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| | Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?Page 1 of 2 (1, 2) | OK so I'm no physicist but I dabble and read as much as I can. At this point we have quantum physics which has shown that subatomic particles, the building blocks of our world, can behave in very strange and unexpected ways - ways that are dependent on how they're being observed and that can behave both as a wave or particle. Now we have hypotheses for multiverses and string theory - obviously because the way things behave, we still need to imagine what might actually be happening to explain for it.
Yet when I read biology or contemporary western medicine, it feels like these discoveries were never made, as though we're still operating with Newtonian physics governing the human body. It feels like a massive gap between the possibilities of physics and the current operating paradigm of biology - everything simplified and mechanistic, without concern for energy exchanges, without the possibility of the body being influenced or even affecting other dimensions, without the possibility of our tissue behaving in two different ways at the same time. We still spend more time looking at dead tissue and narrowing our focus to one particular element of the body in order to analyze it, as though that will explain the whole thing.
Does anyone else see the massive gap here? I feel like I could learn way more about the possibilities of how the body can heal by reading about physics hypotheses than by paying attention to medical world basically being run by pharmaceutical companies peddling new, barely tested compounds. Money speaks louder than truth when it comes to human health. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 2:34:33 PM | The gap is not as massive as you think. There's a field called quantum chemistry which is used to explain some biological properties. I personally worked on a study of the charge density of Trans-Retinal, which is a chemical in the retina involved in vision. Detecting visual wavelengths is definitely a quantum effect.
However, most of how the body works seems explainable well enough by classical chemistry, with a bit of quantum chemistry at the outliers of molecular biology. There doesn't seem to be much reason to go too heavily into QM except for hand-waving (do you even know what a dimension is when you say "the body being influenced or even affecting other dimensions"? It seems like gibberish to me.) | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 2:57:03 PM | OK other Universes then - basically that we could be involved in more than what we can currently perceive. What do you mean hand-waving?
Personally I don't think the body has been properly explained at all using classical chemistry, otherwise we would have found cures for cancer and many other diseases that have sucked up trillions of dollars in research. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 3:02:15 PM | | The difference to me between physics and medicine is repeatability of experimental results. In physics an accepted theory is backed up by experiments which can be reproduced by others yielding the exact same results. This is not as true with medicine. Now don't get me wrong, there is a lot of science in medicine, but Dr.s can never predict how different people will react to a medication or a surgical procedure with the certainty of say a scientist predicting the outcome of a well known low temperature super-conducting experiment. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 3:33:20 PM | ^^I can't argue with that. It seems no coincidence that it's mostly man made compounds that increase risk of cancer. WE are killing ourselves off. Humans are a natural disaster.
Dr.s can never predict how different people will react to a medication or a surgical procedure with the certainty of say a scientist predicting the outcome of a well known low temperature super-conducting experiment.
Exactly my problem with medicine, biology and "soft" sciences in general. What drives me mad is how conclusively people explain biology when there is such a vast area of unknown variables. Why are we not studying the differences between Person A and B and why they react differently, instead of focusing on the medicines? It seems biology is caught in the hamster wheel of focusing on the parts instead of the whole person. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 3:41:48 PM |
Why are we not studying the differences between Person A and B and why they react differently, instead of focusing on the medicines?
My guess, bearing in mind that I am a history/philosophy student with an interest in science, is because those kinds of differences are unique to each person whilst the medicines are able to tap into the things that are common to most people. I could be wrong here, but that's what it seems to me. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 3:48:23 PM | There is a big gap between quantum physics and medical/biological science, in terms of their bases, but remember that it's the same as the gap between the scale of the phenomena these sciences concentrate on. While subatomic particles act in strange ways, you wouldn't expect a science like medicine or biology to even care about this. Their effects are seen at the atomic level, and even at the size of medium-sized molecules, quantum effects start to disappear and classical predictions become good enough for basically anything you'd care to do. Biologists and the like don't care about atoms - they only care about very, very large, complex systems.
