NationStates Jolt Archive

I consider basic scientific knowledge and rational thinking skills essential to the well-being and development of a civil society, not optional. Using excuses like "alternative viewpoint" or "embracing diversity" can actually endanger numerous lives.

Let me support this view with an example.

In 2003, the world was confronted with the SARS outbreak. Despite an initial cover-up in China, the disease quickly spread by air transport all over the world causing numerous infections. Due to modern techniques, the vector was quickly isolated, identified (the SARS coronavirus) and the genome of this virus was sequenced. Epidemiologists and doctors worked out the characteristic symptoms of the disease and its mode of transmission.

In my country, information on how to identify and quarantine suspected SARS carriers was sent by the government to the public. As improved scientific and medical data was available, the procedures were revised (like SARS is not airborne, has a limited transmission range, some carriers could be "super"-spreaders, and so on.) Hospitals immediately followed these guidelines. Smaller private clinics were also issued guidelines on how to isolate fever cases, how to protect medical staff, and how to keep patients apart while waiting for consultation.

Sounds wonderfully coordinated. However there is a part of the population that is still at high risk. Individuals who are not in tune with modern science.

Traditional healers do not believe in viruses or epidemics. They believe the disease is due to certain imbalances in the body, which can be cured by herbal remedies. All sorts of folk remedies went to the general public. These healers were not interested in the government guidelines, since they do not share any first principle commonality with modern science or medicine.

In addition there are poorly educated members of the public who did not understand the implications of a disease outbreak. One man who was issued a quarantine order due to possible contact with a SARS carrier, defied the order by going out in public.

The action of the government on these individuals was decisive. Traditional healers were ordered to report for briefings and forced by law to comply with government procedures. Quarantine defiers were fined by law if they refused to comply. If not for these punitive measures, which should not be required in an educated populace, more lives could have been lost.

So, in your opinion, when lives are in danger, should science be forced down the throats of people, even if they don't "believe" in it?

So, in your opinion, when lives are in danger, should science be forced down the throats of people, even if they don't "believe" in it?
Yes. There is a time and a place for your beliefs, but when acting on those beliefs significantly threatens my life, you better stick to talking.

As for alternative medicine in general, the whole thing is an elaborate fraud. It's false-advertising plain and simple, which I thought was somewhat illegal.

Unfortunatly, many people equate the age of a belief to how true it is... rather than actually looking at the universe and trying to understand it, they look at the universe and say how they guess or wish it to be. Though it can be argued that they glance at the universe rather than really look at it to be honest...

Science is the only reason our species is developing so much. People that choose to ignore sciece can go live out in the wild and see how fulfilling their lives are without it.

I don't see how science itself is enforcable. Certainly practices based on it could be enforced; but science isn't prescriptive, it's descriptive. It'd be like enforcing the law of gravity, "Hey now, no floating around willy-nilly, stick to the ground, pronto".

Before I even address the prompt:

For people with healthy immune systems SARS isn't lethal. It amounts to not much more than a bad case of the flu. So using SARS as an example is flawed from the outset. The media hyped the high hell out of the SARS "epidemic." Much the same way it did with West Nile, Bird Flu, etc etc.


"Alternative Medicine" as you call it may not be as "hokey" as you might want to think. I suggest you at least do some research on the topic before you start calling people's beliefs and actions immature, stupid, uncivilized, illogical, or any combination of the aforementioned qualities. For instance: homeopathic medicine in a scientific study (and this has been reproduced in clinical trials) was found to have greater effect than placebo. Of course the really weird part is that in double blind studies where no one knows that a homeopathic "remedy" is being administered the effects are comparable to placebo. How odd?

Point being our knowledge about the universe is miniscule, and while I won't go around claiming that the areas which we understand well should be ignored, I will point out that there are some things about this universe which while not well understood still work. Heck the psychiatric profession would be out of business if we were required to understand exactly how most anti-psychotics function in the body.



As far as your prompt is concerned: I would say "Yes" but with the caveat that "only when lives other their own are placed at risk through their non-compliance." If someone wants to try out "alternative medicinal" practices and there is no risk to others, then there is no grounds for forcing them to seek "modern medicinal" practices. If someone is infected with a highly contagious pathogen, and it is well understood both how this pathogen works and how to combat it, then I would say that the government has the right to step in so as to ensure the safety and security of the public.

NT

I am a Science Enforcement Officer. I just returned from a dangerous mission in Alabama.

I am a Science Enforcement Officer. I just returned from a dangerous mission in Alabama.
The Law of Natural Selection bless you.

So much for the clinical and factual objectivity that is supposed to be the hallmark of science. Or free choice, for that matter. Do you feel THAT threatened by sprituality that you have to make such a fatuous statement?

Benefit of the more outweights the benefit of less. If someone has a deadly virus and insists on being ignorant and spreading it he must be pressed charges for being such a dumb pot. The second charge must be pressed on goverment education system and whatever else caused the ignorance of this individual, including himself.
Science has to be enforced but there should be always a window kept open for things that we claim as unscientific. Because with our growing knowledge one day they they might prove to be richest gold mine of knowledge ever. Science should never throw away even the most unlikely possibilities, when scientists do so they are ignorant and self rightous too and must be controlled.

Before I even address the prompt:

For people with healthy immune systems SARS isn't lethal. It amounts to not much more than a bad case of the flu. So using SARS as an example is flawed from the outset. The media hyped the high hell out of the SARS "epidemic." Much the same way it did with West Nile, Bird Flu, etc etc.


"Alternative Medicine" as you call it may not be as "hokey" as you might want to think. I suggest you at least do some research on the topic before you start calling people's beliefs and actions immature, stupid, uncivilized, illogical, or any combination of the aforementioned qualities. For instance: homeopathic medicine in a scientific study (and this has been reproduced in clinical trials) was found to have greater effect than placebo. Of course the really weird part is that in double blind studies where no one knows that a homeopathic "remedy" is being administered the effects are comparable to placebo. How odd?

Point being our knowledge about the universe is miniscule, and while I won't go around claiming that the areas which we understand well should be ignored, I will point out that there are some things about this universe which while not well understood still work. Heck the psychiatric profession would be out of business if we were required to understand exactly how most anti-psychotics function in the body.



As far as your prompt is concerned: I would say "Yes" but with the caveat that "only when lives other their own are placed at risk through their non-compliance." If someone wants to try out "alternative medicinal" practices and there is no risk to others, then there is no grounds for forcing them to seek "modern medicinal" practices. If someone is infected with a highly contagious pathogen, and it is well understood both how this pathogen works and how to combat it, then I would say that the government has the right to step in so as to ensure the safety and security of the public.

NT

There have also been studies to show that homeopathy has absolutley no effect greater than the placebo. If you do enough of them you're bound to get one which gets a positive result eventually.

I don't see how science itself is enforcable. Certainly practices based on it could be enforced; but science isn't prescriptive, it's descriptive. It'd be like enforcing the law of gravity, "Hey now, no floating around willy-nilly, stick to the ground, pronto".
ah yes, but some people will decide they don't believe in gravity, eat some magical herbs and jump off a cliff.

if they happen to land on you, then you'd really rather they put their stupid beliefs behind them, learned about physics (or in this case, biology) and didn't jump. or at least were forced not to jump by the government.

its a strange metaphor but it works :P

ah yes, but some people will decide they don't believe in gravity, eat some magical herbs and jump off a cliff.

