Well said, Saidin.

-I think you have a healthy open outlook in these matters, and what you have written makes perfect sense to me.

> All through my adult life i have had an interest in regular, as well as alternative medicine. And i have read a hell of a lot of literature in the past, as well as countless library books on the subject. This of course doesn't make me an expert, but shows that i have a keen interest in these matters.

-What i like most about many alternative medicines, is how they are more geared to stimulating the body to heal itself. Wheras modernday medicine is more like a sticking plaster over the wounds. Not always, but mostly.

-Thanks for your pleasant, and informative post, Saidin. I look forward to more of the same.

-Regards, Chris.

Saidin:

First of all, good post. This is the kind of discussion I am looking for, where we can really exchange our opinions intelligently and adress eachothers arguments. We shall proceed:



Allright, so may it be.


Perhaps some individuals have, this I have no trouble to accept. But what about the statistical significance? Have you ever heard of something, within the field of geography, that is called "Demographic transition"? If you have, what I am going to tell is probably familiar, if not, then perhaps food for thought.

Demographic transition is the transition from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as a country develops from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economic system. This transition involves four stages, wherein stage one and two is mostly relevant to this discussion. In stage one death rates and birth rates were both high and varied irregularly according to natural events, such as drought and disease, which produced a relatively constant and young population. In stage two we have a fall in death rates and an increase in population. There is two big reasons for this. One of them is improved food supply, the other is improved public health due to significant medical breakthroughs, such as vaccination, and the growing scientific knowledge of the causes of disease (such as the discovery of bacteria) which led to better hygiene. Other improvements include access to better technology, basic healthcare and education.

There are statistical correlations between the decline in high birth and death rates and the development of medicine and scientific knowledge. This is a fact that cannot be neglected.

What exactly do you mean by the root causes for the problems that they treat? Diseases are caused by an infinite variety of reasons, everything from bacteria to viruses, from poisoning to vitamin deficiency, from malfunctions in the body to genetic heritage. Medicine knows very much about the causes of many diseases, such as those mentioned above, because this is necessary to treat and cure. When a patient comes in very sick, the doctors may give some medicines that will stabilize the condition (treating symptoms) the best way they can so they can have some time to make a proper diagnosis and start the real treatment. To diagnose they need to know what is causing the problem. And again, medicine does not only treat, it also cures, making the patient totally healthy and well again. Those diseases I listed up earlier (not the vaccine ones) are examples of diseases that can be cured, and the list goes on. I am sure you can ask your brother or best friend and confirm.

The "Conventional medicine only treats the symptoms but Alternative medicine treats the cause of the illness" is a common myth, Saidin. It is simply a lie, any doctor can (or should) tell you this. It is true that medicine aims to provide not only cures, but symptom management, the relieving of pain, prolonged life and things like this when a cure cannot be found. But this does not mean that underlying causes are neglected, it only means that when a cure can't be found, the doctors are left with treating symptoms. The rhetoric you use completely ignores the fact that alternative medicine has never been demonstrated to alter the course of any specific disease entity, so exactly what are they treating in alternative medicine?

Yes, and here comes the claim that nutrition is the root cause of almost everything. Nutritional advice is not "alternative", and it only helps when you suffer from some kind of deficiency. If a doctor identifies this, he or she will tell you this. But to claim that nutrition is the root of all disease is a composition fallacy.

Vaccines are great in some sense? Vaccines are incredibly important! Vaccines can prevent a disease from occurring in the first place, rather than attempt to cure it after the fact. This comes under the preventive stuff that you miss so badly in medicine. Again, proof that medicine does not only treat. There was a case in England where people refused to take the MMR-vaccine because ridiculous claims went around between people who didn't understand jack shit. The result was that many did not take the vaccine, which in turn led to the death of many people. Vaccines reduces the risk of life threatening diseases in individuals, and it decreases the risk for diseases to spread in the population. This is extremely important.

