sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer) (08/26/85)
> As Bill notes elsewhere in the quoted article (sadly, I edited the ref. out) > the belief in a limitless rationality is also faith. I think its valuable > to look for approaches outside our hi-tech (hyper-tech?) machine-intensive > methodologies. I think it's important to separate out the issues of low-tech/high-tech and the quality of life in medical treatment, a subject which we have not yet explored in detail here, from the issue at hand of the basic efficacy of a therapy. And, in fact, the two issues are completely orthogonal to each other: high-tech need not mean dehumanized-intubated-zombie-on-life-support, so PLEASE let's not obscure the discussion. I would also disagree that anyone is proposing "limitless rationality", unless you feel that the human body and disease processes are somehow outside the laws of physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology. Rather, this is the "ordinary rationality" which everyone uses in interacting with the material world. When you get into your car, you fill it with gas and the car starts. After a while you need to fill up again. Your ordinary experience is completely consistent with the "rationally-derived" laws of physics and thermodynamics. When you read in the Enquirer about a 200 MPG "super carburetor" for only $149.95, you might naturally be suspicious, especially when you are considering, say, a trip across Death Valley. Better not to give it a try. Is this an unfair, rigid, "limitless rationality"? You tell me. You get a sore throat and fever, your doctor prescribes penicillin after receiving the results of a throat culture, you recover quickly. Is this an unfair, rigid, "limitless rationality"? You tell me. > I think we can also recognize that immature fields of study > are more easily criticized (because of low credibility, and because of > errors as well). Absolutely correct, though it supports the OPPOSITE point I think you are trying to make. No one is more ready to recognize the limitations of scientific knowledge about the human body than the practitioners of medicine. Medical practitioners try to make the best use of what they do know when treaing a person. But it is only in fields which are immature and have incomplete knowledge where crackpots and faddists flourish. Most people would laugh-off the carburetor example I mentioned above. There are no more people promoting outlandish "flying machines", because the physics of manned flight are so well understood. Medicine is certainly not at the same level of knowledge and understanding, but there is no reason whatsoever that it should disassociate itself from scientific materialism to embrace the irrational: the progress we have made in the last 125 years is a direct result of the application of scientific knowledge to medical problems. -- /Steve Dyer {harvard,seismo}!bbnccv!bbncc5!sdyer sdyer@bbncc5.ARPA