What kind of "magical herbs" :p

I don't have a problem with people bad-mouthing science, as long as something bad doesn't happen because of it, and as long as they don't try to force their views upon people. But in the case of a disease outbreak, those people should shut up and do as they are told by people higher up than them.

Perhaps you didn't read my post correctly.

In double-blind studies homeopathic remedies don't have any effect greater than placebo. But in non-blind studies homeopathic remedies essentially duplicate the results of the "mother tincture."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathytrans.shtml


Water is a fantastic chemical the limits of which we are just barely scratching the surface of.

Water crystalization responds to the emotional states of the clinician/scientist (water is a dipole, so maybe it responds to the weak bio-electric field of people; that's just my speculation).

Water when exposed to harmonic resonance can duplicate the effects of other chemicals (they managed to make water into a blood thinner doing this).



Another thing about Placebos is that their effects partially duplicate what the person believes they are getting. When administered a morphine placebo patients who are administered an opiate inhibitor lost the effects of the morphine placebo.




When all is said and done modern science knows so very little about how the world actually operates. I like to quote the late Edward Teller in this respect: If you took what we do know about the universe and divide it by what we don't, then you would get Zero. Humans argue from a position of essentially infinite ignorance. Like I said before I place the caveat that we shouldn't ignore what we do understand well, but we also can't be so egotistical as to assume we have a "good grasp" of things.

NT

Before I even address the prompt:

For people with healthy immune systems SARS isn't lethal. It amounts to not much more than a bad case of the flu. So using SARS as an example is flawed from the outset. The media hyped the high hell out of the SARS "epidemic." Much the same way it did with West Nile, Bird Flu, etc etc.


Untrue. Though there are few cases of SARS in the USA, there were many deaths in other countries. My country was affected with numerous loss of lives.

In addition, how do you gauge the current state of your immune system? If your immune system is fine in principle you can go for strenuous exercise immediately after a flu. Would you recommend this practice to anyone?

"Alternative Medicine" as you call it may not be as "hokey" as you might want to think. I suggest you at least do some research on the topic before you start calling people's beliefs and actions immature, stupid, uncivilized, illogical, or any combination of the aforementioned qualities. For instance: homeopathic medicine in a scientific study (and this has been reproduced in clinical trials) was found to have greater effect than placebo. Of course the really weird part is that in double blind studies where no one knows that a homeopathic "remedy" is being administered the effects are comparable to placebo. How odd?

I was lamenting the poor state of science knowledge of the quarantine-breakers. Also that there is no first principle commonality between traditional healers and modern medicine. Did I even use these words "immature, stupid, uncivilized, illogical...? :confused:

Also, if I understand correctly homeopathic medicine have very low dose active ingredients. Such that they are legally nutritive supplements rather than pharmaceuticals. I await your reference to that scientific study claiming greater effect than placebo.


Point being our knowledge about the universe is miniscule, and while I won't go around claiming that the areas which we understand well should be ignored, I will point out that there are some things about this universe which while not well understood still work. Heck the psychiatric profession would be out of business if we were required to understand exactly how most anti-psychotics function in the body.

I agree though I must reiterate my peeve that the traditional healers have no common basis to share knowledge with modern medicine. As little as we know about the Universe, the scientific method is a robust and reliable way of finding out more. Advances in science cannot benefit the traditional/alternative medical practitioners if they do not understand/accept the scientific worldview.


As far as your prompt is concerned: I would say "Yes" but with the caveat that "only when lives other their own are placed at risk through their non-compliance." If someone wants to try out "alternative medicinal" practices and there is no risk to others, then there is no grounds for forcing them to seek "modern medicinal" practices. If someone is infected with a highly contagious pathogen, and it is well understood both how this pathogen works and how to combat it, then I would say that the government has the right to step in so as to ensure the safety and security of the public.

NT

This I definitely agree.

When all is said and done modern science knows so very little about how the world actually operates. I like to quote the late Edward Teller in this respect: If you took what we do know about the universe and divide it by what we don't, then you would get Zero. Humans argue from a position of essentially infinite ignorance. Like I said before I place the caveat that we shouldn't ignore what we do understand well, but we also can't be so egotistical as to assume we have a "good grasp" of things.NT

Very true. However, that does not mean we should ascribe equal value to hypotheses or theories found by systematic observation and testing and things some people just thought up in their ivory tower or simply pulled right out of their arse.

So much for the clinical and factual objectivity that is supposed to be the hallmark of science. Or free choice, for that matter. Do you feel THAT threatened by sprituality that you have to make such a fatuous statement?

:confused:

I was talking about traditional healers vs modern medicine?

ah yes, but some people will decide they don't believe in gravity, eat some magical herbs and jump off a cliff.

if they happen to land on you, then you'd really rather they put their stupid beliefs behind them, learned about physics (or in this case, biology) and didn't jump. or at least were forced not to jump by the government.

its a strange metaphor but it works :P

Yup. :D

What kind of "magical herbs" :p

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/8789/shrooms3sn.jpg

these should do the trick :D

Perhaps you didn't read my post correctly.

In double-blind studies homeopathic remedies don't have any effect greater than placebo. But in non-blind studies homeopathic remedies essentially duplicate the results of the "mother tincture."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathytrans.shtml



Homeopathy only works in non-blind tests and that doesnt strike you as strange? Blinding is becoming essential in experiments like these, when I was at university, I was told of papers were the most significant vairable was the day on which the experiment was conducted. If things like this arent removed through blinding, the results can be useless.

Perhaps you didn't read my post correctly.

In double-blind studies homeopathic remedies don't have any effect greater than placebo. But in non-blind studies homeopathic remedies essentially duplicate the results of the "mother tincture."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathytrans.shtml



Double-blind studies do not suffer from researcher-bias or patient-bias. Non-blind studies have these weaknesses.

Next, your reference is not so much a peer-reviewed scientific article as it is a James Randi challenge! To quote your reference:

"Homeopathy: The Test - transcript

*snip*
NARRATOR: But as more codes are read out the true result becomes clear: the Cs and Ds are completely mixed up. The results are just what you'd expect by chance. A statistical analysis confirms it. The homeopathic water hasn't had any effect.

PROF. MARTIN BLAND (St. George's Hospital Medical School): There's absolutely no evidence at all to say that there is any difference between the solution that started off as pure water and the solution that started off with the histamine.

JOHN ENDERBY: What this has convinced me is that water does not have a memory.

NARRATOR: So Horizon hasn't won the million dollars. It's another triumph for James Randi. His reputation and his money are safe, but even he admits this may not be the final word.

JAMES RANDI: Further investigation needs to be done. This may sound a little strange coming from me, but if there is any possibility that there's a reality here I want to know about it, all of humanity wants to know about it.

NARRATOR: Homeopathy is back where it started without any credible scientific explanation. That won't stop millions of people putting their faith in it, but science is confident. Homeopathy is impossible."

Why use a reference that demolishes your own claims? :confused:


Water is a fantastic chemical the limits of which we are just barely scratching the surface of.

Water crystalization responds to the emotional states of the clinician/scientist (water is a dipole, so maybe it responds to the weak bio-electric field of people; that's just my speculation).

Water when exposed to harmonic resonance can duplicate the effects of other chemicals (they managed to make water into a blood thinner doing this).


Hmm. I don't think so. Still, all these can be tested scientifically. You can provide references to back up your claims.


Another thing about Placebos is that their effects partially duplicate what the person believes they are getting. When administered a morphine placebo patients who are administered an opiate inhibitor lost the effects of the morphine placebo.

