Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Philosophy, in all its guises. => Topic started by: Sriram on June 17, 2023, 06:49:52 AM
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Hi everyone,
What is life? Is it just a biological process? Just something that gets kicked off somehow and then ends somehow?
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2016/03/15/life/
I feel that Life is induced into biological organisms through some kind of an energy that exists all around us. Otherwise there is no reason for chemicals to suddenly jump to life.
I know scientists generally regard life as just an emergent property where certain processes just happen to get started in certain organisms. Life is just a process and death is the end of it.
In Hindu philosophy however, a life energy called prana (Chinese call it chi, Japanese call it ki ) enters biological organisms and induces life into them. It is prana that is life to us in the same way that electricity is life to our machines.
Once prana leaves the body the mind separates and the person is dead. So what about the soul?
We can think of it this way. The body is the hardware, the mind is the software, prana is electricity (power) and the soul is the user.
Just some thoughts.
Cheers.
Sriram
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"some kind of an energy that exists all around us". Classic woo.
If there is some such form of energy, then we would be able to detect it and measure it as we can with other forms of energy. Until such times, it remains woo.
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Is this perhaps a case of you trying to push your own blog yet again? You must have referred to your blog at least ten times in this year alone. :)
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What is life? Is it just a biological process? Just something that gets kicked off somehow and then ends somehow?
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2016/03/15/life/
I feel that Life is induced into biological organisms through some kind of an energy that exists all around us. Otherwise there is no reason for chemicals to suddenly jump to life.
Pure fantasy.
Your article is yet another one that is scientifically illiterate and sloppy. You never bother to do your homework before confidently posting nonsense as fact.
First, this is rather akin to vitalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism): "Vitalist biologists such as Johannes Reinke proposed testable hypotheses meant to show inadequacies with mechanistic explanations, but their experiments failed to provide support for vitalism. Biologists now consider vitalism in this sense to have been refuted by empirical evidence, and hence regard it either as a superseded scientific theory,[4] or, since the mid-20th century, as a pseudoscience.[5][6]"
Second, the quote from Neil Tyson about 'pure energy' has been widely criticised by other scientists because there is no such thing as 'pure energy'*, any more than there can be 'pure momentum' or 'pure electric charge', energy is always a property of something else or some system. I think I know what he means any why he didn't go into that on a pop science video but the fact remains that it is incoherent.
Thirdly, you say: "The idea of a Life force is speculative and philosophical in nature, but no more so than certain other scientific ideas such as say, the hypothesis of Dark Matter and Dark Energy for example."
This is utter nonsense. Apart from hypothesis, conjecture, and speculation being different things, as I'm sure I've pointed out to you before, dark matter and dark energy are pretty much the opposite of speculation, they are effects that have been directly observed but not yet explained.
Then we get: "This Dark Matter, in spite of being so abundant is nevertheless completely invisible and incapable of being detected by any of our senses or our instruments. Right now we could be having tons of Dark Matter on our laps without sensing its existence in any way. No one has proved the existence of Dark Matter." This is yet more scientifically illiterate nonsense. Dark matter has mass and interacts via gravity, just like ordinary matter, that's how it was directly detected by our instruments.
So, having completely misrepresented conjecture in science, you move on to your own little fantasy as if it's anything remotely like the widely accepted notions of dark energy and dark matter (which it isn't), starting with a glaring non-sequitur: "If we adopt a similar point of view, it seems quite in order to speculate on the possibility of ‘Life’ being some kind of an elemental and basic constituent of this universe given its pervasive nature and the way in which it has originated and erupted in such large numbers and in such diverse forms on earth." Followed by a silly bare assertion: "The sheer abundance of ‘Life’ and the inevitable manner in which it manages to flourish on earth is sufficient evidence of it existing all around us in some amorphous elemental form."
We know exactly how life reproduces and why there is such diversity (it's called 'evolution') and it really doesn't require something very complicated to get reproduction for purely chemical reasons, this strand of RNA will do just that (in the right environment):
NNNNNNUGCUCGAUUGGUAACAGUUUGAAUGGGUUGAAGUAU–GAGACCGNNNNNN
The letters are standard notation and 'N' is 'don't care'. Source: Rutherford, Adam. Creation: The Origin of Life / The Future of Life.
We also have to ask why, if your little fantasy is true, life seems so keen on certain physical conditions, why there isn't any on (say) the moon.
[Edited for typos]
* And before anybody quotes E=mc2 at me, the 'm' stands for mass, not matter, and you can't have 'pure mass' either, mass is also a property.
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Is this perhaps a case of you trying to push your own blog yet again? You must have referred to your blog at least ten times in this year alone. :)
Yes, he's obviously referencing his own blog, but that's not necessarily a bad thing if the purpose is to provide a longer explanation to avoid a very long post here, but he should definitely make clear that it is his own blog that he's referencing and not an independent source that supports his view.
