the problem is the doctors are just like everybody else. alot of them are screwups and really dont understand what they are doing.

they just follow instructions, and break glass in case of emergency.

<serious voice>Testing which is double blind, and rigorous. It has to prove its worth to the medicine community </serious voice> yadda yadda yadda.

Until we have every piece of knowledge down on paper, it's trial and error. In fact the scientific method is based on trial and error. As far as medicine is concerned, we know how certain things react, thus we try to see if they will, upon reacting a certain way, help the patient.

One little tid-bit of information I'd like to add to the pot is that the number one cause of liver disease (or was it failure....? I should have paid more attention when my doctor was telling me this) is no longer drinking. Tylenol has just recently surpassed it and now is the top dog in that department.

Medicine is good, but it is trial and error. One generation at a time, the pills change so that we get more effective medicine.

It's not trial and error and neither is the scientific method.

You do TKD.

It's not trial and error and neither is the scientific method.

You do TKD.

I'm jealous that you do the real gh3y.... And I wish I didn't do the TKD, but that doesn't absolve me of past sins.

If it wasn't trial and error, how do they do it. Please elaborate.

Well if we really want to get nitty gritty, the problem of induction screws over science every time :(. Problem of induction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction). I.E I observe lots of swans, the swans are white. All swans are white.

Science has to ignore the problem because it just isnt practical not to do so. The sun will probaly rise tommorow but it is also quite possible it wont, no point in really worrying about it though. But it is fun to point out that as a result there are no empirical truths.

There are some supposed solutions but I dont think they really have helped.

Well if we really want to get nitty gritty, the problem of induction screws over science every time :(. Problem of induction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction). I.E I observe lots of swans, the swans are white. All swans are white.

Science has to ignore the problem because it just isnt practical not to do so. The sun will probaly rise tommorow but it is also quite possible it wont, no point in really worrying about it though. But it is fun to point out that as a result there are no empirical truths.

There are some supposed solutions but I dont think they really have helped.

Correct you are in saying that there are no empirical truths. What we have are theories. That's why you get the statistics for acceptable possibilities of the car exploding from your talking on the cell phone. It's possible, it's not plausable.

I went to high school with a guy who later became a chiropractor who he and his wife refuse to allow their kids to be immunized. They home-school the kids because the school district won't allow the kids to enter without proof of proper immunization.

I've tried to talk to him about the seemingly disparate nature of he manually manipulating ones spine (and the linkage to possible strokes) and his refusal to allow his kids to an MMR shot. He cited the autism study and cited the stroke study but he didn't want to hear it.

That doesn't sound disparate. Unless I'm missing some steps.

A rough approximation of the scientific method would be the formulation of a hypothesis, then testing the hypothesis through experiment. If the test fails to predict the outcome then either the hypothesis is modified and retested or abandoned. Not every experiment is as good as another, the p-value is a measure of the strength of an experiment and is usually quoted in experimental reports. Scientific studies are then subject to peer-review. The standards are stringent and scientific journals will reject a study at the drop of a hat, for the slightest error or omission.

Trial and error certainly has a role to play in the scientific method. But there is much more to it than try something out, see if it works, record it and move on. I understand that many people often mistake the scientific method for trial and error, and perhaps it is sometimes presented that way in the popular media.

Does it always get the "right" answer? No. Does we sometimes accept something that is false or reject something that's true. yes. But this method provides the most reliable method so far of minimizing the chance of this happening.

Sorry for snapping at you before. I take it back. You don't really do the TKD.

That doesn't sound disparate. Unless I'm missing some steps.
I guess I jumped for brevity's sake.
He knows their is a small percentage of risk of stroke in neck adjustments, yet he has no problem performing this proceedure because in reality the reward outweighs the risk.

He knows there is a small percentage of risk in the developement of autism, yet refuses to allow proper immunization although the reward outweighs the risk.

Why was mercury used in the first place? Was it a cheap/effective matrix or perservative?

My lesson learned from history:


Wait. You mean that they actually increase the chances of suicide for the first couple of weeks.



suicide (and attempts) and suicidal ideation are completely different things.

in fact since the black box warning in the US, the suicide rate amoung kids (18 and under) has increased, which is a counter example to your claim. (source: WISQARS ).

To understand why you should want to be immunized would require a basic grasp of probability and statistics. Most people don't have that.

Overheard:

Person A: What does it mean when they say there is a 30% chance of rain?

Person B: Mmm... Maybe it is going to rain for 30 minutes?

(True Story)

Why was mercury used in the first place? Was it a cheap/effective matrix or perservative?

Multiple uses
1 - to kill the bacteria that make the vaccine
2 - to keep the vaccine "clean" during the production process - killing bacteria that could enter accidentally
3 - as a preservative to prevent bacterial or fungal contamination during their clinical use (seldom done on single dose distributions but large concentrations of some vaccines still use very small quantities for this)

Well, no discussion on the merits/problems of vaccination should be without a picture of one of these:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/polio/historicalphotos/images/imghistorical_02.jpg

Ironically, I saw one of these in a museum a couple of months ago.

suicide (and attempts) and suicidal ideation are completely different things.

in fact since the black box warning in the US, the suicide rate amoung kids (18 and under) has increased, which is a counter example to your claim. (source: WISQARS ).

I don't think they're completely different things :)

They're kinda related. But yes, they are different. More than slightly so, but they are different.

If its a choice between risking a vaccine that has never been proven to be maybe slightly harmful, and guarenteed malaria, which has been conclusively proven to be fairly extremely fatal, I'd plump for vacination. However I can sympathise with people who wouldn't want their kids vaccinated. Whenever this comes up in the press it's a fear factor story, nobody wants to put their kids at risk. I think the implication is that if these vaccines are harmful they are made to be so as part of some evil plot. Everyone loves a sinister, evil plot.