1. New age therapies cause 'retreat from reason'

Comment #61616 by kirkmc on August 6, 2007 at 2:43 am

dr in the house (comment 65) mentions something, and raises an issue that most of you are missing. As an oncologist, he sees a lot of people with life-threatening diseases. Unless you are faced with such a problem, you can't understand the feeling. These people grasp at anything they can that might increases there chances of surviving a few percent. Granted, much of this is garbage, and doctors need to stress that (and dangerous, as the commentor said), but I cannot fault people for wanting to survive. If anything, it is what evolution has "wired" us to do.

The problem, as I mentioned earlier, is that medicine can't cure everything. So desperate people look to other solutions. As someone pointed out earlier in this thread, these "alternative" healers spend much more time with patients than regular doctors, and many of them are quite caring - some do this because it's a scam, but some seriously believe what they are doing.

The only way to fight this is to demand rigorous testing, but also to demand that unproven treatments be not available. Homeopathy, for example, as I pointed out earlier, is reimbursed by the state health system in France, giving it an official imprimatur. This leads people to believe that it must work. This needs to be changed, and in other countries where it is accepted, people need to fight to get it changed as well.

2. New age therapies cause 'retreat from reason'

Comment #61474 by kirkmc on August 5, 2007 at 9:50 am

I don't know how it is in the UK, but in France, where I live, homeopathy is considered not only acceptable, but it is officially sanctioned by the Social Security (national health system). I had some bad experiences when I was younger and more foolish, with homeopathic doctors (they are all MDs) who give me sugar pills rather than look closely to find a real problem I had. But the officiality of homeopathy made me look at it as though it had some validity.

This said, a physical therapist I see has told me that, even though he knows it is bunk, it doesn't bother him that much. The placebo effect does cure a lot of people, the meds are much cheaper than big pharma pills, and there are no side effects. While I can agree with this to a point, the broader problem is that people believe something works because their doctors do, and their doctors are swindling them. They don't make any more money than other doctors, but they are maintaining a fraudulent system.

Kirk

3. New age therapies cause 'retreat from reason'

Comment #61402 by kirkmc on August 5, 2007 at 3:42 am

I applaud Prof. Dawkins for this. Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that by living in a society that allows people to believe in ridiculous things (religion) without being ridiculed, that acceptance of belief has gone into other areas. As religion declines, as it is in many countries, people need to replace it with something.

As far as medicine is concerned, though, this is another problem. We are led to believe that medicine can cure everything, and when confronted with problems and conditions that it cannot cure, people go looking wherever they can. Doctors need to tell people that in some cases they just don't have answers. (Or they need to spend more time with people to try and elucidate their problems.)

Kirk

4. Lou Dobbs Interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #37413 by kirkmc on May 4, 2007 at 12:07 pm

At least this time he's sober...

5. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #36380 by kirkmc on May 1, 2007 at 2:46 am

He is interesting, but should learn to start drinking after his interviews. He'll be giving the moralizers fodder, saying that all atheists are alcoholics.

6. Why the Gods Are Not Winning

Comment #36316 by kirkmc on April 30, 2007 at 10:52 pm

I think it's safe to say that the 1900 figure underestimates Muslims. It is therefore not a valid base to examine.

7. The Video: Bill O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #35024 by kirkmc on April 26, 2007 at 3:24 am

Y'all missed something, and I'm surprised Prof. Dawkins didn't pick up on it. O'Reilly said that "Jesus is God"; now, as far as I know, no scripture makes this claim. God is God, and Jesus is the son of God, right?

O'Reilly says he's a Catholic, but the Catholics certainly don't believe that Jesus is God...

Kirk