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From: geb@cadre.ARPA (Gordon E. Banks)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: RABIES IS A PSYCHOSOMATIC DISEASE !
Message-ID: <495@cadre.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 20:12:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: cadre.495
Posted: Tue Aug 20 20:12:53 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 22-Aug-85 08:38:57 EDT
References: <2062@ukma.UUCP>
Reply-To: geb@cadre.ARPA (Gordon E. Banks)
Distribution: na
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., University of Pittsburgh
Lines: 63

In article <2062@ukma.UUCP> wws@ukma.UUCP (Bill Stoll) writes:
>
>I am really enjoying the few frightened people on the net who are so
>"enjoying the entertainment" as they so blithly describe the
>offerings of the "health and vitamin freaks" (I'M PROUD TO HAVE
>GRADUATED TO THAT CATAGORY).

How presumptious of you!  Anyone who dares to argue with you
must just be quaking in their boots with fear.

>  Since the positions are so far apart,
>and so clearly defined, somebody is going to look pretty foolish
>pretty soon.

Actually, someone is looking pretty foolish already!

>  Since I have considerable experience and training in
>both approaches, I have no qualms whatever about MY position.  


You keep mentioning this, and signing your name with professional
titles.  Are we supposed to accept whatever you say on the
authority that you have graduated medical school and are a board
certified Family Practitioner, despite the fact that instead of
citing published scientific evidence for your claims, all you seem
to come up with are anecdotes?  I know plenty of doctors who are
crazy as loons, and even some nobel laureates, so I for one am
not impressed with your credentials.  As for being a "holistic
practitioner", I will just say that I don't consider that partaking
in a delusion makes one an reliable guidepost for others.  


>When
>anyone (even the most obtuse eventually see--if they keep looking)
>begins to see the light I will welcome that person to join the rest of
>us who know how much more we have to learn.  Perhaps, together, we can
>learn more, and faster, than we can alone.
>
>
>To quote the famous Indian Philosopher NAROPA:
>
>                   "NEVER SAY THIS THING:
>
>                    If I do not know a thing, it is not so."
>

But what this is talking about is having a closed mind.
Science is agnostic by nature.  This doesn't mean that
science rejects all unproved arguments as untrue, simply as unproved.
It is YOU who claim to be "gnostic" in the sense that you
know something that the world does not.  We do not say that
your claims are absolutely false, but that you have not presented
sufficient evidence to establish them.  We remain in a state of
disbelief.  That is not the same as saying that what you are proposing
is false.  (Of course the scientific evidence IS strongly against many of the
things you teach.)  YOU are the ones with closed minds.  YOU are the
ones that start with theories and then sift all evidence, picking
and choosing those items that seem to support your claims and throwing
out the rest.  (Try to tell me you don't read the papers and magazines just
looking for cases to grind your own little axe on!)

		"Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good." 
					-Paul the apostle