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Second, the quote from Neil Tyson about 'pure energy' has been widely criticised by other scientists because there is no such thing as 'pure energy'*, any more than there can be 'pure momentum' or 'pure electric charge', energy is always a property of something else or some system. I think I know what he means any why he didn't go into that on a pop science video but the fact remains that it is incoherent.
BTW, here is the source: Neil deGrasse Tyson: Could Aliens Be Made of Pure Energy? (https://youtu.be/qJAsxSr_MBw), which Sriram should have cited. Also note the objection from Mark Eichenlaub here: Neil de Grasse Tyson on Whether Life Could Exist as Pure Energy (https://futurism.com/neil-de-grasse-tyson-on-whether-life-could-exist-as-pure-energy-video) "You cannot isolate pure momentum or pure charge - the idea doesn't even make sense. It would be like asking for a poem that was made not out of words, but pure beauty, or a balloon that wasn't made of material, but pure loftiness. (People might use the imagery of "pure beauty" metaphorically, but you cannot literally have pure beauty existing on its own.) The same is true for energy..."
See also: Matter and Energy: A False Dichotomy (https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/mass-energy-matter-etc/matter-and-energy-a-false-dichotomy/).
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What is life?
'Life, you know, is rather like opening a tin of sardines. We are all of us looking for the key. And I wonder how many of you here tonight have wasted years of your lives looking behind the kitchen dressers of this life for that key. I know I have. Others think they’ve found the key, don’t they? They roll back the lid of the sardine tin of life. They reveal the sardines, the riches of life, therein, and they get them out, and they enjoy them. But, you know, there’s always a little bit in the corner you can’t get out. I wonder is there a little bit in the corner of your life? I know there is in mine!'
Alan Bennett
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What is light? It is radiation. But is it matter or energy? Similarly electrons and strings. What are they....matter or energy or what exactly?
The word energy is often used (never mind the dictionary) to mean any kind of ..well..substance ..that is not matter.
Prana is experienced every day by millions of people who practice yoga and meditations. It is in and around us all the time. The mind is also believed to be made of prana.
Science may not have identified it yet....but that means nothing.
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What is light? It is radiation. But is it matter or energy?
No. It's a quantum field associated with photons, which are the gauge boson for the electromagnetic force and not considered to be a matter particle. Although, if you'd followed my link you'd realise that 'matter' is not an exactly defined term in physics, it depends on context.
The article I posted (#5 (http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=20082.msg864875#msg864875)) directly explains why 'matter or energy' is a false dichotomy: Matter and Energy: A False Dichotomy (https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/mass-energy-matter-etc/matter-and-energy-a-false-dichotomy/).
Similarly electrons and strings. What are they....matter or energy or what exactly?
Yet again I have to explain the same basics to you! String theory is purely hypothetical. The current view is that electrons are excitations of a quantum field, in this case they are often considered to be 'matter' particles in the sense that they are fermions.
The word energy is often used (never mind the dictionary) to mean any kind of ..well..substance ..that is not matter.
Only in tacky science fiction - not in real physics.
Prana is experienced every day by millions of people who practice yoga and meditations. It is in and around us all the time. The mind is also believed to be made of prana.
So, just a subjective feeling. Useless for determining the truth of the matter.
Science may not have identified it yet....but that means nothing.
Since you've provided not a single hint of any actual objective evidence, not even vaguely indicative evidence, it means that it's just blind faith and/or a baseless guess.
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What is Dark Energy? In wiki....."dark energy is an unknown form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales".
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What is Dark Energy? In wiki....."dark energy is an unknown form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales".
From the same article I cited before (written by a particle physicist):
And Dark Energy? It was recently discovered that the universe is expanding faster and faster, not slower and slower as was the case when it was younger. What is presumably responsible is called “dark energy”, but unfortunately, it’s actually not energy. As my colleague Sean Carroll is fond of saying, it is tension, not energy — a combination of pressure and energy density. So why do people call it “energy”? Part of it is public relations. Dark energy sounds cool; dark tension sounds weird, as does any other word you can think of that is vaguely appropriate. At some level this is harmless. Scientists know exactly what is being referred to, so this terminology causes no problem on the technical side; most of the public doesn’t care exactly what is being referred to, so arguably there’s no big problem on the non-technical side. But if you really want to know what’s going on, it’s important to know that dark-energy isn’t a dark form of energy, but something more subtle. Moreover, like energy, dark-energy isn’t an object or set of objects, but a property that fields, or combinations of fields, or space-time itself can have. We don’t yet know what is responsible for the dark-energy whose presence we infer from the accelerating universe. And it may be quite a while before we do.
