George Carlin from the grave: By calling it an ‘alternative’ you are directly implying that it is not the actual thing.
Comment on Alternative medicine
homes@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
If “alternative medicine” worked, it would just be called “medicine“.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
homes@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
I miss that guy
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
As for the second i’d imagine the quote “are 51% of you really that fucking stupid? Colollary: If so, how do i sell so many tickets?”
The first is more interesting. He was no fan of the Clintons, but he would have torn the M.A.G.A. slogan to shreads so many ways. The nazi stuff would have tipped the scales in the end.
dillekant@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
It’s not alternative medicine though? It’s like regular medicine but instead of it being prescribed he just thought he’d ingest some based on his own whims.
homes@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
You misunderstand
I’m speaking of “medicine”, as in the practice there of. You’re thinking of “medication“. That’s not what I’m talking about.
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
To be fair this is actually medicine they are taking. Not sure why you would take it recreationally though.
homes@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
Ivermectin is medicine for horses
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Ahh, had heard it was an anti parasite thing but wasn’t aware it was specifically for horses.
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s not specifically for horses, it’s just commonly used enough that it’s easy to source horse formulations. When the nutjobs couldn’t get the regular stuff from doctors, they sometimes bought horse paste.
wewbull@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
That’s a bunch of bull. It’s not just horse (or bull) medicine.
Ivermectin is generally used as a anti-parasitic medication for all animals including humans. In some parts of the world it’s regularly taken to help protect against parasites. As such it’s one of the most important drugs out there, and is on the WHO list of essential medicines.
This guy sounds like he took drugs he bought from a scammer. Maybe it was an overdose, or maybe he took something else.
homes@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
And to use it for treating Covid “alternative medicine”, so stop defending it as a valid treatment. That’s simply ridiculous.
Senal@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Im all on the “listen to the medical experts” train.
There are however some medicines and treatments that legitimately started as “alternative”.
A lot of it is horseshit though.
Also modern medicine isn’t infallible(nor the people that practice it).
Statistically though, it’s fucking high magic compared to most internet sourced diagnoses.
Mediocre_Bard_Redeux@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Have friends in the medical field, a lot of time they are just sort of trying shit and then are happy it worked.
Senal@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Medical science is just that, medicine that follows the scientific method. (Or at least it’s supposed to).
The scientific method is basically testing guesses (sometimes educated ones) and seeing what happens.
There’s a whole lot of structure and guidelines, but testing guesses(hypotheses) is where it’s at mostly.
The current state of any science is usually “the best theory we have right now, given the data and resources available to us”
Some people hear that and think “look, they’re just guessing, why should I listen to them?” and thats absolutely valid.
Where that falls down is that they then go on to assume all guesses are equal and ignore the time and resources that went in to that current scientific best guess.
Is it always correct? no, is it more likely to be beneficial than a random social media post by an influencer with no medical expertise? Generally yes.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
The people who “guess” are guessing way down the decision tree, not like hmm is this cancer or a flu?
They also are highly trained, in a field that is centuries old.
Jarix@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I would expand “testing guesses” to repeatedly testing guesses. It’s a fundamental thing to be able to recreate the testing results, or it’s not science at all it’s just fuckign around lol
fizzle@quokk.au 3 weeks ago
Most professions could be described like this, but when doctors are “trying shit” it is backed up by many years of training and education, and their behavior is scrutinised by professional bodies and so on.
When your local quack is “trying shit” it’s just based on the vibe.
fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com 3 weeks ago
Am engineer and agree
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The difference between medicine and “alternative medicine” is proof of effectiveness. If something provably works it’s medicine.
Senal@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
That’s certainly a definition.
How dos that definition account for the placebo effect ?
andros_rex@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“Proof of effectiveness” means a placebo controlled trial. Preferably multiple, with sample sizes substantial enough for sufficient statistical power.
Jarix@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I would say how doesn’t it?
A placebo is known to NOT work. That medicine has defined, understands and even utilizes the placebo effect is exactly in that definition.
fizzle@quokk.au 3 weeks ago
“Alternative medicine” is too broad a term to be helpful.
Senal@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Yeah, I saw it after I’d posted.
I need to be more specific in how I mean “alternative” here.
What I mean is “not of the current scientific consensus” , which I realise isn’t exactly the same wording as the wikipedia definition
Thats my bad.
I also failed to mention that it also works the other way as well, where current science is discredited(fully or partially) , due to flaws in it’s methodology, reproducibility or some other reason.
fizzle@quokk.au 3 weeks ago
I think there are actually very few interventions which were “not of the current scientific consensus” which later became accepted medical practice.
