Faith healing vs. modern medicine? (Moved from "Bible in a year" thread)

[/DG/]

I think one of the main issues with modern medicine is how isolated each field is; thus there's definitely little holistic knowledge, and though I don't think it's their fault, specialists are going to have lots of ignorance of much that's outside their specific field. I think doctors are great, absolutely, but there's also vast knowledge in indigenous cultures remaining on this planet, in terms of herbs, and other more holistic connections. I imagine more of that will be incorporated with time.

I'm not really sure what you want. Emergency medicine docs and GPs are examples of those that have a more general knowledge of all of the body systems instead of specialization. However, there is the old saying: "jack of all trades, master of none." You cannot have both vast breadth of knowledge and vast depth of knowledge. Pick one. It isn't a problem with modern medicine. It's a problem with how the human brain functions. We simply do not have the capacity to know everything.

 

[Amargith]

Actually, you can resolve that by having specialists in big picture thinking - ala House.

But preferably without the sociopathy. And by improving communications between the specialties.

Perhaps a department of diagnostics isnt such a bad idea

Maybe its Ne elitist of me but as someone whose seen a few doctors the last few years, i end up doing that job for them by briefing each one on my current condition, then pointing out patterns ive noticed and asking what if questions - even if due to my lack of medical background once a while i ll ask an idiotic question - and the doctors that appreciate this (and actually use that info!) are usually the ones that help me the most. I also walk away from those that are only interested in managing symptoms and could care less about the underlying cause - the disturbing shortcut pillpopping tendency of modern medicine- as i do care to know the root and want to look at my body holistically. Even now, doctors are reluctant to name the common cause that keeps coming up with each of them as the main problem to address as they dont want to step outside their specialty and speak about it holistically. Since its also something they dont really know how to solve with a quick pill, which makes them visibly uncomfortable, they instantly jump to managing symptoms and ignore the root.

Its insane - i may actually try an alternative doctor, who is willing to invest the time and look at things holistically for some guidance if i find i cannot address it on my own by researcing like mad.

 

[1487610420]

I'm not really sure what you want. Emergency medicine docs and GPs are examples of those that have a more general knowledge of all of the body systems instead of specialization. However, there is the old saying: "jack of all trades, master of none." You cannot have both vast breadth of knowledge and vast depth of knowledge. Pick one. It isn't a problem with modern medicine. It's a problem with how the human brain functions. We simply do not have the capacity to know everything.

Sure, but maybe the spectrum of study is lacking.
Are you a medical student?

 

[Poki]

I generally avoid doctors if I don't have a really pressing issue. I get sinus infections quite a bit and unless my head starts pounding to where I can't see straight or sleep I usually just focus on sinus rinses, blowing nose alot, hot steamy hovers and allergy medicine when I remember. I suck at taking medicine, even when I am sick I don't think about it.

 

[Diablesse]

I think faith healing is linked to belief and the mind/body connection. So, I don't see anything wrong with people placing their faith in something larger than themselves to induce a state of mind which facilitates promoting a healthier perspective and sense of well-being. I believe in faith healing in combination with, but, not to the exclusion of, modern medical treatment (backed by science).

 

[/DG/]

Sure, but maybe the spectrum of study is lacking.
Are you a medical student?

No, why?

 

[/DG/]

Actually, you can resolve that by having specialists in big picture thinking - ala House.

But preferably without the sociopathy. And by improving communications between the specialties.

Perhaps a department of diagnostics isnt such a bad idea [emoji14]

In real life, a doctor like House would be fired for recklessly endangering and killing his patients. His decisions aren't based on the "right kind" of logic (not sure how to explain this). He tends to assume crazy variables exist when they normally would not in real life. It's like assuming that the next winning lotto number will contain a 6. It isn't that his views are holistic. He jumps on diagnoses and states that they MUST be correct, refusing to acknowledge anything or run any damn tests until the patient has the inevitable seizure/organ failure/whatever. My only explanation for why he miraculously gets the diagnosis right each time is that he is subconsciously psychic (which I do not believe is a thing). Don't get me wrong, I love the show...but a real life version of House would end up killing nearly every patient brought to him.

