I won't argue that Chiro makes your joints feel better, Cracking my knuckles makes my knuckles feel better too... but it doesn't make them better. It doesn't "heal" anything, and that is alternative medicine's "Big Issue" with "Allopathic" medicine. You will ALWAYS, 100% guaranteed, get better care from a Physical Therapist, as they're there to ensure your body gets strong enough to heal itself. They can handle "acute adjustments" as well, but they prefer the holistic solution. The best part is, they have a proper understanding of the body, instead of all of the quackery mumbo-jumbo that Chiropractic Practitioners are taught (note: not all believe it, but they aren't taught anything else).

If you want to boil down how vaccines work into three words, sure, you might pick those three... but if you pick four, you'd get a very different phrase: "learn from dead things". But the main difference between vaccines and homeopathy is that we have an excellent understanding of what and why vaccines work, while homeopathy has never been validated by an impartial study. Sure, the premise started the same, but then doctors and scientists actually put work into verifying and validating how vaccines work. They made up new and interesting phrases to describe what was going on, just like homeopathy and it's "water memory", but unlike homeopaths, they reproduced their findings in labs across the country before they started selling it.

Homeopathy and Proper Medicine are as similar as me and the guy that wins a marathon. We both started the race... Sure, I was distracted after a block because I realized I could take a cab to the nearest restaurant and have a nice dinner and a beer, then I watched some TV, and took a cab back to the finish line and crossed it a couple hours later... But hey, we're both the same thing because we started at the same place, right?

The garbage man? I think you mean sanitation, specifically as it relates to bodily wasted, which has been around for over 5000 years. Of course, there have been many advances over the years, and it was not taken seriously in most of Europe until the industrial revolution. But it's certainly true... this technology that has been developing for 5000 years has had more of an effect on human health in cities than anything Medical Science has done.

Of course, it wasn't until we had a good understanding of biological vectors of diseases (research done by "Natural Philosophers", from which sprung all of modern science) that we understood just how important sanitation is, and started real improvements.


TLDR:

Chiropractic Care: May make you feel better, but at it's very best is the very least of what a PT can do.

Homeopathy: Complete and utter quackery, bearing only the most vague and abstract connection to real science.

chiro is such a crock of shit... they should co-treat with homeopathics

Epistemological issues seem so central to everything. Within the libertarian devotion to reason that Chomsky has praised, two camps seem to be at odds with one another, in a kind of in-house brawl.
One camp holds the empiricist skeptics who also happen to favor scientific materialism (like Penn Jillette and James Randi and some others you may not have heard about, or maybe you have) and the other camp holds the natural law axiomatic-deductive philosophers who don't outright dismiss homeopathic medicine, for example, and who question flouride in the water.
We can broadly see at least seven different positions. One writer I enjoyed a bit in college, Robert Anton Wilson, seems to have accepted empiricism in conjunction with intuitive-mysticism as valid sources of knowledge but not axiomatic-deductive reasoning. He wrote a short piece on his opposition to natural law in "Natural Law and Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy." I don't think he developed his opposition thoroughly. He devoted more to his writing to oppose scientism (like double-bind dogmatic empiricism) with a whole book, "The New Inquisition."
Another position is that of Ayn Rand and her Objectivist followers who accepted neither intuitive-mystical knowledge nor much empiricism, but only (or mostly) axiomatic-deductive reasoning.
In my opinion, a stronger view accepts all three and tests theories against all three.

>> ^spawnflagger:

funny vid, but nothing to do with homeopathy. I think you mean "home remedies".


@messenger alrighty then ... I'm no Doctor! I'll change the title to Home Remedies ... just went with the YT description. Thanks for the heads up you two =o)

"The claim that homeopathic arnica is efficacious beyond a placebo effect is not supported by rigorous clinical trials." http://archsurg.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=211818

Agreed. I thought his point was to actually demonstrate what the homeopathic remedy concept entails... its one thing to pay $5 for something in the health-food aisle marketed to treat your health condition and another to see how that $5 box of BS was actually created.

I've notice there is a degree of confusion between 'homeopathy' and 'herbology' or 'natural medicines', as they are often marketed side-by-side as 'alternative medicines'... homeopathy is complete horseshit, while many (certainly not all) natural medicines are basically unprocessed drugs and vitamins.

'Homeopathy' sounds Latin and scientific, but its a scam for the ill-informed who see it as a cheap alternative to actual medicine, or those who confuse it with 'natural medicines' which may well contain salicylic acid (aspirin) or whatever and make you feels somewhat better.

