But here's the thing - speaking from my own personal experience (making these comments totally anecdotal and irrelevant), I don't find my results of traditional and alternative treatments tend to have all that much to do with what is found by scientific studies of said treatments. OTC pain pills may work great, and acupuncture may be absolute twaddle. That said, when my back hurts, visiting an acupunturist helps me and popping a few Advil doesn't. Does that say anything more than that I'm either gullible or inclined towards all things Asian? Maybe not. But the fact is that acupuncture helps me and Advil doesn't.
What I'm getting at is, however useful studies and papers might be, the ultimate test is really our own personal experience. And, if you're not dealing with something life threatening (and you have the financial means), I don't see why you wouldn't give the old alternative approach a try. If, in the end, you feel better that way, does it really matter if it's 'proven' to be bunk?
Doctors being overworked, whether good doctors or bad, is an important detail. I know that when I go see a 'traditional' doctor,I'm lucky to get 5 minutes of their time. Contrast that with a visit to an acupuncturist, where I get at least 30 minutes of interaction and dialogue per visit. Your average 'traditional' physician might do well to, you know, slow down and spend some more time talking to their patients. Fat chance of that happening anytime soon though.
Properly speaking, Heinlein's Razor is a more specific statement of Ockham's razor - all things being equal, stupidity is often a simpler explanation than malice.
I'm not an astro-physicist, or even a scientist, but I vaguely recall reading somewhere (perhaps even on Slashdot) that, if one imagined that electrons were singularities, it actually fit the observed behavior not all that badly. Which I suppose would tend to collapse proof of electrons and proof of black holes into one another. If you bought into the notion, that is.
One possibility is that, shortly before the alarm goes off, the clock emits a subtley different sound (I had an old analog alarm that would do exactly this - a sort of pre-alarm echo) just barely audible. You've slept to the point of being woken by the alarm often enough that you sub-conscious recognizes the sound, and jerks you awake to avoid the annoyance of the alarm proper.
Exactly. Societal mores - as in 'Don't be a dick.' - can be effective without being codified into law. Of course, not being codified, they could not then be subject to regulation, which is a whole new set of problems. But, in this case at least, it seems like the community has done a better job at achieving 'justice' than the misguided attempts of the prosecution.
Oddly enough, I'd rather accept the infintesimally small chance of a few thousand civilian deaths than incur massive encroachments upon my civil liberties. I don't especially think I'm more important than the rest of the world, just that my civil liberties are.
To use a poor analogy, it would be like you putting up with the, presumably, small risk that your wife will shoot you in the face in order to exercise your 2nd Amendment right to stash handguns all over your house.
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But here's the thing - speaking from my own personal experience (making these comments totally anecdotal and irrelevant), I don't find my results of traditional and alternative treatments tend to have all that much to do with what is found by scientific studies of said treatments. OTC pain pills may work great, and acupuncture may be absolute twaddle. That said, when my back hurts, visiting an acupunturist helps me and popping a few Advil doesn't. Does that say anything more than that I'm either gullible or inclined towards all things Asian? Maybe not. But the fact is that acupuncture helps me and Advil doesn't.
What I'm getting at is, however useful studies and papers might be, the ultimate test is really our own personal experience. And, if you're not dealing with something life threatening (and you have the financial means), I don't see why you wouldn't give the old alternative approach a try. If, in the end, you feel better that way, does it really matter if it's 'proven' to be bunk?
Doctors being overworked, whether good doctors or bad, is an important detail. I know that when I go see a 'traditional' doctor,I'm lucky to get 5 minutes of their time. Contrast that with a visit to an acupuncturist, where I get at least 30 minutes of interaction and dialogue per visit. Your average 'traditional' physician might do well to, you know, slow down and spend some more time talking to their patients. Fat chance of that happening anytime soon though.
Properly speaking, Heinlein's Razor is a more specific statement of Ockham's razor - all things being equal, stupidity is often a simpler explanation than malice.
I'm not an astro-physicist, or even a scientist, but I vaguely recall reading somewhere (perhaps even on Slashdot) that, if one imagined that electrons were singularities, it actually fit the observed behavior not all that badly. Which I suppose would tend to collapse proof of electrons and proof of black holes into one another. If you bought into the notion, that is.
One possibility is that, shortly before the alarm goes off, the clock emits a subtley different sound (I had an old analog alarm that would do exactly this - a sort of pre-alarm echo) just barely audible. You've slept to the point of being woken by the alarm often enough that you sub-conscious recognizes the sound, and jerks you awake to avoid the annoyance of the alarm proper.
Exactly. Societal mores - as in 'Don't be a dick.' - can be effective without being codified into law. Of course, not being codified, they could not then be subject to regulation, which is a whole new set of problems. But, in this case at least, it seems like the community has done a better job at achieving 'justice' than the misguided attempts of the prosecution.
Oddly enough, I'd rather accept the infintesimally small chance of a few thousand civilian deaths than incur massive encroachments upon my civil liberties. I don't especially think I'm more important than the rest of the world, just that my civil liberties are. To use a poor analogy, it would be like you putting up with the, presumably, small risk that your wife will shoot you in the face in order to exercise your 2nd Amendment right to stash handguns all over your house.