Can you explain what you mean by the sentence in bold? :confused:


When all is said and done modern science knows so very little about how the world actually operates. I like to quote the late Edward Teller in this respect: If you took what we do know about the universe and divide it by what we don't, then you would get Zero. Humans argue from a position of essentially infinite ignorance. Like I said before I place the caveat that we shouldn't ignore what we do understand well, but we also can't be so egotistical as to assume we have a "good grasp" of things.

NT

I think there is a gross misunderstanding in this statement. Although science gains ground slowly, the results are usually reliable and replicable. The Universe is large yes, many mysteries remain yes. But the "little" knowledge we do gain from science is not shaky, it is on solid ground.

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/8789/shrooms3sn.jpg

these should do the trick :D
Woah, dude - they glow...:eek:

I say enforce zee science.

You can pretty much believe whatever you want but if it's endangering others, it's time to act.

For example, German parents have started to go slack on the useful and needed vaccinations for their children. Measles are considered "harmless" (what idiots!) and they even send their kids to so-called "measles-parties" so their kids get a dose of them.

That is bullshit and should be treated as neglect and causing bodily harm to their ward.
While measles may be regarded as a harmless child-sickness, it's not, and consequences vary from just being sick to even death.

So, there's a sound example when scientific results should lead to people being forced to have a vaccination.

I don't really get the poll.
You're combining factual elements ( Can I do this? ) with normative elements (Should I do this? ).

I didn't post such. Read on. The narrator and a couple others are essentially saying "This is impossible, therefore I won't believe it." Pay attention to what Madeleine is saying. She performed her studies with the intent of disproving Homeopathy, but then went on to find several things which conflicted with modern accounts of how water and biochemstiry works.



http://www.life-enthusiast.com/twilight/research_emoto.htm

Masaru found that water crystallizes differently based on a number of different factors including emotional states.


Upon further reviewing the super water and crystal water research the researcher's recanted on account of discovered contaminants, but its still uexplained just how the bonds occurred in the first place.


To explain:

People were administered what they thought was morphine. The predicted placebo effects occur. Naloxone was then administered which inhibits the effects of morphine. The effects of the placebo disappeared, as though the body thought it was actually receiving morphine which the naloxone would inhibit.


No gross misunderstanding. I'm fairly well versed in modern theories of physics, astronomy, biology, and on epistemology and metaphysics.

Pay attention to my words. I'm not telling you to disregard what we have found out scientifically. But I'm also telling you that discounting something because you believe it to be scientifically impossible is unsound. Humans know next to nothing about the universe around them, and so to predicate disbelief upon what one believes to be possible is an untenable position logically and scientifically.

For the longest time scientists did not believe ice cream vendors who claimed that heating water made it freeze faster. Just goes to show you that your preconceptions about what is possible can always come back and bite you in the ass.

NT

So how do you explain the blinding completely getting rid of any positive results?

ah yes, but some people will decide they don't believe in gravity, eat some magical herbs and jump off a cliff.Gravity will still apply to them though, whether or not there is anyone trying to 'enforce it'. It's simply a fact of the universe.

its a strange metaphor but it works :PI disagree. It's like the difference between enforcing spelling, or enforcing dictionaries. Certainly dictionaries tell you how to spell (for some body of words), but you can't enforce books. You can try to enforce the use of them, it's something different..

meh..

I didn't post such. Read on. The narrator and a couple others are essentially saying "This is impossible, therefore I won't believe it." Pay attention to what Madeleine is saying. She performed her studies with the intent of disproving Homeopathy, but then went on to find several things which conflicted with modern accounts of how water and biochemstiry works.



http://www.life-enthusiast.com/twilight/research_emoto.htm

Masaru found that water crystallizes differently based on a number of different factors including emotional states.


Upon further reviewing the super water and crystal water research the researcher's recanted on account of discovered contaminants, but its still uexplained just how the bonds occurred in the first place.


To explain:

People were administered what they thought was morphine. The predicted placebo effects occur. Naloxone was then administered which inhibits the effects of morphine. The effects of the placebo disappeared, as though the body thought it was actually receiving morphine which the naloxone would inhibit.


No gross misunderstanding. I'm fairly well versed in modern theories of physics, astronomy, biology, and on epistemology and metaphysics.

Pay attention to my words. I'm not telling you to disregard what we have found out scientifically. But I'm also telling you that discounting something because you believe it to be scientifically impossible is unsound. Humans know next to nothing about the universe around them, and so to predicate disbelief upon what one believes to be possible is an untenable position logically and scientifically.

For the longest time scientists did not believe ice cream vendors who claimed that heating water made it freeze faster. Just goes to show you that your preconceptions about what is possible can always come back and bite you in the ass.

NT

I don't get it. I stated clearly that the traditional healers had no first-principle commonality with modern science. Am I discounting the healing potential of some of their techniques? No. Will they themselves ever know what is the healing potential of their techniques? No!

Why? It is because science is not just facts and data, it is also a method. I certainly do not believe that just because something looks implausible today means that it is impossible forever. However, we need some investigative method and standards to gauge which explanations better fit the evidence, and which explanations are, if not incorrect, at least a poorer fit.

You say that some scientists did not believe hot water can freeze faster. But how was this finally resolved? By other scientists who demonstrated that hot water can freeze faster using the scientific method. How is this supportive of your view? :confused:

If science is not the best method to do this, then how should they divine this truth?

I don't really get the poll.
You're combining factual elements ( Can I do this? ) with normative elements (Should I do this? ).

My mistake. I mean "should".

For the longest time scientists did not believe ice cream vendors who claimed that heating water made it freeze faster. Just goes to show you that your preconceptions about what is possible can always come back and bite you in the ass.To be fair, it doesn't seem to be the case for pure water. Nor if you compare hot water with 'heated then cooled' water.
(Basicly heating the water removes certain contaminants.)

My mistake. I mean "should".


'shoulds' are by nature, mere opinion.

Please, add 'myrth' next time?

So, in your opinion, when lives are in danger, should science be forced down the throats of people, even if they don't "believe" in it?

Science, medicine especially, should be enforced when it endagers the lives of others. In many cases, it already is. For example, if someone catches Ebola in Africa, they can and will be legally quaranteed by the government of the United States until they (most likely) die. In addition, all of their property will be seized. Or, so I hear from the Discovery Channel. :D

Another example is when people withhold proper medical treatment to children, or take them to the healers you mentioned. I think criminal charges can be brought against parents for that type of action. I recall specifically a case of when a court ordered a hospital to give a blood transfusion to a Jehovah's Witness (in their religion, blood transfusions are not allowed). The parents took the child so it couldn't get the transfusion, and it died. They were charged. And that type of thing seems fair to me, because it endangers the lives of others.

Of course, if people want to act like idiots and it only hurts themselves, thats fine. We shouldn't enforce science or medicine on individuals in that respect.

I consider basic scientific knowledge and rational thinking skills essential to the well-being and development of a civil society, not optional. Using excuses like "alternative viewpoint" or "embracing diversity" can actually endanger numerous lives.

Let me support this view with an example.

In 2003, the world was confronted with the SARS outbreak. Despite an initial cover-up in China, the disease quickly spread by air transport all over the world causing numerous infections. Due to modern techniques, the vector was quickly isolated, identified (the SARS coronavirus) and the genome of this virus was sequenced. Epidemiologists and doctors worked out the characteristic symptoms of the disease and its mode of transmission.

In my country, information on how to identify and quarantine suspected SARS carriers was sent by the government to the public. As improved scientific and medical data was available, the procedures were revised (like SARS is not airborne, has a limited transmission range, some carriers could be "super"-spreaders, and so on.) Hospitals immediately followed these guidelines. Smaller private clinics were also issued guidelines on how to isolate fever cases, how to protect medical staff, and how to keep patients apart while waiting for consultation.

Sounds wonderfully coordinated. However there is a part of the population that is still at high risk. Individuals who are not in tune with modern science.

Traditional healers do not believe in viruses or epidemics. They believe the disease is due to certain imbalances in the body, which can be cured by herbal remedies. All sorts of folk remedies went to the general public. These healers were not interested in the government guidelines, since they do not share any first principle commonality with modern science or medicine.

In addition there are poorly educated members of the public who did not understand the implications of a disease outbreak. One man who was issued a quarantine order due to possible contact with a SARS carrier, defied the order by going out in public.

The action of the government on these individuals was decisive. Traditional healers were ordered to report for briefings and forced by law to comply with government procedures. Quarantine defiers were fined by law if they refused to comply. If not for these punitive measures, which should not be required in an educated populace, more lives could have been lost.

So, in your opinion, when lives are in danger, should science be forced down the throats of people, even if they don't "believe" in it?

This is an issue I've wrestled with a lot, particularly since there's been a movement by religious people in my parents' town to oppose mandatory public school vaccinations for their kids. I want to support every individual's right to decide what medical treatment they, and their children, receive, but then again they are also making a decision for everybody else's family. By not getting their kids vaccinated at the appropriate time, they are risking other people's health.

The thing is, I don't think this in any way constitutes shoving "SCIENCE" down anybody's throat. No matter which way you go, none of these people are being forced to understand or accept the scientific principles in question. This really isn't about forcing science on people, so much as it is about what right the government/society has to demand certain behaviors from members of the society.

Science, as Xislakilinia correctly pointed out, has less to do with facts than with a method.
We may be wrong about a lot of things belonging to our current "best knowledge" of the world. However, scientific method has proven over centuries to be the only reliable way to improve knowledge. Non-scientific cultures do of course gather knowledge, but they have no procedures for increasing it in a verifiable way.

Therefore, citizens allowed to vote and to influence society cannot be allowed to ignore science. This does not only imply that some level of scientific knowledge must be part of a compulsory education program for children or youngsters. It also implies that all people must be aware of the scientific method: how you can state that a given phenomenon is actually verified, how you elaborate a sound hypotesis for its explanation, how you test the hypotesis.

If you are proficient with these concepts, you are less likely to be prone to be fooled by myths. And in a modern democracy, every citizen's opinions will influence all other citizens; people simply cannot be allowed to ignore the basics of science. The government has the responsibility to enforce a basic scientific training in school, and to endorse the spreading of scientific knowledge in the population.

So how do you explain the blinding completely getting rid of any positive results?

(sigh) <interrupt conversation>
Positive results go away because a double-blind test of homeopathy will isolate the mechanism of treatment, which show no effect by itself, without duplicating the conditions of the treatment. In this respect, blinding the test will give you a valid result for a treatment that doesn't occur in real life.

Part of the alternative medicine theory involves the belief by you and the practicitioner that the treatment will work. By blinding the experiment, you're throwing away the part that you don't want to consider and saying the rest of it is useless because of that.
</interrupt>

(sigh) <interrupt conversation>
Positive results go away because a double-blind test of homeopathy will isolate the mechanism of treatment, which show no effect by itself, without duplicating the conditions of the treatment. In this respect, blinding the test will give you a valid result for a treatment that doesn't occur in real life.

Part of the alternative medicine theory involves the belief by you and the practicitioner that the treatment will work. By blinding the experiment, you're throwing away the part that you don't want to consider and saying the rest of it is useless because of that.
</interrupt>

So if its all about the conditions and the beleif of both parties that its going to work and not about the actual substance, thats pretty much the definition of a placebo.

So if its all about the conditions and the beleif of both parties that its going to work and not about the actual substance, thats pretty much the definition of a placebo.

Yep, sure is. I wasn't saying it's not. What you guys are saying, though, is that getting treatment because you experience relief through the placebo effect is junk science. The homeopaths are saying that it's not junk science because it's not science at all.

But does getting relief from a placebo effect mean you're not really getting relief?

Yep, sure is. I wasn't saying it's not. What you guys are saying, though, is that getting treatment because you experience relief through the placebo effect is junk science. The homeopaths are saying that it's not junk science because it's not science at all.

But does getting relief from a placebo effect mean you're not really getting relief?

No, but is a placebo really that useful? Some people spend a lot of money on these alternative treatments, sometimes to the extent of ignoring conventional medical science, and as far as I know although a placebo can help, its not going to cure anything and the effects may be rather short lived. I just think for the same money a much more effective treatment would result from medicines.

These healers were not interested in the government guidelines, since they do not share any first principle commonality with modern science or medicine.
Do you have something to support this statement? a news link?

So, in your opinion, when lives are in danger, should science be forced down the throats of people, even if they don't "believe" in it?
I think "science" is not what is being forced down people's throats. What the government did they did for the good of the community --it is community good that is being forced on people. I don't see that as a bad thing.

No, but is a placebo really that useful? Some people spend a lot of money on these alternative treatments, sometimes to the extent of ignoring conventional medical science, and as far as I know although a placebo can help, its not going to cure anything and the effects may be rather short lived. I just think for the same money a much more effective treatment would result from medicines.

It's possible. The placebo effect can be useful, we don't really know anything about how it works though, other than it seems to work. But since we can't use scientific method on a method not based in science, no one in a position of scientific power is going to accept what can't be proven or disproven.

The effects are real for the person experiencing them and last as long as the brain can convince the body that the condition is relieved.

A quandry for you, which I've been thinking about: We have a chemical substance (Substance A) shown by double-blind experiment to work on 65% of patients versus 12% of patients with a placebo of Substance A. Now we have a homeopathic method (Method B) shown to provide relief from the same condition for 90% of patients, but completely by placebo effect. Which is the more viable treatment option?

I think the answer to that quandry is where Western and Eastern medicine will collide in the 21st century.

In circumstances where people's lives are endangered, yes. Rationality should be the guideline, not superstitious nonsense.

Sciences are great to know. How else would we develop things like medical devices? Oh yea, the lawyers got a hold of that and we can only test new stuff in europe!

As for alternative medicine in general, the whole thing is an elaborate fraud. It's false-advertising plain and simple, which I thought was somewhat illegal.Alternative Medicine is just another name for quackary.
"Alternative Medicine" as you call it may not be as "hokey" as you might want to think. I suggest you at least do some research on the topic before you start calling people's beliefs and actions immature, stupid, uncivilized, illogical, or any combination of the aforementioned qualities.Good idea. You can start here (http://www.quackwatch.org/).
For instance: homeopathic medicine in a scientific study (and this has been reproduced in clinical trials) was found to have greater effect than placebo. Of course the really weird part is that in double blind studies where no one knows that a homeopathic "remedy" is being administered the effects are comparable to placebo. How odd?Which is very good evidence that homeopathy doesn't work.

When making a better experiment causes the effect to disappear it usually means that the effect did not exist in the first place.
If someone wants to try out "alternative medicinal" practices and there is no risk to others, then there is no grounds for forcing them to seek "modern medicinal" practices.Bans on quackary are aimed at the sellers not the buyers (and pretty much every quack remedy such as homeopathic stuff is sold with the promise that it can do more good than a placebo when it can't).
In double-blind studies homeopathic remedies don't have any effect greater than placebo. But in non-blind studies homeopathic remedies essentially duplicate the results of the "mother tincture."Which is not suprising. If people know they are getting a placebo they aren't exactly likely to feel better afterwards whereas those who think what they are getting will actually help will feel better afterwards.
Water is a fantastic chemical the limits of which we are just barely scratching the surface of.We have a pretty good idea of how Hydrogen bonding works.
Water crystalization responds to the emotional states of the clinician/scientistNo evidence.
(water is a dipole, so maybe it responds to the weak bio-electric field of people; that's just my speculation).Have you calculated how much it responds?

Or do you not know enough science to do so?
Water when exposed to harmonic resonance can duplicate the effects of other chemicals (they managed to make water into a blood thinner doing this).Sounds like scientific terms being thrown around without any understanding of what they actually mean. I've seen it before.
Another thing about Placebos is that their effects partially duplicate what the person believes they are getting. When administered a morphine placebo patients who are administered an opiate inhibitor lost the effects of the morphine placebo.That is what I would expect given that an opiate inhibitor would cause the effects of morphine to disappear and the paitent would be expecting that.
When all is said and done modern science knows so very little about how the world actually operates.What we do know is very solid though and also does not allow most quackary (including homeopathy).

For homeopathy to work pretty much all of physics, chemistry and biology would have to be completely rewritten (Alan Sokal has noted that most psuedosciencese are based on vitalism which has been discredited (one of those psuedosciences happens to be homeopathy)).
Also, if I understand correctly homeopathic medicine have very low dose active ingredients. Such that they are legally nutritive supplements rather than pharmaceuticals.Low dose is a bit of an understatment. They are diluted so much that not a single molecule of the active ingredient exists in solution.

Those taking homeopathic remedies are really just taking distilled water.
Upon further reviewing the super water and crystal water research the researcher's recanted on account of discovered contaminants, but its still uexplained just how the bonds occurred in the first place.Maybe the polywater case might have the answers to that.
No gross misunderstanding. I'm fairly well versed in modern theories of physics, astronomy, biology, and on epistemology and metaphysics.What you have said so far would seem to indicate otherwise.
Pay attention to my words. I'm not telling you to disregard what we have found out scientifically. But I'm also telling you that discounting something because you believe it to be scientifically impossible is unsound. Humans know next to nothing about the universe around them, and so to predicate disbelief upon what one believes to be possible is an untenable position logically and scientifically.No it isn't. If something requires that all our laws of physics, chemistry and biology be so completely and utterly wrong that we would not have any problem noticing then we can very easily conclude that it is wrong without needing to know everything.

If homeopathy were right then most of modern science would be wrong (and many of the things that would be wrong just so happen to be very solid).
Positive results go away because a double-blind test of homeopathy will isolate the mechanism of treatment, which show no effect by itself, without duplicating the conditions of the treatment. In this respect, blinding the test will give you a valid result for a treatment that doesn't occur in real life.

Part of the alternative medicine theory involves the belief by you and the practicitioner that the treatment will work. By blinding the experiment, you're throwing away the part that you don't want to consider and saying the rest of it is useless because of that.Quackary requires the paitient to believe in the remedy because it does nothing whereas with scientific medicine belief is pretty much irrelevant.

Besides, if the double blind test involves telling everyone that they were getting a homeopathic remedy regardless of whether they are getting it or a placebo then I don't see how your complaint could possibly hold up (so the way most double blind studies are done is resilant to your objection).
Yep, sure is. I wasn't saying it's not. What you guys are saying, though, is that getting treatment because you experience relief through the placebo effect is junk science. The homeopaths are saying that it's not junk science because it's not science at all.Homeopathy isn't science, I'll agree with you on that, but it is psuedoscience since it claims to have a connection to reality.
But does getting relief from a placebo effect mean you're not really getting relief?In many cases yes.

If you have an illness that will not resolve itself then a placebo isn't going to do anything other than make you feel a bit better. Maybe even good enough not to see a doctor until it is too late.

Yes it should.

One of the greatest strengths of science is that it is willing to change it's collective mind. "Oops, according to new evidence that thing didn't work the way we thought. Hooray for new evidence!" The king is dead, long live the king.

If you turn it into something that has to be enforced it isn't science any more, it is dogma.


Quarantines were not science, they were public policy. Public policy can be based on current scientific evidence, but it is not science itself. Science would have been quarantining half the population but not the other half, and then studying what happened next. Medicine is partially based on science, but is not itself a science. In medicine it is usually considered unethical to continue providing a treatment that appears to have no effect, or especially one that appears to be doing harm. Clinical studies are often shut down in an early stage because it becomes unethical to continuing "treating" sick patients with anything but the most effective treatment. If you were enforcing science it would be more ethical to let people die, so that your results would be more conclusive.

One of my mother's uncles (by adoption) was full blooded Cree. He was a soldier in WWII, and was captured by the Nazis and was experimented on, presumably because he was an Indian from northern Canada and might have some special adaptations to cold. (He survived, but apparently he was always a little off after that.) Most of what the Nazi scientists did is considered junk science, but not because it was inhumane. It is junk science because they were trying to prove their conclusions, rather than trying to test their hypothesis. The scientific method itself has no prohibition against cruelty. There are all sorts of cruel things that some scientists would want to test if there weren't completely unscientific ethics regulations restraining them. Science is very useful when used as a tool, but it would make a lousy king.


But this thread isn't really about enforcing science, it is about enforcing medicine.

I think that medical treatment should not be compulsory, even in an emergency. But if you refuse medical treatment the option shouldn't be "Ok, do whatever you want then." The best alternative to receiving medical treatment may be quarantine. Quarantine itself is not medical treatment, nobody gets better from being quarantined.

Refusing routine vaccinations probably shouldn't be grounds for an involuntary quarantine. Nor should routine vaccinations be imposed against the will of the patient or the person legally entitled to choose for the patient if the patient is considered unable to chose for themselves. It would be reasonable to require proof of vaccination to access certain government services, for example public schools, public parks, public swimming pools, etc. It would also be reasonable for privately owned businesses to require proof of vaccination as a condition of entry, service or employment. Of course that would require the government to provide something that can be used as proof of vaccination, something that is illegal to counterfeit. Perhaps something like a driver's licence, but instead of licencing you to drive simply identifies you and lists what vaccinations you have had. Then individuals are free to refrain from vaccinations if they want to, and other individuals are free to protect themselves and their families by going to places where vaccination is required. That could lead to people opposed to vaccines being inconvenienced by the need to provide their own services (private schools, etc.) but that is a reasonable inconvenience. Nudists are free to be nudists, but they are not allowed to go to McDonald's nude or send their kids to school nude, if they want their kids to be able to be nude in school they have to build private schools on private land. To be fair, any vaccines that are provided free to children should also be provided free for unvaccinated adults, so that an individual is not subject to discrimination because decisions made for him as a minor.

