Testability

[Rian]

Yes but evidence is or so it seems to me a subjective matter. Something is evidence if it has the power to make something evident to someone but the same facts will not have the same power for everyone. Yet some forms of evidence in some contexts do move closer to being objective and this clearly has to do with the matter of testability and also the way a recording of observations can make them more objective.

I like how you put this.

[Rian]

This bit got lost in the shuffle ...

As I've mused over this, my feeling is that people MUST have a god/authority figure, and for those that reject "religious" gods, they choose "science" to fill the void without even realizing what they're doing.

Now here is where I must return the favor and correct you. This may be true of most people but it most definitely is not true of all people.

You're quite right - thank you!

[gary_s]

Most of the links on the site are broken which is a shame. Did you ever come across Ben Goldachre? He is one of the wiser debunkers of what he calls bad science. http://www.badscience.net/ His book is a great read. However it seems to me you are pushing this too far. Yes complementary medicines can be harmful sometimes so can mainstream treatments.

But hold on a minute; I don't think it's a fair to compare the level of harm between CAM and evidence-based medicine. With the majority of EBM, if the treatment is used within recommended guidelines, then the side effects are usually non-existent and almost never harmful. This is excluding, of course, things like chemo-therapy, which is nearly as bad as the cancer itself. But then, I think this is in a case all its own where the alternative is death. So, risking the possibility of death when death is the alternative isn't much of a risk. Some CAM treatments are just inherently dangerous period. Many "natural" herbs that you can buy without a prescription because they aren't regulated by the FDA can be outright poisonous. The effectiveness and side effects of any drug is a factor of dosage and these herbs are quite often not as consistent in the concentration of active ingredients because they are natural products. And regardless of the title, they are still drugs, just like marijuana is a drug, and we all know how wildly the effects of different versions of that plant can have.

Not to mention the danger of refusing vaccines, which is the single most effective and safe evidence based medical treatment known to man.

I would certainly never encourage anyone not to use conventional medicine but that is quite a different matter to the question of whether these treatments can sometimes help where conventional medicine cannot. This seems to be tied in with the mystery of the human mind and although people like to say 'that's just the placebo effect', the placebo effect as an explanation meets none of the criteria you have been giving for valid science. It's not controllable or repeatable and as an explanation it's a pure black box. Unconventional treatments seem to be a good way of tapping into the healing power that is somehow within the mind.

Well, I have to disagree, Moon. I don't know what data you are referencing that you believe supports this conclusion, but it's my bet that it is anecdote based and nothing more. If you haven't already, it would be a good idea for you to do more research on studies into whatever alternative modality that you believe is effective even "some" of the time. My guess is that you are probably mistaken and will likely be surprised. If these treatments can't pass scientific muster, then they are simply of no use as a treatment. This is the only rational method for evaluating the effectiveness of a medical treatment. Anything else is pure mysticism. The "healing power of the mind" is, as you said, a black box and has no evidence that it exists.

I did a comparison with Mesmerism although when I read it back it all sounded obscure to me. When people first started using what we now call hypnosis it was explained as being caused by a force called animal magnetism. Now this idea really did not stand up to scientific examination but even though the theory was disproved the method worked and kept working and I am not sure that even today we really know how hypnosis works. Goldachre is really good on the business about injections and if you have not read him you should. You'd definitely like him.

This all depends on what you mean by "hypnosis". Hypnosis does exist, but it's power is limited. These Vegas shows of hypnotists coaxing people to behave like chickens or TV shows where people give away their darkest secrets or remember hidden memories kind of hypnosis is pure myth. As a method of meditation and relaxation, it is effective, but not much more than that.

On the matter of what I should say to people the issue for me is rather more subtle. It is less a matter of butting in and more a matter of allowing people whose lives I may have already entered in a very intimate way the autonomy that will bring healing. But that is really a professional matter and would apply to areas where I do have strong opinions as much as to the one we are discussing where I am to some extent ambivalent.

I obviously have strong opinions on this matter of CAM vs. EBM and even so, I refrain from telling others what to do when they need medical attention, despite my misgivings. But if I were to come on strongly, it would only result in them ignoring me. I once had a friend who's child was diagnosed autistic. The mother began to investigate dietary modifications that might be helpful. That eventually led her to something called therapeutic foot soaking, where one soaks one's feet in a solution of dissolved salts and "toxins" are pulled out through the soles of one's feet. The cost of this treatment was about $60 each and was required weekly for several weeks, easily resulting in a bill of around $600. I knew this was nothing but a scam, but all I could do was nod and say, "really? Do you think that will work?"

I had said

Yes, and I am not trying to knock the scientific approach but was also have a lot of problems that cannot be solved in that way.

You replied

Like what, precisely?

Most of our problems are about relationships between human beings and they are not going to be solved by the scientific method. Now I do think a lot can be said for ideas like piecemeal social engineering but in the end these are only a framework within which human solutions have to be found. Do you know much about B.F. Skinner? He is a remarkable example of what happens when you try to solve complex social problems using a so-called scientific method (and once again I am not knocking everything he did I have used his methods to great effect) If you are not familiar with him I won't pursue the example.

Well, I think you've come up with an excellent example of something that science is quite limited in its usefulness. Good job. Human relationships certainly fall outside the realm of science. You could probably add economic problems to that as well.