Also, from the Wiki article:
Two proposed forms of dark energy are the cosmological constant[12][13] (representing a constant energy density filling space homogeneously) and scalar fields (dynamic quantities having energy densities that vary in time and space) such as quintessence or moduli. Contributions from scalar fields that are constant in space are usually also included in the cosmological constant. The cosmological constant can be formulated to be equivalent to the zero-point radiation of space, i.e., the vacuum energy.[14] However, scalar fields that change in space can be difficult to distinguish from a cosmological constant because the change may be prolonged.
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The vacuum energy, that is, the particle-antiparticle pairs generated and mutually annihilated within a time frame in accord with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in the energy-time formulation, has been often invoked as the main contribution to dark energy.[27]
So, again, we are talking about a property of something, the space-time manifold itself, scalar field(s), or the virtual particles that exist in all space due to the energy-time uncertainty principle.
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All that is fine but we are discussing a mere word. Certain words undergo a change in meaning over time and need not continue to be used only with a specific meaning.
As I have said....'energy' in this context means something that is not matter and could exist in an amorphous state. Lots of people use it in that manner world over. You can use some other word for it if you want.
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All that is fine but we are discussing a mere word. Certain words undergo a change in meaning over time and need not continue to be used only with a specific meaning.
Sorry Sriram, but the term 'energy' has a very precise and well defined meaning in the context of science. It's meaning has not changed, nor is it likely to in the context of science because technical terms are not like words in general, colloquial language. You can't unilaterally make it mean something else because it doesn't suit your superstition - especially when you are presenting things on your blog that claim to be about science. Trying to do so makes your claims woo merely by the fact that you are misusing technical terms.
You can no more change the meaning of 'energy' than you can (for example) 'momentum', 'electron', 'electric charge', or 'gravity'.
As I have said....'energy' in this context means something that is not matter and could exist in an amorphous state. Lots of people use it in that manner world over. You can use some other word for it if you want.
The fact that lots of people make the same mistake (partly due to pop science and tacky science fiction) doesn't make it valid. Your context, by the very nature of your blog, when it claims to be borrowing from, and making comparisons to, science, should be science itself, and you should use technical terms correctly. In fact you'd give yourself much more credibility if you actually pointed out common misconceptions like this.
In short, it's you who needs to find a new word for what you mean, so long as you're writing about science. Otherwise you are simply telling everybody who does understand the science, that you don't know what you're talking about.
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"some kind of an energy that exists all around us". Classic woo.
If there is some such form of energy, then we would be able to detect it and measure it as we can with other forms of energy. Until such times, it remains woo.
There is no 'woo' here. It is something anyone can experience with a little practice. Try yoga and meditation.
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There is no 'woo' here. It is something anyone can experience with a little practice. Try yoga and meditation.
There is no woo in yoga or meditation. They can be useful mind practices. It is reaching for some sort of nebulous unidentified 'energy' to explain it that is woo.
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The basic principle behind Yoga and meditations is the flow of prana and the health of the chakras.
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Again, that is a religio-cultural interpretation of how it works.
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Again, that is a religio-cultural interpretation of how it works.
Its not an interpretation. That is the basis on which yogic science was developed. And it has nothing to do with religion.
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Its not an interpretation. That is the basis on which yogic science was developed. And it has nothing to do with religion.
Prana and chakras are concepts from Hindu philosophy, not science. There may be health benefits from yogic meditation but that does not imply any scientific validity behind these concepts.
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Prana and chakras are concepts from Hindu philosophy, not science. There may be health benefits from yogic meditation but that does not imply any scientific validity behind these concepts.
Yes....they are a part of the Hindu philosophical system. They are not science in the sense of being empirically tested using instruments.
But they can be experienced using certain methods and there is a methodical system by which it can be taught to other people.
The effects and benefits of the practices can be experienced and measured.
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Yes....they are a part of the Hindu philosophical system. They are not science in the sense of being empirically tested using instruments.
But they can be experienced using certain methods and there is a methodical system by which it can be taught to other people.
The effects and benefits of the practices can be experienced and measured.
The effects and benefits can be measured, but not the cause if those effects and benefits, which is the point.
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Do you measure the effects of gravity or its cause?
If the effects are predictable and repeatable and can be produced by suitable training, then it means that the causes are also well understood. If not, the science would not have developed or even survived over the centuries.
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Do you measure the effects of gravity or its cause?
If the effects are predictable and repeatable and can be produced by suitable training, then it means that the causes are also well understood. If not, the science would not have developed or even survived over the centuries.
Gravity is observed; meanwhile theories about gravity attempt to explain it. Likewise, meditation can have therapeutic outcomes and prana and chakras are an early Indan attempt at formulating an understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Medical science however does not recognise the validity of prana or chakras and offers other explanations for why meditation works in ways that are evidence-based, for instance, neural plasticity - regular meditation has been shown to induce structural and functional changes in the brain, increasing the thickness of brain regions associated with attention, emotion regulation, and self-awareness and these changes may contribute to improved cognitive functions and emotional well-being
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Do you measure the effects of gravity or its cause?