Have you ever noticed that there's no realm of science (well, certainly not a 'mainstream' one...) called 'theoretical biology'? The systems they work on are far too complex for something like quantum physics to tackle on a large scale, and the same goes for engineers, pilots... If you want to see if a drug works, you've got to give it to people, not sit down and solve equations :p | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 3:50:38 PM | I see it too strangerange...
It is one of the many reasons I left the medical field...I find assembly lined medicine to be personally abhorrent...medicate, cut, and please be on your way...
But let me also be the first to point out, that there some terrific medical professionals out there, who have a different approach...
It still doesn't address the problems within the medical "system" as an entity...
You might want to check out Deane Juhan's "Job's Body". (I feel like an infomercial for this guys work of late...lol.) It is mainly geared towards body workers, but anybody who interested in approaching anatomy from a different perspective, I highly recommend it. Which is ironic, since I highly detested the book in school...It goes in VERY technical detail, and breaks down each system on a molecular level...brush up on your chemistry before you read it...
I think that many people are coming to the idea of a more holonomic view of the body. Holonomic in essence, means that the blueprint of the life of the whole is contained in each part and is continuously unfolding into expression. And vice versa.
Don't get me started on the pharmaceutical companies, and their money grubbing ways. Although it has gotten better...a few years ago, the two major medical facilities here got busted for the doctors accepting lavish vacations (under the guise of "conferences"). Since then, they have started several programs where medication is more available and affordable, to those who need it...
One of the cardiologists I used to work with and I got into a discussion about a patient, over their EKG results. They had some arrhythmia. When questioned about their diet, they revealed that they had very little water intake on a regular basis. Since water conducts electricity, and since the SA node and AV node carry on a "conversation" that is responsible for the electrical conduction of the heart...well, you get where I am going with this.
So the resident prescribed a beta blocker, with no discussion of the importance of hydration, (let alone a healthy diet) and sent them on their way. I asked why he did that, as opposed to sending them home with a heart monitor, after administering an IV drip, with strict orders to drink LOTS of water, and see if that would make a difference. He said because they probably wouldn't do it, it would be a temporary fix based upon their actions and history, and that most people just wanted a pill to make it all better...he had a point...but what a jaded view.
What infuriated me was that the patient was not given enough information to make an informed choice... | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 4:14:22 PM |
OK other Universes then - basically that we could be involved in more than what we can currently perceive. What do you mean hand-waving?
That's the kind of thing I mean by hand-waving. Other universes? What are those? Many worlds? We're just starting to build quantum computers that can handle a couple of digits.
Things that we cannot currently perceive? Yeah, I'm hoping there are lots, because otherwise, science would become boring, wouldn't it?
Personally I don't think the body has been properly explained at all using classical chemistry, otherwise we would have found cures for cancer and many other diseases that have sucked up trillions of dollars in research.
So you're frustrated with the pace of medical research. Well, so am I. Physics has gone a lot faster, although I'm pretty sure that there is at least one great unification in the future of physics. Maybe many.
I worked as a research scientist in a cross-disciplinary research institute for 13 years. I worked on problems ranging from particle physics to quantum chromadynamics (gluon-gluon interactions) to quantum chemistry to urea adsorption to migration of neurons and glial cells in the embryonic rat brain to meteorology and climate studies to computational fluid dynamics to chaos studies of the brain and the heart to human MRIs to the cycstic fibrosis gene(s) to bioinformatics and the human genome to economics, and that's just what I can remember now. We specialized in cross-disciplinary research, in the taking of principles from one field to another, and so I'd be fascinated by any transfer of ideas from physics to medicine. Oh, and I worked on a human body exhibit for the science museum, but we never got any funding. I bet that I am the most possibly sympathetic person to your viewpoint that you will ever meet in your entire life.
