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Critical thinking in Vancouver
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Cohen on
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The 62% survival rate at a hospital (Lianhuashan Hospital Ezhou, China) where terminal patients were sent from western medicine hospitals to have pain managed, in my opinion is impressive. If it interests you then you will need to go to China to read about it. One case was a liver cancer patient who visited the hospital on his fifth year anniversary being discharged from the hospital. The hospital that sent him to Lianhuashan had estimated two months to live. They had many case studies. If you need online references then sorry but they don't have the publish or perish philosophy.
Brian Lynchehaun said:"They have many studies on the effect of Qi Gong on disease especially cancer."
That's very interesting. I would be extremely interested in reading some of the studies that you found convincing.
Could you please post the names of some of the studies that you read and found compelling?
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Permalink Reply by Brian Lynchehaun on
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"If you need online references then sorry but they don't have the publish or perish philosophy."
Odd that other chinese hospitals have no problem putting their documentation online, a lot of which can be found through the pubmed database.
Numbers and methods that I can't verify (without, supposedly, flying 1/2-way around the world) are meaningless.
Furthermore: you stood there yourself and counted all the patients in the hospital, to see this 62% survival rate?
If not, how did you find out?
Was it simply some number that someone told you? Or was it written down someplace?
If they keep records, those records (privatized, of course) can be uploaded and the rest of the world can learn from it.
I'm deeply suspicious of any claim that amounts to "I know the secret to better living, but I'm not telling what it is...". That requires a level of credulity that would leave you open to a wide variety of scams.
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Skepticism is good. But, out right denial is just the other side of the spectrum. Why not apply for a grant to test and settle the matter? That will pay you to fly all around the world for the answer.
Brian Lynchehaun said:"If you need online references then sorry but they don't have the publish or perish philosophy."
Odd that other chinese hospitals have no problem putting their documentation online, a lot of which can be found through the pubmed database.
Numbers and methods that I can't verify (without, supposedly, flying 1/2-way around the world) are meaningless.
Furthermore: you stood there yourself and counted all the patients in the hospital, to see this 62% survival rate?
If not, how did you find out?
Was it simply some number that someone told you? Or was it written down someplace?
If they keep records, those records (privatized, of course) can be uploaded and the rest of the world can learn from it.
I'm deeply suspicious of any claim that amounts to "I know the secret to better living, but I'm not telling what it is...". That requires a level of credulity that would leave you open to a wide variety of scams.
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Permalink Reply by Christopher A. Moyer on
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Greetings Ty.
Why wouldn't anyone be allowed to sign up to this site?
Apparently Brian arrived here because an internet tool he uses alerted him to the fact that I posted the original link that described the event he was at. Since then he's added some remarks. I might add that his remarks have been well reasoned and complete, which should be applauded.
Further, the original topic of this thread pertains to skepticism, and it seems Brian is a skeptic, so he's in the right place, wouldn't you say?
Whether or not he has had massage or bodywork, while perhaps interesting, has little to do with his discussion of evidence or lack thereof. He is pointing out the fact that others in this thread are making assertions that cannot be substantiated. He's gone on to say something very reasonable - you say a qi-based therapy reduces cancer? Then show me evidence. (Not surprisingly, there isn't any - mere claims and anecdotes just aren't evidence.)
Your post causes me to think of two other things. If this site actually was limited to massage and bodywork professionals, whom would be allowed to sign up? Other threads you and I have been involved in have shown that folks can't even agree on what those things are. Further, if this really is a site for professionals, then shouldn't those professionals be more accustomed to working with evidence and substantiating their claims?
-CM, not tense, honest.
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I'm sorry I didn't think to copy the hospital records. The case histories included lots of photographs and the previous hospital's records sent with the patients, but I only read a little Chinese. But then I did it out of my own curiousity and learned enough to have helped several people. Qi Gong Doctors are tested and licensed in China. Also Xiao Er Tuina Doctors who heal childhood diseases with energy. My friend does have case studies of this online http://childtuina.8531.com/album1.htm. It is good there are skeptics but when ill use the tools that work.
Christopher A. Moyer said:Greetings Ty.
Why wouldn't anyone be allowed to sign up to this site?
Apparently Brian arrived here because an internet tool he uses alerted him to the fact that I posted the original link that described the event he was at. Since then he's added some remarks. I might add that his remarks have been well reasoned and complete, which should be applauded.
