Re: Snake Oil

[Jerry Hester <jhester@MTU.EDU>]

Andy Dougherty wrote:

> On Mon, 10 Jan 2000, Zach Wolff wrote:
>
> > I take some objection to the mention of acupuncture
> > with a list of snake oil remedies.  I believe the NIH,
> > along with other prestigious traditional medicine
> > authorities, has commented that acupuncture does have
> > therapeutic value.
>
> You are correct about NIH, but sadly that doesn't necessarily mean it has
> therapeutic value.  Bob Park has written about this several times in his
> What's New newsletter (http://www.aps.org, look for What's New link). A
> search there on accupuncture turned up 5 hits, but the most relevant one
> is the following:
>
>         What's New by Robert L. Park, Friday, 7 November 1997

As seems typical of modern Western science culture, we ignore immense amounts
of qualitative data and several thousand years of Eastern cultural beliefs.
Since we can't explain it: it absolutely is wrong.


Jerry Hester
Jhester@mtu.edu
Laboratory/Lecture Demonstrations Coordinator
Department of Physics
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton, MI 49931-1295
Phone: (906) 487-2273
Fax: (906) 487-2933