Yes some of it has been questioned but much of Freud's basic approach is still used. There has been a striving for an evidence based approach to psychotherapy but it still looks very much like Kuhn's description of pre-science with competing models and eclectic dipping in to these models. What is fairly clear is that the kind of theories that abound in therapeutic psychology are not falsifiable. I gave an example of this in relation to Carl Rogers earlier in this thread - to recap. Van Belle had found Rogers approach did not work with all clients and he felt he could identify the kind of client it would not work with. But he had to say that maybe it did not work because he had not applied the approach which is very demanding on the personal resources of the therapist consistently enough. Rogers theory then is no more definitively falsifiable than Freud's. It could be that one day we will have a consistent and 'scientific' approach to the healing of the mind but I doubt it since such evidence as there is would suggest that it is not technique but the quality of the relationship that heals. Anyway it's not your field and it's probably unfair of me to keep taking examples from it because it fascinates me

You are correct that you have me over a barrel here. There's really no point in my arguing the roots or effectiveness of psychology because it's not something I have much understanding of, but I'm absolutely willing to concede that such therapy does sometimes work and is not EBM. Yet at the same time I have no problem with this area because we are talking about the human mind, something science hasn't remotely mastered. We know much more about the physical body than the mind, so I'm comfortable with the fact that such therapies are as much about experimentation as they are anything else.

Another example would be AA. AA claims to be successful, yet they publish no data on their success rate and do no scientific studies. But they do have success in some cases, so I can't really argue with them. Although outside meta studies conclude that AA's success rate is pretty low.

And I realized that I was leaning too much on the term science and scientific method in previous posts. I think "evidence based" thinking is a much more useful term for use in this thread. It avoids the confusion with formal science yet includes it and also includes the every day activities that people do to make decisions.

Yes but evidence is or so it seems to me a subjective matter. Something is evidence if it has the power to make something evident to someone but the same facts will not have the same power for everyone. Yet some forms of evidence in some contexts do move closer to being objective and this clearly has to do with the matter of testability and also the way a recording of observations can make them more objective.

It does depend somewhat on how you define "evidence". "I saw such and such" is not evidence; that's anecdote because only you have it in your mind. A photo is evidence. A temperature reading is evidence. A broken window is evidence. Of course interpreting this evidence is another matter entirely...

Anyway I'm going to disappear for a while so I can get some work done. I really am. This has been fascinating and I have really enjoyed discussing this with you Gary but I have a report to write.

Well, I agree, Moon, very productive for me at least. And thanks for all the insight into Freud and whatnot and the suggested reading.

[gary_s]

As I've mused over this, my feeling is that people MUST have a god/authority figure, and for those that reject "religious" gods, they choose "science" to fill the void without even realizing what they're doing.

This also reminds me of the proverbial question of "who's your hero?". So many people seem to be able to answer this question quickly and easily. I cannot. I certainly have people who have influenced me and continue to do so, but none that I feel rise to the level of "hero", so I can never answer this question. Some people list Jesus as their hero. I just can't pick only one.

[Rian]

Hmm, I'm probably similar to you in this respect.

This bit that I typed was an example of me not being precise enough, like you had said. I had actually changed thoughts mid-stream during that post and didn't give sufficient background to that thought. What it really was was musing over the whole concept of creator/created being, and the ramifications of that. But that's another topic ...

[gary_s]

Let me preface this post by saying how grateful and appreciative I am that Mitch has decided to participate fully in this discussion by offering an explanation behind his comments as well as several apologies.

Incorrect. The scientific method has absolutely nothing to do with the vast majority of information. Frankly the vast majority of information are things which has ultimately been decided and created by people. This goes back to the very process of life itself, which tries a vast diveristy of new things and goes with whatever works. In other words, it is the creative fount of life itself that produces the vast majority of what we call information. Now when it comes to things which have an origin outside human communication, the scientific method may have indeed played a role in bringing that information into the realm of human communication. For example take any facts about the human body. Sometimes those fact may indeed apprehended by the scientific method but it has nothing to do with why they are that way in the first place and neither is it the exclusive means by which this is done either. But the majority of information does not have an origin outside of human communication at all but started there in the first place with the creative decision of people themselves. That is the sort of informtion that fills the vast majority of libraries, media and the internet.

All completely theoretical. Nothing personal. Nothing rant-like. All a direct response to what you were saying. So do you get the point here?

I never labeled these remarks as a rant, Mitch. I was clear which part of your post I objected to. And I have already offered a rebuttal of this comment. I don't agree with your assessment because I don't agree with your definition of "information". I don't see the information incumbent in our DNA, for one example, as knowledge that humans have access to; therefore this is not related the the conversation. When I use the word "information" I'm talking about the accumulation of human knowledge.

The only way you can MAKE your statement true is to restrict the subject of the information you are talking about in some way. This is in fact an essential part of the nature of science itself -- restricting its subject matter to only those things that the scientific method can be applied to. It is the shearest sophistry to then pretend that all reality is confined to this restriction.

Again nothing personal. We can actually measure the subject of all the material in all of our libraries and media and compare that which is scientific and that which is not, to completely and objectively disprove your claim that "for the vast majority of information, yes, the scientific method IS the definitive source."

Again, not what I objected to. And I don't disagree at all. Of course, you're still really not getting the point. Evaluating all the information in every library would include things like fiction and poetry and op-eds. This isn't what I was talking about at all. At this point, I think the point has been lost in a sea of posts so it's not productive to argue over it anymore.