What does alternative medicine cure? Nothing. Ironically, in many cases Altmed actually treat symptoms. For example, homeopathy; they claim to be holistic and treat the underlying causes of disease, yet they treat symptomatology by checking a vague list of symptoms with no real diagnostic testing, for then to find some sugar pill in their fancy cook books.

When Altmed has some real evidence to prove at least one of their core philosophies to be true and plausible, then it would be a whole other case. But they fail to do this, AGAIN AND AGAIN! And until evidence is presented, Altmed is best ridiculed at any opportunity.

It does not matter that it has been around for a long time! It is totally irrelevant. People went around believing that the earth was flat and the center of the universe for a very long time, but it didn't make it true. The fact that it has been practiced a long time and continues to be proves nothing, simply nothing.


Placebo is not alternative, and it is the only mechanism that we can see alternative medicine operating through, except for false hope and stupid fantasies.

I agree that placebo is not alternative, but the concept of treating a person as a whole is. Also, feel free to argue your points rationally (as you have done), but please refrain from inflammatory statements like calling others' beliefs "false hope and stupid fantasies".

If the beliefs make one think they will get better when the matter of fact is that they won't, is that not false hope? When the beliefs are unsubstantiated and predicated on dogma and things that never have been demonstrated to exist, are they not at least fantasies?

Would you not consider the belief that you can fly a stupid fantasy, or the belief that Elvis is still alive a stupid fantasy, or that you can walk through walls? These things have not been demonstrated to be true, as is the case with alternative medicine, so what is the difference? From a rational point of view certain things are stupid, certain things are fantasies and certain things are false hopes. This is what I want people to see, because irrational beliefs can be dangerous and harmful.

Why is the critique of beliefs so touchy a subject? Criticizing political ideas and convictions are not that touchy, why should beliefs be so different?

Beliefs are touchy because they are the foundation of people's existence. Also there should be a healthy balance between the rational and the irrational (that which you feel but cannot understand) because if you claim to know everything and/or ignore all that which defies a current explanation, then that strikes me as an ignorant way to go through life. Just because we can't currently measure or quantify something doesn't mean it's not physically there. 100 years ago we couldn't see/analyze DNA didn't mean that it wasn't there and didn't make it irrational to believe it could be there or come up with new methods for examining/measuring it more effectively/at all. In any case, it's inflammatory language like "stupid fantasies" that I'm asking you again to refrain from using. Calling people's beliefs stupid and (and in turn, those people stupid for believing them) is no way to dissuade them from thinking what they believe is now wrong. It's just a way to piss off a bunch of people.

Are not political ideas and convictions also the foundation of people's existence? If the beliefs are irrational, then the foundations of people's existence are irrational, which may lead to poor decisions. Why not criticize beliefs, but criticize political viewpoints? And criticizing beliefs is not the same as criticizing that whole person. So, when I say a belief is stupid or a fantasy, I am not calling the person that have these beliefs stupid. What I am criticizing is the belief, not the person as a whole. Clearly you must see this, because its a big difference. It is not a personal attack.

I do not claim to know everything, in fact I barely know anything at all. I am just saying that Altmed again and again is shown not to work. We do not need any explanation for what happens or why it happens or why it should have worked to show that it doesn't work. We can just run tests and clinical trials, which we have done, and they show no effect in a variety of methods. And the fact that many explanatory models for a lot of these things, for example homeopathy, violates everything we know about chemistry and physics just serves as the famous two lines under the answer.

Through thousands of years we have reached the stage we are at now by objectively criticizing false hypothesis and beliefs. The only historical significance of dogmatic and irrational beliefs such as those presented in alternative medicine, new age bunk and religious convictions are massmurder, genocides, witch hunting, torture, suppression, the imprisonment and murder of scientists, suicide bombing, death and much more. Do you not see the problem with irrational beliefs?

I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say people don't get touchy over their political beliefs. On any given day, if you want to see two people who would normally get along with each other explode into fury and name-calling, it's most likely going to be over politics.

Yes exactly, but still no one is saying "Man, stop criticizing others political ideas!". That's the point.

