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>> ^bamdrew:

Scientist - "our instruments can't detect anything more than sugar"
Homeopathy Salesperson - "maybe the scientists need to develop more sensitive equipment"
Scientist - "... we can see fucking carbon atom's, asshole... you're deluding people for profit"
http://videosift.com/video/First-Movie-of-Individual-Carbon-Atoms-i
n-Action

... thats how it should have gone... 15 second sift.


I'd say it's even worse than that: medicine is not even concerned with "seeing the atoms" or explaining anything, it's merely about *measuring effects* (and side-effects). If someone were to come up with a new cure that scientists are at loss to explain, but whose effects/side-effects are well-known, then it would be used by doctors (actual example: anaesthetic gases when they were first introduced).

So homeopathy is bonk, not because it is unexplained, but because *it has no effect* (beyond placebo, that is). Hence the common saying: "Alternative medicine that actually works goes by another name: it's called Medicine".

>> ^undefined:

>> ^undefined:
Too bad alternative medicines have advanced to an article of faith. And too bad that people are so unwilling to admit that they may be wrong.
To the mother who said "To each their own": If you ruin your own life, I don't have a problem with that. As soon as you endanger anyone else, I do have a problem. If your kid infects my kid or anyone in my family with an infectious (and potentially deadly) disease you're at the very least guilty of gross negligence in my book, if not worse.

If you have all the vaccines and shoot your kids with all the vaccines, why should it bother you if I dont shoot my kid up?
And also, mind your own business!
If your little retard walks out in front of my kids car and she has to swerve and hits a tree, that would be awful! and I will be upset! Therefore you shouldnt let your little retards out! better yet you shouldnt be allowed to have little retards. Its better if you just go and cut yer dick off, ya busybody.
I'm gonna have another drink.


You're a bad, ignorant person.

Also, your children do not belong to you. They are not objects with which you may do as you see fit.

People like you are why we need a patriarchal government.

I truly hope you die a painful death, cunt.

>> ^undefined:
Too bad alternative medicines have advanced to an article of faith. And too bad that people are so unwilling to admit that they may be wrong.
To the mother who said "To each their own": If you ruin your own life, I don't have a problem with that. As soon as you endanger anyone else, I do have a problem. If your kid infects my kid or anyone in my family with an infectious (and potentially deadly) disease you're at the very least guilty of gross negligence in my book, if not worse.


If you have all the vaccines and shoot your kids with all the vaccines, why should it bother you if I dont shoot my kid up?
And also, mind your own business!

If your little retard walks out in front of my kids car and she has to swerve and hits a tree, that would be awful! and I will be upset! Therefore you shouldnt let your little retards out! better yet you shouldnt be allowed to have little retards. Its better if you just go and cut yer dick off, ya busybody.

I'm gonna have another drink.

Too bad alternative medicines have advanced to an article of faith. And too bad that people are so unwilling to admit that they may be wrong.

To the mother who said "To each their own": If you ruin your own life, I don't have a problem with that. As soon as you endanger anyone else, I do have a problem. If your kid infects my kid or anyone in my family with an infectious (and potentially deadly) disease you're at the very least guilty of gross negligence in my book, if not worse.

>> ^m00t:

SSRIs have some very adverse side effects in a non-trivial percentage of the population which typically include increased aggression and suicidal behavior. Frankly, SSRIs should be banned. They're often more harmful than good and there are alternate medicines that work as well or better with fewer side effects. For medications such as Zoloft the clinical trials were heavily manipulated where patients that committed suicide were removed from the results after the fact, even though the suicide rate for the control group was significantly lower.
Gun owners on SSRIs should have their guns taken from them until they are safely off the medications (after withdrawal symptoms have subsided) and then returned, no questions asked and no records.


Imposter!

SSRIs have some very adverse side effects in a non-trivial percentage of the population which typically include increased aggression and suicidal behavior. Frankly, SSRIs should be banned. They're often more harmful than good and there are alternate medicines that work as well or better with fewer side effects. For medications such as Zoloft the clinical trials were heavily manipulated where patients that committed suicide were removed from the results after the fact, even though the suicide rate for the control group was significantly lower.

Gun owners on SSRIs should have their guns taken from them until they are safely off the medications (after withdrawal symptoms have subsided) and then returned, no questions asked and no records.

I don't like to think of people as liars, but I would agree that she has some serious mental issues and needs help. A lot of help. From an actual licensed psychiatrist, not some alternative medicine quack.