Science, medicine especially, should be enforced when it endagers the lives of others. In many cases, it already is. For example, if someone catches Ebola in Africa, they can and will be legally quaranteed by the government of the United States until they (most likely) die. In addition, all of their property will be seized. Or, so I hear from the Discovery Channel. :D

Another example is when people withhold proper medical treatment to children, or take them to the healers you mentioned. I think criminal charges can be brought against parents for that type of action. I recall specifically a case of when a court ordered a hospital to give a blood transfusion to a Jehovah's Witness (in their religion, blood transfusions are not allowed). The parents took the child so it couldn't get the transfusion, and it died. They were charged. And that type of thing seems fair to me, because it endangers the lives of others.

Of course, if people want to act like idiots and it only hurts themselves, thats fine. We shouldn't enforce science or medicine on individuals in that respect.

Well said, I've read about the blood transfusion case before too.

*bows*

This is an issue I've wrestled with a lot, particularly since there's been a movement by religious people in my parents' town to oppose mandatory public school vaccinations for their kids. I want to support every individual's right to decide what medical treatment they, and their children, receive, but then again they are also making a decision for everybody else's family. By not getting their kids vaccinated at the appropriate time, they are risking other people's health.

The thing is, I don't think this in any way constitutes shoving "SCIENCE" down anybody's throat. No matter which way you go, none of these people are being forced to understand or accept the scientific principles in question. This really isn't about forcing science on people, so much as it is about what right the government/society has to demand certain behaviors from members of the society.

I think you've pointed out clearly that I have confused enforcing scientific education with enforcing public health policy. Good observation, and thanks for your post.

*Salutes* :)

Science, as Xislakilinia correctly pointed out, has less to do with facts than with a method.
We may be wrong about a lot of things belonging to our current "best knowledge" of the world. However, scientific method has proven over centuries to be the only reliable way to improve knowledge. Non-scientific cultures do of course gather knowledge, but they have no procedures for increasing it in a verifiable way.

Therefore, citizens allowed to vote and to influence society cannot be allowed to ignore science. This does not only imply that some level of scientific knowledge must be part of a compulsory education program for children or youngsters. It also implies that all people must be aware of the scientific method: how you can state that a given phenomenon is actually verified, how you elaborate a sound hypotesis for its explanation, how you test the hypotesis.

If you are proficient with these concepts, you are less likely to be prone to be fooled by myths. And in a modern democracy, every citizen's opinions will influence all other citizens; people simply cannot be allowed to ignore the basics of science. The government has the responsibility to enforce a basic scientific training in school, and to endorse the spreading of scientific knowledge in the population.

You have stated clearly the main thrust of my view. Thank you and welcome to NSG! :)

*snip*
If you have an illness that will not resolve itself then a placebo isn't going to do anything other than make you feel a bit better. Maybe even good enough not to see a doctor until it is too late.

Excellent post! *bows* :)

I especially like this last sentence, truely sigworthy. It demonstrates why alternative medicines have such historical longevity. Mystical treatments make people feel better, and then later they die from mystical reasons. It taps strongly into the subjective well-being of the patient without any actual mechanistic improvement of the disease condition itself. :)

One of the greatest strengths of science is that it is willing to change it's collective mind. "Oops, according to new evidence that thing didn't work the way we thought. Hooray for new evidence!" The king is dead, long live the king.

If you turn it into something that has to be enforced it isn't science any more, it is dogma.


Quarantines were not science, they were public policy. Public policy can be based on current scientific evidence, but it is not science itself. Science would have been quarantining half the population but not the other half, and then studying what happened next. Medicine is partially based on science, but is not itself a science. In medicine it is usually considered unethical to continue providing a treatment that appears to have no effect, or especially one that appears to be doing harm. Clinical studies are often shut down in an early stage because it becomes unethical to continuing "treating" sick patients with anything but the most effective treatment. If you were enforcing science it would be more ethical to let people die, so that your results would be more conclusive.

One of my mother's uncles (by adoption) was full blooded Cree. He was a soldier in WWII, and was captured by the Nazis and was experimented on, presumably because he was an Indian from northern Canada and might have some special adaptations to cold. (He survived, but apparently he was always a little off after that.) Most of what the Nazi scientists did is considered junk science, but not because it was inhumane. It is junk science because they were trying to prove their conclusions, rather than trying to test their hypothesis. The scientific method itself has no prohibition against cruelty. There are all sorts of cruel things that some scientists would want to test if there weren't completely unscientific ethics regulations restraining them. Science is very useful when used as a tool, but it would make a lousy king.


But this thread isn't really about enforcing science, it is about enforcing medicine.

I think that medical treatment should not be compulsory, even in an emergency. But if you refuse medical treatment the option shouldn't be "Ok, do whatever you want then." The best alternative to receiving medical treatment may be quarantine. Quarantine itself is not medical treatment, nobody gets better from being quarantined.

Refusing routine vaccinations probably shouldn't be grounds for an involuntary quarantine. Nor should routine vaccinations be imposed against the will of the patient or the person legally entitled to choose for the patient if the patient is considered unable to chose for themselves. It would be reasonable to require proof of vaccination to access certain government services, for example public schools, public parks, public swimming pools, etc. It would also be reasonable for privately owned businesses to require proof of vaccination as a condition of entry, service or employment. Of course that would require the government to provide something that can be used as proof of vaccination, something that is illegal to counterfeit. Perhaps something like a driver's licence, but instead of licencing you to drive simply identifies you and lists what vaccinations you have had. Then individuals are free to refrain from vaccinations if they want to, and other individuals are free to protect themselves and their families by going to places where vaccination is required. That could lead to people opposed to vaccines being inconvenienced by the need to provide their own services (private schools, etc.) but that is a reasonable inconvenience. Nudists are free to be nudists, but they are not allowed to go to McDonald's nude or send their kids to school nude, if they want their kids to be able to be nude in school they have to build private schools on private land. To be fair, any vaccines that are provided free to children should also be provided free for unvaccinated adults, so that an individual is not subject to discrimination because decisions made for him as a minor.

A great post about the nature of science as a academic endeavor rather than a taskmaster. I agree with your views on the wider social and legal implications of enforced treatment. This is a mistake on my part, my original intention was to posit enforcing the education of science rather than the public health policy aspect.

I am really fortunate. What a treasure-trove of thinkers on this forum. *bows*. :)

If people want to be dumb fucks, frankly, they're only hurting themselves. You can't force people to be smart.

Maybe I've misunderstood your, or maybe you've understood science.

Science isn't something you can "enforce". It's observation of what is. However, if you work really hard, you can enforce anti-science, a la 2+2=5 brainwashing*.

(*Yes, feel free to insert the joke about sufficiently large sums of 2...)

I think you've pointed out clearly that I have confused enforcing scientific education with enforcing public health policy. Good observation, and thanks for your post.

*Salutes* :)

Aha! :D Yes, you can "enforce" science education and public health policy (ie cram it down the throats of the people forcefully). However, whether doing so is an effective means of education is doubtful.

So much for the clinical and factual objectivity that is supposed to be the hallmark of science. Or free choice, for that matter. Do you feel THAT threatened by sprituality that you have to make such a fatuous statement?
Don't take a rubber chicken to a knife fight. ;)

Don't take a rubber chicken to a knife fight. ;)

Unless you have a poulty budget. :D

Oh I see you've been promoted to "Elite". Congrats Straughn! Thanks for coming by. *Salutes*

In the spirit of George Carlin I'd say:

"I believe in the God of Porn and Chocolate, but I pray to Straughn. Straughn doesn't fuck around. He gets things done."