But still, in order for something to be useful, there has to be some indication, some arrow evident from the science where to look, otherwise it's all hand-waving. You can talk about things we can't currently perceive all you like, but unless there's some even speculative path of how to get from that to something that will actually save lives and make people better, you might as well just blow your nose. You can make millions of dollars writing a newage book, but it might not help anybody, and worse, it might hurt them. Medical history is full of things that seemed to be great ideas at the time but which killed people in the long run. This stuff is very difficult. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 4:56:26 PM | Well part of the problem I believe is just perspective - going from small to large, from parts to whole. I see far more advances in mind-body medicine, energy work and the relation between emotion and the body. After all since we recreate physical reactions simply by thinking of situations, we have an enormous amount of control over our own biochemistry.
Even my neurologist have been honest with me in how little they understand, and how they're really just stuck in their own little world. I asked a neurogeneticist what the chances of someone coming into the neurology department with a condition similar to what I have and getting an actual diagnosis - 50/50 she said. And the diagnoses available are purely descriptive with very little understanding of the whys and hows of neurological dysfunction. It is like watching blind monkeys.
That said, having also been exposed to a wide array of other therapies - energy medicine, homeopathy, Traditional chinese medicine, iridology, naturopathy, MDs who work in alternative medicine, channellers and hypnotherapists. By FAR the most helpful have been those which would be deemed LEAST helpful by traditional medicine - the ones who deal with the deeper psychospiritual energetic systems at work. By that I mean the ones that mysteriously bring to the surface the reasons behind my condition in my own consciousness - the hands off therapies that involve visualization and energy. I've been through dozens and dozens of tests in modern medicine and only ONE test ever came back with anything to say. I go to the neurologist in order to give them a perspective on what's going on with me, and not because I feel like I'm going to get anything back. I go to the regular doctors with a sense of foreboding and leave feeling depressed and hopeless. Nearly everyone in alternative medicine I go to see gives me a sense of understanding and greater clarity in how I can help myself.
I guess that's what I mean when I say the body should be looked at with more than one lens- we are wave and particle, material and energetic at the same time. There SHOULD be more theoretical biology and tests run on these principles - especially non-invasive non-chemical therapies. There is an abundance of other therapies that make no sense based on a materialistic view of biology, but WORK, and might make more sense when taking into account quantum physics and the likelihood that even though classical chemistry might describe a lot of processes - it does very little to describe the complexity of human experience.
So the resident prescribed a beta blocker, with no discussion of the importance of hydration, (let alone a healthy diet) and sent them on their way.
This person should not have a license. This is a direct violation of the Hippocratic Oath - first do no harm. I've heard too many stories of people who have been directly harmed by such thoughtless prescriptions and misdiagnoses. It is a damn shame that such arrogance still exists in the medical field. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 7:04:24 PM |
Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress? Posted: 8/4/2009 3  48 PM Why are we not studying the differences between Person A and B and why they react differently, instead of focusing on the medicines? My guess, bearing in mind that I am a history/philosophy student with an interest in science, is because those kinds of differences are unique to each person whilst the medicines are able to tap into the things that are common to most people. I could be wrong here, but that's what it seems to me.
