Providing Data for a world that makes decisions based on beer can labels
Reimagined and Revamped. Fighting the spread of nonsense often feels like a Sisyphean task. However, the joy is in making the information available, not the hope of conversion.
While looking up video debunkings of the same books from extant dodo (please see these, they are pretty well done for a shoestring), I found a Strobel video concerning I book I read. Here it is.
Basically, what happened is that some religious person read Ehrman's book and said something to the effect of: 'Oh my lord! You mean the bible is not the literal and inerrant word of God! People wrote it and modified it! My faith is crushed!' [hyperbole mine]
Lee then gives the standard GodBot review of the book: 'Nothing in here is controversial nor new and therefore your faith should not be affected'. He tried to make the claim that all the old texts are dust. Someone clearly hasn't even bothered to visit the Yale library that even has early syrian and coptic versions..We do in fact have some very old and very good condition manuscripts, that have not gone to dust. We have versions that pre-date 600AD. and we literally have many thousands of copies of various manuscripts. The differences between them had to come from somewhere! Certainly the original ones are dust, but that is the whole point of the book, there is no original bible.
What he totally fails to make any sort of statement on is the original complaint of his audience member. Tons of pastors, priests and parent across the country are literally brainwashing their kids with the idea that the bible is inerrant and literal. By doing this, they can pretend the Bible can be referred to as fact, because of course, God wrote it. So yeah, finding out that God makes spelling errors, doesn't know how to correctly translate his text from one language to the next and adds parts to it, should be pretty discomforting to people brought up this way. And this is an awful large portion of America, that would happily vote scarypeople into office.
Further, Lee totally ignores one of the biggest assertions of the book. He pretends that the big controversy was about the Trinity concept. Why didnt he mention anything about the fact that the "Let he without sin cast the first stone story" (John 8:3-11) didn't appear in any of the earliest and best manuscripts, you know, the ones that were closer chronologically to the initial writings? This is clearly an addition, albeit a fine story,
Lee also writes off that difference in manuscripts as a "few spelling errors". His audience member that wrote the email to him could not possibly have been satisfied by that answer. According to Ehrman and others, there are currently more differences between the various historical manuscripts of the bible than there are words in the bible itself. Um, thats a lot of spelling errors.
Ehrman discusses at length about how changes get into the various bibles, accidentally and intentionally. Intentional changes are a result of racism, misogyny and politics, but Ehrman really takes you back to the time. Prominent clergy had their own versions, versions they thought were best and had them copied and distributed. Politics became important while the religion of Christianity was evolving, the result is a version of the bible that 'won', through the political struggles of man, centuries after Jesus existed.
Strobel also tries to reaffirm the major tenets of the Trinity in his video. Once again completely ignoring the evolution of Christianity or any religion for that matter. Jesus didn't die and then all of a sudden Christianity existed. Nothing in any human culture behaves that way. The concept of one god had to permeate (i.e. the rise of judaism and islam) and then the idea of Jesus as God's son( or as God or whatever) had to permeate. Many of the differences and changes in the initial biblical manuscripts had to do with adaptation of the newer religion into the older pagan ones, or vice versa. Much like how when western medicine was brought to China, the doctors insisted in injecting vaccines and medicines into acupuncture points. A quick read of Erhmans other history of Christianity, Lost Christianities goes through this much better, than this book, or my very brief synopsis.
Instead of saying that the bible may be a good guide (something I don't really see, but whatever), but it is not inerrant and that you can still have your faith and belief in God, he simply ignores all this as if he didn't even read the book (LOL, either of them). Sadly, this is the same tact other critics have taken when evaluating Ehrmans book.
It is a great disservice to the humanity to keep perpetuating obvious falsehoods like this. General belief in God or gods is fine for the most part. Most people are not driven to genocide, rape or theft by it. However when making moral statements, isnt it better to subject it to humanity's interest rather than one of many possible sky daddies?
Someone just sent this to me. This guy is brilliant (presuming he made the software). I happen to like video games. Mostly RPGs and puzzle types, not shooters. But this is pretty damn cool.
I had truly intended to write a real report on my trials with the Medis 24/7. Sadly I have never really found time to do a good job of it. So I will just unload the data, finally, and discuss it a bit.
It is truly important to understand the concepts of Power and Energy, if you are going to understand this post and why the hype from Medis is so inaccurate. I realize that to the layman, power and energy are synonymous. But the reality is that these are two distinct quantities. Further a good understanding of energy density and power density will be important as will why these quantities will define a successful product.
