SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
lhsi writes:
A petition on Change.org was created: "Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia: Create and enforce new policies that allow for true scientific discourse about holistic approaches to healing."
Jimmy Wales
responded.
No, you have to be kidding me. Every single person who signed this petition needs to go back to check their premises and think harder about what it means to be honest, factual, truthful.
Wikipedia's policies around this kind of thing are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately. What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse". It isn't.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by edIII on Wednesday March 26 2014, @05:07AM
While I agree with you, on this specific issue I think it's grossly misrepresented or a typo.
I happen to believe in a holistic approach to medicine, as it's described.
What does Jimmy think? All holistic medicine is 1 part per million miracle organic compound with the rest water?
Some holistic practitioners strongly believe in a spiritual aspect that must be considered. That's not unreasonable in many cases, and can lead towards understanding in the psychological and social aspects of a person's well being.
I guess it is more often referred to as something else with a suitable term, but that doesn't change the fact that plenty of "alternative" medicine is now recognized.
Acupuncture. Shit works. If it has absolutely no benefit of any kind, it at least has the benefit of a placebo. Nobody should underestimate the apparent power of the human mind and soul to heal itself.
There are other alternative medicines that are rapidly meeting the rigorous demands of science. Chinese herbal medicine is not even close to "magic water". I've had medicine delivered to me in wax balls while in China from a herbalist that was packaged no different than medical grade pharma back in the US. It also worked well. Whatever issue I had with my stomach was gone in about 5 minutes. Took it for a few days and my stomach ailment was gone.
The US loves Chinese herbs. God knows we use enough of it stupidly via energy drinks.
It seems that Jimmy is being a bit of an ass. Not everything is magic in a holistic approach in medicine, and does pass scientific scrutiny.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Wednesday March 26 2014, @06:15PM
At the time I read it, the parent post was rated (Score 1: Flamebait). The post is clearly written in a non-inflammatory style, conveys its argument in a clear and unambiguous fashion, and is generally polite and on-topic... so why did somebody mod it down?
This is an example of shitty moderating. Maybe it expresses a minority opinion here on SN, but that doesn't mean it has no value. In fact, that's why it has value in the first place. If you don't like what edIII has to say on the subject, then post an intelligent reply that addresses the points of disagreement.
I personally am extremely skeptical of "alternative medicine" - see, I put it in quotes because I have difficulty referring to it as medicine at all! Even so, I probably would have modded this up because of its positive aspects... maybe "+1 Interesting" or "+1 Underrated". I most certainly would not have modded it down!
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.