Right, but in politics as well as other beliefs, everyone can still be civil and refrain from needless inflammatory remarks. We can be respectful even in total dissent

Why should we respect beliefs that are irrational, beliefs that may lead to poor decision making, beliefs that ignores real knowledge? Yes, I respect people, but I do not respect certain beliefs that certain people have. I have already presented many reasons for why I do not respect these beliefs and why I choose to criticize them. Defending irrationality doesn't lead us anywhere.

But allright, I understand where you're coming from. I will be less direct next time. Let's not hijack the thread =)

To elaborate Citta's point, the bottom line is that alternative medicine claims to address things that SHOULD be measurable, but that in many clinical trials have been shown to be unmeasurable, and absolutely ABSENT.

For example, homeopathic medicine makes certain claims to address certain illness, but when actually put to the test, they have been shown to be exactly as effective as the placebo control. And, as I stated earlier, the problem with the placebo effect, while very real AND measurable, is that it is not reproducible - it will only affect a certain percentage of people that BELIVE they are consuming and effective medicine (important to note that MOST who believe they are taking a medicine, however, do NOT exhibit the placebo effect.) Another problem with the placebo effect is, of course, that it ENTIRELY disappears if the unfounded belief in the "sugar pill" falters!! So it is both unreliable and not reproducible, and hence a pretty useless phantom "medicine". Anyone who disputes the ineffectiveness of the vast majority of homeopathic "snake oil" potions has simply not put enough research into it. It is not a belief, I am afraid, but an irrational and blind fallacy.

If you eschew the proof demanded of science, how can you possibly argue against the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of "alternative" medicine? Do you not demand "proof" of some sort? (if not, i have buckets full of montreal tap water that i can dye your colour of choice and send to your for 60 bucks a vial, plus shipping ) The ONLY reason presented here is because millions of people have "believed" in it for thousands of years. I will not list all the millions of things millions of people have believed for thousands of years that have directly and indirectly led to the death of millions of people - Citta has done a fair job of that.

JBArk

There are also statistical correlations between the increase in food supply and a decline in high birth and death rates.



But the problem here is that they cannot identify this as they have no training in it. It is 'alternative' because it is not part of their medical training! Medical doctors are competely ignorant as to the major cause of dis-ease in their patients. It is outside the scope of their knowledge and what they are taught to look for and identify in patients. You cannot go to your doctor and ask, "What dietary changes can I make to alleviate the symptons I am having?" Trust me, I tried that and their only answer to me was, "Here, take this pill for the rest of your life." They react to the problem created by poor nutirition (without being able to provide any constructive advice on the cause of the problem), but then have to send the patient off to someone else in the 'alternative' community to get the advice and measures needed to bring that into better balance. They only go off a chart of what has become a problem, not what is necessary for optimal health. Healthy patients are bad for business.



Yes vaccines are great in some sense, but they are not the holy of holies. They have been proven to cause other problems, usually life long debilatating diseases. In addition as I stated before, the vast majority of cases of these diseases showing themselves in the population occur in people who have been vaccinated against those very diseases. That child vaccinated may or may not have contracted any number of diseases, may or may not have died, may or may not have had any adverse reactions to the disease. But now they are Autistic for the rest of their life, or are subject to any number of horrific auto-immune diseases. Do you know the kind of crap that they put in vaccines nowadays? Mercury, formaldahyde, thimerosal, aluminum, MSG, aspartame, silicon, monkey kidney cells and calf serum, mouse brain cells. Even Sodium hydroxide!



There are a variety of diagnostic testing options available to alternative practioners. And then they give them a pill which has zero side effects that works for many of their patients. Modern medicine cannot claim a 100% success rate on anything, nothing can. What works for some will not work for others. People should choose what treatments they want to effect for themselves. There is no one answer to all problems as you seem to claim there is. If something will work for me where I don't have to take a pill for the rest of my life, or be subjected to horrific side effects which are a part of just about all modern treatments, then that is an avenue that I will explore. Because it is better for me in the long run for my overall health.



But according to your definition of 'true' medicine it is most certainly alternative. It is mind over matter, the function of belief curing that which should be incurable. If it works for some, then it should be able to work for everyone and we hold the keys to our own healing within our minds. In this case false hope and stupid fantasies actually work, so you are at the same time ridiculing and belittling something because of the way it has been proven to work. It is a duplicitous statement...ie: "Its stupid to beieve it works. But it does work, but its stupid to believe it because it shouldn't work."

Can you cite an example of an alternative medicine as well as a disease it cures ? Im not talking about 100% rate here, but SOME percentage/statistical significance, as in, real data, not just generic statements.

As for the "some alternative medicine work", most people will use one or another example of, say, a spontaneous cancer remission that person X had after going through whatever alternative treatment, but this is clearly not a good argument, as infundibulum well stated in the homeopathy thread, its a confirmation bias fallacy, skewed statistics. You will hear about the cases that worked and not the ones that didnt.

And by the way mine and citta's point (if I can speak in his name for this) is certainly NOT that conventional medicine is flawless and that there is nothing outside what medicine already knows that works. We all know the bad practices in medicine, the unscrupulous pharmaceutical industry and what not. Also, definitely medicine knowledge can and will expand. But it can only expand in reliable ways through propper experimentation, which most alternative medicine has failed so far at showing any results. Science isnt biased, because if something 'alternative' works, controlled experiments will show it does, and hence it can be incorporated.

Now even you, saidin, who's so into "alternative" things, must realize there is a LOT of bullshit and misleading claims in the alternative medicine world, right? There are many contradictory claims between different alternative treatments (just like Shamans often make contradictory claims and yet people seem to ignore this when romanticizing shamanism).

So how can you know what to trust, if you know for a fact at least a significant percentage is bullshit? What criteria will you use to choose one treatment over the other, considering without controlled experiments any one of them are just as likely (or unlikely) to work?

Yes of course, but the importance of better health care and growing medicinal knowledge cannot be neglected as a major contributing factor to this decline. This is obvious, and you seem like an intelligent person, so I know you understand this.

Basic nutrition is a part of their education, at least here in Norway. In any case, doctors are not nutrition physicians, but if you have some sort of disease because of some deficiancy, doctors are able to see this, at least in principle. You may have had bad luck with one doctor, but your experience does not apply to the whole medical community. Anyway, as already stated, doctors are not educated mainly in nutrition, which is another branch of modern medicine. However, others are, and these people specialize in nutrition (clinical nutrition physicians). They go through long education as well, based in science, not alternative medicine, and will address issues and diseases related to peoples diet. I don't really see how what you say about nutrition consitutes an argument against modern medicine at all.

Several studies shows that vaccines are not to blame for autism, so the connection is not at all so clear as you claim it to be. As far as autoimmune diseases goes, the potential link between vaccines and this disease has been questioned a lot in the last few years, but this assumption has mostly been based on simple case reports. The overall data available is reassuring, as there seems to be no increased risk of developing autoimmune disorders as a result of vaccination. However, the problem is largely that for a very small subgroup of vulnerable people this is not yet fully understood to be the case. More research must be done in all of these cases.

In any case, it is best not to lose sight of an important fact in all of this controversy around what vaccines can cause and what they don't; They save lives. The theoretical risk of harm is far outweighed by the benefit of being protected against disorders that once sickened or killed thousands, even millions, of children and adults in the past.

What kind of diagnostic options? They have no training and no real tests as modern medicine has. How do you know that their pills don't have any side effects? Their pills don't go through clinical trials and testing that ensures reliable knowledge about their side effects. Modern medicine has this system. Alternative medicine operates completely outside of this, so pills that you are given may be potentially dangerous. I talked about this in my first post in this thread. And again, there simply is no evidence showing that these pills works! You keep dodging this very important fact that really says it all.

Working for some is not good enough. Anecdotal evidence is worth jack shit when it comes to medical problems. Why do you think we have developed this system in modern medicine? For fun?

So we can heal cancer, HIV, bacterial infections and you name with our minds? This statement is simply ridiculous, and it leads people to death because they don't get proper treatment because they insist on cures given by their own minds. The world is not so easy, Saidin, but I wish it was...

Yes, I would agree with you as logically it has validity. It cannot be neglected, but in all honesty there is no way to tell for sure. Life expectancy incereases could be attributed to increased medical knowledge, it could be food, it could be both combined, it could be related to a variety of other factors that have not been presented. It is in all likelyhood a plethora of factors that combined enabled this shift.



It is not part of the medical training here in the US. We have doctors who specialize in nutrition, they are called Naturopaths and here in the US they are considered in the 'alternative' category of physicians. Nutrition is classified in the 'alternative' category, because it works Whollistically and attempts to prevent health issues before they even begin. Therefore it is central to my argument that modern medicine is reactive and not proactive. Nutrition specialists and other alternative practioners you go to before you have a probelm. You go see modern medicine specialis once the problem has already manifested.



Ahh, yes the one case (probably paid for by the very vaccine makers themselves) that invalidates all the other (and more numerous) studies that shows a direct link. Wish it worked the other way, one case of positive results from alternative medicne gave validity to the methodology. The case that vaccines are a contributing factor in autism and other various auto-immune syndromes is clear. That being said, there is good anectodal evidence that vaccines save lives.



How do you know what kind of training they do or do not have? What type of diagnostic capabilities they have? The fact is that alternative medicine helps many many people. First hand accounts as to the validity of many of their practices. I agree with an earlier point that there may be charlatans. But there are those out there who can heal, and often in a way more profound and less harmful to the body. Just because it isn't effective in 100% of cases, it does not follow that the cases of those who have been healed should be dismissed entirely which you have done. There is no way to confirm if it was the treatment or placebo, the fact remains that THEY HAVE BEEN CURED.



Yes these things have been healed, and continue to be healed. In some cases it is called placebo effect. It is not ridiculous. This is your mind healing you. I think therefore I am. I think of myself as healthy therefore I become healthy. It happens all the time. This wonderous world is this easy, its just that we haven't all learned to tap into this potential.

Different things work for different people. Wouldn't you want to have something healed non-invasely if your other options were: surgery, or a lifetime of needing to take pills, or radiation burning you, or caustic chemicals surging through your veins, killing healthy cells along with diseased ones? You wont know unless you try, but if you don't believe it will work, then it certainly wont.

It does not lead people to death, it leads them to search out other alternatives in addition to what the establishment is offering. Its like shopping for any appliance. Every item has its own qualities its own niche, differnt options work for different people. One doesn't always buy the name brand though it tends to be more reliable. But that doesn't mean that the off brands wont work equally good for their owners and serve them well. If you don't like it or its not working for you, give it back and go with the name brand.

In the modern medical community another name for this phenomenon is called spontaneous remission. If you go to your doctor and have been healed unexpectedly of something he is treating you for, and you tell him you went to see a Bejuju doctor on some Carribean island who sucked the evil out of your body, not suprisingly the 'official' cause will be noted as 'spontaneous remission'.

Eat raw, organic foods, eliminate animal products and drink real water. Problem solved in my opinion. Most people I bet are mineral deficient, vitamin deficient and undercarbed. What other animals do you see that cook food?? None. Humans are the only ones that cook food. Cooking can be good in some instances..I like to boil water for tea..but we are not designed to eat the way that most people eat. It makes no sense to do so anymore..we arent living in igloos and we dont have to hunt buffalo etc to survive a cold north american winter..we are tropical animals who once evolved and thrived on a primary fruitarian diet that was ALL RAW.

If we were meant to suck on a cows nipple for our entire adult lives dont you think women would continue making milk for they're now adult children..do you know how much cow pus and blood is in cows milk? Free-range organic, it does not matter. Baby cows food that the magority of the human race is addicted to. I dont see any other monkeys sucking on the breasts of other pregnant animals.