>> ^solecist:

he's absolutely right about homeopathy, but i'm not sure what this video is trying to prove. homeopaths are well aware that most of their active ingredients are poisonous when taken in an undiluted form. upvoting for the sentiment, at least.
ps, a shot of straight bleach would not kill a grown man.

he's absolutely right about homeopathy, but i'm not sure what this video is trying to prove. homeopaths are well aware that most of their active ingredients are poisonous when taken in an undiluted form. upvoting for the sentiment, at least.

ps, a shot of straight bleach would not kill a grown man.

>> ^Gallowflak:

The video opens with his name, age and number of subscribers? :l


I think that's to go along with the Zelda sound effects he was using throughout the video. I guess those are his stats. Could have used a health bar while drinking the homeopathic super bleach.

Your video, Drinking Homeopathic Bleach, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Thanks, that was very informative! Now I understand the bleach thing
>> ^Boise_Lib:

A link about Homeopathy from James Randi (posted by @bamdrew).
http://videosift.com/video/James-Randi-explains-Homeopathy

Well, again, not exactly, since only last year supplies of homeopathic preparations (I can't call them "medicines", I just can't) originating in India were found to contain illegally high amounts of alcohol and heavy metals (http://tinyurl.com/3hcs9xo) and homeopathic pills marketed in the US to soothe teething babies were found to contain toxic quantities of belladonna (http://tinyurl.com/2cckjbd). Unlike real medicines, homeopathic preparations do not have to be vetted by the FDA before they go on sale. This is the reason why protest "mass overdoses" of homeopathic preparations like those seen in the 10:23 campaign in the UK last year (http://tinyurl.com/yj9v945) may not be all that wise - you just don't know what the homeoquacks have shoved into those bottles.

In any case, homeopaths don't give a shit about the possible side effects of their preparations - the manufacture of homeopathic preparations involves the dumping of huge amounts of homoepathically-activated waste solutions into the environment. If homeopathy really worked, this would be an industrial waste scandal that would put the oil wells of Nigeria in the shade. Fascinating article by Michael Edmonds on this subject at http://tinyurl.com/3msvpsk.
>> ^hpqp:

Hehe, of course. But the water/sugarpills homeopathic medicine itself shouldn't have any negative side effects...

Hehe, of course. But the water/sugarpills homeopathic medicine itself shouldn't have any negative side effects...

>> ^FlowersInHisHair:

>> ^hpqp:
homeopathy doesn't have bad side effects either, you know.

Not exactly true.
http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

Why do markets allow people to suffer?

1. Better system than capitalism would be a balanced hybrid system of capitalism and socialism controlled by people in a true democracy - as opposed to the plutocratic charade we live under now. Think Finland, Switzerland, Nordic Slavic type social democracies. These systems are infinitely better than our capitalist nightmare by any metric.

2. All the think tanks that tell you what to think are funded by deep corporate pockets. Your guru milton Friedman was chummmy with all the neocons - Reagan, Rummy and some pretty nasty dictators. David Koch was even on the libertarian ticket. Open your eyes to reality, friend.

3. Feudalism is only freedom for the wealthy elite. You don't seem to understand that you have a very subjective and limited concept of 'liberty'.

7. Free market reforms are terrible to labor, as we are seeing right now, where libertarians are calling on American labor to 'get competitive' with Chinese slaves. No fucking thank you.

8. There's no shortage of excuses for your belief system, and never any empirical data. This is why I deride your political beliefs as religious beliefs.

9. It's nice that you used 'Corporatist America' as a way of refuting my contention that European social democracies are superior.

It's amazing to me that someone with such a tenuous grasp on reality could call anyone else ignorant. Time and time again your politics are debunked on this site, only for you to redouble your efforts. I hope one day you are able to overcome your indoctrination.


In reply to this comment by blankfist:
I'm an atheist. When I attribute things to God and say things like, "Why does God allow the his devout followers to suffer?" I don't mean, "Why does the ancient fictional religious construct that you based your life around allow his devout followers to suffer?" What I do mean is, "Why does your personal god that you believe in allow his devout followers to suffer?"

Most atheists, I think, tend to use God in this way, not because they believe in the existence of a personal god, but because it's the widely held understanding of God (if not the original definition). It's irrelevant to our conversation, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing it up. Your analogy is bad, IMO.

And you and I will continue to disagree what free markets are, and that's something I cannot change.