At any rate, I do understand what you meant. I am not as intimately familiar with the medical system to know if such a team exists. My guess is that most of the time, there really isn't a need for elaborate diagnostic teams because the affected organ system is often fairly apparent. For those with unknown illnesses, it may very well be that doctors of different specialties may meet to brainstorm on it. I am really not sure, though, and it seems more like a thing that would only be accessible to those that have money anyway.

 

[Mole]

Actually I'm referring to what's already known, established via science, when I refer to psychology. Refer to videos [MENTION=6723]phobik[/MENTION] posted re examples. I wasn't talking personality, I'm talking basic elements of how our brain works, and hormones, and biochemistry. Certain psychological states increase levels of one type of hormone, other states change another level, which in turn impacts health, ability to heal. Placebo effect is another general 'psychology' example, which others have mentioned and falls in line with what I was referencing. I don't know what kind of non-evidence psychology you thought I was talking about.

Perhaps we are talking at cross purposes. For instance, a science has a scientific theory. In popular culture a theory is something not proven, while in science, a scientific theory is proven fact. For instance, chemistry rests on the scientific fact of the periodic table, and biology rests on the fact of natural selection, and physics rests on the scientific facts of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

But psychology rests on no scientific theory. There is no theory of psychology. So there is no science of psychology.

It is true psychology does make taxonomies of personalities, and even conducts bona fide scientific experiments, but neither taxonomies nor experiments have yet produced a Theory of Psychology.

So psychology is in a similar state to botany before we discovered natural selection and the structure of the genome.

 

[/DG/]

[MENTION=3325]Mole[/MENTION] - I'm not sure what you mean when you keep repeating that "biology is based on the premise of natural selection." It most certainly is not. That is merely a small facet of a small part of biology, not it's primary backing force. Biology is based on chemistry, physics, cell theory, etc.

It is true that psychology is a rather "soft science" in comparison. And long ago, psychology was based on wild speculation with no real basis. However, it is dramatically different today. It draws significant influences from biology and research is conducted using the scientific method.

 

[Mole]

[MENTION=3325]Mole[/MENTION] - I'm not sure what you mean when you keep repeating that "biology is based on the premise of natural selection." It most certainly is not. That is merely a small facet of a small part of biology, not it's primary backing force. Biology is based on chemistry, physics, cell theory, etc.

It is true that psychology is a rather "soft science" in comparison. And long ago, psychology was based on wild speculation with no real basis. However, it is dramatically different today. It draws significant influences from biology and research is conducted using the scientific method.

It's not up to me to teach you biology, all I can say is that modern biology cannot be understood with first understanding natural selection.

Modern physics cannot be understood without first understanding general relativity and quantum mechanics.

And modern chemistry cannot be understood without first understanding the periodic table.

And it doesn't matter how much influence psychology draws from biology, nor how much is uses the scientific method, if there is no Theory of Psychology, then psychology is not a science.

That is, the academic study of psychology is not a science like botany, physics or chemistry.

 

[/DG/]

It's not up to me to teach you biology,

Excuse me? I bet I know far more about biology that you do. It's practically all I know.

all I can say is that modern biology cannot be understood with first understanding natural selection.

And you cannot understand biology without first understanding chemistry, physics, etc. You actually can understand a great deal of biology without understanding natural selection...though obviously you will still miss a humongous part of the field.

Perhaps you should educate yourself more on these subjects before baselessly accusing others of ignorance.

Edit: I see you've decided to deflect me in a rep comment instead of addressing the issue. Looks like apparently I am an idiot for actually knowing about biology.

 

[Coriolis]

Perhaps we are talking at cross purposes. For instance, a science has a scientific theory. In popular culture a theory is something not proven, while in science, a scientific theory is proven fact. For instance, chemistry rests on the scientific fact of the periodic table, and biology rests on the fact of natural selection, and physics rests on the scientific facts of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

But psychology rests on no scientific theory. There is no theory of psychology. So there is no science of psychology.

A science has a scientific method, involving falsifiable claims, experiment and observation, and reproducibility of results. A scientific theory is not the same as fact. It is not an explanation that has been proven, but rather one that has yet to be disproven and that explains all available observations. This distinction is important. To the extent that psychology employs this method, it can be considered scientific.

It's not up to me to teach you biology, all I can say is that modern biology cannot be understood with first understanding natural selection.

You have this backwards. You cannot understand the theory of natural selection without first understanding biology.

