What hope for evidence-driven Medicine and Science...

[imatfaal]

Just read this truly depressing article about yet another law-maker on influential committees (Healthcare, and Science & Technology) who is a firm advocate of the use of Astrology within Healthcare.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28464009

 

It's not news - a bit of digging reveals that the cognoscenti have known of this loon for years but he has just come to my knowledge via the above article.

 

http://www.dcscience.net/?p=6007

[Phi for All]

Critical thinking skills need to be taught much earlier. There will be parents who resist this because their kids will no longer listen to them when they don't use reason. The parents will need to be hogtied until their kids are too big to spank.

[MonDie]

Many astrologists deny that their beliefs can be tested, but this is nonsense. Anything that produces results can be tested. Patient outcomes are results. Until they show some results, the practice has no place in medicine.

 

edited

Train some doctors in medical astrology, but separate them into three groups: more training, less training, and incorrect training. Give them patients with mild conditions, and compare how they perform.

And don't forget a follow-up that asks the doctors whether they're convinced it works!

Edited July 25, 2014 by MonDie

[Acme]

The only thing not depressing here is to see America doesn't have a monopoly on folks round the twist.

[Phi for All]

The only thing not depressing here is to see America doesn't have a monopoly on folks round the twist.

 

I have to admit, I assumed the thread was about the States until I saw imatfaal was the OP and the links were to the Beeb.

[MonDie]

The only thing not depressing here is to see America doesn't have a monopoly on folks round the twist.

 

I was surprised that he was a conservative MP!

[Acme]

I was surprised that he was a conservative MP!

I presume you're joking. If British conservative is the same as American conservative, that's the group I would expect to embrace & promote astrology. In looking for a bit to post on Pres. Ronald Reagan and his wife using astrology in the White House (as well as Reagan legalizing it as a business when Governor of Cali.), I found instead a... erhm... well I'm not going to share what I found. Now I'm really depressed.

[MonDie]

I wasn't joking. Very many astrologists also endorse other New Age ideas: religious universalism, Eastern religion, meditation, reincarnation, vibrations. Basically peaceful, multiculturalist hippies.

Edited July 26, 2014 by MonDie

[Acme]

I wasn't joking. Very many astrologists also endorse other New Age ideas: religious universalism, Eastern religion, meditation, reincarnation, vibrations. Basically peaceful, multiculturalist hippies.

Mmmmmm... I guess screwballery knows no bounds. The hope for evidence-driven medicine and science takes a subfusc tone.

[EdEarl]

I have struggled for a lifetime with people who do not understand cause and effect. Sometimes it seems to be specific to a particular subject area, for example geometry. My wife, a special education teacher, has learned that people do have specific areas of missing intelligence, for example dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyspepsia. I suspect these and many other dysfunctional areas of intelligence affect rational thought, and that that a portion of the population cannot be rational in every way.

 

I also believe that education that teaches rational thought can help some children, I am concerned that some children will miss that opportunity because their parents have a dysfunction, and that schools will not be able to overcome parental influences even when the child is not inherently dysfunctional.

[John Cuthber]

We currently have a health minister and a science minister who believe in homoeopathy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hunt_(politician)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Clark

[MonDie]

Critical thinking skills need to be taught much earlier. There will be parents who resist this because their kids will no longer listen to them when they don't use reason. The parents will need to be hogtied until their kids are too big to spank.

 

I think even my generation is quick to dismiss scientific results by claiming that a hypothesis can't be tested. My highschool probability theory was brief and superficial, foregoing concepts like frequentism, confidence intervals, type 1 and type 2 errors, meta-analysis, ect., and I took AP psychology!

[imatfaal]

The only thing not depressing here is to see America doesn't have a monopoly on folks round the twist.

 

 

I have to admit, I assumed the thread was about the States until I saw imatfaal was the OP and the links were to the Beeb.

 

The language used was deliberately confusing - I wanted to give the impression that it was USA. I do/did see this as an American problem that is slowly being assimilated into UK culture as are most American ideas; but then I realised that is/was blatant bigotry and a joke pointing this out was probably against rule 1.3

We currently have a health minister and a science minister who believe in homoeopathy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hunt_(politician)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Clark

And they are both complete Jeremys in the new BBC approved rhyming slang.

 

I think Evan Harris was the last MP who could actually be trusted to understand, espouse, and fight for a scientific rational agenda in the STEM area - and he went in 2010.

[Phi for All]

 

I think even my generation is quick to dismiss scientific results by claiming that a hypothesis can't be tested.

 

So a hypothesis can't be tested, and a theory is just a theory. * sigh *

 

Many people want proof and assume that's what science is, then they find out it's not and their whole belief system gets a kick in the crotch. They realize the answers they seek lie at the top of a mountain of evidence they feel they don't have the time or the intelligence to climb. At that point, some start the climb, learn what they don't know, and fix their mistakes. Some people just sour to the whole system and start cherry-picking "facts" to rant about. And some people turn to easy "answers" that sound really great as long as you sorta don't listen to that middle bit.

 

New Age medicine isn't progressive, it's just like astrology, it's charlatanism. It wants you to ignore the fact that there is no mechanism that will pull toxins from the soles of your feet if you put them in a bath with low-voltage electrodes. It wants you to assign some kind of spirituality to your health that can't be monitored or quantified. The minute you give the charlatans an emotional, irrational opening into the way your mind works, they have the wiggle-room necessary to make you think their explanations for various phenomena sound plausible.

 

 

 

If this truly is a virus the UK caught from the US, there will be some kind of tie to mega-corporations. Astrology to help make irrational decisions feel smart, homeopathy to shake confidence in socialized medicine, and I'll bet US$1 you've got some conservatives preaching either law & order or national defense to drum up some arms business. Our conservatives use religion mostly for that, but I don't know how well that would play in the UK.

[imatfaal]

If this truly is a virus the UK caught from the US, there will be some kind of tie to mega-corporations. Astrology to help make irrational decisions feel smart, homeopathy to shake confidence in socialized medicine, and I'll bet US$1 you've got some conservatives preaching either law & order or national defense to drum up some arms business. Our conservatives use religion mostly for that, but I don't know how well that would play in the UK.

 

On the arms business I think that was an English invention that even Independence didn't manage to rid you of.

 

I am beginning to think that the amount of religion in a country is fixed - ie you either have a lot of people who are mildly religious in a "it's a good thing to do on sunday morning" sort of way or you have a small hard core of fanatics who make up in fervour what they lack in numbers. The UK has the Church of England which is as close to atheism as Xty can get - it acts as a good buffer against the more loony-tunes versions of Xty; however the power of the CofE is slipping so perhaps we will start to see the growth of the fringe elements. I think we would still elect an atheist in the UK - whereas I am pretty sure that could not happen in the USA; when that situation changes in the UK I will have to start researching new places to live - Holland or Scandewegia I think.