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From: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Newsgroups: net.med,net.cooks,net.consumers
Subject: Re: Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer Prevention (pointer)
Message-ID: <360@rti-sel.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 10:27:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: rti-sel.360
Posted: Tue Aug 20 10:27:52 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Aug-85 09:49:04 EDT
References: <1848@aecom.UUCP> <1093@cbdkc1.UUCP> <174@unc.unc.UUCP>
Reply-To: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
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Organization: Research Triangle Institute, NC
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Xref: pepe net.med:1022 net.cooks:1668 net.consumers:1425
Summary: 

In article <174@unc.unc.UUCP> oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver) writes:

>>they solved cancer they would lose their funding.Even with this asside if they
>>found out that the natural way worked would they admit it?  ...
>
>I have done my best to stay out of these discussions about
>"natural" medicine, since they reduce so quickly to statements
>of faith and magic by those who decry conventional medicine. ...

In all this discussion of 'natural' medicine I haven't seen anyone
bring up what seems to me to be a key issue: what exactly does the
word 'natural' signify when a practitioner of 'natural' medicine
accuses the conventional practitioner of hypocrisy or worse? The use
of the phrase 'natural medicine' implies that practices that do not
adhere to a certain naturalistic philosophy are in some sense suspect.
Thus we have 'natural nutrition' opposed to 'artificial nutrition,' so
that a vitamin cooked up in a laboratory is missing some vital essence
that's present in an otherwise identical vitamin that occurs
naturally. Go to your local health food store: you'll see 'natural'
sources of minerals like calcium available.

The suggestion is that calcium from a source like bone meal or
dolomite will contribute to health more efficiently or effectively
than the identical mineral that has somehow suffered human
intervention and thus been 'contaminated.' Or perhaps certain things
have been removed by processing; we know that brown rice has more
nutrients than polished rice, so perhaps naturally occurring calcium
has associated with it some trace compounds that processing removes
and that science doesn't know about yet.

It seems to me that both viewpoints are based on the notion of a Fall
from Grace: that humanity in turning to technology for solutions to
its problems has turned its back on the Garden in a kind of
self-imposed exile. The 'natural' ideologues ask us to reject the
false knowledge we've acquired the past few hundred years, admit our
ignorance, and return to an idealized 'natural' state that involves
the rejection of technological solutions and the development of Faith
in either an evolved world whose complexity and subtlety will forever
remain beyond us or a God who has ordered a world in our own best
interests. In either case there's a sense that the cardinal sin of
Pride is behind our technological advances, and that the fall occurred
when the first hominid shaped the first bone club on the African
plains (or in the Garden, depending on the religious basis of one's
Faith in 'natural' medicine). Note for example how often these people
jump on any evidence that ordinary medicine has made factual or
judgement errors, evidence that Science can't after all be trusted so
we must place our Faith in something else.

Science sees the world as a text whose meaning yields to
experimentation and rational examination. Salvation (or a cure)
results from a scientific approach to problems. The 'natural' ideologue
seems to see the world as a text whose meaning is forever beyond
rational explication, and the act of rational examination as a
betrayal of our roots as 'natural' beings. Salvation (or a cure)
results from an acceptance of our limitations, of our 'sin' in relying
too much on a technology that is in some sense outside nature, and
of the wisdom of placing Faith in a path to enlightenment laid out by
certain enlightened practitioners who are more attuned than most to
the deep mysterious rhythms that run the world. Faith in 'natural'
medicine is ultimately a form of religious belief, in my opinion.
Since it's based on Faith, argument with its most dedicated
practitioners is probably futile.

                            -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly