Werewolves and science

Scott Gardener · Post by **Scott Gardener** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 12:11 am

The article about the electromagnetic emotional properties of water is not unique; there are others in alternative medicine who profess the same basic thing. It's an intreaguing concept, even if it's a hard thing to prove. But, it is the only working hypothesis that can explain why, short of the ever popular "it's all coincidence," that homeopathy seems to work inspite its counterintuitive principle of successive dilutions. Homeopathy practitioners claim that the properties of their remedies lie within patterns of energy stored in the water itself. It's weird and kooky, but I can't refute it completely, only put it into the realm of theories that conflict with existing theories but none-the-less seem to work when doing certain things. In medicine, that happens a lot.

Ultraken · Post by **Ultraken** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:02 pm

My impression is that Homeopathic treatments do nothing but harness the Placebo Effect; the remedy itself is no more effective than water. However, that alone is very powerful, as believing that something will heal you tends to make it at least partially effective. Still, ascribing the benefits to "structured water" is hard to accept; any "energy pattern" in the water is going to be completely hashed by the time it enters your bloodstream through your stomach or intestinal lining. While "allopathic medicine" doesn't hold all the answers, that doesn't mean they hold none of them.

The human body and the human mind are connected far more closely than most people think--the human body is not a "meat robot" that exists solely to carry the brain around. Our understanding of the two is incomplete, but that doesn't mean its incomprehensible. Just figuring out how the Placebo Effect works and harnessing it would be an incredible advance.

(Of course, this has drifted Off Topic...)

Scott Gardener · Post by **Scott Gardener** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 2:37 pm

True; if mainstream medicine did not have some worth, I'd feel like a complete idiot, or at least an unscrupulous scoundrel, considering what I do for a living.

Ultraken · Post by **Ultraken** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:27 am

Just because science and medicine don't know everything, it doesn't mean that they don't know anything (false dichotomy). While I like listening to Coast to Coast AM, not everything is a government or corporate conspiracy.

Fenrir · Post by **Fenrir** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:54 am

Why are you arguing on a thing that could be either/or? It's just a guess as to wether science is right or wrong. I mean 10 years from now i bet they will discover that radiation therapy did more to kill a person then to help them. But anyway about the radio who do you listen to if you listen to most of these people it's either a democratic conspiracy or a Republic conspiracy, or heres one i heard yesterday A Fascist conspiracy. It had to do with this girl wanting to bring a Admiral of the army in to a class and tell the students the good the war is doing in Iraq (not that i agree or disagree), but the Professer emediatly called the girl a fascist and said that she should be arrested and further more the only way the soldiers in Iraq could help the world is if they turned their guns to their comanders! That guy is nuts! Oh that was a little long sorry

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 3:24 pm

They already know radiation can hurt you. When I first met with my oncologist and he gave me the nickel tour of the ups, downs, whereases and wherefores, everyone there said "Take calcium!" about a hundred times to me. That's because there was a study that shows women who get rectal and pelvis-area cancer and get radiation therapy have three times the chance of breaking their hipbone at some point.

And being in it now, I know how bad it can be. But given the choice, I wouldn't change it because cancer can mess you up faster and worse. Is it great? Not really, all this is doing is cutting my chances of getting cancer again down to one in three rather than 50-50. Sure, painful elimination is bad, not being able to eliminate at all and slowly dying is worse. And I lost enough in the first round of swords and knives, I don't want to lose anymore!

There's already rumblings that cancer treatment is coming out of the dark ages of cut-burn-poison (yeah, great timing!

). Advances in immunotherapy are coming through every day and if the politicos would JUST LET US USE STEM CELLS :punishment:

there'd be even more advancement.

That having been said...the FDA needs a housecleaning like a 50-year-old trailer park.

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 3:26 pm

They already know radiation can hurt you. When I first met with my oncologist and he gave me the nickel tour of the ups, downs, whereases and wherefores, everyone there said "Take calcium!" about a hundred times to me. That's because there was a study that shows women who get rectal and pelvis-area cancer and get radiation therapy have three times the chance of breaking their hipbone at some point.

And being in it now, I know how bad it can be. But given the choice, I wouldn't change it because cancer can mess you up faster and worse. Is it great? Not really, all this is doing is cutting my chances of getting cancer again down to one in three rather than 50-50. Sure, painful elimination is bad, not being able to eliminate at all and slowly dying is worse. And I lost enough in the first round of swords and knives, I don't want to lose anymore!

There's already rumblings that cancer treatment is coming out of the dark ages of cut-burn-poison (yeah, great timing!

). Advances in immunotherapy are coming through every day and if the politicos would JUST LET US USE STEM CELLS :punishment:

there'd be even more advancement.

That having been said...the FDA needs a housecleaning like a 50-year-old trailer park.

white · Post by **white** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 4:04 pm

Progress is being made in finding a way go get stem cells that doesn't violate anyone's morales, I believe. Once that's here, we'll see some huge advancements.

Ultraken · Post by **Ultraken** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 6:05 pm

The ideal case is adult stem cells from the patient, or coercing adult somatic cells back into stem cells. That has the added benefit of avoiding immune response.

werewolf2668 · Post by **werewolf2668** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 5:57 pm

Hello, my first post on this forum.

"My impression is that Homeopathic treatments do nothing but harness the Placebo Effect; the remedy itself is no more effective than water. However, that alone is very powerful, as believing that something will heal you tends to make it at least partially effective. "

Yes! Sorry about going off topic again, but that website was total bull. Made me feel like slapping my forehead over and over again.

Coercing somatic cells back into stem cells would definitely be ideal, though I don't have to details of the extent of current progress.

A question: anybody here ever read Carl Sagan's books?

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 6:28 pm

I have "Cosmos" somewhere amongst the library...I have more books than anything else...

Scott Gardener · Post by **Scott Gardener** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 10:12 pm

I'm a big fan of Sagan myself. I grew up on the Cosmos TV show.

I'm sure he'd hate my defending electromagnetic water. But, we each have our own threshold of disbelief. And so it should be, that not all people cut off their belief tolerance at the same point, as the variety keeps ideas flowing. Sagan's lesson to me, however, is not to have too low a threshold. Strong claims require strong evidence. That's what's keeping me from believing too quickly a lot of bad ideas.

Still, Sagan himself stood up for Immanuel Velkovski, who once was ostracized by the scientific community for postulating a rather strange origin of the planet Venus. Velkovski suggested that the planet erupted out of Jupiter, entered an odd path that caused events in The Bible like the parting of the Red Sea, and finally entered a stable orbit. Sagan didn't defend the theory itself--he pointed out all the things wrong with it. But, he spoke of how inappropriate it was of the scientififc community not to hear the evidence first and then refute it. Instead, they attacked the man and banned his work. Even Sagan said this was unforgivable, as science is about considering possibility and weighing evidence, not dictating unmutable doctrine.

Still, I'm sure he'd expect electromagnetic water to flunk his "Balony detection kit" field test. I'm not quite so convinced. But, then again, both of us would acknowledge the need to do the test. (Where's Jaime and Adam?)