Also I think in the current era there are practically no alternative therapies by that definition which will later become medical practice.
A salient example might be ketamine therapy. It’s been a party drug since at least the 90s but in the last several years has become a government subsidised therapy for PTSD in Australia. That doesn’t mean kids at ravfes were doing the therapy in the 90s, because the manner in which the ketamine is administered is the key to the beneficial outcome.
That said, I think the treatments a medical doctor can prescribe or even recommend are less than a third of the treatments or behaviors that can manage a chronic illness. What I mean is, if you have a chronic condition there’s (hopefully) medications that will help you manage it, but it’s the lifestyle changes that will influence your quality of life in the coming decades.
Jarix@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The quote is from Tim Minchin. I think the track name is Storm.
It’s him talking to someone at a dinner party and he’s trying to bite his tongue when someone new starts talking stupidity, but it gets to a point where he breaks and goes off on a rent.
It’s a very well written and entertaining but.
What what’s missing from the quote is something along the lines of “You know what they call alternate medicine that is proven to work? Medicine”
The whole point of the quote is exactly what you are saying that some medicines legitimately started as alternative medicines
Deebster@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
From Dara Ó Briain. Also from him:
Viceversa@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What are those?
CuddlyCassowary@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think it depends how you frame this question. For example, aspirin originated from a compound in willow bark. Currently, most of us aren’t chewing on willow bark to relieve pain, but at some point that (or making willow bark teas, etc.) was the case. Whether you consider that as “alternative” depends on what point in history you ask that question.
Leeches, which are still used today, also come to mind. Modern medicine has greatly refined how they’re used, but that’s not how it started.
There are quite a few things that people noticed produced effects but didn’t understand the mechanism. Science changed that.
However, if you consider using things with known properties in a wildly irresponsible manner as the definition of “alternative medicine,” that’s a very different question.
Even when novel therapies from existing medicine do come to light at times, generally this through scientific observation and testing, not Cletus taking horse medicine.
Viceversa@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
At the time mainstream medicine was rejecting use of willow bark? Or why it’s considered alternative medicine?
nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Usually herbs found by ethnographers.
Aspirin, for example, IIRC discovered by a scientist investigating traditional therapeutics (tree bark)
mirshafie@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
My pharma professors liked to say that if Aspirin was discovered today, it would never pass the bar for human trials, because after all these years the mechanism of action isn’t properly understood.
That’s the best argument for alternative medicines that I’ve heard, and it’s also something to consider when we think about how insanely high the bar is for compounds that are approved as medicines.
Senal@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
I was also going to use aspirin as an example, but I’m also going to post a response i made to a comment further up.
Also psychedelics as a treatment for various psychological ailments.
In generalities i was thinking more of how certain branches or offshoots of what was considered to be mainstream ( or mainstream adjacent ) science were later found to be scientifically provable.
An example of this is microbes.
They were posited over the years in varied forms by multiple independent people, but they weren’t really fully accepted until the invention of a way of actually observing them.
This is largely what medicine was prior to the current , formal scientific method, local “medicine people” would have salves, cures, potions and other such concoctions passed down to apprentices, they might have some knowledge of how it works, but most of that knowledge would be in the practical application and treatment using said concoctions.
That’s not to dismiss this practice, the years of experience and experimentation (of a kind) was, in some cases, essential a precursor to modern scientific method.
There are ways of analysing effects and positing theories without fully understanding how the underlying mechanism works.
Sometimes that leads to legitimate data around the effects of a medicine or treatment being dismissed as “alternative”, at least until formal experimentation is done and verified
As i said in another reply, I’m not saying it’s common, all i was saying was that it’s a possibility.
Viceversa@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think it’s safe to say nowadays we can rely on scientific method to find new cures, and completely abandon “alternative” medicine.
Jarix@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Aspirin.
Was a tincture or tea of white birch bark(I’m not 100% certain this is the right tree, but it was a tree, please correct me if I’m wrong) used as a folk medicine for generations until it got studied and the compound in it isolated by Bayer
ignotum@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The issue is that alternative forms of medicine are most often studied scientifically and either found to work (upgraded to medicine) but more often than not it is found to have no greater effect than placebo or random chance, but these alternatives continue to be practiced, meaning people end up getting ineffective care, and their money is funneled into an industry incentivised to discredit and spread distrust towards real proven medicine
Senal@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Agreed,
I was positing the possibility of a move from “alternative” to “scientifically recognised”, not that it was likely to happen.
njordomir@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Well said. A balanced viewpoint that doesn’t try to be all black and white. Even the stupidest bullshit can sometimes contain a kernel of truth. That doesn’t mean the 99% bullshit isn’t any less shit.