1. The claim was "[A free market] states that altruism and empathy are bad; greed and selfishness are good." That's what I was responding to. Still ridiculous. I've said constant that if you could find a better system than Capitalism, I'd be on board, but there IS NONE. All of this tap dancing around definitions is obfuscation.

2. Patently false. An absolutely disingenuous and false statement. What's pathetic about this comment is how you continue to twist this bastardized government legitimized entity back on free exchanges when we've covered this a billion times. Again, corporations are antithetical to free markets, because they enjoy a government created reduction of competition, government subsidies, corporate welfare, and so on. In short, they enjoy intervention in the marketplace, which is what YOU'RE touting, not me. So, it's YOUR concepts of government that have been and continues to be shaped by corporations?

3. I think people claim the free market is "self-correcting" more than "self-regulation", but that's a digression. But listen to what you wrote. "Claims of freedom, liberty" will spring forth in a free market? Yes. Yes very much. Why, you ask? One must only look to the definition of a free market: the voluntary exchange between people without coercion. That is liberty and freedom on its face. The opposite, your idea of regulated and interventionist markets, is coercive and authoritarian. The opposite of free.

5. Good for them.

7. What? No, I'm saying you're associating things like lowering taxes and "taking away power from labor" with free markets, which is ridiculous.

8. Failed states caused by the failure of statism (and the pilfering of government employed opportunists) is not the free market in action. Nice try.

9. Says you. California is a perfect example. It's struggling at the moment to pay for the huge number of government pensions for those unionized "heros" that retired at age 55 and get 90% of their income for the rest of their long lives. But then just recently the LA city council, a haven for modern liberalism and your capitalist/social-democratic utopia, cleared a 1.2 billion dollar construction project to build a fucking luxury hotel. According to this article, "overtime pay for the Los Angeles Fire Department soared 60 percent over the last decade", and "the department's top earner racked up a total of $570,276 in overtime in the last three years, including $206,685 in 2006." And that's just overtime. I could go on, but I've already been over this with NetRunner. Suffice it to say, this is your utopian hybrid in action, and it's a complete failure. And it's slowly going bankrupt. In fact, California has asked the Federal government repeatedly for a bailout.

Do go on, though. I like to watch you dig that grave a little deeper.

Ignorance is not a moral high ground.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
It's very common in arguments of religion for atheists to attribute things to "God". Why does God cause so much pain and suffering? Why doesn't God heal amputees?, etc. It rolls off the tongue a lot better than 'Why doesn't the ancient fictional religious construct that you based your life around heal amputees.?'

It's not the definition of 'free market' that I question, it's all the wide eyed, miracle elixer promises that are used to entice gullible followers. For instance, there is no evidence that free markets self-regulate. There is no evidence that living under unfettered markets would create a desirable political climate for anyone but the super rich. All that stuff about 'voting with your wallet' is naive.

Free Markets do not equal free people. This is the big lie that gives this ideology its (fake) moral center. Under a free market economy, there would be a huge power imbalance between business and labor, which is why corporations champion (if disengenuously in your eyes) the free market. Deregulation, privatization, gutting social welfare programs and other "Free Market" inspired austerity measures always result in low wages, unemployment, poverty and labor abuse. Free Dumb.

1. Friedman has praised greed. Rand has praised selfishness. You have complained about the dangers of government programs motivated by compassion. Do you dispute this?

2. My point is that corporations, regardless of how you feel about them, are the driving force behind American styled libertarianism. Doesn't it give you a moment of pause that your concept of liberty has been, and continues to be shaped by corporations?

3. Again, it's not the definition I object to, it's the wild ass claims of freedom, liberty, self-regulation and other doctrinal bullshit that is supposed to mysteriously spring forth somehow once a set of arbitrary conditions are met. When I talk about lack of evidence, I'm talking about these pie in the sky promises.

5. It is funny that liberalism and libertarianism have swapped meanings in this country. American libertarians are always so confused when Chomsky calls himself a libertarian.

7. So you are saying that deregulation, privatization and the cutting of social programs would not function as intended if they were implemented by force? Why is that? Can you understand my skepticism when individual elements of free marketism fail on their own, and then I'm told that we need even more elements of free marketism for everything to work correctly? It's like a homeopathic doctor saying "of course these homeopathic remedies are making your cancer worse, you forgot the ginseng. You can't cure cancer without ginseng, silly fool."

8. Failed states with no taxation or government should be free market wonderlands, no? It's a common swipe at free market partisans that never gets addressed. Care to give it a go?

