I haven’t watched South Park in years, but they sure hammered John Edward hard back when people still gave a fuck about John Edward.
Is Uri Geller now doing his act in drag? The UK needs to bring back the witchcraft laws to give these frauds the punishment they so richly deserve.
“We got a business model, see? So dis is not a threat. It’s just business, see?”
she should have seen this coming…
I wonder how it would “go over” to hand out leaflets at a hospital asking for definitive scientific proof that a substance that is patentable is automatically more efficacious than a substance that is not. Or maybe question whether the effectiveness somehow expires when the patent does.
I don’t have the budget for any such test but it makes me skeptical of the modern culture of medicine and I would like others to be as well.
Of course it should be right to question these things as they have been scientifically determined and there should no vested interest but the search for truth.
I have to admit, I’m missing your point entirely.
I think it would cause a lot of confusion. I don’t think anyone asserts that. I do think people assert that substances that have regulatory approval for medical treatment of specific conditions have been thoroughly tested for efficacy for that purpose, and I think that kind of rigour makes any comparison with a psychic laughably idiotic.
There’s no such thing. You might as well ask for a 130 story tall invisible pink unicorn, because it’s necessary to have one in order to drive your car.
Proof only has meaning in liquor and math.
What you want is a lot of scientific evidence, and scientific theories. Which can be supplied to you, often for free, sometimes for a fee, by the medical societies and associations concerned with the particular diseases and treatments you’re interested in.
All this talk of “proof” as if it exists as a goal in science has gotten me surly. I’m going to go drink a scotch and soda, while working out some calculus.
But not necessarily any more thoroughly tested that others which do not have regulatory approval. For example, cyproterone acetate has been tested and approved and used for decades outside the United States, but remains unapproved in the United States, which non-approval is fucking dangerous for people who need antiandrogens and can’t use spironolactone.
I will substitute proof for evidence when not speaking of alcohol and math in the future. I have no experience with psychics since I’ve never been offered a freebie. Sometimes the tone of these stories and spirit of the comments that follow put me in a bad mood. I apologize for my post.
Which should never come together.
Don’t drink and derive.
Medical quackery is a hotspot for me as well, so I’ll freely admit that I may have been inappropriately curt in replying to you.
One of the many reasons why I am very sensitive to medical quackery is because of the DSHEA here in the US, which literally gives a free pass for anyone to sell practically anything as if it were medicine as long as you carefully use structure-function claims, and are sure to Mirandize yourself in 2-point font stating that the FDA doesn’t even know that your miracle cure-all even exists.
Because of the DSHEA, homeopathic medicine gets a free pass to be sold as if it’s something other than expensive placebo, and my brother was actually injured using Zicam. Zicam was ostensibly homeopathic, so at the time, I didn’t worry that my brother was taking it for a cold. But it turned out that Zicam actually had medicine in it, and burned out his olfactory epithelium. He’s anosmic now, possibly permanently, because a bunch of charlatans managed to convince congress that it’s okay to sell poorly studied or even completely untested garbage on the same shelves, and with nearly the same claims of efficacy as real medicine that’s been tested and shown to work from decades to centuries via the scientific method and rigorous clinical trials, rather than the marketing smell test most of the dietary supplement and homeopathic remedy industries use.
Well, I think its a shame if you’ve ended up in a bad mood, but its very hard to determine the intended context of your post. Given this thread is about psychics, it kind of comes across as if you are trying to compare the demand for psychics to defend their claims with a demand for medicine to defend its claims.
If that’s not what you mean, maybe try and clarify your comments a little. I promise to be nice!
I’m not trying to suggest that the western model of therapeutic drug regulation is anything like perfect, just that it can’t sensibly be compared to a psychic stage show.
I went to a Stephen Hawking lecture at the Albert Hall years ago, and there was some guy handing out religious anti-science leaflets outside. I don’t think Prof Hawking threatened to sue him.
My bad. I see I have a tendency to stretch things pretty far. I’ll give it a shot.
I think the psychics and their followers have a right to it. I think that would summarize what I mean and strip the baggage.
I’m not offended at all by any of the replies in all their spirit. It helps me understand quite a bit about why things are the way they are in a way that puts a face on it.
As to my off topic baggage… I’m just a rare case where I’ve been in an out of doctors’ offices since I was young with little more offered than a shrug. I finally through the internet went into the land of woo and I found relief.
I think some woo is b.s. and some is quite good. I won’t make recommendations for others but I know what has helped me. I can’t imagine the woo world being systemised, I realize as I type.
I value the technology and access to information of all sorts and the freedom to do what I please which brings me to boingboing. I tend to fear a consensus against woo of all kinds because I value a choice.
I hope I clarified somewhat.
I think there is an interesting discussion to be had about the barriers for entry that exist for plausible natural medicines, that make regulatory approval for them almost impossible because there is nothing to patent and little money to be made. However I don’t think that negates the value of regulatory approval.
I’m not sure this is the thread for that discussion though!
The threat of violence is pretty much an admission you’ve lost the debate. If Madame Psychic was regularly performing miracles, the demand for her show would overwhelm a bunch of fliers.
See also: Zucotti Park.
If they kill you, they’ve got a useful known variable for a future appearance though.