I am a Science Enforcement Officer. I just returned from a dangerous mission in Alabama.
Tax money well spent AGAIN :(

Unless you have a poulty budget. :D

Oh I see you've been promoted to "Elite". Congrats Straughn! Thanks for coming by. *Salutes*Obviously an oversight on my part, since the mods would never make such a mistake ... :)
Oh wait ... if i'm listed as "elite", would that give license to me being ever more pompous?

Well, i suspect, actually, that it would give just a little more warning to the situation.

In the spirit of George Carlin I'd say:

"I believe in the God of Porn and Chocolate, but I pray to Straughn. Straughn doesn't fuck around. He gets things done."Carlin has the most excellent advice about "the Good Book", reagrding, for example, hitchhiking. :D

I think you gave a good example, actually. Good OP.

Refusing routine vaccinations probably shouldn't be grounds for an involuntary quarantine. Nor should routine vaccinations be imposed against the will of the patient or the person legally entitled to choose for the patient if the patient is considered unable to chose for themselves.The problem with that is that it means there are people who haven't taken vaccines around. There shouldn't be.
It would be reasonable to require proof of vaccination to access certain government services, for example public schools, public parks, public swimming pools, etc. It would also be reasonable for privately owned businesses to require proof of vaccination as a condition of entry, service or employment. Of course that would require the government to provide something that can be used as proof of vaccination, something that is illegal to counterfeit. Perhaps something like a driver's licence, but instead of licencing you to drive simply identifies you and lists what vaccinations you have had. Then individuals are free to refrain from vaccinations if they want to, and other individuals are free to protect themselves and their families by going to places where vaccination is required.The problem there is that those who have been vacinated will be allowed to go to places where people who haven't been vaccinated can go which will also include outside.

If vaccinations were 100% effective and could be given to babies as soon as they are born then there wouldn't be any need to keep the unvaccinated away from those who have been vaccinated.

But vaccines aren't 100% effective and very few can be given to newborns.

It would still be better than allowing those who haven't been vaccinated to go to public schools but it still allows parents to neglect their children. I think it would be a good first step to take but it isn't the final result we should have.
Nudists are free to be nudists, but they are not allowed to go to McDonald's nude or send their kids to school nude, if they want their kids to be able to be nude in school they have to build private schools on private land. To be fair, any vaccines that are provided free to children should also be provided free for unvaccinated adults, so that an individual is not subject to discrimination because decisions made for him as a minor.Of course if they get vaccinated as a child they don't have to worry about that.

Call it natural selection, the stupid ppl die off thus they can't pass off their stupid genes and the human race progresses.(For u science nuts)

If ur religous, do u really wan't these ppl raising children?

The stupid people just have 10 or so kids so if one dies from not having a vaccination they just use the others to spread whatever crap they want to put in their kids head.

If homeopathy were right then most of modern science would be wrong (and many of the things that would be wrong just so happen to be very solid).

How so?

Quackary requires the paitient to believe in the remedy because it does nothing whereas with scientific medicine belief is pretty much irrelevant.

So, you're saying the power of your mind has zero to do with your overcoming an illness? (Not talking about viruses and such, but problems due to trauma.) Are you certain that the solution to all medical ailments is a chemical reaction induced by a pill or injection?

Besides, if the double blind test involves telling everyone that they were getting a homeopathic remedy regardless of whether they are getting it or a placebo then I don't see how your complaint could possibly hold up (so the way most double blind studies are done is resilant to your objection).

But a homeopathic remedy IS a placebo. So how can you give someone a placebo or a placebo and expect there to be a difference? Not questioning the scientific method, just the basis of the particular experiment.

If you have an illness that will not resolve itself then a placebo isn't going to do anything other than make you feel a bit better. Maybe even good enough not to see a doctor until it is too late.

Again, I think we're talking on different points. I agree that no amount of homeopathy by itself is going to remove a virus from someone's body. But with my mid-back pain, caused by getting rear ended at a red light, if I have the choice between a pill I know will take the pain away but which will cause my blood pressure to skyrocket (Ultram), or a treatment by a chiropractor which may or may not be a bunch of hooey but which I BELIEVE takes the pain away as well as the Ultram, I'm going to take the chiropractor.

The problem with that is that it means there are people who haven't taken vaccines around. There shouldn't be.


Vaccines are not 100% safe. People do get sick and even die because of reactions to vaccines. Not many people, not some.

Getting the vaccine is safer than getting the disease. Unfortunately vaccines do not provide 100% protection from getting the disease. Nor does not getting the vaccine guarantee that you will get the disease.


Personally, I am in favor of vaccines and it boggled my mind the first time I encountered someone against them. Even if I completely discount the more unlikely conspiracy theories that pop up around vaccination there are some selfish-but-reasonable reasons to choose not to vaccinate.

One of my aunts has three sons, and she doesn't want to get them vaccinated. Her premise is that diseases like measles and chickenpox are about as dangerous as influenza to healthy people. They are most dangerous to pregnant women, fetuses and newborns. Why should her sons be vaccinated to protect adult women? Where does personal responsibility kick in? Shouldn't parents and pregnant woman take the responsiblity to protect themselves and their newborn infants from disease, rather than requiring other people to do it for them?

She also brought up the problem that vaccines become less effective over time, so if a girl is vaccinated as a child then she won't still be fully protected as an adult woman if she becomes pregnant. If we really want to protect pregnancies and newborns, then we should be vaccinating reproductive age women, not children. Given the reality of teen pregnancy that could still mean vaccinating girls fairly young, and then giving them boosters in their teens and twenties. You'd have to give them pregnancy tests before the vaccine, since the vaccine itself can be harmful to developing infants, so the process would be more complicated and probably more expensive than the universal vaccination of children, but it would also be more effective at protecting the people vaccination is supposed to be protecting.


I've had all my vaccinations, I even get the flu vaccine every year. If I had kids I'd have them vaccinated too. I believe that the benefits of being vaccinated out way the risks. However, I don't believe that the arguments against vaccination so loony that universal vaccination should become compulsory.


The problem there is that those who have been vacinated will be allowed to go to places where people who haven't been vaccinated can go which will also include outside.

Come on, that is stretching it. :rolleyes: Most of the childhood diseases are very contagious, but you still need fairly close contact to pass them on. Being unvaccinated isn't the same as having the plague or being a leper, they shouldn't have to ring a bell and cry "Unclean, unclean!" as they walk around to prevent others from coming near them. I think the balance of rights and responsibilities would indicate that if you are that concerned about the slight risk unvaccinated people may present to your vaccinated children, then you shouldn't let your children touch or play with strangers, rather then forcing medical treatment on those strangers.

Science needs to be made mandatory, especially Evolution. Until the government teaches everyone science, fairy tales will still exist. I cry a lot because of all that bad things Christians do. I wish they never existed because our world would be so much better.

Science needs to be made mandatory, especially Evolution. Until the government teaches everyone science, fairy tales will still exist. I cry a lot because of all that bad things Christians do. I wish they never existed because our world would be so much better.

Intolerance is bad.


Honestly, I'd rather that we got rid of the controversy by simply removing evolution and the big bang from the curriculum, at least until high school. If evolution wasn't there, no one would be clamoring for alternative theories to be taught too. For the vast majority of people knowing how life or the universe got started will have no affect on their daily lives. The kids that are getting major anti-evolution training out of school won't believe it anyway, and putting them in the middle of a conflict between their parents, their church and their teachers is cruel. There is no reason for 8 year olds to have to make a decision regarding the nature of the universe.