If the effects are predictable and repeatable and can be produced by suitable training, then it means that the causes are also well understood. If not, the science would not have developed or even survived over the centuries.
Hilarious! You really are living in your own little fantasy world. Of course we measure the effects of gravity. That's why a theory about the cause, that had worked incredibly well for centuries (and is still good enough for most applications today), was shown to be fundamentally wrong by Einstein.
The idea that prana and chakras are science is absurd. As Sam Harris showed (Waking Up), the practice of yoga and meditation, even when taken very seriously, works fine without accepting any of the original superstitions that were used to 'explain' it. The original ideas were never nearly as good an explanation of anything as Newton's theory of gravity was, yet Newton was wrong.
Basically, like many historical ideas, the practice of yoga and meditation turned out to be useful memes, that's why they survived. If you had bothered to read the relevant chapter in The Selfish Gene that you cite on your blog, you might not have misunderstood the concept of meme as always being bad and irrational.
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The basic principle behind Yoga and meditations is the flow of prana and the health of the chakras.
The basic principle behind yoga is moderate exercise in a controlled environment providing benefits in improved cario-vascular activity, muscle and joint flexibility and, in some instances, social interaction.
Claims of additional benefits are out there, but unsubstantiated, no matter that they predate the physiological understanding that led to these being recognised.
Meditation, as with most of the rest of what gets lumped in with 'mindfulness' these days, is a bit of a mixed bag. Meditation appears to work for a subset of people to the extent that it makes them feel better about things and they self-report improvements in happiness, motivation, clarity of thought and a range of other benefits, but a significant portion of people who try it find that it does nothing for them.
O.
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Yoga is based on an understanding of the subtle matter that comprises and surrounds our mind and body. In yoga, the physical body is only the stula or gross body. There are other subtle bodies surrounding and meshed in with the physical body. An understanding of these 'bodies' and how they influence our physical well being is what Yoga is about.
I am not denying the strides made by modern medicine but the understanding of the human physiology that we have in modern medicine is not complete and not the only way of understanding the body and our health. There are many layers.
You could try this for more of my views on this.
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/alternative-medicines-3-implications/
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I am not denying the strides made by modern medicine but the understanding of the human physiology that we have in modern medicine is not complete and not the only way of understanding the body and our health. There are many layers.
Unevidenced, unargued assertion, yet again. ::)
You could try this for more of my views on this.
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/alternative-medicines-3-implications/
Once again referencing your own blog without pointing out that it is your own. "Alternative Medicine", hum...
Q: What do you call alternative medicine that actually works?
A: Medicine.
:)
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Yoga is based on an understanding of the subtle matter that comprises and surrounds our mind and body. In yoga, the physical body is only the stula or gross body. There are other subtle bodies surrounding and meshed in with the physical body. An understanding of these 'bodies' and how they influence our physical well being is what Yoga is about.
For you, perhaps, for some others. There are hundreds of thousands of people, I'd guess, across the world who are reaping benefits from yoga who never get told anything about any of that and still derive tangible benefits from it.
I am not denying the strides made by modern medicine but the understanding of the human physiology that we have in modern medicine is not complete and not the only way of understanding the body and our health. There are many layers.
And here we go again. That's a possibility, sure, but you need more than the fact that you - or someone you know - gets tingly feelings in where they think a chakra is before you can start to suggest that there are currently viable alternatives to scientific investigation to understand how the human body works and what's best for it.
You could try this for more of my views on this.
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/alternative-medicines-3-implications/
To quote one of my personal favourite musical philosophers: "You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proven to work? Medicine." Minchin, T. Storm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U)
O.
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To quote one of my personal favourite musical philosophers: "You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proven to work? Medicine." Minchin, T. Storm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U)
Oi! I posted that joke first! >:( ;) :D
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Oi! I posted that joke first! >:( ;) :D
I'm sure Minchin, T., musical philospher extraordinaire would contest that claim ;D
O.
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I'm sure Minchin, T., musical philospher extraordinaire would contest that claim ;D
O.
Does he post here?
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I'm sure Minchin, T., musical philospher extraordinaire would contest that claim ;D
Wouldn't like to bet he was the first to use it, either. I'm sure I remember it from way back....
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Tested by whom and how?
Well...Many medicines that you call medicines...don't actually work or they produce terrible side effects. Many alternative medicines that you don't call medicine actually work. That is the irony. ::)
Your clinical trials sponsored by drug companies are not always reliable. Many traditionally tried and tested alternative medicines are in fact, safe and reliable.
Ask your king. He uses many of the alternative medicines.....
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Wouldn't like to bet he was the first to use it, either. I'm sure I remember it from way back....
Sure I saw it in "Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations" by John Diamond. Sort of place you'd expect it, anyway.
