the story of alternative treatment on my back which was amazingly effective, but had not a whimper of acknowledgement from him. Closed minds are not good in the medical field.

[Deleted]

Nov 22, 2019 14:17:00 GMT voice said:

Thing is oolg I know nothing is 100%, there are deaths caused by medical neglect, drugs come on the market that should have not, drugs have unforeseen side effects, but the difference between actual medicine and woo is if there is a problem with medicine we stop using it, if we find something better we use that instead, someone finds out something new, its tested. Its all about the science, new evidence leads to new ideas and change, woo on the other hand, because it doesn't rely on evidence and can't be shown to have any effect in a credible trial, is used in the face of evidence it has no better effect than a placebo, based on beliefs, often the superstitions, such as chiropractors and their subloxones or homeopathy with water that has selective memory. If any one is unwavering in their beliefs its not me, you show me credible evidence about woo and I'll accept it, well until new facts and evidence change the understanding of it.

Again, herbs and plants that have measurable effect upon a condition is called medicine, herbs and plants that don't are called seasoning or natropathy

I have no idea what 'woo' is, beyond it being something you've invented.

[wetkingcanute]

Woo, also called woo-woo, is a term for pseudoscientific explanations that share certain common characteristics, often being too good to be true (aside from being unscientific). The term is common among skeptical writers. Woo is understood specifically as dressing itself in the trappings of science (but not the substance) while involving unscientific concepts, such as anecdotal evidence and sciencey-sounding words.

Woo is usually not the description of an effect but of the explanation as to why the effect occurs. For example: "Homeopathy is effective (even when no molecule of the active ingredient remains in the final product) because the solution retains a memory of the solute."—the explanation for these results, e.g. water memory, is woo.

Woo is used to blind or distract an audience from a real explanation or to discourage people from delving deeper into the subject to find a more realistic explanation. You can't make money if nobody buys your bullshit.

[voice]

He knows, it's an expression I and others have used here for years to describe quacks and associated health fraudsters such as you describe wkc

[voice]

Anyway I'been thinking today about difference between woo and actual medicine and also to address the oft cited notion that actual medicine can only cut burn or poison and how often the woosters bring up example such as thalidomide as evidence actual medicine is a menace.

I've long been interested in thalidomide, its a very effective drug and we still use it as an adjunct medication in cancer treatment, just not for pregnant women. Back in the 50's when it was introduced it was a decent drug, it did exactly what it supposed to do in the vast majority of pregnant women, in fact as it didn't have any adverse effect on the vast majority of fetuses and their development the link to thalidomide took a while to establish, and sure it probably took longer than it should have, and would certainly have been identified sooner were such a tragedy to happen today. In the aftermath though a lot of research was done into why it affected just a small amount of those taking it and why it was safe for the majority, they looked at the women they looked at the babies but nothing was obvious to explain what went wrong. Eventually after a lot of studies were done it was found out, due to slight differences in drug production occasionally a very strange thing had happened at a molecular level, in a small number of batches the active ingredient in thalidomide had been synthesized as a mirror image of the regular drug, it contained the same elements, but they were put together in such a way to be an exact mirror image of the safe molecule. This knowledge was groundbreaking and has informed drug production ever since, its now tested for and understood, in fact while its not said, modern thalidomide would probably be safe for pregnant women to take as we now know how to ensure we avoid the mirroring that caused some batches to have such a drastic effect, but an abundance of caution means we avoid it.

This is the difference to woo and snake oil, medicine changes based on new understanding and new evidence and often quite quickly, where as, for example, chiropractors are still giving their rubes brain stem strokes, and homeopaths are still peddling their magic water despite not a single shred of evidence supports it, and antivaxxers are still telling the lie MMR causes autism and you can get flu from the flu shot, again despite no evidence to back these spurious claims up existing and actually an abundance of evidence showing they are wrong.

[Deleted]

Nov 22, 2019 23:23:10 GMT voice said:

He knows, it's an expression I and others have used here for years to describe quacks and associated health fraudsters such as you describe wkc

Wkc's wikipedia explanation describes abhorrent practices about which I think we all agree. My point is and always has been that there are valid alternatives, that allopathic medicine isn't the be-all and end-all of human welfare. You appear to be wilfully blind to this one simple fact. Why, I don't know but it's disconcerting that someone responsible for people's care is so aggressively closed to the matter.

[perrykneeham]

I think you might have a point here OOTLG, but you should remember that the point is, like the mathematical definition, infinitessimally small.

It's been established that any treatment which can be demonstrated to make a positive physiological change is what we would regard as medicine. Now, things that have no physiological effect, we might term placebos or feelgood treatments and some may have positive impacts because they are fundamentally just good health practice (meditation could just be regarded as rest, often all someone needs to feel better.)

Now, medicine does this too: people often feel better for just having seen the doctor or a nurse and had their minds set at ease. People are routinely told to get more rest, stop drinking or adopt a better diet, get some exercise etc. These are not medicine, but they are established medical practice.