Of course, this opens to door to what I mean by this, and I do not mean that a trip to the grocery for a healthy meal should necessarily become a thesis project.

Don't be silly with your "thesis project" bullshit.

Ok, this was more personal and yeah ok, insulting. But nobody was talking about thesis projects and thus I am sorry but I thought this reference was ridiculous. But ok, this response was a tad too honest. That may have been the first thought that came to mind but I should not have said it. I was relaxed and honest when I should have been more uptight and realizing the people's feelings were eggshells all over the ground and tip toe around them.

Geeze, you don't have to tip-toe around me, Mitch. I'm not breakable. But for shit's sake, it was a joke! What did you do with your sense of humor, drown it? Must we always be deadpan serious all the time? Humor is scientifically proved to brighten your day.

It has nothing to do with the scientific method PERIOD. The overwhelmingly vast majority of people do NOT consult science or use the scientific method either to learn how to get to the grocery store OR to determine what to eat. The idea that we had to discover the scientific method before we could understand what a healthy diet consists of is completely ludicrous. Mostly science just confirms things we have already known and sometimes science offers various discoveries about nutrition and the result of this incomplete understanding is disastrous. Because what is healthy is a biological datum then this is something that becomes involved in the evolutionary process itself, where living things also adapt to their diet, so what is healthy can vary from one culture to another. Then the science worshippers come in with their insistence that people eat what they say is "healthy" and people start dying.

But the rest of it was not personal but entirely accurate and hitting the point dead center. The reference to "science worshippers" was not meant to in any way refer to you or any other atheists.

Yes, you were hitting YOUR point dead center, but you missed MY point by a mile. My point was not that people go round checking the scientific consensus with every move. It was only that as we go about our day, we quite often, even more than we realize, use evidence-based thinking to make decisions. ONE example of this would be a health-conscious mother shopping for healthy food. As she pushes her cart around the grocery, she's got in her head ideas like fruits and veggies, not so much meat, whole grains...all things she's learned through evidence-based pursuits. We may do the same thing while driving to work. I leave a half hour earlier than I need because I know, through repeated trial and error, that if I wait the traffic will be twice as bad.

Of course I never argued that we aren't emotional beings. And we make just as many decisions based on our emotions as we do evidence. When I say emotions, I mean we decide something because we "feel" that this is the right course of action at this time. But even in these times, there's the possibility that our brain is using evidence already stored from previous experience that we are just not conscious of.

For all I know the stupid people pushing their formulas and scientific cultural imperialism without any regard for the traditions of the people involved were Chrisians. What I do know is that people have come into areas selling their modern methods with no understanding of why there might be darn good reasons why people should do things the way they always have and deaths have resulted. This is in fact directly connected with some of the big blind spots of science.

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about here, Mitch. I'm in the dark. This appears to be something that you are aware of that bothers you, but there's no way I can relate to it without some additional details.

One is a tendency to make general conclusions on the basis of statistical evidence and thus to treat people as all being the same when they are acutally very different. The other is a blindness where tradition has its strength and that is an inability to see the long term effects of things. Tradititon may not come with rational explanations but that does not mean that it is not the reslult of things learned over a very long period of time about what works and what does not.

Again, I'm pretty much in the dark here on your specifics. But I can say that this idea that you have that tradition is somehow a valued thing could be misguided. It depends what you mean by tradition, of course, so I'm not at all sure. But the thing to be careful with is not to place too much value on something just because it's handed down from your ancestors. Old knowledge isn't necessarily correct knowledge.

No because fortunately I am not that stupid. I discarded the myth of the all knowing medical doctor a long time ago and I see the ways in which the information on packages are incredibly deceptive. No what I do is go back to the ways that people have been eating healthy long before the "wonders" of the scientific era -- its called cooking -- another very rich field of information that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the scientific method in any way shape or form!

I am sorry if this implied that you were stupid, but that was not my intention. My intention was only that I have learned better than to follow what you are suggesting.

Well, I appreciate the apology, but this is still not what angered me. And you got your message across very clearly. However, I'm afraid that you are not so wise as you believe yourself to be. Unless you have a very large garden and do all your own cooking and canning and raise your own livestock, then I think you have to be just as dependent on product labeling as the rest of us. The problem is that almost no one now has the capacity to produce all of our own food and do all of our own cooking; most lifestyles simply don't allow this. Product labeling is a valuable tool for evaluating food, regardless of the fact that the information is presented in ridiculously small serving sizes. With just a modest application of mathematics, it's easy to glean the information you need from a can of soup. So, even though I don't have a home cooked meal every day, I'm not stupid either and I can use the information available to make good choices.

Regardless, your attempt to identify everyday thinking with the scientific method is something that I certainly cannot accept. From my perspective as a scientist there is very little difference between this and the creationst universities using the word science for the rhetoric they spend so much to give the superficial appearance of being science. So yeah my contempt here is pretty heavy handed. Playing fast and loose with what constitutes science is not something that I can be sympathetic with.

Well, there's a big difference; you're just connecting dots that aren't there. I did state that I know what constitutes science. I did state that I wasn't talking about "pure" or "official" science. A better term to use would be evidence-based thinking because we all do this to some degree. And I just don't see any connection to "creationist universities" use of the word. Their use of the word is more about deciding on a conclusion, then doing just the tests and studies that support their conclusions. Let me offer an example of what I'm talking about.