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Many alternative medicines that you don't call medicine actually work.
Name one that has been shown to be any better than a placebo?
Ask your king. He uses many of the alternative medicines.....
Why? He's a buffoon in many ways, this being one of them. He thinks homoeopathy works, FFS!
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Sure I saw it in "Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations" by John Diamond. Sort of place you'd expect it, anyway.
What a book that is!
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I thought the quote was from Ben Goldacre, but couldn't find it. I did though find this:
"Just just because there are flaws in aircraft design that doesn't mean flying carpets exist."
(Ben Goldacre)
Which seems to me neatly to skewer most of Sriram's efforts here.
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Tested by whom and how?
Whomever has a robust protocol, and then publicises both the protocol and the results in order that people can assess the reliability of the findings.
Well...Many medicines that you call medicines...don't actually work or they produce terrible side effects.
No. A small number of medicines have demonstrable results in certain circumstances, but not others (and in some instances we don't know why). A larger number of medicines have significant side effects, which is why we have experts that we qualify to prescribe them so that those side effects can be communicated and an informed decision taken about whether to take the medicine, and if so which one.
Many alternative medicines that you don't call medicine actually work.
No. Some alternative medicines might work, but not enough evidence is available to confirm that (is that refrain becoming familiar to you? It should, by now). The rest of them have been comprehensively tested and been shown to be ineffective.
That is the irony. ::)
No, the irony is that regardless of the topic here you keep making claims that the evidence you have available aren't sufficient to support.
Your clinical trials sponsored by drug companies are not always reliable.
Which is why we have regulators to oversee them, and there are significant improvements that could be made in the field - I highly recommend Dr Ben Goldacre's 'Bad Pharma' for a really accessible insight into this.
Many traditionally tried and tested alternative medicines are in fact, safe and reliable.
And those that are have been refined and turned into conventional medicines, whilst the rest remain either unfounded or demonstrably ineffective (and in some instances actively dangerous, notwithstanding the potential for people to rely on these instead of medicines that will actually help).
Ask your king. He uses many of the alternative medicines....
I cannot think of a better example you could have used to demonstrate the sort of information-deficient numbskull that would espouse nonsense like homeopathy. He, too, promotes delusional claims that evidence hasn't just failed to support but has repeatedly, regularly shown to be absolute nonsense.
O.
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Ayurveda has been known to work and cure diseases for centuries before modern medicines and clinical trials came to exist. Similarly, Yoga has been known to prevent and cure ailments for centuries before modern medicines or methods of verification came to exist. Nobody waited around for western methods of verification.
Modern researchers did not even bother to check out these systems till very recent years. I remember in the 1970's western people would laugh at Indians twisting themselves around and 'gazing at their navel'. Ayurveda was largely dismissed as snake oil vending. Even today some people snicker at yoga, meditations and Ayurveda. Typical western presumptions.
Billions of people in India and across the world use Ayurveda, yoga and meditations....because they are time tested and known to work. In fact, in recent years, there is a marked increase in the use of traditional medical systems due to the disillusionment with many modern medicines.
So....medicines that are 'proven to work' does not necessarily mean tested using western methods.
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Happy International Yoga Day...by the way! :)
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Ayurveda has been known to work and cure diseases for centuries before modern medicines and clinical trials came to exist.
And there are elements of Ayurvedic medicine that have been tested and shown to work and been adopted across the world. Equally, there are parts of it that have been tested and been shown to have no appreciable effect.
Similarly, Yoga has been known to prevent and cure ailments for centuries before modern medicines or methods of verification came to exist.
Yep. And Tai Chi and calisthenics and any number of other light exercise systems developed in a range of places and came to the same conclusion, and that basic process has now been tested and we have documentary evidence to support the physiological claims without having to drape any of it in spiritualist woo.
Nobody waited around for western methods of verification.
Which is why the bits that worked were intertwined with bits that didn't.
Modern researchers did not even bother to check out these systems till very recent years. I remember in the 1970's western people would laugh at Indians twisting themselves around and 'gazing at their navel'. Ayurveda was largely dismissed as snake oil vending. Even today some people snicker at yoga, meditations and Ayurveda. Typical western presumptions.
Yep, that sort of cultural bigotry is problematic; of course, at the moment, one of the worst purveyors of that is Modhi's India.
Billions of people in India and across the world use Ayurveda, yoga and meditations....because they are time tested and known to work.
Not so much. Billions of people in India and across the world use them because they're part of their cultural tradition, and they've not been on the whole bad enough to warrant throwing them out. The bits that do work generate enough good will that the bits that don't work are ignored, but as more and more people study the detail and separate out the elements, those traditions are being refined when politicians aren't interfering for their own nationalist agendas.
In fact, in recent years, there is a marked increase in the use of traditional medical systems due to the disillusionment with many modern medicines.
Yep, and there's evidence that it's contributing to a slowing of improvements in medical outcomes.
So....medicines that are 'proven to work' does not necessarily mean tested using western methods.
The 'scientific method', whilst more explicitly espoused in Western nations is something that has been independently put forward in any number of cultures. The earliest examples come from Egypt and Babylonia, elements of it were focussed on by the likes of Aristotle in the Western tradition, but developed by the Muslims in the middle-ages, without any obvious input from the Charvaka school of thought which continued in parallel and rejected supernatural concepts in favour of empiricism.
The scientific method is not a 'Western method', but even if it were to reject it on that basis rather than because it was somehow demonstrably flawed would be foolish.
O.
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My point is very simple. Proving that something works does not mean only through clinical trials. Experience of people over generations is also proof.
In fact, clinical trials cannot always be relied upon. Many long term effects are not known through trials.
Besides that, western people are so deeply entrenched in their own ways that it takes a long time for them to open up to other possibilities. A simple thing such as vegetarianism is an example. Indians did not need clinical trials as proof that vegetarianism is good for health or that animals and the environment need to be protected and respected. It has taken many decades for vegetarianism to even get accepted as a normal diet form in the west.
Microscopic thinking can obliterate common sense and wisdom.
Similarly, it will take time for the 'scientific minded' western world to wake up to such possibilities as Life being a form of energy (or whatever you want to call it). Not that there aren't many in the west who accept such matters currently!
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My point is very simple. Proving that something works does not mean only through clinical trials. Experience of people over generations is also proof.
In fact, clinical trials cannot always be relied upon. Many long term effects are not known through trials.
Besides that, western people are so deeply entrenched in their own ways that it takes a long time for them to open up to other possibilities. A simple thing such as vegetarianism is an example. Indians did not need clinical trials as proof that vegetarianism is good for health or that animals and the environment need to be protected and respected. It has taken many decades for vegetarianism to even get accepted as a normal diet form in the west.
Microscopic thinking can obliterate common sense and wisdom.
Similarly, it will take time for the 'scientific minded' western world to wake up to such possibilities as Life being a form of energy (or whatever you want to call it). Not that there aren't many in the west who accept such matters currently!
Reading this reminds me of two Richard Feynman quotes:
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.
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My point is very simple. Proving that something works does not mean only through clinical trials. Experience of people over generations is also proof.
It simply isn't. Actually nothing is literally 'proof'; the best we can hope for is good evidence. There are all sorts of effects that can cloud people's judgement, including (obviously) the placebo effect, but also regression to the mean and confirmation bias, for example.
That's why the 'gold standard' is double blind, placebo controlled, properly randomised trails. They are the best way to eliminate all these extraneous effects that otherwise make the true effect (or lack thereof) difficult to see.
Long-term effects are a problem anyway, generations of use do not guarantee long-term safety. Look how long people had been smoking for, before the connection was made to lung cancer and other diseases.
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My point is very simple.
To quote the inestimable Dr Ben Goldacre, "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that."
Proving that something works does not mean only through clinical trials.
In medicine it pretty much does, that's sort of the definition of a clinical trial is something set up to determine if a treatment is effective, and if so how effective.
Experience of people over generations is also proof.
Homeopathy has been around for over two hundred years, and does not work. People's experience is subjective and unreliable.
In fact, clinical trials cannot always be relied upon.
Absolutely. The design of trials can be skewed, the data can be cherry-picked after the fact, the tests to be conducted can be decided after the experiment has been run, there are any number of ways in which clinical trials can be - and sometimes are - mishandled. They are still more reliable than 'but we've been doing it for years'.
Many long term effects are not known through trials.
Yep, because side effects are a small part of what trials are set up to determine; but confirming that a particular side-effect is the result of a particular treatment is, itself, a clinical trial.
Besides that, western people are so deeply entrenched in their own ways that it takes a long time for them to open up to other possibilities.
Yes, it's Western people that are stuck in their ways. You wouldn't find good, sensible, open-minded Hindu Indians sticking to outmoded mixed bags because of tradition at all...
A simple thing such as vegetarianism is an example. Indians did not need clinical trials as proof that vegetarianism is good for health or that animals and the environment need to be protected and respected.
Quick, shift a goal-post... Vegetarianism is neither intrinsically good nor bad for health, so long as it's managed properly - just like an omnivorous diet. If Indians are so aware of the need for environmental protection why are they collectively so bad it?
It has taken many decades for vegetarianism to even get accepted as a normal diet form in the west.
Yep, because it's a cultural shift. Any cultural shift takes time. You can tie the environmental and health concerns together and show how demonstrably better all round it is to reduce beef consumption, and you're going to get laughed out of every state in the US (and twice out of Texas), because they're not ready for it, yet.