There is no push to teach first graders why it is scientifically impossible for Santa to visit all the children in the world in night, or myriad problems with a rabbit laying eggs, much less chocolate or plastic eggs.


Pushing children into a situation where they are forced to realize that some of the important authority figures are either wrong or deliberately lying to them is cruel. They should figure that out in their own time, when they are ready for it.

Lack of knowledge about Evolution would be a lack of knowledge of who we are and where we came from. Children have a right to know about the Creation of the universe. Evolution, the Scientifically true answer, can provide that. Education is a right, not a privelege, remember this.

Intolerance is bad.


Honestly, I'd rather that we got rid of the controversy by simply removing evolution and the big bang from the curriculumWhile we're at it, let's get rid of the non-heteros, the non-fascists, the non-Christians, the wrong Christians, the...

Knowledge & information is only a problem for the ones who wish to control people's access to it.

Intolerance is bad.

I hate intolerance so much that I have to tolerate it. Irony can suck.

I hate intolerance so much that I have to tolerate it. Irony can suck.

No, my tolerance teacher said that the only thing you don't have to tolerate is intolerance.

No, my tolerance teacher said that the only thing you don't have to tolerate is intolerance.
Looks like Gar's got a tag! WooT!

No, my tolerance teacher said that the only thing you don't have to tolerate is intolerance.Thank your teacher from me.

If homeopathy were right then most of modern science would be wrong (and many of the things that would be wrong just so happen to be very solid).How so?See http://www.homeowatch.org/articles/schwarcz.html
So, you're saying the power of your mind has zero to do with your overcoming an illness? (Not talking about viruses and such, but problems due to trauma.) Are you certain that the solution to all medical ailments is a chemical reaction induced by a pill or injection?Not enough to be worth much and certainly not worth what quack remedies go for.

With most ailments the solution is to just let the body fight it off and not give anything. Anything more serious will require pills, injections or surgery but a placebo isn't going to have much of an effect on those conditions.
But a homeopathic remedy IS a placebo. So how can you give someone a placebo or a placebo and expect there to be a difference? Not questioning the scientific method, just the basis of the particular experiment.Well if it isn't any more effective than a placebo why bother with it? Why not just give people distiled water that hasn't been through the ultra dilution that homeopathic 'remedies' have been through and save a lot of money?
Again, I think we're talking on different points. I agree that no amount of homeopathy by itself is going to remove a virus from someone's body. But with my mid-back pain, caused by getting rear ended at a red light, if I have the choice between a pill I know will take the pain away but which will cause my blood pressure to skyrocket (Ultram), or a treatment by a chiropractor which may or may not be a bunch of hooey but which I BELIEVE takes the pain away as well as the Ultram, I'm going to take the chiropractor.Well there are risks to chiropractic as well (such as you getting a broken neck or spine).

Still, if the problem you've got is pain then thinking you've done something about it will often help relieve it. There is also the regression fallacy where a natuarl upturn in a condition is credited to a quack remedy.
Vaccines are not 100% safe. People do get sick and even die because of reactions to vaccines. Not many people, not some.People sometimes get rashs or even things a bit more serious from vaccines but they always seem to make a full recovery. The death rate and serious injury rate from vaccines is so low as to be non existant compared with the disease they protect from.
Getting the vaccine is safer than getting the disease.Damn right.
Unfortunately vaccines do not provide 100% protection from getting the disease.True. But if the whole population is vaccinated (except those for which a valid medical reason exists not to vaccinate, I don't care about relgious bullshit) then those who the vaccine hasn't taken hold in will be protected by those around them not having a disease to pass on. It's a concept known as disease erradication. By vaccinating the entire population of the world against a disease we can wipe out that disease forever. Worked pretty damn well with smallpox.
Nor does not getting the vaccine guarantee that you will get the disease.True. But it does pretty much gurantee that if you are exposed to it you will get the disease.
Personally, I am in favor of vaccines and it boggled my mind the first time I encountered someone against them. Even if I completely discount the more unlikely conspiracy theories that pop up around vaccination there are some selfish-but-reasonable reasons to choose not to vaccinate.The only reasons I could think of not to use a vaccine would be if there are indications that it would cause complications. That is very rare though. The other reason would be if the vaccine hasn't been tested but if it's allowed to be given it almost certainly has been.
One of my aunts has three sons, and she doesn't want to get them vaccinated. Her premise is that diseases like measles and chickenpox are about as dangerous as influenza to healthy people.Influenza can be a pretty dangerous disease and so can measles and chickenpox.

Maybe you should send her to http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/immu/immu08.html

It'd be better if she were forced to vaccinate them.
They are most dangerous to pregnant women, fetuses and newborns. Why should her sons be vaccinated to protect adult women?Because her sons could be exposing those adult women.

Newborns too young to have recieved any vaccinations die far too often because of irresponsible idiots who refuse to vaccinate their children. The children will end up in places where there are such people and could easily spread their germs to those people.

Besides, wouldn't it be better if we just got rid of the germs?
Where does personal responsibility kick in? Shouldn't parents and pregnant woman take the responsiblity to protect themselves and their newborn infants from disease, rather than requiring other people to do it for them?It's more a case of preventing other people from stopping them from doing it.

For parents and pregnant women to be able to protect their babies everyone they come in contact with should be vaccinated.
She also brought up the problem that vaccines become less effective over time, so if a girl is vaccinated as a child then she won't still be fully protected as an adult woman if she becomes pregnant.Most vaccinations last a lifetime. Some do require booster shots every so often and making sure people get those is a good idea.
However, I don't believe that the arguments against vaccination so loony that universal vaccination should become compulsory.Every arugement I've seen against vaccination is loony.

I mean vaccines causing a genetic diesease? How much stupdier can you get (and to think that's one of the main arguments of the anti-vaccination quacks).
Honestly, I'd rather that we got rid of the controversy by simply removing evolution and the big bang from the curriculum, at least until high school.That would be giving the idiots a victory.
If evolution wasn't there, no one would be clamoring for alternative theories to be taught too.Oh yes they would. What the Christian Right in the US wants is to replace evolution with genesis and to do that they'd have to get rid of evolution from schools.
For the vast majority of people knowing how life or the universe got started will have no affect on their daily lives.Evolution does have a big effect on the bacteria in hospitals though. To understand why overuse of antibiotics is a bad thing one must accept evoultion.
The kids that are getting major anti-evolution training out of school won't believe it anyway, and putting them in the middle of a conflict between their parents, their church and their teachers is cruel. There is no reason for 8 year olds to have to make a decision regarding the nature of the universe.But the ones who aren't getting major anti-evolution training out of school will accept it. Even some of those who are being taught the myth of genesis might accept it and begin to realise that they have been lied to.
There is no push to teach first graders why it is scientifically impossible for Santa to visit all the children in the world in night, or myriad problems with a rabbit laying eggs, much less chocolate or plastic eggs.Well I think there should be.
Pushing children into a situation where they are forced to realize that some of the important authority figures are either wrong or deliberately lying to them is cruel. They should figure that out in their own time, when they are ready for it.Maybe it'll stop the parents from lying. If it does that then it's worth it.

Hard to say. Though the state has no right to force people to believe X, Y or Z, the government has a duty to adopt what is reasonably true as policy. Science should not be subject to democracy, because science is not a matter of opinion but of fact. Just as the ideas of 'alternative' medicine shouldn't be adopted into a national health service, ideas such as creationism should not be in the education system. The state has a duty to act towards science in a way based on reason and fact, not on public whims.