In that regard, there is a tiny, tiny sliver of comfort for Team Woo, but it's a placebo. It looks like medicine, but it isn't really. Funny that.

[Deleted]

Agreed, with a rider: I don't think you can attribute advice [get more rest, stop drinking or adopt a better diet, get some exercise etc] solely to conventional medical practice. My grandma used to practice such advice, as did millions before her. But of course, what you say is more or less exactly what I'd say if asked for a general point of view.

I've had two longstanding issues with voice's take on things, one, that I don't agree with compulsory vaccination, especially for kids, and two, that there are valid alternatives to conventional treatment.

In the not-too-distant future man will be looking back with a mixture of amusement and horror at how conventional medicine treats illness today, just as it now does in medical schools looking back a hundred years or so.

[rick49]

"One of the largest studies to date on acupuncture and chronic pain — a meta-analysis of 29 well-conducted studies involving nearly 18,000 patients and published in October 2012 in the Archives of Internal Medicine — found that acupuncture is effective for treating chronic pain and therefore is a reasonable referral option. The doctors wrote that "ignificant differences between true and sham acupuncture indicate that acupuncture is more than a placebo"

www.livescience.com/29494-acupuncture.html

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1357513

so is JAMA a bogus website run by voodoo practitioners and witch doctors? Are all those studies a sham?

How about Johns Hopkins and the NIH? More voodoo witch doctory websites?

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/acupuncture

nccih.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/introduction

[voice]

Nov 23, 2019 11:34:08 GMT @oneofthelessergods said:

Agreed, with a rider: I don't think you can attribute advice [get more rest, stop drinking or adopt a better diet, get some exercise etc] solely to conventional medical practice. My grandma used to practice such advice, as did millions before her. But of course, what you say is more or less exactly what I'd say if asked for a general point of view.

I've had two longstanding issues with voice's take on things, one, that I don't agree with compulsory vaccination, especially for kids, and two, that there are valid alternatives to conventional treatment.

In the not-too-distant future man will be looking back with a mixture of amusement and horror at how conventional medicine treats illness today, just as it now does in medical schools looking back a hundred years or so.

I've always said placebos work, actual medicine relies on it just as much as woo tbh, give someone a little sugar pill and call it medicine and it will have an effect, but I'm talking about the difference between having a sugar pill and something with an active ingredient that we know and understand has a pharmacological effect that is repeatable and will have that effect on the physiology not dependent on beliefs. I've also said there is nothing wrong with woo if it makes you feel better when having something vague and undefined that will clear up by itself anyway. The problem I have is when woo is touted as a replacement for actual medicine for things taking a placebo won't help, real harm is done when that occurs.

As for vaccines, I think we've gone over this already, sure you should have a choice not to protect your children, but there should be the ability to protect others from your poor decisions and make having protection dependent on being able to go to school. Over 5,000 deaths this year from measles alone for instance, others should not be put as risk cos you're an idiot, we know you can drink and drive if you want, but its banned cos of how dangerous it can potentially be, same with preventable diseases such as we vaccinate against.

And yes I expect evidence based medicine will move on, and we will look back as how primitive we were in comparison, but I don't for a second think it will be because suddenly woo and snake oil has taken its place, in fact its far more likely our future self's will be incredulous so many of us thought magic water with selective memory was taken seriously or that we ever allowed dangerous quacks such as chiropractors to get their hands on people, or that there was a whole movement wanting to bring back child suffering and death.

[Deleted]

OK

[rick49]

Army vs. Navy Football West Point Clears Cadets of Hate Speech ... Over 'OK' Hand Gestures

www.tmz.com/2019/12/20/west-point-cadets-army-navy-football-circle-game-hand-symbol-white-supremacy/

"The “okay” hand gesture—in which the thumb and index finger touch while the other fingers of the hand are held outstretched—is an obvious and ancient gesture that has arisen in many cultures over the years with different meanings."

"Today, in a usage that dates to at least as early as 17th century Great Britain, it most commonly signals understanding, consent, approval or well-being. Since the early 1800s, the gesture increasingly became associated with the word “okay” and its abbreviation “ok.” The gesture is also important in the Hindu and Buddhist worlds, as well as in yoga, where it is known as mudra or vitarka mudra, a symbol of inner perfection. The "okay" hand gesture also forms part of the basis for a number of words or concepts in American Sign Language. It appears in many other contexts as well."

www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-hand-gesture

It's been around since forever. Then a couple years ago, the woke, in all their "wisdom," declared it racist. Now these cadets, thanks to the woke, despite being cleared, will have to carry around the racist charge for the rest of their lives.

[Deleted]

Depends in what context it's used surely? It can mean zero. Or in some cases an arsehole.

[mids]

Don't Frenchies use it while sort of kissing the tips of their fingers to mean something is tasty?