My guess would be that the human body is so complex. We have barely begun to break the gene code and know fairly little about how our DNA controls processes in our bodies. I think this is the ultimate answer to solving all disease. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 7:20:32 PM | | you nailed it right on the head... in a nut shell... you are missing one vital element.... i god force... not in the means of any organised religion, you need to read alot of new age matreal... learn about the dimentions, keep in mind... we exsist on the lowest possible dimention... see it like a pyramid... with 11 levles... and your consiouness can ascend without actually leaving your body, just like a radio frequncies, fade out oof one dimention and into another... and the problem people face.. it that the avrage person think other dimentions are simalar to out 3rd dimentional reality... no, its not... 4rth is a lusid reflection of the 3rd dimentonal world, the 5th, is like a vast ocean, no surface or bottom, the 6th is pure energy, 7th, light and soo on and so forth... the 11th is said to be god, or the origional life smark... the anomoly that grew to big.... but another thing your seeing into is the manipulation threw out the world... money speaks.. like you said... people are a disposible comodity, the day you get a social security number, you surrender your status as a free human soul... if they can use a virus to infect a plant with jelly fish dna to make it glow in dark... im sure they could sample your cancer... find its identifying mark, use a flesh eat virus and manipulate is to attack the infected cells only... im sure it can be, and probily has been done... but they make more money blasting you with kemo and feeding you fills that numb the effects of the kemo.. effectivly turning your sickness into a managable desiese.. and once they got you, you canot survive without thier assistance... they medication, thier treatments... the hole health care system is a joke to begin with.. i dont even want to go on proving that point... i got place to be... but keep asking questions, in in due time they will present them self to you,they allways do | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 7:52:51 PM |
Does anyone else see the massive gap here? I feel like I could learn way more about the possibilities of how the body can heal by reading about physics hypotheses than by paying attention to medical world basically being run by pharmaceutical companies peddling new, barely tested compounds. Money speaks louder than truth when it comes to human health.
This is funny. I know for a fact that several big pharma companies have beamlines at ANL for MAD. You are way off. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 8:02:29 PM |
you nailed it right on the head... in a nut shell... you are missing one vital element.... i god force...
Sorry, couldn't follow your entire post. But I'm an atheist and believe the human body and mind are simply a very sophisticated machine/computer, organically based. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 10:22:21 PM |
This is funny. I know for a fact that several big pharma companies have beamlines at ANL for MAD. You are way off.
Can you translate this?
I'm not way off - working at a doctor's office I saw every week the smiling spiffy pharma salesperson with a fancy take-in lunch shmooze the doctor with the latest drug. This is common knowledge. Some doctors won't even see them anymore.
This is still off though - my point is that theoretical physics should, from a philosophical point of view, bring into question the nature of our bodies, since we are made of matter and exist in the physical universe. It is the energetic component of matter that gets ignored in mechanical science and since energy governs all life processes - without it we would be dead - that should be further investigated. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 10:25:54 PM | Having just undergone some "energetic component" biostudies with my critically inflamed appendix, I have to ask if you have considered MRI or CT or Tc-99m bone scans as exploring the energetic components of matter... or even an x-ray.
Just trying to open your eyes. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 11:03:55 PM | | Mikezt... i know what you mean... i was 8 before i een heard of god, but organized religion doesent fit... i was considerd an aithiest for a long time, but.. everything seems to be pointing towards an origion of sorts... i do not see god as a humonaid figure watching us from the heavens... more like a original life spark, the sorce where all other life sparks came from, the origional light sound frequencie vibration, the origional electromegnietic impulce... and what you say is very true... we are a organic mashien computer... but at the same time there is somthing deeper... somthing more, i purpose on earth is more than just to make more copies of me... there has to be somthing more... i will not accept that my dreams are just interpratations of daily events and thoughts, i will not accept that i just spontaniously apperd, and one day disapire... i was ok with that thought for a long time... but somthing iside me still begs the question... every day i get closer to my innar truth.. i meet resistance along the way... but im not out to start a pyrimid scam, and try and collect followers.... there are just questions scince alone canaot answer, they why i research phylosophy, religion, and other universal theroys to get a better undertstanding of what this all is, and what i am doing with it | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 11:21:17 PM |
your consiouness can ascend without actually leaving your body, just like a radio frequncies, fade out oof one dimention and into another... and the problem people face.. it that the avrage person think other dimentions are simalar to out 3rd dimentional reality... no, its not... 4rth is a lusid reflection of the 3rd dimentonal world, the 5th, is like a vast ocean, no surface or bottom, the 6th is pure energy, 7th, light and soo on and so forth.
Yes I believe there are other dimensions like this but science won't look at it because it's experiential rather than testable - there are no external tools and measurements to take about how big and how far away these dimensions are so therefore, even though people experience it, scientists will continue to say it doesn't exist.