Let's say that Jim has decided to go fishing and wants to catch that really big bass that has eluded him in the lake nearby. This time he's taking no chances. He's read several articles about the newest bass fishing lures and consulted with some colleagues about their experiences, and with that has built a small arsenal of bait that he's certain the fish will not be able to resist. He's also gotten a new and improved depth finder and a much quieter trolling motor.

Now, in my example, Jim has applied evidence-based thinking in several areas, lures, depth finding equipment and trolling motor. Jim did this through research and consulting with others. These activities are all evidence-based. No, this isn't pure science, but it is methodical and is a distinct feature of scientific thinking. The alternative would be for Jim to decide on a lure based on which one he feels will be successful, or perhaps a random choice. This is the core of my point that we employ a scientific approach even when we aren't doing science and in many everyday activities.

I'll even offer another example. People are often taken in these days by scams like the power band. Scams like this often claim special healing or health benefits from something as simple as a rubber band or metallic amulet. People read the articles and quotes from "doctors" and think this is real and spend their money on them. They think they are using an evidence-based approach to this decision, but they are merely being taken in. This demonstrates how we think we are being smart when we often are not.

I guess the lesson for me to learn here is that non-technical people often use the same words with a very different meaning. And perhaps I should make it more clear that when I am taking about science then what I mean is something much more restrictive and which is most certainly not some general philosophy of life. I shall have to think of how to be more diplomatic about this I guess.

Yes, diplomacy is always appreciated, as is patience. But don't assume that I'm a non-scientific type. Hey, I'm no PHD, but I do have scientific chops and I follow the writing of a great many hard-core scientists and I don't think my remarks would be rejected by them. Mainly because this line of thinking is not something I came up with myself, but rather gleaned from the many articles I've read that were produced by real scientists, and even some correspondence with them. So, you can object to my reasoning here, but I believe that I'm on firm ground and have scientific professionals that back me up.

[mitchellmckain]

I don't agree with your assessment because I don't agree with your definition of "information". I don't see the information incumbent in our DNA, for one example, as knowledge that humans have access to; therefore this is not related the the conversation. When I use the word "information" I'm talking about the accumulation of human knowledge.

Well information actually has a scientific definition and yours appears to be at odds with that. In fact your argument sounds a lot like the moral arguement for the existence of God where they define morality as doing what God wants and then argue that you cannot have morality without God. You are implicitly doing the same thing by identifying information with knowledge which you are apparently identifying with scientific discovery and then arguing that all information comes from the scientific method. The argument in both cases is circular.

Scientific discovery is a small subset of human knowledge and human knowledge is a small subset of information.

But for shit's sake, it was a joke! What did you do with your sense of humor, drown it? Must we always be deadpan serious all the time? Humor is scientifically proved to brighten your day.

So the response you were looking for is something like this?
LOL LOL LOL

It was only that as we go about our day, we quite often, even more than we realize, use evidence-based thinking to make decisions.

Of course. People use evidence based thinking to decide that Christianity is true. I can give you thousands of examples of this. But this does not support your argument at all. Evidence based thinking is NOT the scientific method.

ONE example of this would be a health-conscious mother shopping for healthy food. As she pushes her cart around the grocery, she's got in her head ideas like fruits and veggies, not so much meat, whole grains...all things she's learned through evidence-based pursuits.

For a moment lets pretend that your "evidence-based pursuits" refers to science rather than the same means by which people decide that astrology, chiropractics, acupuncture and homeopathy from the evidence of people they know that these things have helped them. In this case it is possible that some people believe that fruits and vegitables are healthy because science has put a rubber stamp on this, but the fact remains that most people believe this for the same reason people believed it long before science ever existed, i.e. because their grandmother or someone else they trusted said this was the case. The latter can generally be called tradition which has a better handle on long term effects and human uniqueness that does science.

Of course I never argued that we aren't emotional beings. And we make just as many decisions based on our emotions as we do evidence. When I say emotions, I mean we decide something because we "feel" that this is the right course of action at this time. But even in these times, there's the possibility that our brain is using evidence already stored from previous experience that we are just not conscious of.

You can label the evidence of other people as emotion and I can label YOUR evidence as emotion. You like to call it science but from the arguments you have made, I think that all it really amounts to is your emotional reaction to things that you don't like.

Old knowledge isn't necessarily correct knowledge.

Scientific knowledge isn't necessarily correct knowledge. As I said, science has a few blind spot, either when it make generalizations from statistical studies or when it fails to see the long term effects of things. Science is very good in certain areas and in other areas it is little more than guesswork, unsubstantiated theories and gross generalizations.

Unless you have a very large garden and do all your own cooking and canning and raise your own livestock, then I think you have to be just as dependent on product labeling as the rest of us.

Wrong! There is no product labeling on produce and fresh meat just because you buy it at a farmers market or even a grocery store.

[gary_s]

Well information actually has a scientific definition and yours appears to be at odds with that. In fact your argument sounds a lot like the moral arguement for the existence of God where they define morality as doing what God wants and then argue that you cannot have morality without God. You are implicitly doing the same thing by identifying information with knowledge which you are apparently identifying with scientific discovery and then arguing that all information comes from the scientific method. The argument in both cases is circular.

