Tuesday, March 01, 2005

I am born naturally skeptical against pseudoscience

Many people put all their trust in the alternative community, because regular medicine can't help them. They put all their faith in these medicines and treatments and the subject is so charged that normal discussion is impossible. People do not want truth, they want hope, and they will go wherever hope takes them, no matter how questionable the road is which they are taking.

Many people are ready to reject reality and science because of wishful thinking. As a consequence they turn to alternative medicine and treatment, which is full of quacks, frauds, and many dangers.

It's a mistake to believe that alternative medicine deals in hope, alternative medicine only deals in delusion, much like all alternative views of reality, example is new age, that has nothing to do with reality. Science is the only thing that does offer hope.

Here is a typical situation between believing pseudoscience and to be skeptical:

Friend: Hey, I tried Quantum-Touch and I have seen a spontaneous remission of my primary liver cancer, I was told 3 months left to live. That was 2 years ago.

Me (after searching the web): Well, I'm glad it worked for you, but there doesn't appear to be any good evidence showing it will work for anyone else. There need to be tests and evidence to determine that.

Friend: Well, science doesn't know everything, so how can you be so sure it doesn't work?

Me: When did I say science knows everything?

Friend: Aren't we here to talk about cancer? Quantum-Touch worked for me. I'm proof that it works. You're paid by the drug companies, aren't you? You're paid to sit here and say that natural healing doesn't work, so that those doctors can keep their yachts.

Me: What the hell brought that on?

Friend: I just can't believe your arrogance, telling me that what worked for me couldn't have worked for me, and denying this wonderful hope to everyone else.

Me: I can't stop anyone from believing in Quantum-Touch


More Quantum-quackery I
More Quantum-quackery II

I found this advertising at Quantum-Touch homepage, scroll down and see, what quantum-quackery can do to your health:

Letter of the Month
"My partner and I have seen a spontaneous remission of primary liver cancer in a patient who was told she had 3 months left to live. That was 2 years ago. We have seen a spontaneous remission of breast cancer. I have used it in asthmatic flair-ups. We have seen reversal in the deformities of rheumatoid arthritis. We have used it in the treatment of panic attacks with success. We have used it on a client with incapacitating history of migraine headaches. We have a client who cancelled her scheduled back surgery after being treated with Quantum-Touch. Soooooooo, yes, I can name people who have been 'cured' of serious illness. Utilizing it in the operating room as a nurse anesthetist, with physiologic monitoring in place, I can give you oodles of documentation of the effectiveness of Quantum-Touch.
This is one of the latest of my adventures. I was giving a fellow anesthetist a break recently, and the surgeon was 2 hours into trying to fix a tibial fracture that would not reduce. The OR nurses know first hand of my abilities, and smiled when I went into my 'voodoo' mode. Doing a vector anaysis, I noted that the femur was also affected by the tibial fracture. By utilizing Quantum-Touch, the tibia realigned itself under fluoroscopic visualization to the amazement of the surgeon and the radiology technician. The returning anesthetist just smiled and nicknamed me 'Dr. Bombay' after the character in Bewitched."
-- Joanne R Boyer, RN, BSN, CRNA, MEd
-- Timothy Hurst, BA, BPhil, DMS
Certified Quantum-Touch Instructors

Like other sciences, medical knowledge advances. But we need evidence and we need to teach folks how to recognize good science and bad science. If something works, and can be proven to work, then it becomes part of accepted medicine and acknowledged treatment, all else is quackery until proven otherwise

See who links to your web site.