Further, the original topic of this thread pertains to skepticism, and it seems Brian is a skeptic, so he's in the right place, wouldn't you say?
Whether or not he has had massage or bodywork, while perhaps interesting, has little to do with his discussion of evidence or lack thereof. He is pointing out the fact that others in this thread are making assertions that cannot be substantiated. He's gone on to say something very reasonable - you say a qi-based therapy reduces cancer? Then show me evidence. (Not surprisingly, there isn't any - mere claims and anecdotes just aren't evidence.)
Your post causes me to think of two other things. If this site actually was limited to massage and bodywork professionals, whom would be allowed to sign up? Other threads you and I have been involved in have shown that folks can't even agree on what those things are. Further, if this really is a site for professionals, then shouldn't those professionals be more accustomed to working with evidence and substantiating their claims?
-CM, not tense, honest.
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The Empirical Method, nothing exists until man invents tools to measure, quantify and qualify that existence.
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I'm glad you decided against deleting your post Ty. I like conversing with you, and that includes when we are not in agreement.
FWIW, I don't have any problem with Brian's tone. I would bet our (everyone's, not just you and me) perception of tone in these instances has an awful lot to do with our expectations. I do know some people have thought my own 'online tone' is terse at times when I actually felt very relaxed and open.
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I'm sorry I didn't think to copy the hospital records. The case histories included lots of photographs and the previous hospital's records sent with the patients, but I only read a little Chinese. But then I did it out of my own curiousity and learned enough to have helped several people. Qi Gong Doctors are tested and licensed in China. Also Xiao Er Tuina Doctors who heal childhood diseases with energy. My friend does have case studies of this online http://childtuina.8531.com/album1.htm. It is good there are skeptics but when ill use the tools that work.
Case studies are on par with anecdotes: there's no control of variables, and there is no way at all to attribute the remission of illness to any one factor with any reasonable level of certainty.
Any treatment that uses this method of validation is, at best, pseudoscience.
The Empirical Method, nothing exists until man invents tools to measure, quantify and qualify that existence.
That is a gross mis-characterisation of Empiricism.
To empirically test any treatment, you need people-with-an-illness, a concept of 'days', paper, a pencil, and two people (possibly three): one person to deliver the fake/real medicine (who doesn't know if they're delivering the fake or real at any given point), and one person to record results.
If it's a treatment, then you need a third person to deliver the fake treatment, but who believes that they are delivering a real treatment.
No "tools" needed, beyond paper and a pencil. Anyone who claims otherwise is quite ignorant of both Empiricism and Science.
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Permalink Reply by Allan J Jones on
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Peizo-electric effect in the healing of tissue :) ?
Existential debate...?
Cheers all
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Permalink Reply by Emmanuel Bistas on
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Brian Lynchehaun said:
You just did. As part of the whole Red Herring move, you commented on a negative aspect of medicine (the "conventional" is superflous, and is part of the Loaded Terms Fallacy), and just left it hanging.
Nope, if I were to "knock" conventional medicine I would say conventional medicine does not work. I didn't. I said it has its place. I pointed out something about conventional medicine that you chose to omit when you listed how .
Yes, I disagree. However, I'm entirely open to changing my position: show me the evidence.
As I said earlier, research is something that is gaining momentum in our field. There are some in our field who think that we need research to prove ourselves to skeptics like you. I think the reason we should do research is so that we can be true to ourselves and our clients.
Not anecdotes. Not stories. Not thought experiments.
Evidence.
It starts with anecdotes and stories, then we seek more. This is precisely the phase we are in. Much of the stuff on our field is only now starting to be looked at. 24 years ago when I went to massage school we didn't even have a massage book and had to rely on instructor notes. It is happening.
Anyone with an open mind, and a vague notion of how evidence works, upon scanning the pubmed database will notice that all the studies they can find that demonstrate efficacy of some alternative nonsense are fatally flawed (i.e. the sample size is tiny, or there's no control, or there's no blinding, etc).
Here's all I ask:
Show me one good study of an alternative treatment, and the replication of that study, and I'll be convinced that there's something to that particular treatment.
Come on, if you had a study and a replication of a study, wouldn't you ask for a replication of the replication of the study?
It's that simple.
Is it?
I don't have an ideological commitment to 'this hippy stuff is crap'. I have an ideological commitment to 'charging money for something without evidence that it works is fraud, therefore wrong'. Get me evidence, and [whatever] is off my radar.
Just the words alone "hippy stuff" and "crap" show some type of ideological commitment to something.
