Posted by Eddie Sylvano on September 18, 2002, at 9:58:15
In reply to THANKS for the warning!, posted by Disillusioned on September 18, 2002, at 3:27:12
> I'm outta this 'scientific' scene! Science is lost when it comes to dealing with emotional disorders! The scientists know NUTHING, and are fools for even trying. They have a solution right before their eyes, but it isn't acceptable becuase the government says it isn't.
I'm alarmed by the growing backlash in (the United States, anyways) against science. Science isn't a cult with an agenda. It isn't owned or controlled by anyone or any group. It's just a method of obtaining knowledge that is devised in a way that rigorously culls incorrect ideas of causation. It's very egalitarian, and is largely responsible for the many advances that society has made since its growing utilization began hundreds of years ago.
As human beings, we're not wired to be scientific, so it's understandable that people worry about vaccines causing autism or cell phones causing cancer. We're also living in a time in which modren advances have been the norm for the total of our lifetimes. We don't know what it's like to die at 30 from tuberculosis, or have a barber exsanguinate us to balance our humours.
I will grant that medicine isn't in as good a shape as it could be, which I blame largely on the quality of physicians. It's remarkable to me that a person can be ardent enough to graduate medical school, but still be a relatively useless diagnostician. Much of the medcial community has become little more than mediocre go-betweens for pharmaceutical companies. It's a backward way to do things, and it needs to change. The body, and it's myriad interactions, are so complex that I forsee a future where exponentially increasing information drives doctors to become operators of computers which can more completely and accurately utilize that information in diagnostic algorithms.
Still, that's not a condemnation of science. It's more a restatement of the fact that people don't usually make good scientists.
As for the marijuana, a competent medical community would recognize the benefits and mechanisms behind its use, instead of fobbing it off because of an ingrained bias. As you mentioned, its pharmacologic profile is typically superior to most FDA approved medications. The problem isn't science in general; it's indeed a lack of good science.
poster:Eddie Sylvano
thread:120225
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020914/msgs/120250.html