Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: (Tears) Fads and Fallacies by Martin Gardner
Date: Fri, 17 May 2024 11:17:25 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 37
Message-ID: <v27ark$24pgv$4@dont-email.me>
References: <v0lhko$sat$1@panix2.panix.com>
 <291t2jdqj2darsaed0c830lkro7crktd24@4ax.com>
 <l97fb2F74plU1@mid.individual.net>
 <56bt2j9lq757mj29jmf5kptfbm69adhupb@4ax.com>
 <lqev2jdtq6jr36ds7nifodvg38jtcv93tn@4ax.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Injection-Date: Fri, 17 May 2024 12:17:26 +0200 (CEST)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="c1dcf0a0fa7a02cfdb4e40bf0eb90a82";
	logging-data="2254367"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/Gjvq13hv8Wclqa8TGd2Ap31BVrPr3H9Q="
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
Cancel-Lock: sha1:OMFKQf8YvXIZNWITHEUOhm6bLVY=
Content-Language: en-GB
In-Reply-To: <lqev2jdtq6jr36ds7nifodvg38jtcv93tn@4ax.com>
Bytes: 2686

On 29/04/2024 16:23, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Apr 2024 14:10:39 -0600, John Savard
> <quadibloc@servername.invalid> wrote:
> 
>> On 28 Apr 2024 17:29:06 GMT, ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan
>> <tednolan>) wrote:
>>
>>> Is GS a fallacy?  Certainly it seems to have been a fad, but also to still
>>> be around in a less high-profile manner and accepted as providing some
>>> useful insights.
>>
>> Among the fallacies examined in Gardner's book is _chiropractic_. As
>> he notes, though, lots of chiropractors do useful things that help
>> patients, but when that discipline originated, it included notions
>> like curing, say, tuberculosis by addressing subluxations of the
>> vertebrae.
> 
> Sounds like an illustration of the statement "if all you have is a
> hammer, everything looks like a nail".

I don't particularly hesitate to interpret
a proposition that "All diseases are
fundamentally caused by ____" as bunk,
without scrutiny.  And likewise
"effectively treated by".  Say, stem cells.
Diseases are diverse.

I am getting anxious about the wide
application of vaccines to diseases which
don't look like a thing to get vaccinated
against.  However, the theory seems to be
to persuade the patient's immune system to
pick a fight against something that it
usually ignores which is a disease component.

I wonder what a vaccine against sugar would do
to public health?