The Enemies of Reason, Channel 4, Monday 8pm

[capt_birdseye]

I hadn't realised that Homeopathy was just water with a "memory" of something in it. That re-inforced my sceptisism quite a lot.

It did seem, however, pretty reasonable to accept that these therapies generally have a positive affect despite appearing to be little more than a placebo. If the practioners choose to interpret them in specific ways then that's fine too. What does worry me is if this is taken to the extremes, as mentioned earlier, where a woman gave her child natural remedies rather than take it for standard innoculations.

[blinder999]

Having seen the programme last night, for the first time I felt I could see the positive side of all that quackery.

I found myself comparing a relaxing hour with a kind, caring and well-meaning person who is entirely focused on listening to the patient's problems, with my recent experience at the Dulwich Medical Centre:

As usual, I wasted an hour pressing redial at 9am in order to get an appointment for 4.30pm (a full working day down the pan there), then waited twenty minutes in their reception until finally getting approximately four minutes with a doctor who says I need some blood tests, for which I will have to come back the next week (the nurse does that???).

So, another morning off work for blood tests; two weeks later (having heard nothing from them) I call them up and ask for the results.

"Oh your results are normal - we only contact you if there's something wrong".

So after a day and a half off work, and a typically demeaning experience with the NHS I'm back at square one with my mysterious ailment...

[Mark]

Yes, scientists did believe bleeding worked but they don't do that any more because better methods came along, it's called advancement. Imagine if they still continued to use them but they didn't actually work, then you could have a go at science.

But yes, I agree creating better conditions for the body to heal itself should be taken more seriously. When you have the flu and go to the doctors she will says take some rest, the reason being that when your body is not having to work on your limbs moving, that energy can go towards fighting the bug. Now if you went a faith healer and lay down for an hour and relax, bingo, just what the doctor ordered, you will feel better.

I think some of it comes down to how you wrap up chilling out, relaxing and re-composing yourself. Either do that with meditation, reading a nice book, a cup of tea and a chat to your mum or with a healer or all of them but please don't undermine people's trust in proven medicines when you do so.

blinder999, perhaps if ?10 million hadn't been spent on the Homoeopathic hospital refurbishment you may have had a better experience at the clinic. Maybe not, but it's worth thinking about.

[edited once]

[MadWorld74]

I don't think whilst watching that any of the 'quackery' therapists tried or even considered undermining people's trust in proven medicines. Not at all. This is why I couldn't understand why Dawkins was so hell bent on protecting his precious, proven, western scientific medicines. No one was putting Flemming or Jenner on the stand!

[*Bob*]

The next time I have appendicitis I shall forego the standard 'doctor route' and opt to spend a relaxing hour with a 'kind, caring and well-meaning person'.

Mark is totally right.. alternative 'medicine' is about relaxation, which it's true can help the body to rest, recover and heal. But there are many ways to relax and they needn't involve spendng fifty quid for an hour with ET's glowing finger.

[MadWorld74]

ET's glowing finger, *Bob*?.....I don't think I've had that one.

[MadWorld74]

I particularly enjoyed the part where Dawkins was a little taken aback when Teressa Hale from The Hale Clinic, informed him that the Auyurvedic therapists sit a four year degree in order to practice. They have to have know their anatomy and physiology both from the Western and Eastern sides of medicine.

They didn't just learn it off the internet overnight.

[Mark]

MadWorld74, please stop calling it western scientific medicines. Look here: A case of ileocecal cancer associated with old tuberculosis from the National Hospital Organization Kyushu, Japan. Which is in the East. It is Eastern Science. Please don't dismiss it by saying that Dawkins is only talking about western scientific medicines. Science in the East is no longer purely this romanticised image of whispy haired old men casting wise words, they may still be whispy haired but they do have lab coats over there.

[blinder999]

"perhaps if ?10 million hadn't been spent on the Homoeopathic hospital refurbishment you may have had a better experience at the clinic."

I don't think it would make any difference to my experience whatsoever - mostly healthy males in full employment, who aren't addicted to drugs or alcohol will never be a focus for the NHS - we merely pay for it.

[*Bob*]

MadWorld74 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> ET's glowing finger, *Bob*?.....I don't think I've

> had that one.

House at the top of Denmark Hill. Follow the flying bicycles. Can't miss it.

[MadWorld74]

Okay I'm talking about the 'ancient eastern medicines' compaired to our scientific laboratory proven medicines in the west. That better for you, Mark?

[Mark]

MadWorld74 Wrote:

>I'm talking about the 'ancient eastern medicines' compaired to our scientific laboratory proven medicines in the west.

Christ on a bible, don't you understand that there are scientific laboratory proven medicines coming from the East as well? I even showed an example of a medical study from the East.