 

[Mole]

A science has a scientific method, involving falsifiable claims, experiment and observation, and reproducibility of results. A scientific theory is not the same as fact. It is not an explanation that has been proven, but rather one that has yet to be disproven and that explains all available observations. This distinction is important. To the extent that psychology employs this method, it can be considered scientific.


You have this backwards. You cannot understand the theory of natural selection without first understanding biology.

If I were to accept your argument, I would have to believe that the periodic table is not a fact and that chemists are working to disprove the periodic table.

I would also have to believe that natural selection is not a fact and that biologists are working to disprove natural selection.

And if I accepted your argument I would have to believe that general relativity and quantum mechanics are not facts and that physicists will one day show that general relativity and quantum mechanics are not facts, and in fact, we were mistaken.

And lastly, biology was understood without natural selection until it was discovered by Charles Darwin. And now biology makes no sense without natural selection.

 

[á´…eparted]

If I were to accept your argument, I would have to believe that the periodic table is not a fact and that chemists are working to disprove the periodic table.

I would also have to believe that natural selection is not a fact and that biologists are working to disprove natural selection.

And if I accepted your argument I would have to believe that general relativity and quantum mechanics are not facts and that physicists will one day show that general relativity and quantum mechanics are not facts, and in fact, we were mistaken.

And lastly, biology was understood without natural selection until it was discovered by Charles Darwin. And now biology makes no sense without natural selection.

Are you a scientist? As far as I can tell, you are not, and Coriolis is. I think she's much better versed into understanding this than you are.

You're also arguing something that in the grand scheme of things, doesn't really matter. If you're somehow trying to circle this back into discrediting psychology/sociology, it's not going to work.

 

[Coriolis]

If I were to accept your argument, I would have to believe that the periodic table is not a fact and that chemists are working to disprove the periodic table.

I would also have to believe that natural selection is not a fact and that biologists are working to disprove natural selection.

And if I accepted your argument I would have to believe that general relativity and quantum mechanics are not facts and that physicists will one day show that general relativity and quantum mechanics are not facts, and in fact, we were mistaken.

And lastly, biology was understood without natural selection until it was discovered by Charles Darwin. And now biology makes no sense without natural selection.

Natural selection is a biological theory just as general relativity is a physics theory. The science (biology, physics, chemistry) must predate the theory or there would be no preexisting methodology and body of knowledge to use in developing the theory. You are continuing to put the cart before the horse.

Do not confuse theory with fact. Facts are observations, repeatedly confirmed like the details in the periodic table, the acceleration of gravity, or the distance from the earth to the sun. Theories are explanations for those observations, for why the elements in the table behave as they do, or how the solar system came to be as it is. Physicists have already shown that classical mechanics does not account for all observable evidence. Quantum mechanics was necessary to account for physical reality more completely. Some day we may develop further corrections or extensions, to all the theories you listed above. This doesn't mean classical mechanics is wrong. In fact it is more than adequate to get spacecraft to the moon and back. It just has its limits, and now we know what some of them are.

 

[Mole]

Natural selection is a biological theory just as general relativity is a physics theory. The science (biology, physics, chemistry) must predate the theory or there would be no preexisting methodology and body of knowledge to use in developing the theory. You are continuing to put the cart before the horse.

Do not confuse theory with fact. Facts are observations, repeatedly confirmed like the details in the periodic table, the acceleration of gravity, or the distance from the earth to the sun. Theories are explanations for those observations, for why the elements in the table behave as they do, or how the solar system came to be as it is. Physicists have already shown that classical mechanics does not account for all observable evidence. Quantum mechanics was necessary to account for physical reality more completely. Some day we may develop further corrections or extensions, to all the theories you listed above. This doesn't mean classical mechanics is wrong. In fact it is more than adequate to get spacecraft to the moon and back. It just has its limits, and now we know what some of them are.

In popular culture a theory is yet to be proven or disproven. But in high culture, in scientific culture, a theory is established fact.

Interestingly classical mechanics, may approximate the values of relativity, but the explanation given by classical mechanics is not true, whereas relativity is true as far as our measurements go today.

I mean you would say the Earth centric solar system is wrong, while the heliocentric solar system is true. Oui?

