Traditional Chinese Medicine

[Kenny同志]

Let the thread rest here. There's no point further canvassing this.

[rezaf]

Or maybe we can continue talking about some useful stuff in tcm. I am ready to talk about TCM and to learn from those who know more than me but it was necessary to show some western minds that it is arrogance that prevents them from knowing about TCM not science.

[jbradfor]

but it was necessary to show some western minds that it is arrogance that prevents them from knowing about TCM not science.

And in that, you have failed. All you have shown me is that you do not understand Western science, which is why I dropped out of this "debate".

[rezaf]

And all that some of you guys have shown me is that you don't know anything about TCM and you haven't spent time reading and doing research on TCM. Therefore in this case your idea of science is just an illusion of science(in other words arrogance) and you don't even know what you are disagreeing with. In the discussion none of you provided any academic evidence that TCM is fully disfunctional and I think my link about SARS and TCM was the most academically valid link in this discussion. Jbradfor maybe you should first prove me how you can disagree with an idea scientifically without haveing any information about what it is.

[jbradfor]

none of you provided any academic evidence that TCM is fully disfunctional

First of all, I've never said TCM is fully dysfunctional.

More importantly, that is not how Western Science works. You can not propose something new (to western science) such as "There is a scientific basis to 精气", and then says it is now to be accepted as true until someone proves you wrong. That is not how western science works. If you want to add something to what is considered true (by western science), the burden is on you to provide (1) an observation you have made and can be made by others that is not currently well explained, (2) a theory that explains this observation, and (3) evidence that your theory is true. The fact that you do not understand this, that you expect us to disprove it rather than understanding that the burden is on you to prove it, again shows that you do not understand western science.

[And, just in case this isn't clear, I am NOT attacking TCM at all. Rather, I am attacking rezaf's assertion that 精气 should currently be accepted by western science as having a scientific basic.]

[rezaf]

I need more specific discription of what you say is wrong about what I said. I prefer that you write what you know of my description of the existance of jingqi and then write your errors specifically for the parts that you think that I am wrong, so that we can discuss it further. For example:

Rezaf said ....

He is wrong because....

[jbradfor]

I have tested it with a few people who were also trained. We did some kind of stuff with the energy in my body and after that we all wrote the same description of what we could see of jingqi before and after the treatment. It wasn't a treatment that we had learned in our books and we had no idea about what was gonna happen. Then we tried it more and we got the same results.

That is, IMHO, by far the most interesting thing you've written. It does provide a glimmer of evidence to what you are saying.

It also, unfortunately, very very very far from the amount of evidence you will need to make this major a change in Western Science and convince people that there is a physical basis behind 精气. It is too subjective and can not be reproduced by others. It is too subjective, as one could dismiss your evidence by saying you are lying; and not only is it difficult for others to reproduce, it is now impossible for you yourself to reproduce it as it relies on not having it done it before. But it is an interesting start, and if this is what you want to do, go for it. It won't be easy!

It's not a ncessary part but with jingqi you can have a good prespective on things that might happen in pathogenesis of a disease.

It is a necessary part if you want to convince people.

This is not correct. If you don't understand something you won't be able to see it or detect it. Let someone with no information use that telescope. The only thing that he will see is stars not any kind of theory. Or another example: I write something in farsi and I give it to you assuming that you have no experience with that kind of language the only thing that you will see is what you have been trained for which is some lines but you won't see the words.

HUH? We must live in different universes. In the universe that I live in, we all detect the effect of gravity without understanding it. I really wonder what things are like in your universe. Do babies, who obviously can not understand gravity and therefore can not detect it, float up in the air? Do you tether them? As they understand gravity, is it a gradual thing, so they slowly float down to earth, or is it sudden, in which suddenly understand gravity and then fall to earth quickly? How about cows? I assume they can not understand gravity either, so they float their entire lives?

More seriously, your analogy with Farsi is very flawed. Gravity, Special Relativity, and your argument for 精气 all reflects the natural world. That is, in applying western scientific methodology to the natural world, we observe phenomenon in the natural world, and via certain methods we "explain" it. Farsi is a language, a human creation, it (and all other languages) are not products of the natural world. The fact that you would use a language for an analogy in a discussion about natural science shows, again, that you do not understand what Western Science is and what it covers and what it does not cover.

[roddy]

Turns out it's not actually qi, it's adenosine. Not for mice-lovers.

[gato]

There is a segment in the 1972 documentary “Chung Kuo" about Mao-era China where a Cesarean section birth is performed in a hospital with only acupuncture being used as a pain killer.

You can watch the video here on Tudou. It's at 12 minutes into the clip.

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/BfaTvWHKyM0/

中国 Chung Kuo-China 1972 A

[anonymoose]

There is a segment in the 1972 documentary “Chung Kuo" about Mao-era China where a Cesarean section birth is performed in a hospital with only acupuncture being used as a pain killer.

That's amazing if it's real.

[roddy]

Worth noting those needles are hooked up to an electrical supply. Electroacupuncture is a bit of a different beast, and there's not much mystery about how electricity might affect nerves.

[outcast]

That's amazing if it's real.

It's not. I recall listening to a podcast from a Yale neuroscientist who atually did go to China to invest this kind of claim. Turns out during the procedure all the chinese patient could say was "疼疼“, at which point the chinese "doctor" told him to shut up. Typically when they do this they spike the IV with morphine. So, totally bogus. Beware the claims of psuedoscience.

EDIT: Fact is if anyone is interesting in seeing the reality of it, I suggest you read this, written by that neuroscientist I mentioned earlier. It's a good summary why acupuncture isn't what it is cracked up to be as all as various deception methods its practictioners use to trick people.

[rezaf]

I really don't know what to say to people who don't have enough information about a vast knowledge like TCM and want to rationalise it with some petty information they find on the web after searching for a few minutes. As my last comment in this discussion I want to repeat that 元气 can be seen and felt with training. If you are interested you can learn it, if not just continue denying it but you are losing a very interesting knowledge.