The 'report' is located here. Its by far not the best job I have ever done, but at least its out of my head now. Feel free to use the comments to ask any questions or for clarification on any of this. I didn't just make it a blog post because its pretty long with a lot of pictures, and the blog format really isnt conducive to all the data and depictions.
Skeptico pointed me at this overview of a recent study about mercury causing autism. Many of us have already known that ethyl mercury in thimerisol had nothing to do with autism. There has been no data or proposed mechanism to justify that hypothesis. But this myth keeps getting promoted and is often accepted as true by popular culture.
People wasting their money on chelation, hyperbaric chamber therapy, and other nonsense 'treatments' are just delaying true understanding of the causes and treatments for Autism. Further, they are endangering their child with 'treatments' that have not been shown to have any effect, and worse, have not been vetted for possible side effects (although, I'll admit, sticking your kid in a hyperbaric chamber is probably not that dangerous unless it is operated wrong, think "The Bends" from scuba diving).
I have a one year old daughter. I can fully understand how frustrating and saddening it must be to find out your child is autistic (or has any disorder that lower mental or physical capacity). I understand the intense desire to do anything that might help your child not have to suffer. I am also not sure I would be able to let my reasoning remain stronger than my emotion in my efforts to relieve my child of suffering. But while my rational half is strong, I appeal to you to help put this myth to bed so we can focus our time and money toward finding the real cause.
So, to my ten or so readers, please read the whole article. Its very well written. Then please tell people you know to read it. Help put this stupid myth to rest.
As I have been blogging sporadically over the last two years I have come to really love reading people's thoughts on three main subjects. The first two are rather obvious for me, the first is skeptical thinking on all matters. For this there are a variety of interesting blogs such as Skeptico, infophilia, and moonflake . These blogs, along with many others I have not mentioned (just see the blog rolls at each of these, in particular Skeptico's as he has various critical thinking blogs categorized), are really great for examining a variety of subjects and they are less personal than other blogs I like to read like Berlzebub's.
My blog, while I certainly throw in a lot of personal stuff, is mostly about using actual raw data, rather than other people conclusions to get at a result. This is how I attack the Ancient Chinese Medicine myth, the education levels and political alignment of various states, and the validity of statements from companies that make technical products, like the Medis nonsense.
The New Thing I have also started to participate in another endeavor. While I am quite comfortable in my atheism, and fully endorse all the work done by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchen's and PZ and many others, I am not confident that it is helping to unify our country. I know that they are right, and I do agree that if there was widespread realization of the nonsense of religion and the harm it actually provides our countries, we would be better off. However, in my lifetime, or even in my daughters lifetime, I doubt we will see our various countries growing out of their religions.
So I am offering my thoughts and insights to a new venue. Common Ground contains essays from people with various backgrounds, religious or otherwise. Each week will bring a new topic for essays. These are not blog entries with links and supporting data and so forth, but simply essays from peoples point of view.
I hope you will join me over there. Read posts from everyone, and perhaps even write your own. I think that only by understand where 'the other side' is coming from, and remembering that their entire life experiences have led them there, can we find places where we all can agree. I suspect there are far more places where we can all agree than we think.
Toshiba has a new battery coming out next year. And you can already see all the hyperbole like form their data sheet
"a breakthrough rechargeable battery"
or from Engadget
"How does this sound: a battery capable of recharging to 90% in under 5 minutes while remaining useful (i.e., 5,000+ recharges) for 10 years or more? Sounds like the stuff of jetpacks and food replicators right?" [my bold]
Well lets get the story straight for a second. When a company says "Better" your first question should be "than what?". There is no doubt that this battery technology has some really great properties, however does it solve the problems associated with the normal consumer in terms of battery life? Lets see.
The major benefit that they are touting is the ability to charge quickly. Very quickly. The graph they are showing in the data sheet makes the following comparison: The SCiB battery can charge 6-24 times faster than other Li+ batteries.
There are two major applications that would love to see this benefit, handheld devices and electric cars. The technology, according to their data sheet says it can charge at 50 amps. They do not relate this statistic to the size of the battery, so I think it is suspect, but lets just take it at face value.