9. The most successful states are currently capitalist/socialist hybrids. We trail behind other states (European states) with a more even balance of state and business. If I believed in utopia, I wouldn't be a liberal, because compassion and empathy would be unnecessary in a true utopia.

http://videosift.com/video/The-evolution-of-empathy

For a rugged individualist, you sure do love your little categories and boxes. Do you ever notice your need to be defined and to define others? I don't share your need for precise definition. I like to keep my options open.

"Ignorance is not a moral high ground." I like this quote, especially when you use it to defend an irrational belief system. I'm stealing this quote.

I'm an atheist. When I attribute things to God and say things like, "Why does God allow the his devout followers to suffer?" I don't mean, "Why does the ancient fictional religious construct that you based your life around allow his devout followers to suffer?" What I do mean is, "Why does your personal god that you believe in allow his devout followers to suffer?"

Most atheists, I think, tend to use God in this way, not because they believe in the existence of a personal god, but because it's the widely held understanding of God (if not the original definition). It's irrelevant to our conversation, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing it up. Your analogy is bad, IMO.

And you and I will continue to disagree what free markets are, and that's something I cannot change.

1. The claim was "[A free market] states that altruism and empathy are bad; greed and selfishness are good." That's what I was responding to. Still ridiculous. I've said constant that if you could find a better system than Capitalism, I'd be on board, but there IS NONE. All of this tap dancing around definitions is obfuscation.

2. Patently false. An absolutely disingenuous and false statement. What's pathetic about this comment is how you continue to twist this bastardized government legitimized entity back on free exchanges when we've covered this a billion times. Again, corporations are antithetical to free markets, because they enjoy a government created reduction of competition, government subsidies, corporate welfare, and so on. In short, they enjoy intervention in the marketplace, which is what YOU'RE touting, not me. So, it's YOUR concepts of government that have been and continues to be shaped by corporations?

3. I think people claim the free market is "self-correcting" more than "self-regulation", but that's a digression. But listen to what you wrote. "Claims of freedom, liberty" will spring forth in a free market? Yes. Yes very much. Why, you ask? One must only look to the definition of a free market: the voluntary exchange between people without coercion. That is liberty and freedom on its face. The opposite, your idea of regulated and interventionist markets, is coercive and authoritarian. The opposite of free.

5. Good for them.

7. What? No, I'm saying you're associating things like lowering taxes and "taking away power from labor" with free markets, which is ridiculous.

8. Failed states caused by the failure of statism (and the pilfering of government employed opportunists) is not the free market in action. Nice try.

9. Says you. California is a perfect example. It's struggling at the moment to pay for the huge number of government pensions for those unionized "heros" that retired at age 55 and get 90% of their income for the rest of their long lives. But then just recently the LA city council, a haven for modern liberalism and your capitalist/social-democratic utopia, cleared a 1.2 billion dollar construction project to build a fucking luxury hotel. According to this article, "overtime pay for the Los Angeles Fire Department soared 60 percent over the last decade", and "the department's top earner racked up a total of $570,276 in overtime in the last three years, including $206,685 in 2006." And that's just overtime. I could go on, but I've already been over this with NetRunner. Suffice it to say, this is your utopian hybrid in action, and it's a complete failure. And it's slowly going bankrupt. In fact, California has asked the Federal government repeatedly for a bailout.

Do go on, though. I like to watch you dig that grave a little deeper.

Ignorance is not a moral high ground.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
It's very common in arguments of religion for atheists to attribute things to "God". Why does God cause so much pain and suffering? Why doesn't God heal amputees?, etc. It rolls off the tongue a lot better than 'Why doesn't the ancient fictional religious construct that you based your life around heal amputees.?'

It's not the definition of 'free market' that I question, it's all the wide eyed, miracle elixer promises that are used to entice gullible followers. For instance, there is no evidence that free markets self-regulate. There is no evidence that living under unfettered markets would create a desirable political climate for anyone but the super rich. All that stuff about 'voting with your wallet' is naive.

Free Markets do not equal free people. This is the big lie that gives this ideology its (fake) moral center. Under a free market economy, there would be a huge power imbalance between business and labor, which is why corporations champion (if disengenuously in your eyes) the free market. Deregulation, privatization, gutting social welfare programs and other "Free Market" inspired austerity measures always result in low wages, unemployment, poverty and labor abuse. Free Dumb.

1. Friedman has praised greed. Rand has praised selfishness. You have complained about the dangers of government programs motivated by compassion. Do you dispute this?

