Enemies of Reason
Richard Dawkins has a BBC Documentary called The Enemies of Reason, which you can watch on Google Video–I linked Part 2, where he examines how medicine has fallen to the unfortunate grasp of “alternative medicine” and crystals, magnets, and other bovine scatology.
Two very good points he makes toward the end:
- Alternative medicine therapies in general center around providing full attention to the individual, often providing an hour-long therapy for a hefty fee, when traditional physicians can only offer 15 minute visits for actual medical management. I’d figure the placebo effect of being able to let go of the hurry of the world for an hour is pretty damn therapeutic, too–and if physicians could offer hour-long visits, you’d probably see much better health trends and quality of life, too.
- While many of these therapies rely on “ancient secrets” (“ancient” meaning before germ theory was developed) of India and China and the East, those in the India and China today, now with new found wealth and economic prosperity, are developing their Western medicine infrastructure and training doctors in Western medicine more and more.
Worth a watch.
[...] Thanks for the heads-up, Graham! [...]
Just as a subtle point, just because these countries are building Western medical infrastructure doesn’t mean they’re giving up on their traditional medical systems. In China, at least, both Western and “traditional” Chinese systems function simultaneously, sometimes with significant interaction and sometimes passing like ships in the night.
This might be an enlightening figure: http://nccam.nih.gov/news/images/camtherapies_large.gif
77% of CAM therapies actually used are prayer, and we spend most of our time complaining about foreign, “ancient secrets?”
(Sorry to give you a hard time. :-) I just think that people generally make a big fuss over small problems and ignore what are potentially much larger ones entirely.)
if it’s all just bovine scat, then someone should tell the University of Washington -
http://www.fammed.washington.edu/predoctoral/cam/
I only made it halfway through the video. Dawkin’s narrow mind was giving me a headache.) I’m not religious and I’m not a practitioner of alternative medicine. I’m just a nurse who has worked happily and successfully with patients in a variety of setting for 35 years. I’ve seen what works and I appreciate your insights! I hope that you and your traditional colleagues will find a way to provide full attention to the individual; it doesn’t take an hour, but it does take a focus and a commitment, and probably 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the patient of course. Try it, you’ll like it:)
I am still amazed at how you find the time to seek out all of these “websites” but I must commend you on finding this one. In contrast to Maureen, even though I only had time to view about half of the video, I fully agree with what Richard Dawkins was saying. It is a mystery why people spend their money on all of these Alternative Medicine theories. It is unfortunate that “junk science” has become so acceptable.
I don’t think it’s that mysterious. There are things that traditional medicine can’t fix, so if someone else promises that they can fix it — of course people will try it.