That it can cause a bias doesn't mean that it did cause a bias.
I was trying to be polite. Here: your anger caused bias.
Show the bias. Show me the 'benefits' of Alternative stuff that I'm missing. Show me a plausible alternative reasoning for the extension of life over the last 100 years that isn't "medicine and science did the job that we wanted them to do".
Where do i start? Just the comment about the extension of life span alone is loaded with your personal value "a longer life is better than a richer or a healthier life". It is not objective. It doesn't take into account that pharmaceuticals are showing up in water supplies, or that many people have to be medicated to make it through the day. There were many advances in the past 100 years, social, labor, economic, etc. Even with the medicine that is available, there are still all kinds of illnesses in Africa and around the world, have you wondered why? Or is it Chopra's fault?
I mean, if that's a valid argument, then it's entirely valid for me to say to you "sure, but your financial income is dependent upon your continued belief in this alternative nonsense, therefore you could have a bias in favour of the nonsense, therefore I don't have to listen to anything that you have to say on the topic, because you could be biased".
You are welcome to make that argument, and those who know me could tell you that it's not even remotely possible. On the other hand, if I said you are biased because your life gets meaning by arguing and experiencing anger, what would those who know you say?
The post-modernist position is self-refuting. People who have degrees that demonstrate that they are not thinking, are still not thinking. Be offended all you like: a series of non sequiturs does not an argument make.
Actually I am not offended at all by that statement. I am bored by it, but not offended.
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You know, it really doesn't matter if Brian is angry. That wouldn't change anything with regard to the facts.
Further, he has never said he is angry. I don't get the impression that he is. I admit I could be wrong, but I think it's more important to note that it really doesn't matter, so long as he is expressing himself clearly and supporting his assertion with facts, which he is.
All this stuff about what a poster's mood or motivations might be, and what really matters in life, are diversions from the current topic (or what was the current topic), which is roughly this:
-DC gave a talk;
-a group of skeptics showed up to disseminate some information that they felt was a logical antidote to what DC would have to say;
-DC said his usual bunch of poorly-defined, scientifically unsupported nonsense (an assumption, I admit; I wasn't there), having to do with a postmodern outlook on everything, and living to be 120+ years old by willing it, and that every cell in your body knows what every other cell is up to, etc.
If it seems that stuff like this makes people like Brian and myself angry... well, sometimes it DOES. Brian pointed out a lot of reasons why this is the case; nonsense costs health and lives, DC misleads people into thinking he is a scientist and an expert on topics that he actually knows little about (he proves this when he speaks about them), and, more germane to the present readership, this pollutes a genuinely beneficial practice (massage therapy) from being optimally advanced by means of an accurate understanding of what it is, how it works, and what it can do.
Sometimes this makes me a little angry. More often it makes me feel frustrated. Sometimes I am confused why people struggle to see that he is saying nonsense. But as I said before, how it makes me or Brian or whomever feel really isn't all that important. Ultimately, it comes down to comparing the evidence for DC's (or whomever's) position, versus the evidence against it. And in this case, all of the evidence is on one side.
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Christopher A. Moyer said:
Why wouldn't anyone be allowed to sign up to this site?
Because it is called massageprofessionals and it says right on the main page 'a community of practitioners'. 'Anyone' can sign up at the "anyonecansignup" site.
Apparently Brian arrived here because an internet tool he uses alerted him to the fact that I posted the original link that described the event he was at.
That's what Brian said. Also someone named 'Fred' posted a link to it. Check out the original comments on that site. Maybe Fred was using the same internet tool?
Since then he's added some remarks. I might add that his remarks have been well reasoned and complete, which should be applauded.
Further, the original topic of this thread pertains to skepticism, and it seems Brian is a skeptic, so he's in the right place, wouldn't you say?
Are you writing this with a straight face?
Whether or not he has had massage or bodywork, while perhaps interesting...
Interesting? or telling?
Your post causes me to think of two other things. If this site actually was limited to massage and bodywork professionals, whom would be allowed to sign up? Other threads you and I have been involved in have shown that folks can't even agree on what those things are.
Massage and bodywork students, practitioners, employers, business (selling services to employers and therapists), and massage schools/educators. If someone is not in those categories, they don't belong here.
Further, if this really is a site for professionals, then shouldn't those professionals be more accustomed to working with evidence and substantiating their claims?
What evidence has been presented in this thread?
-CM, not tense, honest.
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