I think meditation without accepting Buddhist ideas works, if you have a good teacher.  The Dharma Center I belonged to in Kauai discourages students within other religions from converting to Buddhism.  Rather, they are told to take what was useful to them and incorporate it into their own tradition.  Christians, Muslims, Atheists, and Wiccans who attended the meditation class over time made solid progress in there moods.

A good awareness on breath meditation that extends to body, emotion and thoughts can cure all forms of depression I think.  If you experience the emotion and thoughts that arise without judgment, and realize you are something separate from them, it will transform the way you experience them and eventually lead the emotion losing power and fading away.

The real cure is a combination of magnets, crystals, and power spots.

Jarvik7 wrote:

The real cure is a combination of magnets, crystals, and power spots.

Exactly.

Tzadeck wrote:

Dara O'Briain does a bit where he talks about Chinese medicine.  He quips that others defend it, saying "But Chinese medicine has been around for thousands of years!  There must be something good about it."  He replies "Yeah, and life expectancy in China one hundred years ago was thirty.  Now it's seventy six.  I don't think it was tiger penis that made the difference--it didn't work out too well for the tiger either."

Found the majority of this bit, though cut off before this part.  Still, it's relevant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMvMb90hem8

Bodhi, I have no idea about chiropractors, but you're not gonna win anyone to your side by defending homeopathy. It's complete quackery. It makes zero sense. Go wiki it or something.

He's against chiropractors because there's no evidence to show that it does anything useful, and it uses various wishy-washy bullshit terms like your body's 'innate intelligence' to describe its goals.  Comprehensive reviews have shown that risk of injury/death from mistakes outway the benefits of chiropractic (E. Ernst, 2010).

I get massages periodically when my back doesn't feel so good.  I leave feeling less pain, but nobody is bullshitting me and pretending that it is medical science.

On the topic of homeopathy: there IS a HUGE problem when you give people water, charge them a lot of money, and then tell them that it's curing their illnesses.

(Edit: It sounds like you're mistaking homeopathy for people who are into organic foods or something?  Homeopathy has nothing to do with herbal tea or avoiding chemicals.)

Last edited by Tzadeck (2011 June 09, 9:43 am)

bodhisamaya wrote:

If people are doing that, I would put them in the same quackery category as psychiatrists who prescribe drugs for depression.

I think you're a little confused.  ALL science is imperfect because it's a human enterprise.

The best sciences are the hard scientists, especially physics because it can rely most heavily and directly on mathematics.  But because so much money is involved in certain experiments, people's careers and reputations are on the line, and other things such as general human error, there are problems even in physics and it is far from pure.  This is especially true in the last forty years.

Medical science is more difficult because it's not even really 100% science.  It's a mix of science, technology, and overall the goal is to change something rather than to learn about the world.  Not to mention, more money is involved and more is on the line.

Psychiatry is even more far removed from the hard sciences than traditional medical sciences, because many of the theories are less concrete.  But it's not like the people doing it are con-men (as is the case with many practitioners of alternative medicine).  Psychiatry and psychology are born out of a serious scientific endeavor, just one that is particularly difficult because it is so far removed from concrete mathematics, and since it has become clinical a lot of money is involved like in the medical sciences.  Psychology and psychiatry have their roots in people who were trying to learn about behavior scientifically (I'm talking about post-Sigmund Freud.  What that man was doing was not science at all).

To equate psychiatry to a bunch of con-men is missing the point.

Unfortunately, although the scientific method is not a perfect way to go about learning about the world beyond simple observations, it's the only good way that humans have ever found.

Last edited by Tzadeck (2011 June 09, 10:05 am)

That Mitchell and Webb Look: Homeopathic A&E

Tzadeck wrote:

For the record, I think it's been sufficiently proven that drugs can be effective at treating serious depression long term.  And I also think that meditation, when talked about in a medical context, is bullshit that has only become popular in the western world by riding on the wave of new age charlatan crap.

I don't see how meditation is bs in a medical context.  Isn't depression a disease of the mind? (maybe not in icecream's case).  And meditation helps the mind so meditation could be meaningful medically.  Personally I think science is so elementary at this stage it can't (or maybe won't) look into the vast complexities of the mind, and that's why ppl feel it's bs even though it isn't.

Tzadeck wrote:

Dara O'Briain does a bit where he talks about Chinese medicine.  He quips that others defend it, saying "But Chinese medicine has been around for thousands of years!  There must be something good about it."  He replies "Yeah, and life expectancy in China one hundred years ago was thirty.  Now it's seventy six.  I don't think it was tiger penis that made the difference--it didn't work out too well for the tiger either.

funny quote, if it actually made sense.
just confused why you still mention the life expectancy issue since it was explained as a statistical fault of infant mortality, which wasn't addressed yet.   Ppl should go here and continue reading below to find out why this claim has little merit:
http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?p … 52#p147052
Instead of using the average or mean, use of the median life expectancy would be a lot less deceptive.   Obviously this comedian hasn't come across statistics study.