2. My point is that corporations, regardless of how you feel about them, are the driving force behind American styled libertarianism. Doesn't it give you a moment of pause that your concept of liberty has been, and continues to be shaped by corporations?

3. Again, it's not the definition I object to, it's the wild ass claims of freedom, liberty, self-regulation and other doctrinal bullshit that is supposed to mysteriously spring forth somehow once a set of arbitrary conditions are met. When I talk about lack of evidence, I'm talking about these pie in the sky promises.

5. It is funny that liberalism and libertarianism have swapped meanings in this country. American libertarians are always so confused when Chomsky calls himself a libertarian.

7. So you are saying that deregulation, privatization and the cutting of social programs would not function as intended if they were implemented by force? Why is that? Can you understand my skepticism when individual elements of free marketism fail on their own, and then I'm told that we need even more elements of free marketism for everything to work correctly? It's like a homeopathic doctor saying "of course these homeopathic remedies are making your cancer worse, you forgot the ginseng. You can't cure cancer without ginseng, silly fool."

8. Failed states with no taxation or government should be free market wonderlands, no? It's a common swipe at free market partisans that never gets addressed. Care to give it a go?

9. The most successful states are currently capitalist/socialist hybrids. We trail behind other states (European states) with a more even balance of state and business. If I believed in utopia, I wouldn't be a liberal, because compassion and empathy would be unnecessary in a true utopia.

http://videosift.com/video/The-evolution-of-empathy

For a rugged individualist, you sure do love your little categories and boxes. Do you ever notice your need to be defined and to define others? I don't share your need for precise definition. I like to keep my options open.

"Ignorance is not a moral high ground." I like this quote, especially when you use it to defend an irrational belief system. I'm stealing this quote.

It's very common in arguments of religion for atheists to attribute things to "God". Why does God cause so much pain and suffering? Why doesn't God heal amputees?, etc. It rolls off the tongue a lot better than 'Why doesn't the ancient fictional religious construct that you based your life around heal amputees.?'

It's not the definition of 'free market' that I question, it's all the wide eyed, miracle elixer promises that are used to entice gullible followers. For instance, there is no evidence that free markets self-regulate. There is no evidence that living under unfettered markets would create a desirable political climate for anyone but the super rich. All that stuff about 'voting with your wallet' is naive.

Free Markets do not equal free people. This is the big lie that gives this ideology its (fake) moral center. Under a free market economy, there would be a huge power imbalance between business and labor, which is why corporations champion (if disengenuously in your eyes) the free market. Deregulation, privatization, gutting social welfare programs and other "Free Market" inspired austerity measures always result in low wages, unemployment, poverty and labor abuse. Free Dumb.

1. Friedman has praised greed. Rand has praised selfishness. You have complained about the dangers of government programs motivated by compassion. Do you dispute this?

2. My point is that corporations, regardless of how you feel about them, are the driving force behind American styled libertarianism. Doesn't it give you a moment of pause that your concept of liberty has been, and continues to be shaped by corporations?

3. Again, it's not the definition I object to, it's the wild ass claims of freedom, liberty, self-regulation and other doctrinal bullshit that is supposed to mysteriously spring forth somehow once a set of arbitrary conditions are met. When I talk about lack of evidence, I'm talking about these pie in the sky promises.

5. It is funny that liberalism and libertarianism have swapped meanings in this country. American libertarians are always so confused when Chomsky calls himself a libertarian.

7. So you are saying that deregulation, privatization and the cutting of social programs would not function as intended if they were implemented by force? Why is that? Can you understand my skepticism when individual elements of free marketism fail on their own, and then I'm told that we need even more elements of free marketism for everything to work correctly? It's like a homeopathic doctor saying "of course these homeopathic remedies are making your cancer worse, you forgot the ginseng. You can't cure cancer without ginseng, silly fool."

8. Failed states with no taxation or government should be free market wonderlands, no? It's a common swipe at free market partisans that never gets addressed. Care to give it a go?

9. The most successful states are currently capitalist/socialist hybrids. We trail behind other states (European states) with a more even balance of state and business. If I believed in utopia, I wouldn't be a liberal, because compassion and empathy would be unnecessary in a true utopia.

http://videosift.com/video/The-evolution-of-empathy

For a rugged individualist, you sure do love your little categories and boxes. Do you ever notice your need to be defined and to define others? I don't share your need for precise definition. I like to keep my options open.

"Ignorance is not a moral high ground." I like this quote, especially when you use it to defend an irrational belief system. I'm stealing this quote.