This is the truth that the doctors dont tell you. The body responds to cooked food with a toxic reaction, it is called leukocytosis you can google it..boiling is better than frying of course..cooked food is enzyme deficient so it wont digest properly and contains no real usuable ammounts of amino acids. I really think that animal products are just toxic for the body and anyone wanting to be healthier would do well to cut them out. Eat more fruit..tons of it and greens, all raw.

Look at the RDA for vitamin C on the FDA website...it is rediculously low in comparison to what other primates ingest..and the stuff is basically all concentrated around the brain in a primate body..so what is going on in the brains of most humans that accept the BS nutritional information that is pushed onto the mainstream..do I even want to know?..beyond that what is going on with the FDA? are they trying to kill us? All I can do is assume so ..eat more raw organic fruit..you need it.

In the end noone should really change the way they eat unless they WANT to. You arent doing much good eating a diet that you have to fight to maintain. If you are eating out of love, you will be loving what you eat and you wont regret it and you will feel good for it. If you are neurotic about diet it wont help you it will only serve to psychologically effect you in a negative way. You have to make the choice to eat whatever way you eat and not be stressing about it.

Diet is the best alternative medicine there is.

"What kind of diagnostic options? They have no training and no real tests as modern medicine has. How do you know that their pills don't have any side effects? Their pills don't go through clinical trials and testing that ensures reliable knowledge about their side effects. Modern medicine has this system."

Uhh, by "system" do you mean the FDA?? The FDA is horribly inefficient at protecting the health of people who use the medical system. It is very efficient when it comes to protecting the bank accounts of those involved in big pharma however.

Maybe it is different in Norway, but here in Canada it is not where the FDA seems to have a large influence through Health Canada.

Also, claiming that naturalpaths are not properly trained is not an accurate statement. I saw a naturalpath for a while that was a physician. She got sick and traditioanl allopathic medicine did nothing but tell her she was going to die soon. After she was cured through alternative health care providers she went back and got educated as a naturalpath. She operates as a naturalpathic physician and has all her credentials in her office I have seen them. My health care still would not pay for me to see her, or the blood tests that she gave me(which were far far more revealing than the pointless skin prick tests the other doctors gave me). Not all people practicing alterntaive medicine are quacks and nutjobs.

Well said, Fractal.

-Humans are meant to live in a way as close to nature as possible. That means breathing clean air, eating fresh , wholesome, natural foods, and living in a natural environment. And keeping fit and healthy gathering foods ,etc, on a daily basis.

-Today we are living well out of context of such a natural way. We are disconnected from ourselves, and nature, thanks to the media, overwork, processed foods, and living in cities constructed out of concrete. Such living promotes a stress response that affects the human health on all levels. Also, we are not burning the accumulated stress and toxins off, thanks to our overcomfortable lives, etc.

-Whilst alternative medicine helps the body to cure itself, and get back to a natural lifestyle, most modern day medicine treats conditions, so that humans can keep on "surviving" in the disconnected unnatural way that we live today.

> Whilst alternative medicine is screaming out "know yourself, get back to nature, and QUESTION authority", modern day medicine is saying " we'll treat you so you can keep on working and consuming more rubbish you don't need, and get ill all over again...Oh, and just do as WE SAY- or else!!."

- Untill humans deal with the core truth of how we SHOULD live, rather than how we are pushed to live, only a few enlightened individuals will flourish and thrive, whilst the rest will simply be "surviving" as slaves to an unhealthy, unnatural system, that man incorrectly constructed out of fear.

- I can see a wonderful time ahead, when masculine bravado dies down, and people think about eating that burger, and popping that pill. A time when people ask themselves "is food really meant to be like this", and "Why is my life all about working in a job i hate, with people i don't really like, and why am i worrying about if my neighbour has a better car than me", etc...

>> People need to question their lives, because it's mostly how they are living that's making them ill in the first place. I sense a revolution.....

Valid point, well done.

Yes, I agree that nutritional advice etc is proactive rather than reactive (even tho it can be reactive if you already have some dietary problems), but I would still argue that eating healthy is common knowledge for preventing a variety of conditions, as well as advices like "don't smoke", "don't expose yourself to too much sun without protection in the summer", "don't have unprotected sex with strangers" and so on and so forth. This is why I don't see this as constituting a real argument against the effectiveness of modern medicine. The knowledge that leads us to these advices also comes from science and modern medicine.