Tzadeck wrote:

I chose Britain in the 17th century because I wanted a number that was close to the modern age but was before medical science came into play.  And also, it was a few hundred years after the major waves of the bubonic plague.  Actually, the life span in 16-18th century Britain was always about 15-30.  I couldn't find the statistic for the world average at the time, but Britain was a good example of a complex society.

here's something i found just surfin the internet not looking for this specific topic...must be fate
"The pre-factory age was not a time of happy, contented kids. >From 1730 to 1740, 75 percent of children in England died before age five. From 1810 to 1829, supposedly the evil age of the factory, infant mortality fell to 32 percent and would continue to drop."
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=45

Not saying this random statement is actually true but if it is and I do think it's close to the real thing, again proves my point about infant mortality no?  To take my example before with these new data from the quote. here's a sample population where there's 60% high infant mortality even less than the above quote but that ppl who live past 5 live to a normal age of 70:  70 60 5 0 0 with an average of 27...seems to match your numbers.

If i have these we-live-longer-today ppl's arguments correctly, they are saying modern medicine is great bcuz it allows ppl to live much longer, just look at england's 15-30 year old lifespan as example vs our 70 year old lifespan.  How offbase is that argument? Do these ppl really think most ppl died around age 15 to 30? How would you have kids then?  Not saying it isn't possible to have kids at age 14 but i don't buy that ppl were  dying all around the age of 15-30 so a mortality table would be best showing the distribution of deaths.

Tzadeck wrote:

But, you still seem to not really know what you're talking about beyond that, to the point where you're just mistaken and irresponsible.  Your original post was vaguely about biochemistry, and now you're making claims about the history of the elimination of diseases, which you obviously know nothing about.

I'm no expert on the vaccine topic; I've only come across readings that mentioned those diseases as on the decline before vaccination made it to the market so I'll have to gather up some more info.

But I'll take a look at your wikipedia examples and see why they can't be used as worthy counterarguments the way you've portrayed them.

Your smallpox example was the best one with actual data showing possibly the effectiveness of the vaccine. Problem is you never say when the vaccine was introduced so how do we know if it's the vaccine that was the main factor.

as for the TB, my bad (again not an expert, but more knowledgeable than your claim that I "obviously know nothing") if it is actually increasing but your case for it doesn't show greatness of modern medical vaccines at all

Your case of polio had no numbers in it so who can really trust your opinion that vaccines were the reason for its elimination?

At this point intelligent people should only be asking for a chart that shows rates of infections in certain countries and then have it highlight the time that the vaccine came to play.  That would show (still not causatively but strong correlatively) if the vaccine was or wasn't the major reason for the decline. Trying to rebut with almost anything else would show that we don't actually care about LEARNING about the topic but just trying to argue our BELIEFS.

In any case, it seems to me you haven't addressed all my points in my posting (either countered or confirmed), but you're picking the weakest argument I have and then making me look like a fool so other people won't look at my arguments in their totality.  Isn't that the ad hominem attack?
I think that's very deceptive.  What about my point on infant mortality? What about my point with the editors of the NEJM saying caveat empor with Big Pharma?

sorry for the length of my posts and i know it's not everybody's cup of tea but hope y'all see it takes some lines to strengthen a claim, instead of the easy way out of categorically calling somebody disreputable without backup

Science deserves a great deal of respect for saving millions of lives through drugs that cured some of the world's deadliest diseases.  They are the authority when it comes to the material universe and how it works, except when it comes to the mind, if you believe it to be material.   

For thousands of years, monks in the East have been observing how the mind works, making written commentary on it, and honestly debating it.  They were not doing so to please a god, gain wealth, or garner power by conquering new territory through missionary work.  Their only goal was the pursuit of happiness by examining directly how the mind works.  They succeeded and the proof of that is that they are indeed the happiest, most peaceful people on the planet.   When the pharmaceutical industry has to bribe doctors, the equivalent of a years pay for most people, to put their name on research papers for depression medication, they know they are selling crap.  Medical science may one day catch up in this area, but for now, claiming superior in the area of the emotions would be like a three year old teaching Einstein physics.

bodhisamaya wrote:

They succeeded and the proof of that is that they are indeed the happiest, most peaceful people on the planet.

I respect Buddhism, but that's not really true. Warrior monks (no, not defending the temple against intruders) were pretty common throughout history, and Tibet was pretty brutal if you weren't in the ruling caste.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2011 June 10, 8:19 pm)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in … ontroversy

"Chinese sources portray Tibet before 1950 as a feudal serfdom in which serfs suffered terribly under the despotic rule of lamas and aristocrats. Tibetan sources describe the people as happy, content, and devoted to Buddhism."

Huge debate.