But at the same time you can explain to India about the perils for the world of continuing to burn coal for power at the rates they are, and they'll make (not baseless) arguments about how it's 'their turn' to reap the benefits of the raw materials available to them.
Microscopic thinking can obliterate common sense and wisdom.
Lots of things can. Treating the entirety of they Ayurvedic tradition as though it were one equally valid, equally effective homogenous claim, for instance.
Similarly, it will take time for the 'scientific minded' western world to wake up to such possibilities as Life being a form of energy (or whatever you want to call it).
It will take time, yes. But that time will only start after you've actually demonstrated there is something more to the claim than 'it's possible'.
Not that there aren't many in the west who accept such matters currently!
And if they're doing so without evidence they're going to be spectacularly unsuccessful in trying to effect a cultural shift on that.
O.
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Sriram,
My point is very simple. Proving that something works does not mean only through clinical trials.
Actually it pretty much does. Absent clinical trials, what other method would you propose?
Experience of people over generations is also proof.
No it isn’t:
“Anecdotal evidence is considered the least certain type of scientific information.[14] Researchers may use anecdotal evidence for suggesting new hypotheses, but never as validating evidence.[15][16]
If an anecdote illustrates a desired conclusion rather than a logical conclusion, it is considered a faulty or hasty generalization.[17]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence#:~:text=Anecdotal%20evidence%20is%20considered%20the,a%20faulty%20or%20hasty%20generalization
Only by using clinical trials (or an equivalent objective method of valuation if you can think of one) is it possible to eliminate the multiple risks of error entrenched in anecdotes (confirmation bias, survivor bias, sampling error etc).
In fact, clinical trials cannot always be relied upon. Many long term effects are not known through trials.
“Just just because there are flaws in aircraft design that doesn't mean flying carpets exist."
Ben Goldacre
Besides that, western people are so deeply entrenched in their own ways that it takes a long time for them to open up to other possibilities.
Nonsense. “Western people” as you put it are as amenable to reason and evidence as anyone else. What you tend to find among more educated people though (ie, regardless of geography) is a greater reluctance to accept at face value unqualified woo.
A simple thing such as vegetarianism is an example. Indians did not need clinical trials as proof that vegetarianism is good for health or that animals and the environment need to be protected and respected. It has taken many decades for vegetarianism to even get accepted as a normal diet form in the west.
That’s a cultural difference rather than an evidential one – the health benefits of reducing meat intake have been know about for a long time, but less wealthy countries tended to eat a more vegetable-based diet than wealthier countries as a matter of economic necessity.
Microscopic thinking can obliterate common sense and wisdom.
Your ”microscopic thinking” mistake has been falsified here many times here without reply, and in any case so far at least your “common sense and wisdom” claims have been anything but.
Similarly, it will take time for the 'scientific minded' western world to wake up to such possibilities as Life being a form of energy (or whatever you want to call it). Not that there aren't many in the west who accept such matters currently!
And the straw man and begging the question fallacies combo to finish. Good effort. The ““scientific minded” western world” is already already open to the possibility of anything that isn’t incoherent or internally contradictory, but if you want to assert that there’s something to be “woken up” to then you need to demonstrate its existence in the first place.
So far all you’ve managed to do is to assert these things rather than to demonstrate them, “justified” by some very poor reasoning.
That’s your problem remember?
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"but less wealthy countries tended to eat a more vegetable-based diet than wealthier countries as a matter of economic necessity."
That is nonsense. There are lots of very poor countries in Africa. China and the south east Pacific countries have been very poor for centuries. Britain was quite poor in the middle ages. Most countries have been poor at some time in their past. None of them adopted a vegetarian diet.
Many Indians have been vegetarian for millennia....and that has been a part of its traditional values for a long time. That is a part of its 'live and let live' philosophy.
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Sriram,
"but less wealthy countries tended to eat a more vegetable-based diet than wealthier countries as a matter of economic necessity."
That is nonsense. There are lots of very poor countries in Africa. China and the south east Pacific countries have been very poor for centuries. Britain was quite poor in the middle ages. Most countries have been poor at some time in their past. None of them adopted a vegetarian diet.
Many Indians have been vegetarian for millennia....and that has been a part of its traditional values for a long time. That is a part of its 'live and let live' philosophy.
Are you seriously proposing that the consumption of two food types with significantly different costs of production (ie, meat vs arable) doesn’t correlate to the economic ability of societies to pay for them?
Seriously though?
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Sriram,
Are you seriously proposing that the consumption of two food types with significantly different costs of production (ie, meat vs arable) doesn’t correlate to the economic ability of societies to pay for them?
Seriously though?
Don't you understand that in other poor countries vegetarianism is not prevalent?!
Secondly, vegetarians in India are largely from the upper classes such as Brahmns and rich business people such as Gujrathis and Marwadis. Poorer classes of people are largely non-vegetarian.
You are just trying to find a rationale for your own choice of food.