For handheld devices you will not be able to get the full benefit of this feature because most homes do not have circuits with 50 amp breakers on it (there are exceptions, but in general, trying to get 50 amps through a normal outlet will make the circuit breaker go). There are other reasons why this is not a good technology for handheld, but we will get to that later. The idea that you may go to an airport and plug in for 5 minutes to charge your laptop, doesn't seem likely.
For electric cars, that have large batteries, this is truly a boon. The possibility of having electric-only service stations are possible. Installing a 50 amp circuit in your garage is completely viable, and you may already be wired that way since many people have big tools like air compressors, saws and so forth in there. But alas, while they have solved one issue, other features of have been made worse. Take a look at the chart to the right. The energy density of the new SCiB is far worse than current Li+ technology for handhelds. So while this may not be so much of an issue for weight and space insensitive applications, like cars, its pretty much a death knell for handheld and portable applications.
Lets examine a hypothetical device that uses this technology as a portable power supply like other ones that are currently available. From teh SCiB data sheet, we see that a single battery has the following specs
2.4V 4.2 Ah 76.6 cubic centimeters 150 grams
This leads to volumetric energy density of 130 Wh/l (without any sort of enclosure) and 67 Wh/Kg. Just to take a reality check, lets compare to a product that we already know is bunk, the Medis 24/7. It has an energy density of 85 Wh/L and 130 Wh/Kg. So the SCiB is still better volumetrically (important for integration into handheld devices) but the Medis power pack, is better in a weight basis.
Of course using normal Li+ beats both by factor 2x. Regardless, other features that help this new technology is the low life cycle degradation, one of the key deficiencies of traditional Li+ batteries.
All in all, this new technology is not a boon to consumer electronics and hand held or computer applications, but looks quite good as a energy source for cars. To the credit of Toshiba, they acknowledge this and make no claims about handhelds:
In addition to applications that include battery-powered bicycles, motorcycles, automated guided vehicles, electric forklift trucks and construction machinery, which already use rechargeable batteries, the SCiB is also a promising candidate for emergency power sources, electric power regeneration in wind power systems and stabilization of electric power supply. Application in hybrid cars is also planned, with the intent of extending application to electric cars in the future, after advancing development of a high-performance SCiB cell.
And I fully agree with this assessment. Apparently its just the media and bloggers that are getting ga ga over it for handhelds.
Posted Wednesday, December 05, 2007 by
Techskeptic
This is the season of giving, as they say. There are a lot of religions who use this time of year for reflection, charity and general goodwill. I dont see why atheists can't also use this time of year to be benevolent. Any time of year is good of course, but personally I find winter solstice to be one of the most uplifting days of the year, so why not?
I've been asked often why there aren't any atheist charities. Of course, as usual, people are just presuming or parroting things they heard. Of course there are atheist charities. And like in my videos post, I am considering charities that do not promote a specific religion to be an atheist charity.
I found most of these at the Internet Infidels discussion board (and copied descriptive text from there, apologies if that was a problem). But I thought a nice list would be better, plus I added a few more. There are useful sites like CharityNavigator to help you sort through all the charities out there. If there are comments proposing ones that I missed (and surely there are plenty), I will add them to this list, if they are highly rated (not that all of these are). So here goes:
UPDATE 2009: I apologize for not refreshing this list. No time this year. Please feel free to leave some more a-theist charities for me to include in future versions in the comments.Please read the comments for more and add your own! I know there are more good secular charities out there that I have missed. I also recommend donating so some of the excellent critical thinking podcasts out there.
Secular Charities and Aid groups:
DonorsChoose.org a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack.
Kiva.org lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world.
American Red Cross The American Red Cross, a humanitarian organization led by volunteers, guided by its Congressional Charter and the Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross Movement, will provide relief to victims of disasters and help people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies. The USA's premier emergency response organization, over 91% of Red Cross spending is on charitable services.
American Civil Liberties Union The mission of the ACLU is to preserve all of constitutional protections and guarantees relating to First Amendment rights, including the freedom to practice religion and the freedom not to have religion rammed down our throats, equal protection, due process, and right to privacy.
United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF mobilizes political will and material resources to help countries, particularly developing countries, ensure a "first call for children" and to build their capacity to form appropriate policies and deliver services for children and their families. UNICEF provides emergency and disaster relief.
Amnesty International AI’s vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. In pursuit of this vision, AI’s mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights.
Oxfam International Oxfam International is a confederation of 12 organizations working together with over 3,000 partners in more than 100 countries to find lasting solutions to poverty, suffering and injustice. The Oxfams operate in over 100 countries worldwide working with local partners to alleviate poverty and injustice.
