16.08.07
Wind up surely?
This is a quote from a commentator on the Grauniad’s website during a conversation about Prof Dawkins’ last tv show:
Scientists like Dawkins reminds me of those doctors who ridicule alternative medicine. Better to leave medicine to them they say, as they look up the latest Pfizer drug to administer, side effects and all. They are part of the control system that insists we live our lives as they dictate. They point out that some mediums con people out of a few pounds, while ignoring the systematic financial industrial scale theft being carried on daily by the Pharmaceutical and medical research industries.
Oh dear, where to begin?
So who “ridicules” alternative medicine”? Well people who know what they’re talking about in the main. Medicine isn’t divided into traditional and alternative. It’s divided into “stuff that works” and “stuff that doesn’t”. The fact that the vast majority of “alternative” medicines have been shown to be utterly useless when compared to actual medicine doesn’t seem to faze its adherents. And then they have the temerity to say that proper medicine is bad for you. Unbelievable. True it can have side effects – but then the side effects of alternative medicine can be quite bad – ie not getting better.
And then the “control system” argument. Oh yes all the GPs around are there purely to keep you in your place. Either that or they want to help you. Would you rather they get you better or would you rather they pander to your prejudices? I know which my answer would be. They’ve had the training, they have the experience, why wouldn’t you listen to them? The aromatherapists may also have experience but then they’ve never cured cancer or given you better eyesight or removed an arthritic knee or dealt with a disfiguring scar usw usw….
Marcus Brigstocke recently did a skit about the “power of humanity” in a southern US style pep rally sort of thing. He cured someone’s poor eyesight there and then by asking him to “put his glasses on”. Science really does work you know. It’s not evil or oppressive; it’s useful.
Then the writer witters on about mediums (scum of the earth) so the argument breaks down at this point. Random targets for an unfocussed attack.
And then on to the “systematic financial industrial scale theft being carried on daily by the Pharmaceutical and medical research industries”. Again another random target. The economics of medicine are irrelevant as to whether it works or not. But at the very least they’re an industry that gets people better rather than giving them false hope.
Science isn’t perfect, it doesn’t “know everything” but it does know a lot. And plenty more than the charlatans know.
Have fun.