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Sriram,
Don't you understand that in other poor countries vegetarianism is not prevalent?!
Secondly, vegetarians in India are largely from the upper classes such as Brahmns and rich business people such as Gujrathis and Marwadis. Poorer classes of people are largely non-vegetarian.
You are just trying to find a rationale for your own choice of food.
“There is a positive correlation between income level and meat consumption. Figures 1 and 2 show the relationship between per capita real GDP and per capita meat consumption based on 2011statistics, which is the most recent data available for the countries shown. The figures show that the lower the income level of a country, the lower the meat consumption, the higher the income level, the higher the meat consumption. Looking at the changes over time by country also reveals that, in most countries, the per capita consumption of meat increases along with the rise in per capita real GDP. It seems likely that this relationship arises because meat is not an essential product like grains, which are used as a food staple, and its consumption is easily influenced by income level. Accordingly, global meat consumption in the 2000s increased sharply along with the acceleration of economic growth, which occurred mainly in the emerging economies, rising from 209 million tons in 2000 to 270 million tons in 2011, an increase of 1.3 times, outstripping the growth in the world’s population, which increased by 1.1 times during the same period.”
https://www.mitsui.com/mgssi/en/report/detail/1221523_10744.html#:~:text=The%20figures%20show%20that%20the,the%20higher%20the%20meat%20consumption.
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Your statistics obviously don't work where cultural and moral issues are more powerful than economics.
Fact still remains that poorer countries in Africa, middle east, China, south east Asia and around the world have not adopted vegetarianism even during their poorer periods. And the upper classes in India are vegetarians much more than the lower classes.
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Sriram,
Your statistics obviously don't work where cultural and moral issues are more powerful than economics.
They’re not my statistics, they’re just statistics – and if you think they’re wrong then provide some evidence of your own to show them to be wrong. “Obviously” isn’t evidence.
And in any case, you’ve missed the point. You said: “Indians did not need clinical trials as proof that vegetarianism is good for health or that animals and the environment need to be protected and respected. It has taken many decades for vegetarianism to even get accepted as a normal diet form in the west.”
I merely pointed out that the prevalence of vegetarianism in less economically developed countries came about largely because of the economic circumstances, not because the locals could equally have chosen meat but decided on grain-based foods instead because of some superior knowledge of the health benefits.
Fact still remains that poorer countries in Africa, middle east, China, south east Asia and around the world have not adopted vegetarianism even during their poorer periods.
That’s not a fact. They exactly did “adopt vegetarianism” (ie, eat the only or most affordable food) during the “poorer periods”, and there’s been a sharp uptake in relative meat consumption in some of them (China in particular) more or less in line with growth in GDP. Have a look at the statistics yourself if you don’t believe me.
And the upper classes in India are vegetarians much more than the lower classes.
About 40% of Indians are vegetarians, and there’s no evidence I can find to suggest that of the other 60% the wealthiest eat less per capita of the more expensive food option while the poorest eat more per capita of the more expensive food option.
That would be a remarkable finding if it was true. Do you have any evidence to indicate that it actually is true?
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What you seem to be unable to comprehend is that there is a value attached to vegetarianism in India and its not just a matter of what is affordable. There are people who will go hungry but not eat meat.
There are many people in the West today who choose to be vegetarians or vegans....does that have anything to do with availability or affordability?!
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Sriram,
What you seem to be unable to comprehend is that there is a value attached to vegetarianism in India and its not just a matter of what is affordable. There are people who will go hungry but not eat meat.
I’m perfectly able to comprehend that thanks. I’m also perfectly able to comprehend facts about the correlation between per capita incomes and meat consumption. That’s not to say that there aren’t strong cultural factors at play in India that create a bias toward vegetarianism than wouldn’t otherwise be the case, but it is to say that vegetarianism was born of necessity – not because back in the day people could equally have afforded either vegetables or meat but they had some special insights into the health benefits of the former and so they rejected the latter.
There are many people in the West today who choose to be vegetarians or vegans....does that have anything to do with availability or affordability?!
Sometimes, though these days informed choice seems to be a more significant factor. That though wasn’t the point.
Also by the way you asserted that wealthier Indians eat less meat than poorer Indians. Is that claim supported by evidence, or is it just something you made up?
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Hindu spiritual philosophy has divided food into three categories ....Sattvic, Rajasic and Tamasic. Vegetarian food comes among the highest sattvic food. It is recommended for good health, good mental makeup, helps control ones mind and emotions. It has been recommended for spiritual seekers for millennia.
I have no statistics for income vs vegetarianism. I know for a fact that upper caste brahmins and wealthier business class such as Gujaritis and Marwadis are more vegetarians than lower classes. Jains who are among the wealthiest community in India are more than 90% vegetarians.
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Just saw this. As it relates to vegetarianism in India particularly, this might be of interest.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-43581122