beefcalf wrote:I concur with DrW and Trashy. Thomas S. Monson was not referring to pseudo-science.
Pseudo-sciences include intelligent-design, homeopathy, magnets-that-heal, and ALL other forms of alternative medicine. Dressing up your belief-system with scientific jargon and calling yourself an 'Institute' does not lend credence to your claim of being a 'science'.
Science: Gather the facts. Form a Hypothesis. Test the hypothesis. Discard hypothesis if it does not fit the facts.
Pseudo-Science (and religion) Determine the hypothesis: Discard or impugn all facts which do not support the hypothesis.
With Science, we stumble towards the truth.
With Pseudo-Science and Religion, we stumble over the facts while ignoring the truth.
(Old Testament) Agree with you except for the "ALL" when referring to forms alternative medicine. Turns out that some forms of alternative medicine, including acupuncture, can be shown (in controlled studies) to result in beneficial health outcomes that cannot be accounted for by mere placebo effects.
While we may not yet fully understand how acupuncture works, it does meet criteria for efficacy of treatment and should not be dismissed as pseudo-science just yet.
Last edited by Guest on Sun May 08, 2011 6:21 pm, edited 4 times in total.
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."
DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
"So-called archeologists" = "anybody studying archeology who says that don't see any obvious signs of Book of Mormon cultures in the Americas".
"So-called Egyptologists" = "anyone studying Egyptology who says that the Book of Abraham papyrus seems to be a perfectly ordinary ancient Egyptian funerary text".
"So-called geologists" = "anyone studying the history of the earth who says that it does appear to be quite a lot older than 6,000 years"
Or, more generally"
"So-called X-ists" = "anybody studying a discipline related to X who enunciates any statement that seems to cast doubt on what is said in the Book of Mormon or taught by the CoJCoLDS".
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Chap wrote:"So-called archeologists" = "anybody studying archeology who says that don't see any obvious signs of Book of Mormon cultures in the Americas".
"So-called Egyptologists" = "anyone studying Egyptology who says that the Book of Abraham papyrus seems to be a perfectly ordinary ancient Egyptian funerary text".
"So-called geologists" = "anyone studying the history of the earth who says that it does appear to be quite a lot older than 6,000 years"
Or, more generally"
"So-called X-ists" = "anybody studying a discipline related to X who enunciates any statement that seems to cast doubt on what is said in the Book of Mormon or taught by the CoJCoLDS".
Well said. Would you agree that what Mormonism considers "anti-Mormon" regarding science, is also "anti-science"?
2 Tim 4:3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. 2 Tim 4:4 They will turn their ears away from the truth & turn aside to myths
DrW wrote:(Old Testament) Agree with you except for the "ALL" when referring to forms alternative medicine. Turns out that some forms of alternative including acupuncture, can be shown, in controlled studies, to result in beneficial health outcomes that cannot be accounted for by mere placebo effects.
While we may not yet fully understand how acupuncture works, it does meet criteria for efficacy of treatment and should not be dismissed as pseudo-science just yet.
DrW,
When your belief system is subjected to scientific studies which show real effects, over and above placebo, then you have joined the ranks of science. It is difficult to imagine how the insertion of numerous tiny needles into the epidermis could not cause some sort of physiological effect. I have no problem accepting that acupuncture does something although I do imagine you will agree with me that the explanation given by the Chinese of 'qi' meridians is non-scientific and not likely to be supported by any scientific study.
eschew obfuscation
"I'll let you believers in on a little secret: not only is the LDS church not really true, it's obviously not true." -Sethbag
Acupuncture cannot outperform a placebo when the placebo is a double blind sham needle design that fools people into thinking they were poked. The kind of placebo acupuncture outperforms is the classic sugar pill model and co. What this is an example of is not all placebos being equal. I understand why people think acupuncture works, but if you look it up you'll find that good research design overwhelmingly favors the null hypothesis, mixed research design is equivocal, and poor research design supports efficacy. Coupled with the weak underlying theoretical plausibility and this strongly suggests it's just placebo effect.
beefcalf wrote:I concur with DrW and Trashy. Thomas S. Monson was not referring to pseudo-science.
Pseudo-sciences include intelligent-design, homeopathy, magnets-that-heal, and ALL other forms of alternative medicine. Dressing up your belief-system with scientific jargon and calling yourself an 'Institute' does not lend credence to your claim of being a 'science'.
Do not attempt to take my weekly massage therapy away. It's the only thing that keeps me off the pain meds, most of the timee.
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
EAllusion wrote:Acupuncture cannot outperform a placebo when the placebo is a double blind sham needle design that fools people into thinking they were poked. The kind of placebo acupuncture outperforms is the classic sugar pill model and co. What this is an example of is not all placebos being equal. I understand why people think acupuncture works, but if you look it up you'll find that good research design overwhelmingly favors the null hypothesis, mixed research design is equivocal, and poor research design supports efficacy. Coupled with the weak underlying theoretical plausibility and this strongly suggests it's just placebo effect.
Okay. Can't really debate at this point since I have not looked at the literature in a while. I agree that the theoretical underpinnings are weak.
Nonetheless an NIH Panel Consensus Statement on Acupuncture points out that there is clear evidence of acupuncture's effectiveness in the treatment of several types of pain, including (hardly imaginary) postoperative pain.
While I agree that this does not necessarily rule out some kind of placebo effect, it certainly shows that one of the leading scientific institutions in the world does not consider acupuncture to be pseudo-science (see http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/nov97/od-05.htm ).
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(Suggest we get back to the OP.)
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."
DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
beefcalf wrote:I concur with DrW and Trashy. Thomas S. Monson was not referring to pseudo-science.
Pseudo-sciences include intelligent-design, homeopathy, magnets-that-heal, and ALL other forms of alternative medicine. Dressing up your belief-system with scientific jargon and calling yourself an 'Institute' does not lend credence to your claim of being a 'science'.
Do not attempt to take my weekly massage therapy away. It's the only thing that keeps me off the pain meds, most of the timee.
Massage clearly has benefit. I would be extremely surprised to see a scientific study which concluded that massage therapy was without value.
Five or six years ago, I had a terrible headache that seemed unaffected by over-the-counter pain medications. I went to my local Great-Clips and got a shampoo, mentioning my headache to the lady. She took charge and massaged my scalp while she shampooed. I walked away 20 minutes later without any pain at all. uh... praise the lord.
eschew obfuscation
"I'll let you believers in on a little secret: not only is the LDS church not really true, it's obviously not true." -Sethbag