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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> On 03/26/10 01:28, Warp wrote:
> > I have hard time understanding the psychological phenomenon that many
> > people are eager to believe in some things based solely on what other
> > people *claim*, without any actual convincing evidence, or with just some
> > flimsy circumstancial evidence of eyewitness testimony, and *keep believing*
> > in it even after an enormously more comprehensive and accurate testing shows
> > that the thing is bogus.
> Finland must be an awesome place to live.
> Seriously? You find it hard to believe?
No, I find it hard to *understand*. Different thing.
--
- Warp
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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> On 03/25/10 06:05, Warp wrote:
> > The danger with homeopathy is that it's an ideology which rides on
> > people's tendency to mistrust authority and herd behavior. It's an ideology
> You could simply go a step further and blame a lot of authorities for
> giving good reasons to mistrust them.
In this case "authority" would be regular, official medical practice. What
have they done to earn people's mistrust? Why is quackery more trustworthy
in the eyes of many people?
--
- Warp
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On 03/26/10 21:11, Darren New wrote:
> Yep. I'd even guess that the fact that real medicine has become more
> effective can increase the placebo effect. It's much easier to believe
> that something can be cured nowadays than even 20 years ago, let alone 100.
Good point.
--
"Hex Dump" - Where Witches put used Curses?
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On 03/26/10 23:13, Warp wrote:
> Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
>> On 03/26/10 01:28, Warp wrote:
>>> I have hard time understanding the psychological phenomenon that many
>>> people are eager to believe in some things based solely on what other
>>> people *claim*, without any actual convincing evidence, or with just some
>>> flimsy circumstancial evidence of eyewitness testimony, and *keep believing*
>>> in it even after an enormously more comprehensive and accurate testing shows
>>> that the thing is bogus.
>
>> Finland must be an awesome place to live.
>
>> Seriously? You find it hard to believe?
>
> No, I find it hard to *understand*. Different thing.
Perhaps you really meant hard to *explain*.
--
"Hex Dump" - Where Witches put used Curses?
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On 03/26/10 23:15, Warp wrote:
>> You could simply go a step further and blame a lot of authorities for
>> giving good reasons to mistrust them.
>
> In this case "authority" would be regular, official medical practice. What
> have they done to earn people's mistrust? Why is quackery more trustworthy
> in the eyes of many people?
Well, in the US, it wouldn't be doctors, but either the FDA, or the
medical research community, or both.
I can't come up with reasons to distrust them, though. The FDA sucks
for food, but is probably quite good on medicine.
I think the main problem with those folks, though, is that they easily
generalize from legitimately distrusting n groups in authority to
"Authorities always work for vested interests".
The only difference between their stance and yours is that you're being
a bit more granular. (Which is not an irrelevant difference).
--
"Hex Dump" - Where Witches put used Curses?
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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:4bac7025@news.povray.org...
> I really can't understand why. It's like accurate scientifical testing
which
> is more extensive and more thorough is less convincing than a much smaller
> sample of inaccurate circumstancial evidence.
>
> Why do so many people think like this? What is the psychological
phenomenon
> behind this kind of thinking?
Proximity, authority, trust. A person may trust in his neighbour's,
coworker's or friend's anectodal evidence much more so than some faceless
professional's findings published on some impersonal journal. We are social
animals, and familiar faces breed trust, which makes sense in most
circumstances. For that matter, you would probably trust me more had I used
the alias "Jason" instead of "somebody".
And then there's the interest... It may be perceived (not wholly
unjustified) that medical professionals have numerous motives and interests,
and your well being may or may not be near the top of the list, while it's
harder to think that your aunt has any ulterior motives when she swears that
it was the herbal tea that cured her cancer.
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On 3/26/2010 7:23 PM, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 03/25/10 01:08, scott wrote:
>>>> accept that fact and try another medicine. For someone to be using
>>>> something on a child in the first place that has never been proven
>>>> better than placebo, and then to refuse to try something else when it's
>>>> not working, *that* is criminal.
>>>
>>> See my question to Stephen: How do you propose enforcing it?
>>
>> Same way as any other child neglect crimes. It either gets reported
>> through family/friends/school to the authorities who investigate, or in
>> the worst case the death of the child triggers the investigation. Then
>> you search for evidence they didn't search for appropriate medical care
>> (very easy if they admit to it!), then it's up to a judge/jury to decide
>> a punishment.
>
> I think you're missing my point. So what should the concerned
> neighbors/friends report? That some parent is using a treatment that is
> not certified by the FDA (in the US)? If so, you've suddenly
> criminalized all herbal treatments, and any other treatment that may be
> common elsewhere.
>
> The point being that it's hard to criminalize _just_ homeopathic
> medicine. If you want to criminalize everything that is not approved by
> some government body, I'd be dead set against it. There are too many
> things that would get banned.
>
Problem here is, the only reason these things are "not" covered by the
FDA is because a) herbal remedies where wrongfully excluded, at the
behest of people in the legislature, who argued, "if its natural, how
harmful can it be", and, at the time, no one had a damn clue how
blindingly stupid that was, and b) most of these things haven't killed
enough people, in a legally provable way, to get them "reincluded". Some
rare cases have been, and they are now covered by the FDA, and classes
as actual drugs. The catch here is, even if they could be determined to
be dangerous enough to be covered, they don't do anything themselves, so
can't fall under "drugs". Its not the FDA that would be going after most
of these, it would be other agencies, on the ***same*** basis that you
don't sell someone products that do not *do* what you claim they do,
contain what you promised, or otherwise provide what you said you where
selling. Its "fraud", not "bad medicine". And, its fraud, whether you
think some bozo digging up an old book in the library and trying it
themselves does it or not. No one is going to arrest *them* for being
stupid enough to try it. They damn well should arrest someone for making
money off of **selling** it to someone, and lying about what it does in
the process.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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Here's the video I was thinking of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWE1tH93G9U
Jim
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On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:58:06 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> > Remember that the active ingredient is something that *causes* the
>> > symptoms, not something that *cures* them (for example in a
>> > homeopatic sleeping pill the active ingredient is usually caffeine).
>> > Hence taking this ingredient *away* from the water likewise takes the
>> > *symptoms* away from the person. The more of it you take away, the
>> > more effective the stuff is. It makes perfect sense.
>
>> It's a load of codswallop.
>
> My text above was written in jest.
You apparently didn't see what I wrote at 2:41 PM after I posted the
quoted text above.
Jim
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On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:01:04 +0100, scott wrote:
>> It's a load of codswallop. If I titrate caffeine to the point there's
>> none left in solution in the water, the water is *no different* than
>> taking water that's never been near caffeine. It is chemically the
>> *same*.
>
> I think these people believe there is something "beyond" basic
> chemistry, ie even when no active substance can be detected, it has
> somehow made its mark on the carrier substance (water, sugar etc). And
> as is completely normal with human nature, they subconsciously interpret
> the results of a few very unscientific tests (eg my friends mum was
> cured by it) and conclude it works.
To borrow a line from A Few Good Men, "It doesn't matter what I believe,
it only matters what I can prove!"
Jim
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