Sigh.... No, These comments are far off the point and have nothing to do with my line of commentary. I am doing no such thing and think no such thing and frankly, I can't even try to explain it to you because you are so far off the point it wouldn't even know where to start and wouldn't want to type that much anyway.

Scientific discovery is a small subset of human knowledge and human knowledge is a small subset of information.

No, in this discussion, Mitch, the only relevant definition of "information" IS human knowledge because what I'm talking about has to do with what humans know on a conscious level and can use for their own good. None of your other definitions for "information" is relevant here. You are attempting to change the meaning of my point, which is that the bulk of what humans know, we came by through scientific discovery and evidence-based reasoning and not mysticism.

But for shit's sake, it was a joke! What did you do with your sense of humor, drown it? Must we always be deadpan serious all the time? Humor is scientifically proved to brighten your day.

So the response you were looking for is something like this?
LOL LOL LOL

Laughter is certainly preferable to your "bullshit" comment, but not absolutely necessary.

Of course. People use evidence based thinking to decide that Christianity is true. I can give you thousands of examples of this. But this does not support your argument at all. Evidence based thinking is NOT the scientific method.

Yes, this is exactly my point. Takes you a long time, doesn't it Mitch! People try to use a logical, evidence based approach to making decisions quite often, but quite often they don't realize that they are either being deceived or deceiving themselves.

For a moment lets pretend that your "evidence-based pursuits" refers to science rather than the same means by which people decide that astrology, chiropractics, acupuncture and homeopathy from the evidence of people they know that these things have helped them. In this case it is possible that some people believe that fruits and vegitables are healthy because science has put a rubber stamp on this, but the fact remains that most people believe this for the same reason people believed it long before science ever existed, i.e. because their grandmother or someone else they trusted said this was the case. The latter can generally be called tradition which has a better handle on long term effects and human uniqueness that does science.

Well, I disagree that this is a rigorous rule you are defining, but I don't disagree that this is a very common way of passing down information. Tradition doesn't always prove to be valid and can often be dead wrong and even dangerous. But at any rate, the mere passing of this information down had little to do with the way i which the knowledge was determined in the first place. That has been lost to time. But it's reasonable to hypothesize that this knowledge was determined by trial and error and not anything mystical.

You can label the evidence of other people as emotion and I can label YOUR evidence as emotion. You like to call it science but from the arguments you have made, I think that all it really amounts to is your emotional reaction to things that you don't like.

Again, you have gotten yourself lost, Mitch. You don't understand my point. I said that people often make decisions with almost no evidence at all and on a basic emotional level, as in how they feel about the choices. Now, you can puff up and try to make this about something it's not if you like, but you are simply deflecting when you do. If you think that a human being doesn't make an emotional decision occasionally, then you are devoid of understanding humans. People very often speak of listening to their "heart" about certain decisions, often ignoring available evidence. This is simply a fact, Mitch. I've witnessed it too many times for you to tell me otherwise.

Scientific knowledge isn't necessarily correct knowledge. As I said, science has a few blind spot, either when it make generalizations from statistical studies or when it fails to see the long term effects of things. Science is very good in certain areas and in other areas it is little more than guesswork, unsubstantiated theories and gross generalizations.

I know all this and haven't stated otherwise. It was your comment that seemed to elevate the idea of "tradition" to something akin to scientific law, which is a serious mistake. Just because something is old or has been said for a long time doesn't make it correct.

Unless you have a very large garden and do all your own cooking and canning and raise your own livestock, then I think you have to be just as dependent on product labeling as the rest of us.

Wrong! There is no product labeling on produce and fresh meat just because you buy it at a farmers market or even a grocery store.

Mitch, every piece of meat I've ever bought has labeling right there on the package. I wouldn't buy it if it didn't because I would know zero about it. And no, fresh produce doesn't have a label, but as I said, you can't always cook your own fresh food, Mitch. And anyway, there is plenty of documented information available about various vegetables, such as what nutrients they have; it's just not stuck on the product. But if you want to insist that this is your lifestyle and that you eat only fresh game and fresh fruits and vegetables and that you don't need any crappy industrialized food, then who am I to argue. Eat all the greens and squirrels you like; I don't really care. For 99.9% of us in the industrialized world, product labels and processed foods are a staple of life and that isn't going to be changing any time soon. So your point is essentially moot, not to mention a diversion from the intention of this thread.

[gary_s]

All of this back and forth has gotten the thread so far off the original topic because so many comments are made that are so specific about one topic or another and relate in only a marginal way to the main topic, which was this:

Proposition: The claim that we should only accept testable claims is not itself testable and therefore should not be accepted.

My main counter-point, originally, was to say that this is essentially a meaningless argument because the scientific method has proved to be so good a method for figuring out how the universe works. It has been demonstrated time and again to be a reliable way to sort through nature and come to an understanding of it in a repeatable, objective way that is available to most people and not to just those who "witness" it subjectively. This is what allows the product of scientific pursuits to be useful to so many people and not just a limited few.

My comment on this issue does not constitute some kind of holy-priesthood of science, far from it. It's merely a practical statement. Those who wish to derive more from my comment than that are using their imaginations to conjure up demons that do not exist. The hilarity of it all is that all they need do is ask and I would just as easily laugh at the assertion that science is any kind of magical, all knowing thing. Far from it. But it's the best game in town for human survival and has proved itself so over the centuries, so to deny this is to deny the obvious. It is a complete totality of our collective knowledge? Of course not. Is it always infallible? Don't be silly. But would the human race still be here without it? That is a very good question. So to those who would try to derail this point by charging me with silly notions of being a dogmatists of any kind, I say piss on you, for you are no more intelligent than those who would worship the next quack who insists he's spoken to god.

