On entering into a philosophical morass: Chinese medicine and Western science
Let’s get something straight. I’m very confused about the role of Western scientific research as it is currently practiced in verifying the claims of practitioners of Chinese medicine. Various studies, including the famous “sham acupuncture” study seem to challenge the premise that the theoretical bases of Chinese medicine are an accurate description of reality and our interactions with it. For instance, concerning the study referenced above, if any old needle through the skin will cure migraines - what of channel theory? What of our highly developed ideas about acupuncture techniques? Similar doubt is cast on Chinese herbalism by placebo controlled double blind studies showing no significant improvement in patient outcomes with the administration of various herbal extracts or even, in some cases, whole herbal formulas. What gives? Why spend all this money to learn a highly nuanced medical system if that system can’t stand on its own two feet? (Yes, I know, there are plenty of studies that verify CM’s efficacy, but that’s beside my specific point here).
I’ve talked in various articles on this site about my basic opinion about the relationship between Western science and Chinese medicine. At my school, NCNM, we talk about these things quite a bit in classes, in the hallways, in subversive meetings around Portland, Oregon. But, to be totally frank, the conversations don’t often delve deeply. This isn’t because we don’t want to go beyond the surface. Sometimes it feels like these concepts are coated with Teflon - the mind so readily slips off. It’s such work just to get through the program, I think most of us just don’t have the mental energy to work through this kind of analysis. Further, most of us weren’t attracted to the medicine because of analytical research indicating that it is effective. To some extent, it’s a gut level reaction. Or you could say that it’s a spiritual attraction - whatever you like.
I find, though, with my dual background in Western philosophy and Western science, I simply can’t let the matter lie. Believe me, I’d rather it be any other way. So, I’m going to attempt to unpack this issue - it’s going to take some time. It’s going to take a lot of reading and a lot of thinking and I’m not even sure what kind of result I can expect. I want to make it abundantly clear that I fully believe that Classical Chinese Medicine *does* stand on its own two feet, that it is deeply rooted in a science that needs no independent verification. I simply want to understand, for myself, what that means. In a sense, for me, this (long) journey will be an intellectual exercise. Perhaps an important one. We’ll see.
In a preliminary way, I can imagine that my exploration is going to have to go over some of the following terrain:
1. What is the nature of Western science as it is currently practiced? Essentially, what assumptions does Western science take for granted and how are they being challenged? My sense is that I’ll have to look pretty deep into the gaping maw of materialism in this part of my journey.
2. How do modern research standards grow out of the above assumptions? How are they independent from them? How have modern research standards evolved and how are they currently evolving?
3. How can the ideas of a non-material essence to the human being come back into acceptance by science? Is that desirable or necessary? What would that mean and what are the philosophical and practical implications?
4. Is there merit to the assertion that the scientific system that grows out of one world view cannot be adequately assessed or criticized by the scientific system that grows out of another? If so - what does this mean for an increasingly globalized world where many different worldviews are forced to interact?
5. What produces the most favorable patient outcomes and how would we measure those outcomes?
I’m going to have to look into a lot of disciplines in which I don’t have much expertise. That’s okay with me. I’ve come to accept that in any endeavor, there’s probably someone who knows more than me. That’s the benefit of this kind of public dialogue - lots of folks can contribute.
I’m interested to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Eric
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Tags: Acupuncture, chinese-herb, classical-chinese-medicine, integrative-medicine, philosophy, philosophy of science, Theory, western research, western-science
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Well, this doesn’t give you any useful information, but it seems to me that Western culture and thought-as it stands now-is something of a fad and will pass like other Western intellectual phases, both good and bad ( the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, Logical Positivism, whatever you like).
I just hope it doesn’t destroy everything good that’s in the world in the process.
Just to add to the interesting yet perhaps not useful information….has anyone reading this ever read Hermann Hesse’s short story in his Fairy Tales collection called “The City”? M. Reynolds, you may enjoy it based on your latest comment…
Michael
No Sir. Only Hesse I’ve read is “Siddartha” which I confess I was probably too young to understand/appreciate.
I recently picked up a book called ‘The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine’ by james lefanu which brought up some interesting views of where credit is due in some of modern medicine’s triumphs and he basically says that now we are witnessing the fall of modern medicine and unless doctors start listening more, rather than ordering tests they are doomed to a disreputable future. I think it bodes well for well trained TCM practitioners who rely on the patient rather than scientific testing for their diagnosis.