[mockney piers]

Is that like the ancient eastern wisdom of the Fists of Righteous Harmony. Protected by magic armour and supported by legions of the spirit soldiers they attempted to oust the West in a huge rebellion at the turn of the last century?

You have to feel for them*, humiliated by barbarians, seeing their people hooked on opium, but luckily the imperial powers' ignorant dependence on scientific devices like the machine gun and the breech loading rifle could not stand in the way of ancestral spirits, kung fu and the Chi that would give them superhuman and supernatural powers.

Doh!!

*actually not that much, they may have lost 10,000 people to futile attacks on well defended forts, but they also massacred 35,000 fellow chinese who had converted to christianity on their way there. Very spiritual!

[MadWorld74]

yes and I have read it Mark, so lay off with the condescending tone of voice

I am not refering to 'scientific laboratory medicines from the east'. I am talking about medicines such as Auyurveda and Reiki. To my knowledge neither have been in a laborartory and tested on mice.

Dawkins tried said that homeopathy was alright for 'scratchy heads and sore throats'. It is his belief that ONLY western medicine is 'proper' and that all other is placebo, this is the crux of my argument.

[MadWorld74]

So far it has been Monica, Citizen Ed and myself that continue to post on this thread, to try and allow others to see and think how we do. Still we continue to have our thoughts 'rubbished' by some of you boys with your wordy, weighty and a little arrogant in tone, responses.

No wonder the others have disappered and ceased posting.

[*Bob*]

I do salute your commitment to the cause, Madworld (especially as you declared you didn't want to participate in it ten pages ago hee hee). But essentially, all you've really got to go on is satisfied customers who 'swear by it'. Alternative therapists refuse to be stringently 'tested' and I think this tells most people all they need to know.

I skipped over Monica's postings as there are no spaces after commas and they give me a headache if I try to read them.

[MadWorld74]

Monica get you a*se back on here and say something. Just make sure you type properly. ;-)

[mockney piers]

Sorry if I come across as patronising. It's just with my historian's hat on for a moment I'm amazed that 2 words seem to have a weird ability to make people think in weird ways.

Ancient, Eastern.

From a historical context there's nothing romantic about ancient times, and thank your lucky stars you didn't live then, either in the east, the west, the fertile crescent, north africa or south america.

Then Eastern. If you think the ancient west was bad, you should try the east. China made roman brutality look positively amateur, and India wasn't alot better. And as for the celts or any other pagansof the time, they didn't have some huge love in, painting each other blue and communing with the spirit world; it was a hard hard hard life, and if you were lucky enough not to be massacred by a passing celt with a bad attitude, or goth or roman, or hun or alan or vandal...blah...etc...then your life expectancy was about 30 years. Many of us would already be goners, without the chance to be having this debate.

And you know why we're living so long don't you.....

[capt_birdseye]

SOmething to do with Atlantis?

;)

[Mark]

Mad World, please stop being regionally prejudice and calling scientific advances in medicine "western medicine".

Until you do so I shall call you Brian.

[MadWorld74]

Mockney, what are you banging on about? I've watched the way you post, and you always go off on a tagent. Goths, romans and huns, yee gads man, you love the sound of your own voice!

So, Dawkins was 'investigating' alternative medicines v 'proper' medicine. Get your bum out of the history books and back on this forum!

[mockney piers]

This thread is simply called the enemies of reason. People lose their faculties of reason by equating the concepts of ancient and eastern with wisdom and spirituality.

I was merely trying to point out that that's bollocks.

If you want to keep this 'debate' as an endless cycle of one side saying:

"You have no evidence whatsoever for alternative therapies doing anything other than making people feel good about themselves (not intrinsically a bad thing)"

and the other side saying either:

"I don't need evidence, it works" or

"You ignorant people, you know nothing"

then you're welcome to do so. It was getting a bit tiresome that's all.

Funny how one side doesn't get personal, enjoy it.

[MadWorld74]

Mark,

So, Dawkins was 'investigating' alternative medicines v 'proper' medicine

Regards

Brian.

[Alan Dale]

My Grandma always said 'If the Jehovos come knocking, take a leaflet and send them on their way. Don't try to get any sense out of them because they're f*cking nutters.'

I expect a few good people on here would invite them in and try to convert them to athiesm. Don't bother. Even if you manage it they'll never thank you.

Brian - you're not the messiah you're a very naughty boy.

[Jeremy]

Mark - I'm not sure your east/west argument is really that helpful... in the interest of objectivity:

Modern "scientific" medicine did originate in Europe, so is Western in a sense, even though it is now practised elsewhere. But there are also practitioners of other forms of medicine throughout the western world.

Certain traditional "spiritual" medicines such as acupuncture and reiki originated in Asia, so can be said to be Eastern, even though they are now practised elsewhere. There are now also practitioners of western/scientific medicine throughout Asia.

Why is Eastern/Western such an inappropriate distinction?