And with that I will be gone from here for some time. I will be traveling overseas and will not have the time or interest to check in on this forum.

For Rian's willingness to negotiate a cooperative truce, I offer my most sincere and grateful appreciation. There are ways in which you don't yet know how meaningful this effort on your part was.

For Mitch, all I can say is, I'm glad I won't have to read your comments for a while. And I'm so very glad that not everyone in the sciences is like you.

[Moonwood the Hare]

Hi Gary I'm back. I've made significant inroads into the report.

Yes complementary medicines can be harmful sometimes so can mainstream treatments.

But hold on a minute; I don't think it's a fair to compare the level of harm between CAM and evidence-based medicine. With the majority of EBM, if the treatment is used within recommended guidelines, then the side effects are usually non-existent and almost never harmful. This is excluding, of course, things like chemo-therapy, which is nearly as bad as the cancer itself. But then, I think this is in a case all its own where the alternative is death. So, risking the possibility of death when death is the alternative isn't much of a risk. Some CAM treatments are just inherently dangerous period. Many "natural" herbs that you can buy without a prescription because they aren't regulated by the FDA can be outright poisonous. The effectiveness and side effects of any drug is a factor of dosage and these herbs are quite often not as consistent in the concentration of active ingredients because they are natural products. And regardless of the title, they are still drugs, just like marijuana is a drug, and we all know how wildly the effects of different versions of that plant can have.

Not to mention the danger of refusing vaccines, which is the single most effective and safe evidence based medical treatment known to man.

The trouble with that site is it is a collection of anecdotes and yes you could put together a similar collection where mainstream medicine has gone wrong. I take your point about the potential danger of herbal remedies but in some cases such as homoeopathy this does not apply because the dosage is too small to do any harm because it is too small to do anything. And most herbal remedies are not poisonous so even if they are not doing good they are not doing harm. Would you really want to encourage people who think it helps not to take evening primrose oil for period pains? Almost any clinical procedure is potentially harmful and we are always balancing risks. When my daughter was born she had a divergent squint and we chose to have corrective surgery. A couple of years later she needed more surgery to correct the bias introduced by the corrective surgery. All this was for a cosmetic matter the chances of it helping her sight were minimal. But we were balancing the risks against the mockery she would receive for having a squint. Now what if the parent of a child with Down's syndrome thinks the same way and decides to have features of Down's surgically altered. Is that okay? At what point does this become unacceptable particularly when it is funded as our daughter's treatment was by the health service? What about circumcision? Some people on this site want to ban this on the grounds that it is mutilating a child who cannot consent.

The issue about refusing vaccines really doesn't have much to do with what I gather we are now calling CAM. Ben Goldachre who is not remotely in favour of CAM does a very good section in how opposition to the MMR jab came about here in the UK. (and which jabs are regarded as dangerous varies from nation to nation). It began with a single piece of research which was later refuted but the press got hold of it and the whole thing grew up out of proportion. And there will always be a certain amount of jumping on the bandwagon from those with a distrust of conventional medicine which does include some of those who advocate CAM. The real problem is about a failure of communication. There is a very complex issue here because this not only involves the risk being taken by an individual but also the children of that individual and ultimately there is the issue that if enough people refuse vaccines diseases we had got rid of could start returning. So there has been talk of for example schools refusing entry to children who have not been vaccinated. These are tough questions and certainly a big challenge to my liberalism.

Let me take a similar case. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in blood transfusions. Suppose a parent refuses a transfusion for their child in a potentially life threatening situation. Should the child be made a ward of court with the intention of giving her the operation against her parent's will. Would it make a difference if she wanted the operation or if she refused? Okay now let me take another example of this same issue. This one takes place in South Africa where health care is private. There is a doctor who is A Jehovah's Witness and he refuses to do blood transfusions. People have a choice of having surgery done by him or not. Would you choose him as your surgeon? What if he tells you and produces the evidence that he has the best survival rate for anyone having the surgery he specialises in? This story is true. There's your choice then a 97% survival rate but no option of a transfusion against 90% with the transfusion. How do you jump? This could never happen in the UK unless a person chose private medicine and here it is very rare to find JWs working in health. These issues challenge any liberal because they concern the question of how much freedom we can allow to people with unconventional views

Look, I know there is an issue with alternative medicine. I've been aware of it for years, since long before people started writing books about it. I used to work in a nursing home with profoundly handicapped adults and one activity we liked to do with those people was aromatherapy and this is a nice, jolly business but none the less it is alleged that certain oils can be harmful. For example lavender and some other essential oils have been held to be responsible for miscarriages so you don't use them with pregnant women. I don't know how well researched this is but no one wants to take a chance. So we employed an aromatherapist. Now as it happens nurses had been doing some research into aromatherapy and there was some confirmation of some of the kinds of claims made by aromatherapists which had been published in professional journals and I mentioned this to our aromatherapist. I wouldn't be interested in that, she said because I would know by intuition if it was working. And then what she seemed to be doing was coming along each week and saying I'll change the oil going in this person's bath from two drops of this to three drops of that or I'll leave this one the same and then charging ten pounds per client and so getting sixty pounds for about half an hours work at a time when a trained nurse was on about seven pounds an hour. And that seems a lot to pay for someone's intuitions. However none of this takes away from the fact that rubbing nice smelling stuff into people's skin or dropping it in their bath is a pleasant thing to do and there does seem to be some agreement amongst people about what smells nice. There is some evidence that certain smells have the same kinds of effects on different people. But if there is anything in aromatherapy then it seems to me as it would to you that research can help and this woman's hostility to it seems bizarre to those trained to think critically. I am sure she felt that the mere idea of researching what she was doing was some kind of threat to her 'profession'.

