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Using something that occurs naturally to cure disease. Like mold.
Citrus fruit as a cure for scurvy.
Technically, you're correct. I have no authority to tell some wandering buffoon who blunders into a forum and spouts, within a few posts, a most trollish "concern" about how "anti-science" Babble is. GMAFB.
Oops. Personal attack. And on a "newbie", no less.
Hey S.I.K., we're "anti-sex" here, too!
And no Unionist, not the shit left in your fridge. And you know that so I would think the only reason for that post is to make sure you get to mock too?
Mold is not a cure. Penicillin is. Science allows us to make penicillin of reliable quality and in large quantities without having to rely on moldy bread occurring "naturally".
Also, many diseases do not have such "natural" cures. Finding those cures requires the intervention of human ingenuity and the application of scientific principles.
Polly B, why are you so angry with me? Because I think "alternative" medicine is a dangerous fraud, and I dare to say so? Do I attack you or mock you? Have I ever done so?
I'm asking you to maintain some civility in dealing with me, and I promise to do likewise with you.
That's like saying (added: about scurvy) "Citrus fruit is not a cure. Vitamin C is."
Saved for posterity. And shame on you.
Edited. Never mind.
Another example would be aspirin which is based on salyic acid that's found in plants like willow bark. Before aspirin (the named drug) it was known that the compound found in willow bark helped treat pain and fever. It however wasn't a widely used or 'common' medicine because of the side effects mainly gastrointentinal problems. I've read a least one old herbal which noted this in it's usage reccomendations. What science did was figure out how to buffer the compound to make it better for using it more commonly and also standardize the dose. I have used willow bark and it does work so if I'm ever unable to get aspirin it's good to know about this other option but overall it's easier to just take the pill form if it's needed. Willow bark tea taste pretty gross as well, plus it really is a pain in the butt to harvest. :D
Your Heart Is Slowly Dying From Chronic Scurvy Dr Jones (His real name is Ken Walker, an M.D.)
What's wrong with that? Are you saying scurvy can't be cured by taking Vitamin C tablets, but only by sucking on limes?
The analogy is wrong in any event.
Vitamin C is an essential component of citrus fruit. Eat the latter and you eat the former.
Penicillin is not mold and it is not an essential component of penicillium mold. It is an organic chemical produced by a certain species of live penicillium mold in the presence of staph bacteria.
I am not angry with you at all unionist, sorry it came across that way.
I was trying to make a point about natural cures, in the middle of what seems like a minefield of a thread, and you put in that post about "stuff that grows on the vegetables in the back of the fridge..." or whatever it was. It felt like you were trying to make light of what I was saying - which, ya, did feel like mockery. All I wanted to point out was that a lot of our current science based medicines originated from what would have seem like whacky natural cures way back when.
I am tired, I am tired of these threads, and I am tired of babble and the amount of hostility around here.
I am going to take a break and leave all the like minded people to talk like minded ideas in perfectly like minded threads. Should be crashingly boring.
Enjoy.
Take Levaquin get Popeye forearms
You sound so stupid Spector. You don't even know what you are talking about and you use these silly little stawperson arguments because you are out of your element. Please learn something about the many histories of science that pre-date the one that you have chosen to claim as true to the exclution of all others.
This might make your linear-thinking head explode but I think that the pseudoscience quackery that exists today is the Hyde to the Jekyle of "science-based medicine" or whatever term you want to use for Eurocentric medicine. They come from the same place, they are the same person.
I'm not an advocate of whatever crazy medical practices you find on the interenet and want to wrongly attribute to me or others because we question the superiority of your science. I just want you to realize that life on Earth was not nasty, brutish and short before Europeans colonized it and revealed their great gift of "science". That's a racist myth that has been taught to us and we need to unlearn.
Good morning everybody!
As you indirectly point out, keeping an open mind is at the heart of intelligent inquiry. But then there's having a mind so open that one's brains are falling out on the floor.
There's a distinction to be made between honest, open-minded inquiry, and the large community of charlatans who deliberately spread misinformation. They do this for various reasons - in order to sell their alternative medicine products, or maybe just to promote themselves as heroic mavericks taking a courageous stand against Big Pharma.
What we've had over the past week or so is the domination of health care threads by one prolific poster who has been strenuously defended by a small community of well-meaning, but naive babblers; some of whom have in the past shared their personal stories of how they were mistreated by the mainstream health care system. People who are now conflating legitimate criticisms of mainstream medicine, and the defence of someone who says that vitamin C cures cancer; that chemotherapy kills people. People who attempt to get babblers banned who object to this bullshit.