The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the diversity of life on Earth. An environmental group that protects natural habitats and the wildlife within them. Focuses on "science-based" initiatives.
Population Connection Population Connection is the national grassroots population organization that educates young people and advocates progressive action to stabilize world population at a level that can be sustained by Earth's resources. Works against faith-based policies that are supported by the Religious Right.
DefCon: Campaign to Defend the Constitution DefCon is an online grassroots movement combating the growing power of the religious right. It includes a blog on religious freedom issues, action alerts, and in-depth articles on scientific, religious, and legal issues of the day.
The SEED foundation National nonprofit that establishes urban public boarding schools to prepare students from underserved communities for success in college.
Project Peanut Butter Project Peanut Butter is a therapeutic feeding program for malnourished children in Malawi and Sierra Leone, on the continent of Africa. It was founded by Professor Mark Manary, M.D., a pediatrician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and a professor of pediatric medicine at Washington University School of Medicine.
Electronic Frontiers Foundation When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. Blending the expertise of lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists, EFF achieves significant victories on behalf of consumers and the general public. EFF fights for freedom primarily in the courts, bringing and defending lawsuits even when that means taking on the US government or large corporations.
Mercy corps Mercy Corps exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities.
Seva Our programs serve people who have been economically, politically, or otherwise marginalized. We change our program approach to relate to their culture and circumstances, reaching out in very different ways, for example, to nomads in Tibet, women in Tanzania, or indigenous Mayans in Guatemala. Our aim is to build a bridge of compassion between our donors and the people we serve — people around the world who have the fewest resources.
International Peace Institute The International Peace Institute (IPI) formerly International Peace Academy is an independent, international institution dedicated to promoting the prevention and settlement of armed conflict between and within states through policy research and development.
Issue-Specific Secularist Organizations
Anti-Discrimination The ADSN Project. The Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia's Anti-Discrimination support network (ADSN) is collecting narratives highlighting instances of bigotry against the nontheist community.
Southern Poverty Law Center SPLC is internationally known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacists and its tracking of hate groups.
The Alternatives to Marriage Project The Alternatives to Marriage Project (AtMP) advocates for equality and fairness for unmarried people, including people who are single, choose not to marry, cannot marry, or live together before marriage.
Pro-choice organizations Planned Parenthood Federation of America Provides reproductive health care services, advocates for women's reproductive rights, and offers educational services for women.
NARAL Pro-choice America Focuses mostly on the social and legal activism for women's abortion rights.
Womens Health Organizations EngenderHealth an international nonprofit organization that has been working for 60 years to make reproductive health services safe, available, and sustainable for women and men worldwide.
Ipas an international organization that works around the world to increase women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, and to reduce abortion-related deaths and injuries.
Teen Pregnancy Reduction National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy Sadly this charity is rated with only 2 stars due to low efficiency. However their goal is highly respectable and needed, to prevent teen pregnancy and unplanned pregnancy among single, young adults.
HIV/AIDS Treatment Action Campaign campaign for treatment for people with HIV and to reduce new HIV infections. Our efforts have resulted in many life-saving interventions, including the implementation of country-wide mother-to-child transmission prevention and antiretroviral treatment programes.
Gay rights Lambda A national non-profit gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender (GLBT) agency dedicated to reducing homophobia, inequality, hate crimes, and discrimination by encouraging self-acceptance, cooperation, and non-violence.
Lambda Legal The legal arm of the Lambda organization that protects GLBT civil rights through impact litigation, education and public policy work.
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
Human Rights Campaign Large organization working for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equal rights.
Pledge of Allegiance Restore the Pledge Support Michael Newdow in his quest to remove the phrase "under God" from the official Pledge of Allegiance, coercively recited by millions of schoolchildren every day.
Evolution/Creationism in the science classroom National Center for Science Education Great resource with current news and resources (including the famous "Project Steve" list!) on defending evolution and science against pseudoscience advocates.
Texas Freedom Network The Texas Freedom Network advances a mainstream agenda of religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the religious right
Boy Scouts of America discrimination against atheists, gays Scouting For All Composed of mostly former Boy Scouts, it is working to influence the BSA to include all participating youth members and leaders regardless of religious beliefs or sexual orientation.