Another great post. I have much to say on the subject, so I’ll probably write a post on my site rather than squeeze it all in here. Briefly, I’d like to comment on your 4th question as to the ability of one paradigm to assess and criticize another. Let’s shift the focus of the question to the intellectual agility of thinkers not of paradigms–can Chinese medical thinkers and Western medical thinkers engage in meaningful dialogue? I say absolutely yes. We can and we will. The ability to understand and heal chronic disease probably depends on it.
There is historical (albeit flawed) precedence: In the process of creating TCM out of the extremely diverse rivers and tributaries of classical thinking in CM, Chinese doctors of the 20th century, responding to the political climate of Mao, who wanted to westernize Chinese medicine and bring it out of it’s shamanic past, were essentially authoring a rudimentary integration of medical ideas. The idea was to make CM acceptable to western thinkers. This is in fact one of the main criticisms which many CM practitioners(not the least of which are those of us trained in TCM!) have of TCM. From its roots in Maoist China the tradition of altering CM to fit into a Western paradigm continues in the use of the randomized, controlled trial (RCT)–a useful tool in the biomedical paradigm– to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture. This is happening both in China and in Western countries.
But really. Chinese medical practitioners do not want or need to treat everyone in the same way. I don’t; the beauty of the medicine is precisely in the trust it bestows upon the practitioner to evaluate the condition of the client in a precise moment in time, and the receptive points in that moment. My ability to treat different people differently even when they have the same disease is based on the central ideas I share with other CM thinkers about how people get sick and how they heal. These central ideas are different in western medical thought.
Because the gold standard of the RCT cannot categorically allow the practitioner of CM to engage in the intelligent design of a treatment for one individual, but insists instead on the design of treatments for certain groups of “like” subjects it cannot be the measure by which we judge this medicine.
But the story does not end here. There is another very exciting tradition in progress. Instead of making CM acceptable to westerners, this new tradition is aimed at expanding our WM intelligence to include the wisdom of CM. There are western scientists asking how we can expand our understanding of human health, sickness and healing, and our expectations of human potential and consciousness in a manner that honors the observations of CM thinkers. This is the 2nd wave of integration, the moment in which we find ourselves today. It is a most exciting time. In the next few days I will post more thoughts on this topic (http://fiveminds.wordpress.com), and will include a list of books which I find fascinating, and you may too. Of course, given your current circumstances it may be awhile before you delve into any elective reading…
Hi Eric,
I think what you plan to do is of very great importance.
On modern approaches to Western Science the standard unavoidable books are Karl Popper’s The Open Society and It’s Enemies (lots of ideology) and Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Both written very readably. The great unresolved issue in my view is that pointed out by David Hume hundreds of years ago - we never observe cause (in the language of Pirsig this is a ‘ghost’) we only observe that one event follows upon another. The best philosophy book on epistemology in my opinion is Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
[The most important book on health in my opinion is The Status Syndrome by Michael Marmot which shows that the sense of agency is the major determinant of health once basic needs are met. This plays into the whole mind-body debate in a very interesting way. It challenges both the tradition Western and Chinese ways of doing medicine - though the Chinese much less so in my view.]
Modern research standards grow out of the need for objectivity - removal of experimenter bias. This means that people (neither experimenter nor subject) should know what treatment is being given (double blind). This does not presume that the placebo effect is unimportant only that it can apply equally to any intervention and so needs to be excluded - the test needs to be of the intervention alone. The mathematics is simply the best way to summarise these kinds of findings. It is a sophisticated way of stating what the odds are that the intervention works. There are now evolving ways of including in the maths case studies and so forth. The work of the Cochrane Collaboration is leading the way in this.
Non-materiality is difficult. Science needs to measure. I’m not convinced that non-materiality exists. If it did why would we need pins etc. I think that our experience has both physical and spiritual dimensions. That is we are one complex phenomenon not two. (The problems of an immaterial soul has a long history in western philosophy - Arthur Koestler’s The Ghost in the Machine is a good treatment of it, but there are many philosophy texts on it.) The scientific approach would be to state the hypothesis of material cause and then demonstrate that it is not adequate to account for experimental results. (However this demonstration would be a material one - you can see why I think the notion of an immaterial essence is incoherent.)
There is no merit at all in saying that paradigms can’t be assessed and compared (in medicine). This is because both Western Medicine and Chinese Medicine heal people. So it is simple to compare what they do - keep records of the treatment, who gets better and who doesn’t. This doesn’t mean that you need to buy into the assumptions of either paradigm.