I have a good story about nursing research and a discussion I had with a couple of philosophy students but it's rather long.

I would certainly never encourage anyone not to use conventional medicine but that is quite a different matter to the question of whether these treatments can sometimes help where conventional medicine cannot. This seems to be tied in with the mystery of the human mind and although people like to say 'that's just the placebo effect', the placebo effect as an explanation meets none of the criteria you have been giving for valid science. It's not controllable or repeatable and as an explanation it's a pure black box. Unconventional treatments seem to be a good way of tapping into the healing power that is somehow within the mind.

Well, I have to disagree, Moon. I don't know what data you are referencing that you believe supports this conclusion, but it's my bet that it is anecdote based and nothing more. If you haven't already, it would be a good idea for you to do more research on studies into whatever alternative modality that you believe is effective even "some" of the time. My guess is that you are probably mistaken and will likely be surprised. If these treatments can't pass scientific muster, then they are simply of no use as a treatment. This is the only rational method for evaluating the effectiveness of a medical treatment. Anything else is pure mysticism. The "healing power of the mind" is, as you said, a black box and has no evidence that it exists.

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Well the evidence that it exists is that we know that the placebo effect works. It's not science in the sense that we do not have a theory to adequately explain it but clinicians are so sure that they try to take account of it when doing clinical trials. But if this is the case then the simple fact that people believe in something makes it likely to have some kind of positive effect and I'm pretty sure that is what is happening with a lot of complementary medicine and that is no mean achievement. I think we must make a clear distinction between nor having evidence for something and not having a valid theory to explain the evidence. It seems crazy to me to deny the existence of phenomena because we can't explain them.

I did a comparison with Mesmerism although when I read it back it all sounded obscure to me. When people first started using what we now call hypnosis it was explained as being caused by a force called animal magnetism. Now this idea really did not stand up to scientific examination but even though the theory was disproved the method worked and kept working and I am not sure that even today we really know how hypnosis works. Goldachre is really good on the business about injections and if you have not read him you should. You'd definitely like him.

This all depends on what you mean by "hypnosis". Hypnosis does exist, but it's power is limited. These Vegas shows of hypnotists coaxing people to behave like chickens or TV shows where people give away their darkest secrets or remember hidden memories kind of hypnosis is pure myth. As a method of meditation and relaxation, it is effective, but not much more than that.

I was thinking of the use of hypnosis as an anaesthetic which is well documented. When you can saw someone's limb off and they say they feel no pain that needs explanation.

I obviously have strong opinions on this matter of CAM vs. EBM and even so, I refrain from telling others what to do when they need medical attention, despite my misgivings. But if I were to come on strongly, it would only result in them ignoring me. I once had a friend who's child was diagnosed autistic. The mother began to investigate dietary modifications that might be helpful. That eventually led her to something called therapeutic foot soaking, where one soaks one's feet in a solution of dissolved salts and "toxins" are pulled out through the soles of one's feet. The cost of this treatment was about $60 each and was required weekly for several weeks, easily resulting in a bill of around $600. I knew this was nothing but a scam, but all I could do was nod and say, "really? Do you think that will work?"

Well, people with children with autism feel a strong need to do something. In the case I think the something you can do is work hard to understand. It's the relationship that counts and yes I would think she was wasting her money. But if the therapist had good interpersonal skills that might help the child and the treatment would be incidental. I suspect that a lot of people in alternative medicine do have better interpersonal skills, and more time, than a lot of mainstream practitioners.

Most of our problems are about relationships between human beings and they are not going to be solved by the scientific method.

Well, I think you've come up with an excellent example of something that science is quite limited in its usefulness. Good job. Human relationships certainly fall outside the realm of science. You could probably add economic problems to that as well.

Yes, we need economics, and we need a systematic critical approach but no model is completely viable.

You are correct that you have me over a barrel here. There's really no point in my arguing the roots or effectiveness of psychology because it's not something I have much understanding of, but I'm absolutely willing to concede that such therapy does sometimes work and is not EBM. Yet at the same time I have no problem with this area because we are talking about the human mind, something science hasn't remotely mastered. We know much more about the physical body than the mind, so I'm comfortable with the fact that such therapies are as much about experimentation as they are anything else.

Another example would be AA. AA claims to be successful, yet they publish no data on their success rate and do no scientific studies. But they do have success in some cases, so I can't really argue with them. Although outside meta studies conclude that AA's success rate is pretty low.