I have to ask if you have considered MRI or CT or Tc-99m bone scans as exploring the energetic components of matter... or even an x-ray.
What I'm getting at is the living energy which sustains us and which can be felt, and which can cause changes in all of our systems which thrive on energy. Neurons in particular rely on electrical charges - and so I would guess would be most likely to be stimulated and release energy. I didn't mean tests that use energy to peer inside - although it is nice to have such tests that don't require tissue to be dead and mutilated in order to analyze. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/4/2009 11:47:55 PM |
Yes I believe there are other dimensions like this but science won't look at it because it's experiential rather than testable - there are no external tools and measurements to take about how big and how far away these dimensions are so therefore, even though people experience it, scientists will continue to say it doesn't exist.
How is science supposed to look at something that is not empirically testable? The whole premise of science is that a hypothesis can be tested in a reasonably objective manner. If the only evidence of something is the subjective experience of a few people, and there is nothing to suggest that this experience can be tested from outside through experiments, one can hardly be blamed for applying Occam's Razor and dismissing its existence whilst looking for explainations elsewhere.
What I'm getting at is the living energy which sustains us and which can be felt, and which can cause changes in all of our systems which thrive on energy. Neurons in particular rely on electrical charges - and so I would guess would be most likely to be stimulated and release energy.
Electricity is a form of energy, but what do you mean by "living energy"? Do you mean the various chemical processes that are involved in bodily function, such as burning food for fuel or the electrical impulses used in the nervous system, or something else? The tone of this comment makes me thing the latter, but I want to be sure. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/5/2009 12:30:18 AM | Part of the problem with medicine is that you are dealing with such a complex system. It isn't like a bottle full of atoms or molecules, all doing about the same thing. It's about quadrillions of individual cells each going about their individual business. You mention neurology - figuring out how to fix a brain with about 100 trillion neurons in it. Maybe a few hundred of them sharing one of the billions of tasks performed by the brain. It's a challenge simply to figure out which ones aren't working. And we're not even looking at the trillions of glial cells which outnumber them by more than ten times. Add to that the challenge of figuring out how it works (or why it doesn't) without disrupting any of it, and you may just get a glimpse of the enormity of the task facing just the neurological sciences.
If progress is uneven, it is because of the size of the task. Yet if you look at what has been achieved, you may question if it has been truly uneven. Some seem to choose a pessimistic view .... "we're killing ourselves", yet in general we live ever longer, healthier, more productive lives, we expect women and babies to survive childbirth and for all of our children to survive into adulthood. We sustain more and more people and have banished many of the major killer diseases to little more than memories. Sure, there is much more to be done in medicine - as there is in physics, but a great deal has already been done - in both fields.
Unless there was a significant increase in the number of people researching into medicine, expanding into new fields would take effort away from current research avenues. Would this be fruitful? Who knows? But current research strategies are moving in the opposite direction because funding agencies for research are favoring more and more of the less risky research on which to spend their dwindling resources. For-profit organizations such as the drug companies mentioned are even more concerned with a profitable result for their efforts. Taking a high risk doesn't sit well with shareholders, especially if it doesn't pan out, so few of those company managers will put themselves in a position where they risk losing their jobs. Is it right? - And therein hangs the rub - because it isn't really the researcers who call the shots. Its voters, tapayers and shareholders who decide where the money goes. Life doesn't work by what is right or wrong. To begin with, what is right for some may be wrong for others. If you're incurably sick, you want a cure at all costs. If you're a pharma shareholder, you want a maximum profit for a minimum risk. If you're a patient, you can demand a treatment but take no responsibility for your own health. Or you can determine the best actions to take and follow them to the best of your ability. And that includes becoming an informed patient, making sure that your doctor is giving you the best advice and treatment. Unfortunately there are those who can't be helped, even with the most up-to-date medicine. The most determined of them, like paraplegic Christopher Reeve work hard to get more attention for their problems, usually working within the system to understand it and sway emphasis towards whatever they felt was the most promising avenue of effort. In Reeve's case, even postumously changing the law to expand research, rehabilitation and care for people suffering from paralysis and other physical disability. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/5/2009 4:55:09 AM |
Can you translate this?