Measures of outcomes can be pretty simply measured. I think CM needs to develop it’s own measures that include things like pulse instead of just adopting Western ones like aerobic fitness. I think the measures need to include the client’s views - there are simple ways of doing this like getting them to fill out questionnaires before, during and after a course of treatment.
We now have very sophisticated technologies that can watch the body in real time and how putting acupuncture pins in places affects the brain and so forth. This research hasn’t been done much and those teaching acupuncture in uni’s and so on should be ashamed of themselves that they aren’t. Finding out how acupuncture works is vital - and we have the tools to begin to do this now.
I’m very much looking forward to seeing what you come up with. I think it is of huge significance.
Hi,
Evan, I think that Western philosophy will not be of help to us here much. I certainly don’t want to dismiss Western philosophy, but the end result of it, thus far, leads us right to the basic premises upon which Western medicine and science stand. Thus this model helped to produce Western medicine, and certainly did not produce theories of Qi and Yin and Yang…
Western philosophers have been contemplating existence, materialism and immaterialism for a long time, but I’m not convinced by any means that it has provided for us an explanation or position worth following.
Chinese philosophers and medical thinkers seem to have been on to something, and it does seem that Western science is finding a new horizon that may be more in alignment with these Eastern theories. I agree with Julie when she suggests the expansion of Western thinking is a better meeting place than the proving of Chinese medicine with Western methods.
How could Western materialism (which is a position that already stands to prove itself) ever disprove itself? Though it stands on the pillars of scientific inquiry, it utilizes materialist concepts to prove material things. One could never prove the exsitence of Qi, for example, with the same devices and conceptual frameworks that deal with material things only, let alone something like thoughts or emotions, or spirit. Sure, the Western model provides a way of mapping the trail of these things, following the neurological stimulus pathways or the endocrine secretions, but this is all based on the Western model of material agency.
The Neijing provides for us a model that what occurs in an immaterial, atmospheric (Qi) realm then materializes into form on the physical earth. This can clearly be seen in chapters 66-74.
I don’t believe we should waste any more time on finding out “Why” or even “If” acupuncture works outside of a classical understanding. Maybe it’s not even possible for a Western scientific model to be able to see why acupuncture works. It is fascinating to see the effects of Chinese medicine on the physical body with Western tests and measures. But, we should push a new methodology of study, if we are going to research the effects of Chinese medicine, one that is based on an established understanding of Chinese theory and efficacy, rather than try to force the Western lens to see the effects that have been noticed for thousands of years in China.
Let’s let Western science try to figure out for itself how to explain our medicine while we keep practicing and defining a high standard of our selves through our own science.
Michael
Julie,
Thanks for your comment! I’ll be very interested to see that list of books. I think my only worry in any move towards integration is that, until recently, the movement has been to incorporate Chinese thinking/modalities/etc INTO Western medicine and not really about creating a new, unified, understanding. Hopefully the new wave of integrators will avoid that mistake.
e
Evan,
Thank you also for your comment. I was in the Philosophy of Science, in part, so have read most of the Western treatments of those subjects. I simply need to revisit that information that I tried so hard to forget. :)
One interesting thing about what you said re: placebo effect. I’d challenge the assumption that we understand what placebo effect is, and thus, the assumption that it will be at work equally in any type of intervention. Does that make sense? It seems at least possible that what we are labelling “placebo” is actually a powerful therapeutic result that is more effectively achieved through Chinese medicine (or other energy based medical treatments). The fact is, we don’t know - as far as I know. ;)
Re: paradigm comparison. I do believe that patient results can be compared cross-system. However, the way in which we measure and compare these results must be very carefully examined. If the real answer was simply “compare results” we wouldn’t be having this conversation, yes? The fact is that CM and WM can’t agree on what that would look like. I wish it were simpler, but it isn’t. I think your idea about using subjective patient experiences and other measures (like pulse) is a good way to start but the full development of this kind of criteria needs to take place.
Re: using various methods to measure the effect of acupuncture on the brain. I’m sure someone, somewhere is doing this. I don’t have much interest on it, however, because I’m not sure it would give me any information of interest to me. What do you feel like we could do with that information, Evan? I’m interested to hear…
Eric
Michael,
The issue of materiality versus immateriality is by no means settled in Western philosophy, it’s true. The thing is the CONVERSATION. I don’t feel like most of us are equipped to even ask the right questions (thus our conversation today about Socratic method) much less answer them. I find the interplay between intellectual paradigms endlessly fascinating, thus my interest in looking at this particular clash of the Titans.
I hope it’s clear that I’m in no way interested in “proving” Chinese medicine with Western medicine. In fact, the entire idea seems pretty ludicrous. I’m simply interested in what it MEANS to say that Chinese medicine is its own paradigm and needs no verification by Western medicine.
Further, I’m simply fascinated by contemplating the nature of Western research and seeking to understand how its assumptions fail to produce a system that is adequate to assess Chinese medicine. I understand this on a very superficial level, but I don’t like that.
Does this make sense?
Eric
Jeez, I can’t think of a non-jerky way to say this…I just don’t care what
anyone in any academic circle from any culture has to say about any of this.
I really don’t. I realize we need people to be the diplomats and such, but
well, Western Science is shortsighted and bankrupt and its taking down with
it everything that is built on its foundation of sand. I’m not interested in
talking or analyzing or any of that, I’m only interested in DOING. So
whereas I’m glad you guys will be out there politicking and hopefully
defending us from political snipers, I’ve gotta go pull some needles out of
a patient and write a couple formulas.
In other words, lets not forget the real point of this is not our professions reputation or place in this or that strata of society, the real
point is we’ve got people out there that are suffering and need our help NOW and we’d best get to it, because there’s a lot more of them than there are of us.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
I don’t care what anyone in any academic circle from any culture has to say about any of this either. I’m interested in understanding in a deeper way the philosophical foundations of all medical practice, including that of Western and Chinese medicine. I’m interested in understanding what about the philosophical foundations of Western science makes it difficult for people steeped in it to comprehend the wisdom of Chinese medicine. This in no way prevents me from going deeply into the actual practice of Chinese medicine. In fact, my every effort to delve deeply into subjects like this has only led, surprisingly, to great advances in my clinical skills.
I really have no interest in using this newfound understanding to broker any kind of understanding between WM and CM. In fact, I doubt that such a thing would be possible. Knowledge is rarely able to
defeat willful ignorance.
My first and foremost love is formula science and pulse diagnosis. 99% of my waking moments are trained on these two things and these two
things only.
First of all thanks for this discussion for without it, it would be difficult to make heads or tails about it. It is true that the need for the medicine makes the urgency of the practice, though at the same time a sense of agency does develop the technology for its observation and deployment. I think that in saying that one paradigm need not be verified by the other leaves us in a quantifiable quandry. Though the two, seperate systems, with their own particulars, have thier own working construct, the sense of an epirical basis from which the two may interplay remains to be seen. I have been in a University hospital in South Korea where patients are treated in an integrated setting, and each of the doctors on staff have their own little pet project in verifying the medicine in a western sense. It is validating. It soothe my mind that has been raised from western standpoint and was only left to be boggled in a philosophical mire when entering TCM school. It may be difficult to explain a mechanism for the effects of acupuncure but any helps in an effort to quatify the result of a treament. Every one wants results, and it sure beats saying red, redder, and even more redder when stating a tongue diagnosis!!!!!
i applaud this inquiry, but warn of its slippery slope. i believe ultimately the two trains of thought must be merged and this will eventually happen (see my review of the book 2012 on my blog). but realize that western thought is essentially materialism affects the immaterial (c.f. the emergent mind hypothesis) and as such there is no room for the immaterial, such as qi and shen affecting the material. so its pretty hard to extend one to meet the other. in the case of CM, matter comes into existence because of qi, and in WM matter is just there, interacting with matter. the only room in WM for shen to influence matter is in Quantum Physics, and you won’t get very far with that in WM circles because it only applies to the extremely small and extremely fast.
at the end of the day, and for the forseeable future, it will come down to evidence: do i make my patients better? and observation: what is making them sick? and belief: how do i understand the world around me and my place in it?
the way one answers these questions will both limit and enable the patient-doctor relationship and the success therein.
Hi Eric,
Having read your comments I’m not sure what you are setting out to do.
What is it that you want at the end of your investigation? The idea that WM validates CM just seems silly. It is people getting healthy again that does this. (This is one of the virtues or empiricism within the western science approach.)
The power of the western paradigm has as much (more) to do with politics as clinical efficacy. The western medical establishment was a force to be reckoned with well before western doctors had much efficacy in healing people.
And the western philosophical tradition has an embarassment of resources for the integration of the immaterial. There is much more to western philosophy than Enlightenment propaganda admits.
So I’m not sure if your quest is a philosophical one or more of a political one.