Well, I don't think you can make a sharp separation between mind and body. We are a unity. AA is interesting because there are plenty of people around who will tell you it helped them. It is based on the Christian, specifically Augustinian, understanding of sin with alcoholism treated as sin and confession and spreading the word playing a vital role. This makes it work like many similar forms of therapy but the problem is just as for an Augustinian you are never free of sin so even if you have not had a drink for years AA will have you begin the meeting by saying I am an alcoholic and I have not had a drink for 21 years. This is a true description of some people's experience and not others and for this kind of reason some drug and alcohol workers dislike AA's approach. There are some very interesting comments on this kind of approach in Eric Berne's Games People Play and he would see the reformed alcoholic who cannot touch a drop as still being within the alcoholic game until he can drink moderately (Berne is the founder of the therapeutic approach known as transactional analysis) For a more positive view of AA try Scott Peck. Peck likes AA's reinvention of Thomas Harris. Harris came up with the slogan 'I'm okay your okay' as a summary of the Person Centred emphasis on unconditional positive regard. AA came up with 'I'm not okay, you're not oaky, but that's okay' which I much prefer. But again I think everyone would benefit from more research into these approaches because with alcoholism unlike some other types of issues you have a measurable goal.

Here's an interesting story about research based treatment. Someone decided to do some research on religious nprograms which claim to 'cure' people of homosexuality. They found that over a certain period the success rate was 33%. No secular publisher would publish these findings and the researchers eventually had their work published by a Christian publisher. 33% may not sound high but it is higher than the success rate of cognitive behavioural therapy which is regarded as totally acceptable and is the kind of therapy the health service here in the UK are most willing to fund because it is measurable. Sometimes people are not that keen on research that bucks social trends.

It does depend somewhat on how you define "evidence". "I saw such and such" is not evidence; that's anecdote because only you have it in your mind. A photo is evidence. A temperature reading is evidence. A broken window is evidence. Of course interpreting this evidence is another matter entirely...

But "I saw such and such" is evidence for me if not for anyone else. Indeed I would say the truths concerning memories or present experience are some of the most solidly established for me. And it is in this category that I would put truths known by religious experience. Atheists hate this and understandably they want to know how someone can know they are not misinterpreting their experience and the answer is they cannot just as we cannot know we are not misinterpreting when we form the belief that there is a world.

[Keep The Reason]

Let me take a similar case. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in blood transfusions.

Fine for an adult to make that choice for themselves.

Suppose a parent refuses a transfusion for their child in a potentially life threatening situation. Should the child be made a ward of court with the intention of giving her the operation against her parent's will.

Absolutely. If a parent decided to throw a child in an oven to "burn demons out of it" in a rite of exorcism, would the state have the right to remove the child into protective services? Yes.. No question about it-- not even a blip of hesitation. The parent is negligent and should lose the right to harm the child.

Would it make a difference if she wanted the operation or if she refused?

We have age of consent here. So, until the child is of a certain age, the choice is not theirs to make. Clearly, the age limit is somewhat arbitrary -- when someone is 17 years and 364 days and 11 hours old, they don't magically undergo some transformation that makes them an adult. But there has to be some manner to define the line, and so this is what has been largely accepted. And, different epochs offered different times. In the days when you didn't live much past 30, you were often married and churning out babies by the time you were 14. If you did that today to some girl, you'd be rightly arrested for it.

Okay now let me take another example of this same issue. This one takes place in South Africa where health care is private. There is a doctor who is A Jehovah's Witness and he refuses to do blood transfusions.

I find it amazing that such a person would be granted a degree in medicine, but assuming this happened, he should only be allowed to treat adults, and he should notify his patients that he doesn't believe in medical solutions to various problems but opts for religious nonsense in their stead. It's up to him to notify patients. If he doesn't, he should be removed from the profession because he is hiding an extremely important element of what it takes to do his job. It would be like a pilot not announcing that he every so often goes into an epileptic coma. As far as this doctor you're describing is concerned, I would never go to such a doctor, and I would advise all my friends family and acquaintance to avoid him like the medieval lunatic that he is.

People have a choice of having surgery done by him or not.

Adults making the choice ONLY for themselves, that is fine.

Would you choose him as your surgeon?

Never.

What if he tells you and produces the evidence that he has the best survival rate for anyone having the surgery he specialises in? This story is true. There's your choice then a 97% survival rate but no option of a transfusion against 90% with the transfusion. How do you jump? This could never happen in the UK unless a person chose private medicine and here it is very rare to find JWs working in health. These issues challenge any liberal because they concern the question of how much freedom we can allow to people with unconventional views

I would say he's very lucky. What kind of surgery does he do? Remove toenails? I doubt he does open heart surgery ever -- that involves blood transfusions. Or, are you gaming us by not telling us he does his surgeries via replacing the blood with the person's own blood, which is what JWs do?

In either event, I'd go with someone with a lower survival rate (because it's likely not to be any lower than 97% anyway) and be comfortable with the idea that I have a doctor that isn't a lunatic who lets his religious views color his medical science ones. Others are free to choose him if they want. There is risk in every surgery-- even pulling toenails.

[Rian]

For Rian's willingness to negotiate a cooperative truce, I offer my most sincere and grateful appreciation. There are ways in which you don't yet know how meaningful this effort on your part was.

I'm so glad that I was able to give you something good! I see more and more how many atheists/agnostics have been hurt by Christianity (what I think is wrong Christianity, but that's another discussion) and I'm glad to have been able to give something positive to you. I really appreciate your hanging in with me as I tried to think things through and express them typeally (can't say verbally - we need a word for this!) You were extremely patient, and I really appreciate that - you definitely gave me something good, and I thank you for that. Bon voyage! and hope to see you around when you get the time again.