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Path: utzoo!watmath!wateng!djhawley
From: djhawley@wateng.UUCP (David J. Hawley)
Newsgroups: net.med,net.cooks,net.consumers
Subject: Re: Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer Prevention (pointer)
Message-ID: <2767@wateng.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Aug-85 09:39:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: wateng.2767
Posted: Fri Aug 23 09:39:07 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 18:16:03 EDT
References: <1848@aecom.UUCP> <1093@cbdkc1.UUCP> <174@unc.unc.UUCP> <360@rti-sel.UUCP>
Reply-To: djhawley@wateng.UUCP (David J. Hawley)
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 29
Xref: watmath net.med:2164 net.cooks:4670 net.consumers:2840
Summary: 

In article <360@rti-sel.UUCP> wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) writes:
>In article <174@unc.unc.UUCP> oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver) writes:
>
>>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. ...

>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.

>Since it's based on Faith, argument with its most dedicated
>practitioners is probably futile.

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 we can also recognize that immature fields of study
are more easily criticized (because of low credibility, and because of
errors as well).
-- 
These opinions are the best I could come up with on short notice.
I would like to thank my parents, my friends, the authors of books I've read,
and life itself for helping me form these opinions. However none of the
afore-mentioned necessarily agree with what I have said here.
{allegra,clyde,decvax,ihnp4,linus}!watmath!wateng!djhawley