Sure no prob. You are saying that pharma companies aren't using higher level physics techniques to design new drugs. This is simply incorrect. I know for a fact, because I have seen them, at Argonne National Lab's Synchrotron source, some pharmaceutical companies sponsor beamlines to do MAD (Multiple Anomalous X-Ray Diffraction) and other techniques to solve the crystal structure and find the active sites for proteins and other agents. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/5/2009 11:11:46 AM |
How is science supposed to look at something that is not empirically testable? The whole premise of science is that a hypothesis can be tested in a reasonably objective manner.If the only evidence of something is the subjective experience of a few people,
The problem is that modern medicine will scoff at other forms of healing with the assumption that since it's not empirically testable then it doesn't exist, or it can't be true, or even helpful. It is criminal to tell people who want to heal from disease that science is the only method that will help them. This is the reality of medicine today. Also - what about the subjective experience of MANY people? Does this not give some possibility of greater truth to these experiences?
Electricity is a form of energy, but what do you mean by "living energy"? Do you mean the various chemical processes that are involved in bodily function, such as burning food for fuel or the electrical impulses used in the nervous system, or something else?
Yes the sum total of energy producing and absorbing processes that make the difference between us being alive or dead. The difference between the 2 is pretty extreme, I'd say. THAT energy - which is called the human energy field by many, and probably includes more energetic processes that are going on at a subtler level.
yet in general we live ever longer, healthier, more productive lives, we expect women and babies to survive childbirth and for all of our children to survive into adulthood. We sustain more and more people and have banished many of the major killer diseases to little more than memories.
Two steps forward, two steps back. More can be kept alive now though quality of life can be very compromised. It's true in the past these people would have died. But many of the old ways of dying have been grossly outrun by modern chronic diseases - diabetes, cancer, heart disease are only the most common. And what about autism? This disease has been sky rocketing and nobody even knows why. It seems for every disease cured another one pops up. And "productive" is not something we can measure, people today suffer from depression, chronic pain, and obesity is rampant in such a way that is unknown to traditional cultures. How do you measure adolescent angst and hopelessness?
Its voters, tapayers and shareholders who decide where the money goes. Life doesn't work by what is right or wrong.
I agree with that. That's why I'm bringing this up.
The most determined of them, like paraplegic Christopher Reeve work hard to get more attention for their problems, usually working within the system to understand it and sway emphasis towards whatever they felt was the most promising avenue of effort.
That's why I'm going back to school to study this for myself. And you can be sure I will speak up about it. What angers me most though is not the research itself, but the fact that I have had about 5 times as much information and help from healers and channellers than I've ever had from conventional medicine. It's almost a joke to me when I hear people who "believe in" science and hold that much of what these people are doing is a sham, or based on some simplistic quackery, when in fact they have not only given me the same information I've got from medical professionals but have also gone far beyond it in explaining holistically what is going on with my body and why it exists in the first place.
My point is that with quantum physics and matter behaving both as particle and wave, does it not also mean that our bodies are both solid and energetic at the same time? From a theoretical standpoint, taking a step back and placing the human within the hypotheses of physics, is it not incredible what our reality could really be like? That's what I mean when I say there must be something to these other realities since I've experienced it and I have no good explanation for how so much information can be accessed purely by going into a meditative state. It is incredible, and it seems like physics might offer up better ideas for this.
You are saying that pharma companies aren't using higher level physics techniques to design new drugs.
That isn't at all what I'm saying. I'm talking about physics from a view of the entire human body. This drug centred model does not add anything to our understanding of our humanity. I'm talking about string theory and multiverses, not about technology. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/5/2009 2:03:33 PM | strangerange, thank-you for your considered replies - and good luck in your endeavors to learn more by returning to school. If I disagree with statements here, it's more because I share the frustration and just wish to explore where the real source of the problem (and therefore the target for any correction) lies.
modern medicine will scoff at other forms of healing.... Modern medicine really doesn't - and I'd say that even more strongly for science. Perhaps some doctors do, but even the US National Institutes of Health support alternative medicine through the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (http://nccam.nih.gov). There are homeopathic hospitals all over Britain, supported by the British National Health service. Not sure what there is in Canada, but Googling turns up quite a few references for Canada. And, not least, many alternative treatments are covered by health insurance. It is interesting to note that there are demographics related to the acceptance of alternative medicine by the general public (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1447296). What influence may public opinion have on the acceptability/funding of alternative medicine?
....since it's not empirically testable then it doesn't exist, or it can't be true, or even helpful.? The most central empirical test in medicine is the clinical trial. Does the tested treatment result in patient improvement? Surely this is the end result you seek, so I don't understand your criticism.
...what about the subjective experience of MANY people? Does this not give some possibility of greater truth to these experiences? This is a tough and tricky one to even approach. You mention the lady being given a pill instead of being told to drink more by her doctor. Which of the two would have given her the more positive subjective experience? Possibly an example of a doctor choosing the subjectively more appealing treatment. You also mention the differnces between people. What is subjectively good for one person may not be subjectively good for another. How do you take that into account when researching the best treatments?
the old ways of dying have been grossly outrun by modern chronic diseases - diabetes, cancer, heart disease are only the most common. Surely a part of that is because there a fewer choices to die from now. The 3 you mention are diseases that have always been around. They are all diseases of aging, so you would expect an increase with longer lifespans. Add that they are also diseases of lifestyles embracing excess and you have another symptom of 'improved' life, in this case involving choices and responsibilities of individuals themselves. Childhood diabetes was a killer until the 1920s when Canadians Banting and Best discovered a treatment.
And what about autism? This disease has been sky rocketing and nobody even knows why. It seems for every disease cured another one pops up. And "productive" is not something we can measure, people today suffer from depression, chronic pain, and obesity is rampant in such a way that is unknown to traditional cultures. How do you measure adolescent angst and hopelessness? Autism is another interesting example of subjective experience. The increasingly less likely pop-culture blame on immunization has and will probably result in more problems than the current epidemic of autism. Highlighting the scientific concern with subjectivism - what if we believe the wrong thing? The other issues you mention may well be side-effects of our 'success'. But I'm not sure what your point is. Perhaps that medicine needs to encompass social change also. It always has - in public health. Sanitation was probably the greates ever contributor to human health. Obesity is well known in traditional cultures. An acceptable survival tactic in some. A sign of wealth and status in others. Today, a sign of abundance and an issue of significant concern to medicine. And let us not forget that modern medicine can sometimes alleviate the debilitating symptoms of many conditions, including depression and chronic pain, permitting almost normal functioning for people whose abilities were seriously compromised in the past. Now those people are better able to have and raise children with those same conditions, creating an apparent 'explosion' of illness. As for adolescent problems, again, is this medicine, or sociology?
I say much of this because many of those I see espousing non-tradional medicine lose focus on the medical issues and broaden their mandade into the general ills of society, how enough isn't being done, the problems with medical professionals and scientists and possibly other related issue which muddy the perceptions of any audience trying to acquire a meaningful target amenable to their expertise and methods of enquiry. | |
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| Physics & Medicine - Uneven progress?
Posted: 8/5/2009 4:11:07 PM | I have been following the thread with much interest...
But...
quietjohn2...
what do you mean by this?Autism is another interesting example of subjective experience.
And this...
The increasingly less likely pop-culture blame on immunization has and will probably result in more problems than the current epidemic of autism.
You are speaking out of your depth here, so tread lightly... | |
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