I really like Bill Maher, but I also was surprised at his stupid rant on alternative medicines. Sometimes he is really irrational, which doesn't suit an educated skeptic.

Is it just me, or is Bill getting slightly.... off ... lately? First his bizarre rant extolling the virtues of alternative medicine like herbs and ... freaking accupuncture or something as ACTUAL cures to ailments... and now with this bizarre America-centric notion that we are the only targets of terror in the world.. and not just that, but the reason we are targeted is because they LIKE US TOO MUCH?

Bill, you need to get more sleep or something, no one on your panel of highly informed individuals took your argument seriously, and people feel like they have to nod politely at Bill Maher of all people, before ignoring his argument and discussion more serious ideas, he needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and decide if he still likes what he's doing.

I say this out of love of course, Bill was often a source of truth in the past decade that was in very short supply anywhere else. But he's starting to lose his edge.

It's sad to see another scientifically illiterate "celebrity" make a fool of himself on national television. As Richard Dawkins said so well, "Alternative medicine is defined as that set of practices which cannot be tested, refuse to be tested, or consistently fail tests". Professor Dawkins goes further in discussing the shortfalls of alternative medicine in his brilliant foreword to the book SNAKE OIL AND OTHER PREOCCUPATIONS by John Diamond. Maher's comments suggests that he is unaware of the writings of Dawkins, Diamond, Singh and Ernst (Trick or Treatment) or Bausell (Snake Oil Science). Maybe it's time for him to read up on this important subject before he leads others astray.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I think Bill's point about big pharma looking to fix symptoms rather than cure diseases is dead on. I'm not a very alternative medicine type of person, but I do believe that people should be able to take whatever kind of curative that they feel works for them.

People dieing of cancer should also be able to shoot heroin with a blunt in their mouth and a coke straw up their nose if they so choose.

>> ^gwiz665:
^I think Bill is a fan of alternative medicine, because he really likes hemp. But that's just my observation.

I actually put hemp-ish medicinal use as soon-to-be-mainstream medicine. Especially with stuff like this:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Does-Hash-Oil-Cure-Parkinson-s-Symptoms-Shaking
The only barrier is a legal one, not a scientific one

Bill is funny, but his views on alt. med are wrong. When he states that treatments we've been using for 50 years haven't worked at all, he is dead wrong. Cancer is much too complicated to practically wipe out with a single solution, like polio or small-pox.even still, for white people the survival rates for cancer has gone from 39 percent in the 60's to 62 percent in 1998; this despite the cancer rates having increase (National Cancer Institute, Cancer Rates and Risks, 1998). I’m not sure where they are at now in 2009 but you can bet its better.

PS, they have been increasing for other races too, but for what ever reason, whites have increased the most.


I dont know if rotty is trying to point out another fallacy or if he is actually perpetuating it; surprise results in clinical trials does not mean "big pharmas (doesn’t) know WHY things work in many cases.". The end result might not be the same as the initial intent before and after the trials, but that’s how a lot of discoveries are made, and they might not have initially known the mechanism behind the end result, but they know the mechanisms by the time it is released on the market, that’s what the FDA requires by law of them. Teflon, microwaves, penicillin and Viagra where all accidental discoveries, but we obviously now know how they work and did know how they worked before they were released.

an interesting point; pharmaceutical companies need to know the mechanisms, risks, and effects of medicine before they release them ( via FDA, clinical trials and lab tests ) but alternative medicine companies ARE NOT REQUIRED TO TEST, PROVE OR UNDERSTAND THE MECHANISMS OR RESULTS THEY CLAIM OF THEIR PRODUCTS! simply because the legal classification of "alt. med".

gwiz, i don’t know if you heard this, but you may be pleased to know (since we are definitely on the same page on this), that acupuncture has been proven no more effective that a placebo; double blind studies have shown it doesn’t matter if you puncture the skin in the "appropriate places"(according to acupuncture techniques), if you puncture the skin in random places, or if you don’t puncture the skin at all (using "stage knife" needles that only look like they are puncturing); there is no difference! This means that the only benefits you get from acupuncture are merely placebo and not medically valid.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1897636,00.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19250001?ordinalpos=7&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDoc
Sum

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1518#more-1518

Yeah, i have a serious hair up my ass when it comes to this too. Especially when you hear public figures like bill saying that current medicine is not working and that bullshit, unproven quackery; the reason is that some people will take that advice and drop effective treatments for the alternative ones, usually get ripped off and often end up dying.

check this site out to see what i mean

http://whatstheharm.net/

^I think Bill is a fan of alternative medicine, because he really likes hemp. But that's just my observation.

wow, I'm pretty impressed that Bill stuck up for alternative medicine. I really expected him to go after it for the crazy crystal strokers it harbours like that repugnant tool penn Gilette and his mute gimp

What he said in the beginning:

"There's only medicine or not medicine"

Alternative medicine is all a scam. If it works, it's medicine, if it doesn't it's crap. Some things are considered "alternative" medicine, such as massage therapy and acupuncture, which are indeed medicinal, but other stuff like homeopathy and putting crystals on your body is completely bogus. And chiropractic can only work on your joints, muscles and bones - if you postulate that cracking a back can cure your infected ear - or whatever it is the bullshitters are suing Simon Singh for disputing - you're just full of crap. You're either deliberately lying to get money out of desperate people or you're blatantly ignorant. Neither is very good for your case.

(I have a serious hair up my ass about "alternative medicine", like I do organized religion.)

I think the terms are being obfuscated here. Homeopathy is not all "alternative medicine". Homeopathy is what skeeve wrote, dissolving something into water that has the ill effect of what you want to cure - poison ivy for rash, for instance - and dissolving it many, many times, and then drinking it. The more dissolved, the more effective is the hypothesis.

In actuality, you're just drinking water.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Reiki, quack, alternative medicine, mumbo jumbo, Baltimore, hospital' to 'Reiki, quack, alternative medicine, mumbo jumbo, Baltimore, univeristy of maryland' - edited by kronosposeidon

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Reiki, quack, alternative medicine, mumbo jumbo, Baltimore' to 'Reiki, quack, alternative medicine, mumbo jumbo, Baltimore, hospital' - edited by kronosposeidon

Bunch of spineless twits. "It's not our responsibility, it's government" NO IT'S NOT! You are directly to blame if your child dies from lack of vaccination.

I would think that people who choose not to vaccinate are the same people, who read horoscopes, use "alternative" medicine and routinely pray to some sort of space ghost.

When alternative medicine is proven to work, it is relabeled as simply 'medicine.'

Sad to say but I don't think it's entirely these people's faults. The nonsense alternative medicine business has been misinforming the public for a long time and will continue to poison people's minds (and bodies consequently) with products that have little or no health benefits.

1)haha, youll totally meet those nutjobs in costa rica, you can ask them about it.
2)i think the point was that that the disease doesnt get better. its a congenital defect.
3)you can tell when someone is insincere.
4)they should do more tests on people who self heal. alternative medicine types are all kinds of into, but mostly into the kind where you buy whatever theyre selling. cancer patients are also all kinds of into it, i would be too if i were trying to survive a terminal illness. there are multiple documented cases of people self healing. i dont think theyve been studied thoroughly.
5) suggestion is very powerful