And great steaming mounds of bullshit it is.
thread drift/Didn't many Babblers just recently pldege to be nicer to each other? I'm despairing that I don't feel like I'm seeing any demonstrable signs of this in this thread or in many others recently./end thread drift
I was chatting with a friend last night and he was discussing a book he'd been reading on the history of health care and medicine, and allegedly the Scot who first seemed to notice that citrus fruits cured scurvy decided it would be easiest for everyone if the fruit were boiled down to a more portable and convenient slurry, rather than eaten raw. The vitamin C was effectively destroyed, and the slurry had no more effect than eating a cracker. Plenty of citrus fruit in his slurry (in fact, nothing but).
Hear hear. Thanks for saying this out loud. Prepare for some pushback from those mavericks, though.
I don't think I'm the cause of all this incivilty but if that's so I apologize
Can we make the distinction between being nice to people and being "nice" to the content they post? The other day some people here seemed to think I was being mean because I insisted that Tigana follow the chain of her own evidence and actually read the document she was talking about. I didn't call her names; I merely insisted -- repeatedly -- that her assertion about the meaning of a document wasn't borne out by the document itself and that what she was promoting was a conspiracy theory. Does that qualify as being uncivil? Serious question. I'd really like to know.
btw I hope people don't feel i'm pushing "drugs" as the cure all for everything - a proper diet, exercise, and enjoyable social interactions can do wonders for a person's well being
Tigana seems very "nice" but that has nothing to do with the content of her posts in my opinon
thread drift/Is there a way to PM your here. Pogge? Couldn't find one or can I send you a message at BnR?/end thread drift
I think this conversation would be a lot more civil if we could all agree that First Nations knowledge and knowledge from all cultures that learns to use what they find in Nature is "science". This is how I define it my mind. I don't think of science as something that began with white European dudes at all. I also define over-prescribing anti-depressants/ritalin etc. without proper analysis as anti-science, along with those you refuse to do any preventative stuff like eating properly. The reason we know what nutrients to eat in what levels is Science.
To say that life was just horribly brutal before colonization is wrong. However, life for everyone (women in particular) was dramatically different before the 20th century (and still is for those with unequal access). As a woman, I don't really have to worry about dying during my impending childbirth, I can access birth control (condoms are one of the BEST scientific inventions ever imv!!!) and I know that my children will most likely not get polio, measles, etc. etc.
Anyways, perhaps a lot of the reasons for the arguments are that people are misinterpreting what science should actually be. Keep in mind as well that some of those white men with high-publicized and highly-taught discoveries had to fight and were oppressd/muzzled by religious nutbars keen on staying in the dark ages and who were scared that the existence of God would be disproven.
I should add that the complete denial/refusal of those with power and so-called "scientists" to address the causes of cancer is just as anti-science as claiming that people should take Vitamin C instead of chemo or other cancer drugs.
BnR is good or my email addy is on the sidebar on my site. But I wasn't trying to single you out. It's just that your post raised a question that's been on my mind. My intention was to throw that question out for general comment and I'd particularly love to hear from a moderator on it.
jeezus I feel like I'm stepping into a drug house here, or wonderland or my favorite bar after midnight or something, but that's ok, I like those places. fun, and interesting, even if a lot of BS is floating around - just like real life.
1. Where the hell's Michelle? I was talking a lot more gently than a lot of the stuff above on another thread and got reprimanded. (not that I think anything either there or here deserves a reprimand, I just expect fairness...)
2. More seriously, I think nobody is getting deep enough here - these days, in PR-land, it's not really about science or medicine at all, it's about politics. It's true that with the internet there are a lot of somewhat challenged people trying to sell weird stuff, and other people trying to make a buck by lying about stuff - but krist, the gov is doing the same thing since big business took over - how are we average people supposed to tell the snake oil guys from the real scientists anymore? Science (and medicine, as a part of science) are compromised all to hell these days, with 'scientific opinions' etc, like politicians, being to a large extent for sale to the highest bidder. It is a very, very bad situation for 'we the average people', when we can't trust these people anymore. And the only way we are going to do anything about it is to take back our country from the capitalists who have appropriated our government.
I find your comments extemely offensive and the perfect example of condescendion but I am not surprised by them, they are consistent with someone who profits from conventional views, and you do profit don't you Sineed?
Jas - "a wandering buffoon" - wow thanks for the warm welcome - I'm a long time reader of babble, if you really care and I felt the need to comment on what I saw as a disinformation campaign - and you feel that you're being told your opinons aren't welcome here. jeeze
ennir - there is no need for personal attacks. Why don't you explain what you find offensive?