Chiropractic is NOT joint manipulation, it is not sports massage, it is not physiotherapy. It is the spiritual belief that bodily ailments are caused by "subluxations" - misalignments in the spine - that interrupt the flow of life-force energy to various areas of the body. Now, some people who call themselves chiropractors do also practice sports massage and physiotherapy alongside (or even instead of) this energy-medicine quackery, and they may well provide excellent treatment of injuries and disorders within those fields.

But I say again, that's not chiropractic, which is an unscientific, evidenceless alternative medicine technique, the purported benefits of which simply disappear under clinical trials and systematic reviews. While spinal manipulation may benefit back pain, it also poses risks, especially in children. I would not let my baby's developing spinal cord be shunted about by what is essentially a witch-doctor in a white coat.

buyhisbook, buyhisbook, buyhisbook

Ho yeah, and, er, nice post and all.

No seriously, buy Bad Science, it's like 3 quids on amazon.co.uk, and apart from happily thrashing "alternative" medicine (and regular big-pharma businesses, for that matter) it actually has a chapter on the placebo effect. Its only (minor) flaws are its Brit-centrism, and the fact that it should be actually titled Bad Medicine. I bought a box of these which I distributed to my homoeopathy-loving family. I hope I don't get disowned.

>> ^cybrbeast:
I really like Bill Maher, but I hope he takes his time off to ponder his stance on real medicine and alternative medicine.
Michael Shermer from Skeptic's Magazine wrote an open letter on the subject to Bill Maher. I hope he listens.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,4465,An-O
pen-Letter-to-Bill-Maher-on-Vaccinations,Michael-Shermer


Hear, hear, Bill Maher is batshit crazy when it comes to vaccines and medicine, ranking right up there with the reality-deniers he makes fun of.

PZ Myers:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/bill_maher_still_doesnt_get_it.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/another_thing_that_annoyed_me.php

Thank you!

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
Frist is absolutely correct on Vaccines. People who reject the notion of medicine in favor of "alternative medicine" are never doctors, just idiots.

*quality

I really like Bill Maher, but I hope he takes his time off to ponder his stance on real medicine and alternative medicine.

Michael Shermer from Skeptic's Magazine wrote an open letter on the subject to Bill Maher. I hope he listens.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,4465,An-Open-Letter-to-Bill-Maher-on-Vaccinations,Michael-Shermer

>> ^dag:
^Yes, how dare anyone question the all-knowing oracles of medical knowledge.
I think the reason that many geeky type people always toe the main-stream medical line is because they conflate medicine with science (which we all love). Yes, it's almost the same, but if I had to draw it as a venn diagram, there would be a crescent of over-hang. Medicine to me is 80% science and then the rest is filled in with dogma, patriarchy and business ($$).
That crescent of non-science is the part that makes me squirm. I don't think it's that wrong to question medical programs like vaccinations- with the idea that it may be being pushed non-scientifically by the medical industrial complex. (big pharma).

I'm with you, Dag, on most of those points. Questioning things is what makes someone a skeptic to begin with, and you could apply that Venn Diagram to almost any (if not all) avenues of science. Scientists need funding, and not all are unbiased in their pursuit of knowledge. Please, question "the all-knowing oracles of medical knowledge" until you're blue in the face, but make sure that when you're done you've seen, understood, and accepted the evidence and the facts. Not testimonials and anecdotes. Maher did bring up that Frist used an anecdote, however I'm confident Maher fails to realize that the entire "alternative medicine" movement is based on anecdotes and the placebo effect.


Bill Maher is not a kook.


^And there is where we disagree on the subject of medicine and Mr. Maher. He is plainly a kook when it comes to such a serious subject as this, because he employs the exact same tactics as those religious kooks he fights against. If I could send him an amazing book I own called "Snake Oil Science: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine" what do you think the chances are he'd read it? And if he defied logic and actually read it, would his mindset allow him to see the truth, based on research and evidence into these sorts of things?

He reminds me of my mother. She's not "spiritual", but she believes almost entirely in "alternative treatments". She once argued with me to get off of my insulin treatment for Diabetes and seek an Acupuncture and more "natural" route to cure it. I calmly told her to look into these things from unbiased sources.

I lent her that book.

She threw it at me.

Frist is absolutely correct on Vaccines. People who reject the notion of medicine in favor of "alternative medicine" are never doctors, just idiots.

*quality