We, as Chinese Medicine practitioners often have a great deal of frustrations about the dominant Western scientific thinking patterns. Every science is based on a world view which in turn is based on interpretation of the perception we have of our world. Science is just another way to look at the world and try to package it in a coherent way. It is no more or less accurate than Chinese thought.
It is however the dominant thought and it can be quite useful to explain some phenomena.
As Western Science develops its perception (through more sophisticated tools and theories), it can explain things it couldn’t before. I don’t think it will ever explain the whole of CM, but it will explain parts of it to include them in its coherent world patten, the same way we translate ‘western’ concepts to fit them in our CM world view (for example antibiotics are cooling in nature…).
We understand the results of studies of acupuncture when we have a few notions of Western physiology. Any stimuli applied on the same dermatome as an existing pain will reduce this pain according to the ‘gate control theory’ of pain regulation. Any new painful stimulus will decrease an existing pain according to the descending inhibition systems. And there are a couple more theories that can explain why sham acupuncture seem so effective. However, serious and well designed studies have shown that acupuncture points are more effective than sham, and that points with specific indication for pain are more effective than just any acupuncture point.
Gee! I wanted to be short but it seems like I failed… anyway, for a quick conclusion, remember the saying :”The eye will only see what the mind is prepared to see”. Western thinkers will only accept what fits in their coherent world view and scientific studies aim at that. We should be indulgent and especially well informed in order to clarify misunderstandings.
Stephane
I work with several people who are very much into the alternative chinese medicines and treatments. Their practices seem to be working much better than what I see here from our local health care system. They’ve missed zero time this winter due to the flu or colds, yet those of us who think that this is “silly” have probably wracked up more sick time than anyone.
Evan,
My quest is entirely philosophical. And purely for personal satisfaction. It mostly has to do with clarifying for myself the philosophical differences between Western medicine and Chinese medicine in a deep way so that I am able to come into intelligent discussion with a variety of people without resorting to tautologies and dismissive comments.
That’s all.
e
“Science is just another way to look at the world and try to package it in a coherent way. It is no more or less accurate than Chinese thought. ”
Um, you’re gonna have to back this one up Stephane.
There is an arrogance in Western medicine that prescription medication or operations are the only real solutions to major health problems. Everything else is shady and not to be trusted.
Hi Eric, I just posted on the subject, complete with the aforementioned reading list. Hope you’ll have the time to read at least one. You can read the post here http://fiveminds.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/chinese-medicine-and-western-science-passionate-curiosity-lives/
Another great post. I think the philosophical between Western medicine and Chinese medicine complementary each other. Sometimes we can found (in old Chinese medicine book) a great herbal for modern disease.
Nice post, nice blog. Cant wait to read more. I was interested in Chinese medicine as an alternative to modern/western medicine some time ago.
I do use herbal medicines already which much success. I like the idea of using natural materials to help fight disease rather then rely on synthetic chemical compounds which can have negative effects on the human body. I can’t wait to read more.
Thanks blu3man,
I hope you continue to enjoy the posts.
Eric
Julie,
I’ll be sure to read that one through and comment as soon as I’m done with my clinical entrance exam! :) Thanks for continuing to write excellent articles.
Eric
Eric, I like the your blog content. As far as I know, Chinese medicine is the conclusion of 5000 years practice and experience. But I am sure that it will still have disadvantages. I hope you can combine the advantages of Chinese medicines with western medicine and improve our medical levels.
Hi Eric,
As to philosophy.
As we are interested in medicine I think we can agree on including empiricism - the test of a theory is it’s results. (Technically the testing of predictions which follow from the theory.)
The loose talk about ‘the immaterial’ needs much sharpening (or discarding altogether - my preference. It leads to a hopeless tangle: how does the material and immaterial communicate; by a third mediating structure?: is this mediating structure material or immaterial?- it’s an endless maze. I think the solution is to see the spiritual as one aspect or dimension of human experience, as is the physical; and that they are inseparable. In this Western philosophy is far ahead of the pop-taoism so often preached, in my opinion.).
The need is to include some parts of phenomenology - that the observe is irretrievably included in observation. This goes to the importance of human experience in medicine. Old-style understandings of ‘objectivity’ are simply incoherent. Merleau-Ponty is the phenomenologist who took the body most seriously. But I find his stuff pretty awful to read.
Very much looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
Hi M. Reynolds,
I’d be happy to discuss the ideas I brought up. However, I don’t think we’re in the right place to have a philosophical discussion here. Feel free to email me (lebourlingueur@wildmail.com).
Stephane
Hi Evan,
I strongly agree that the ideas coming out of “pop-taoism” are troublesome, but to superimpose a western materialism upon the very important theories of the Neijing is also troublesome. The phenomonological approach may indeed be helpful, but why not try to grapple with the Neijing itself?
Are you assuming the “spirit” and “consciousness” are somehow the same as the physical body when you want to lump them together? I know that most western philosophers of today are leaning towards this concept that the mind is an “epi-phenomona” of the brain, but this theory is bordering on absurd to me.
Perhaps we should consider the Yijing. Why, for instance is there an earlier and a later organization of the bagua? One diagram maps the physical manifestation and the other maps the underlying “blueprint” or the preconcept….
How about the concept of zang xiang in the neijing? (sorry for no chinese) but xiang, the image or symbol, is a material form of the immaterial impetus and condition…
Should we just throw “immaterialism” out the window, or keep it separate just because western philosophy has no way of working with it outside of phenomological writings, when it so clearly (in a different form than the associations of pop-daoism and new age spiritualism), lies at the core of Neijing theory?
Michael
Actually Stephane, I’m pretty sure that having a philosophical discussion is what’s been taking place on this here topic for quite a while, which you’ll see if you’ll kindly hit the scroll button to your right.
I for one am not particularly interested in hearing the Western rehash again, but since I’m not the only one here and perhaps you’d like to follow your very public potshot with an equally public supporting argument?
Hi Michael,
I have no time for western materialism. My conviction is that we are a multi-dimensional phenomenon (that these dimensions include the physical and spiritual).
The remarkably crass modern version of materialism - consciousness as brain excretion is so stupid it says much (none of it good) about our academic system that it is popular.
My comments have been shaped by Eric’s project about the WM and CM.
I think we should work through the problems of materialism and immaterialism. My guess is that we need to build on phenomenology - keeping an eye on efficacy of treatment is of great use in this regard.
I don’t endorse any culture’s imperialism (WM or CM) - this foreign devil thinks that cultural imperialism is not only a western phenomenon. I think in the field of medicine it is clear there is much space for cross-fertilisation. In my view this should be based on what works: which stuff helps people get better fastest.
I’m quite happy to junk parts of the neijing or western philosophy if they don’t illumiinate our experience of the medicine. This seems the only responsible attitude to me. (I don’t think we need to junk parts of the neijing at the moment.)
It seems to me that we need a way of speaking that can include what works from both CM and WM. I think the beginnings of this will probably be by building on phenomenology. But other ideas are quite possible.
I wish that I had more time to respond to this right now…but in the short amount that I have:
I don’t agree with a lot of what allopathic medicine is doing. I don’t agree with a lot of what is going on with Chinese medicine right now, and that’s much of the reason why I chose NCNM — because I think they are trying to do a much better job of getting in touch with the soul of the medicine.
That said, I always go back to wondering where all of these “studies” came from. The scientific method was created so that people would have a quantitative way of measuring what was on the outside world. Why did they need that? I am still trying to figure this out, but with what I’ve read so far, people were being lied to by the church, as well as other individuals in their lives. The scientific method, and these ideas of research, were invented to keep us from living in a world of lies. Right? Maybe I’m wrong about this — but right now, that’s what I’m thinking it’s for.
In the world we are living in, that ability to look and measure the outside world has been twisted and bastardized into something that large companies and educational institutions use to acquire funds. Of course those studies don’t make sense — they aren’t honest and true studies of the phenomena. They aren’t taking into account the whole phenomena. Science has become a new religion that doesn’t function on the original set of rules, and it’s just as fucked up as the church that it was fighting in the first place.
So, I guess, to cut this short, that I believe that we have to look both inside (the Eastern method?) and outside (the ‘western’ method) of ourselves for truth. In both of those ways, our intention for doing so will define the outcome of our study, which really makes both ways subjective.
I love this world and medicine of the soul and spirit, but I certainly don’t believe everything that people tell me, and I know that you don’t. Just because a bunch of crazy people have marred research methods, and used grossly unethical practices in doing so, doesn’t mean that the original ideas that defined them should be dropped, does it?
Hi Eric,
I’ve just read I’ve just read The Emergence of a Scientific Culture (Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1210-1685) by Stephen Gaukroger. Available on Amazon. The time period is basically Thomas Aquinas to just before Newton and the Enlightenment.
It is seriously academic - 40page bibliography and about 400 pages (10pt type). It is fairly readable though.
Highly relevant to this topic I think.