Children in Poor countries PlanUSA an organization committed to helping children, their families and communities in 49 developing countries around the world.
Internet tools Wikipedia a multilingual, Web-based, free-contentencyclopedia project. The name "Wikipedia" is a portmanteau (a combination of portions of two words and their meanings) of the words wiki (a type of collaborative Web site) and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information.
Church/state separation and secularist organizations
Americans United for Separation of Church and State A national watchdog organization (with local chapters all around the U.S.---find one near you!) dedicated to preserving religious liberty. It is open to theists and nontheists of all kinds, and is headed by a minister with the United Church of Christ (Rev. Barry Lynn) who can be seen often in the national media and news stories centering on church/state separation issues.
American Civil Liberties Union (click on the "Religious Liberty" link) A favorite target of the Religious Right. The ACLU defends civil liberties on many fronts including church/state separation, personal privacy, and legal protection through due process. Look for a local chapter in your area to join.
People for the American Way Progressive group that supports secular values in government. PFAW is an activist organization and PAC (political action committee) working to battle such groups as the Christian Coalition. Click the "Religious Freedom" link for action alerts and information.
Freedom from Religion Foundation Great organization that defends the rights of nontheists in courtrooms, sponsors a fun-filled annual national convention, and publishes the popular "Freethought Today" (magazine written by and for freethinkers).
Godless Americans Political Action Committee Endorses and supports U.S. political candidates that support secular values in government and the rights of "godless Americans." We will have our "seat at the table" in formulating public policy.
Atheist Alliance Democratic association of various individual atheists and atheist organizations. It is a great all-around resource for all-things atheist.
Interfaith Alliance Alliance of leaders of various religions, worldviews, and beliefs that includes Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, agnostics, atheists, et al. It works to promote religious freedom for everyone regardless of religious beliefs as well as civic participation and civility. Nontheists can find theist allies here.
American Atheists Controversial atheist organization started by the infamous Madalyn Murray O'Hair. Today it fights for the complete separation of church and state, as well as for the rights of atheists in America.
Secular Coalition for America Vast coalition of secular and freethought organizations (including the Internet Infidels!) dedicated to sending lobbyists to Washington, D.C. to gain support for protecting the rights of nontheist Americans.
Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science Explores the causes of religious belief, promotes science in public schools, maintains a list of public lecturers, sells pro-secularist books and other media, and facilitates the giving of humanitarian aid to organizations that are completely secular in nature.
Rationalist Association The Rationalist Association is a focus for rationalist thought and debate in the UK and worldwide. The RA is the UK's leading freethought and rationalist book publisher.
Center For Inquiry The purpose of the Center for Inquiry is to contribute to the public understanding and appreciation of science and reason, and their applications to human conduct.
Council for Secular Humanism Large organization that offers support for secular humanists through activities such as magazine publishing, conducting secular ceremonies (weddings, funerals, etc.), educational courses, and summer camps for kids that teach critical thinking skills and secular ethical values.
American Humanist Association Promotes the spread of humanism and furthering of the humanist philosophy in the U.S. by working with and/or establishing like-minded organizations.
The Continuum of Humanist Education Online courses available for humanists in areas such as law, science, ethics, and secular humanist philosophy.
The Institute for Humanist Studies (IHS) A think-tank that offers news, opinions, information, and humor relating to humanism. It works to spread public awareness and acceptance of humanist principles.
British Humanist Association The largest provider of humanist ceremonies in England and Wales. Offers services for weddings, funerals, and baby-namings as well as general resources on humanism and support for humanist organizations.
Positive Atheism Comprehensive resource for positive atheists to learn about atheism, history, philosophy, religious freedom, and responsibility.
Unitarian Universalist Assocation A popular "church" for atheists, agnostics, deists, very liberal Christians, etc. Check your local yellow pages for one in your community or use this website's handy Congregation locator.
The Brights A movement endorsed by several prominent nontheists to adopt a new term ("Brights") with an accompanying philosophy to describe secularists, freethinkers, atheists, naturalists, etc. with the intent of putting forth a positive, and less-stigmatized, perception of ourselves. Many nontheists have encouraged its use, while many others reject it.
The Objectivist Center A controversial philosophy founded by Ayn Rand that embodies particular principles on various philosophical, political, economic, and religious issues. Objectivists generally are atheists, but atheists are generally not Objectivists.
Skeptic Society Learn how to live life free of nonsensical beliefs, and develop your own scientific and critical thinking skills. Also publishes a popular monthly magazine, SKEPTIC, which can be found in major bookstores.