 

[Coriolis]

In popular culture a theory is yet to be proven or disproven. But in high culture, in scientific culture, a theory is established fact.

No. In scientific culture, a theory is an explanation that has yet to be disproven.

Interestingly classical mechanics, may approximate the values of relativity, but the explanation given by classical mechanics is not true, whereas relativity is true as far as our measurements go today.

Relativity holds in all cases. Classical mechanics holds in a subset of cases. It yields accurate predictions when used within its limits.

I mean you would say the Earth centric solar system is wrong, while the heliocentric solar system is true. Oui?

The earth-centric system has been disproven; the heliocentric system has not.

I am not sure why these distinctions are so difficult to grasp.

 

[tkae.]

A science has a scientific method, involving falsifiable claims, experiment and observation, and reproducibility of results. A scientific theory is not the same as fact. It is not an explanation that has been proven, but rather one that has yet to be disproven and that explains all available observations. This distinction is important. To the extent that psychology employs this method, it can be considered scientific.

This itself is suspect. Psychology is the red headed stepchild of the natural sciences.

Not that I agree with Mole. His reasons for saying the Psychology isn't a science are wrong. But the general claim is up for debate. You yourself said that the scientific method relies on experiments that involve observations.

There is no reliable method of this in Psychology, and therefor Psychology is not reliably a natural science. You can only observe behaviors, and even behaviorism has evolved away from being solely behavior-based.

Psychology is the study of the mind. If you study only the brain, you're in Biology. If you study behaviors, you're studying only half of the subject matter. If you study thought and emotion and human consciousness, you're out of the territory of observation and out of the territory of science. At that point you're into philosophy, which I personally think is the better classification for a large portion of psychology, I'll mention that below. The only way we can study thought and emotion is through self-report, and the only thing in the early 20th century that got Psychology any science credentials was its transition away from self-report as data collection.

Does Psychology need the scientific method? Yes, it's what keeps us from doing lobotomies and hooking people with schizophrenia up to car batteries.

Is Psychology a definitive science? I won't answer that because of the shitstorm that could happen with psychotherapy insurance coverage and our access to science conventions. You don't answer this question out loud just like you don't say the name of the man who tried to kill Harry Potter. In the current academic culture, science is respected and philosophy is not, despite the fact that any Psychology involving thought rather than behavior is firmly founded on philosophical bases rather than scientific ones. But again, psychologists wouldn't get even 1/4 the respect if they were philosophers rather than scientists, so I won't say it's not a science. I will say that if the physicists and the geologists ganged up on us tomorrow and kicked us out of their clubhouse then I wouldn't be surprised.

And lastly, biology was understood without natural selection until it was discovered by Charles Darwin. And now biology makes no sense without natural selection.

Again, you have things backwards.

If I taught someone natural selection when they didn't understand Biology, it would make no real sense.

If I taught someone who knew nothing about natural selection how a cell operates, it would make real sense.

I went to a private Christian school where we were taught natural selection for a single day. The rest of Biology made sense, and continued to make sense with that hop-skip-jump over Charles Darwin. Biology is the study of anything living. Natural selection is the biological sub-study of how time affects the gene pool as well as the resulting biological implications of those effects.

 

[Mole]

I am not sure why these distinctions are so difficult to grasp.

We perceive by making distinctions, and the more distinctions, the more we see.

So how interesting we are arguing about distinctions, for in effect, we are arguing about perception, we are arguing about what we see, and we are arguing about our different points of view.

And interestingly, perspective is based on a point of view.

The origins of perspective are found in the Renaissance, and surprisingly found only after the printing press had given us, for the first time, an individual perspective. And our new individual perspective was expressed in perspective in painting, drawing, and architecture.

But today the electronic media (emedia) are returning us to an aural, spoken milieu, quite like the spoken milieu we lived in for 200,000 years.

So our very distinctions are shifting under our feet, individual perspective is fading, while shared etribal feeling is growing.

 

[Mole]

If I taught someone natural selection when they didn't understand Biology, it would make no real sense.

It is a question of hierarchies. Natural Selection is abstracted from the taxonomies of biology. Biology is not abstracted from Natural Selection. So Natural Selection is at a higher level of generality and abstraction than biology. So in the hierarchy, Natural Selection contains biology, but biology does not contain Natural Selection.