I also agree that modern medicine deals with conditions once they arrive, but people get sick, Saidin. Even healthy people get sick. You can follow all of these fantastic advices and yet you can get damn unlucky and get cancer or get really ill in some other way. Shit happens, our bodies are not perfect and nature can be dangerous. I am sure you can agree with this fact.

It is not one case that invalidates all the others. In fact, the several studies that doesn't show any direct link doesn't really invalidate all the others in any absolute sense, it shows only that any link is not absolutely clear, and that we should not jump to any conclusions. But the matter of fact is that, as I said, the overall available data is pretty reassuring, but more studies should and must be done for us to say anything for certain.

And please, stop with the conspiracies, they are hardly any serious argument.

"The plural of anecdote is not evidence". Science only accepts evidence under very strict and controlled conditions, if not we can suddenly say that UFOs, ghosts, God, trolls, fairies, angels, imaginary friends and demons exists because millions of people have personal experiences with them. I am not totally dismissing the fact that people can be helped with some alternative method, that would be silly, but as far as we know this is attributed to the placebo effect, which is a a well known and very effective thing no doubt. However, this does not justify blind acceptance of extremely metaphysical frameworks with deep implications for causality and reality, neither does it mean that the placebo cured anything. Because placebos often have an effect, even if it does not last long, some people think that the placebo produced a "cure." But placebos do not cure. In any case, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We don't have any extraordinary evidence.

Do you have any reliable references to cite that shows people can get healthy by thinking they are healthy? That you can fight off a dangerous bacterial infection with just thinking and not taking antibiotics, that you can cure AIDS with thinking, that you can cure any physical illness at all with just thinking? I would love to see these references. And I am not talking about the relieving of symptoms such as pain and anxiety which placebo can do, but real physical cures.

There are several documentad cases where people DIE because they avoid modern medicine and rely themselves on alternative medicine. Both me and endlessness have provided links for this in our previous posts, but you must have missed them. There are also documented cases where alternative medicine practitioners recommends avoiding school medicine. This is dangerous. Thinking you are better doesn't physically mean that you are better.

Spontaneous remission of cancer is an interesting case, indeed. While there is no single cause for all the spontaneous cures of cancer, the majority of such patients experienced an acute infection just prior to the regression of their tumor. This is a striking fact. These infections were usually accompanied by fevers. This microbial attack stimulated some powerful immune responses. This suggests, along with other things, that spontaneous remission has physical origins, not psychological.

One last question for you Saidin. You claim lots of people get totally cured with alternative medicine. If this is the case, why do alternative methods fail again and again to produce reliable statistical data as to their effictiveness? Why do they fail clinical trials? Billions of dollars have been spent to research these extraordinary claims, but the results are very disappointing. Why? Again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Neither you or the rest of the alternative medicine movement provides any extraordinary evidence to back your claims.

Here are some reasons why some of alternative medicine "works"

- The disease may have run its natural course.
- Many diseases are cyclical.
- The placebo effect may be responsible.
- People who hedge their bets credit the wrong thing.
- The original diagnosis or prognosis may have been incorrect.
- Temporary mood improvement can be confused with cure.
- Psychological needs can distort what people perceive and do.

I dunno about all that...look throughout the historical/archeological records. Our ancestors who were living incredibly close to nature lived very brutal lives where they "just survived" many of the harsh conditions through a combination of skill and luck. I agree that clean food/water/air/land is crucial, but I don't subscribe to such romanticism of "enlightened natives" that many people seem to fantasize about. Each society is rife with its own problems...the only question is where are they located.

I don't disagree with your points about people being disconnected, I just think it's wrong to romanticize the idea that living close to the earth is somehow more than "just surviving" when in fact, it is shown to be a very brutal existence with many hardships and troubles. Don't believe me? You don't even need to seek out a tribesman...just ask a subsistence farmer.