American Ethical Union (AEU) The American Ethical Union (AEU) describes "Ethical Culture" as a humanistic religious and educational movement inspired by the ideal that the supreme aim of human life is working to create a more humane society.
International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) IHEU is the sole world umbrella organization for humanist, atheist, rationalist, secularist, skeptic, laique, ethical cultural, freethought and similar organizations world-wide.
Internet Infidels A nonprofit educational organization dedicated to defending and promoting a naturalistic worldview on the Internet. They offer thousands of outstanding essays, reviews, and critiques, covering everything from articles of general interest to scholarly papers by prominent nontheistic philosophers, scientists, historians, and others. Unlike most of our opponents, we even publish responses to our own pieces to encourage readers to make up their own minds. In addition to such encyclopedic resources, other features of the site are outlined in the Secular Web pamphlet, which readers may download, print out, and distribute, as desired.
"They've been doing this in China for thousands of years" "My healer is trained in Ancient Medicine" "This have been practiced by millions of people for thousands of years"
This is the exact sort of thing you hear with respect to CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine), astrology, homeopathy and so forth. Yes, its an appeal to ancient ways. But when discussing health its so much more than some fallacious arguement, its bad for the health of a society as a whole, never mind being bad for the individual. Let me explain.
It is true that Dawkins addressed this a little bit in his "Enemies of Reason" series. but I wanted to address on little bit of evidence that I dont think he made quite clear and didn't emphasise enough.
Both China and India are credited with the development of most of CAM. Acupuncture, Ayurvedic Healing, and a number of other "ancient medicines". Panda Bear M.D. has already posted some great infoabout homeopathy. Some folks have also include shamanistic indian rituals, drug use, and a number of other practices.
None of this is new or original. I really have nothing to add to the specifics of each piece of CAM, just something more general. My question when I hear a statement like those I started out this post with is:
Why would you do something that has already been shown to only allow you to live 1/2 as long?
By 1940 we had worked out the use of pennicillin, which lead to a variety of other, more broad spectrum antibiotics. 1950's we were learning to make and use pacemakers. In the '60s we were learning to transplant hearts and spinning up our abilities to fight viruses. In the 70s we started learning IVF and other fertilization techniques. I dont think I can even summarize our progress in the last 3 decades in imagining, genetics, artificial organs , etc.
An interesting overview of the introduction of western medicine into china is presented here. There we find strong resistance to the influx of western medicine in spite of various places where the western medicine was recognized as superior. Even the smallpox vaccine was still making rounds in the twentieth century.
in 1881 the very first school was made to teach western style medicine. It was quickly run down during the Boxer Rebellion, so once again western medicine was prevented from becoming pervasive in China. Even western sanitation (which goes hand in hand with medicine) was looked down upon.
Around the turn of the century there were a group of Chinese who did acknowledge that China was crumbling and needed modernization badly.
Only around 1920 did China start to require medical licenses, however both traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine were still practiced, with traditional medicine still being favored. enforcement was severely lacking.
It was not until near 1940 did western medicine start to truly penetrate Chinese society, with the obvious benefits seen in the graph.
Folks, science is supposed to change what we know. When it changes it is becoming more accurate, more informative, and a better predictor. It does this by testing hypotheses, keeping the good ones and throwing away the bad ones. Ayurvedic medicine, acupuncture, and other 'medical' treatments that have not changed in 2000 years should be viewed with intense skepticism. Anything claiming to be a science that has not changed in decades, much less centuries or millenia is bad, and not something to admire.
Wired has a great article on a bunch of nonsense products you can waste you money on. I applaud their efforts and showing this nonsense to the world, I could only dream of having the exposure the author of that article has though Wired. I am a little disappointed the Purple Tesla energy Shield didn't make the list, although the Q-Ray was first.... good enough.
My favorite part is the comments. These folks focus on the calling out of water dowsing. They insist that it works, or that they saw it working, etc etc.
Folks..... there is always water. If the dowser 'found' water in one place, you can bet its all around the area also. Its all a matter of how near the surface the water is, something the dowser will never tell you. The confirmation bias is so strong on this its unbelievable. No homeowner is going to dig another hole after they already found water! No matter where the dowser tells you, he is going to be right. That is why we study this sort of thing, and of course, every time, water dowsers do no better than chance.
