George, maybe you should buy a pack of those cheap, paper respiratory masks and pass them out to everyone in the office so they can all wear them to give her a hint.
Heck give her the respirator, a nice way to say keep it to yourself.
George - 04 July 2011 12:31 PM
I think she’s way past the hint stage. She actually just told me that maybe I should quit smoking and start eating meat to lower my chances of getting sick. I guess technically she is right, but now she is really making me upset…
Let me ask you this: do you take aspirin for pain?
Why do you ask?
Is that a yes?
No, I don’t take aspirin. Why?
Oh. If you did, I was going to explain that aspirin was originally formulated from the bark of a certain willow tree. Just because it’s natural, doesn’t mean it’s a hoax.
George is right. I don’t think anyone makes the straw-man argument that you’re suggesting, Adam. Indeed, the argument (unfortunately not seen as straw man, though it actually is) tends to be the reverse: if it’s natural it must be healthy. Or, if it’s natural it must ‘work’ in the sense intended by the relevant marketing campaign.
Unfortunately the vast majority of supposed natural remedies are completely inefficacious; something that hasn’t stopped the marketing campaigns ...
Also, as Tim Minchin said in his poem “Storm,” “You know what they call ‘alternative medicine’ that’s been proved to work? Medicine.” Willow bark (or rather its secret ingredient, the salicylic acid) has been promoted to medicine because it works, echinacea will always remain an “alternative” medicine because it doesn’t work.
1. Aspirin is a chemical compound isolated originally from a plant source and now manufctured synthetically. As a pain reliever and febrifuge, it has largely been replaced by newer synthetic compounds that are safer, though there is still ongoing research on potential low-dose aspirin for other uses. This cannot in any meaningful sense be used as an example of a “natural” therapy (insofar as the word has any clearly identifiable meaning, which it really doesn’t) or have much relevance to the practice of assuming that plants or plant-products are somehow automatically effective or safer than pharmaceuticals.
2. Many of our medicines come from plant or animal sources, but the process of turning them into safe, effective remedies involves a long, rigorous path of preclinical and clinical investigatios, and most candidates don’t make the cut. For so-called natural remedies to be accepted as safe and useful medicine, they must endure the same testing process, and if they do so one wonders in what way they can really be viewed as natural and in any sense different from other medicines. So while coming from a plant or animal source does not, of course, mean a remedy is a hoax, being dientified as a “natural” remedy usually means a product has not passed through rigorous scientific testing and is surrounded by a lot of the mythology that goes along with the natural/holistic/alternative medical approach.
3. The evidence regarding echinacea specifically is not encouraging.
Nice job mckenzie. In short, Aspirin is a perfect example of a naturally occurring substance that has a place in the medical bag because of good science that has elucidated its mechanism of action and demonstrated its benefits. Its a glaring contrast to the lazy, dangerous, and deceptive way that most “natural” products are brought to market these days with no scientific data and lots of intentionally deceptive pseudoscientific claims.
George is right. I don’t think anyone makes the straw-man argument that you’re suggesting, Adam. Indeed, the argument (unfortunately not seen as straw man, though it actually is) tends to be the reverse: if it’s natural it must be healthy. Or, if it’s natural it must ‘work’ in the sense intended by the relevant marketing campaign.
Unfortunately the vast majority of supposed natural remedies are completely inefficacious; something that hasn’t stopped the marketing campaigns ...
Arsenic, oleander and ricin are all perfectly ‘natural’, as is the poison of the fugo fish, feeding any of these things to anyone would be rapidly fatal.
George is right. I don’t think anyone makes the straw-man argument that you’re suggesting, Adam. Indeed, the argument (unfortunately not seen as straw man, though it actually is) tends to be the reverse: if it’s natural it must be healthy. Or, if it’s natural it must ‘work’ in the sense intended by the relevant marketing campaign.
Unfortunately the vast majority of supposed natural remedies are completely inefficacious; something that hasn’t stopped the marketing campaigns ...
Arsenic, oleander and ricin are all perfectly ‘natural’, as is the poison of the fugo fish, feeding any of these things to anyone would be rapidly fatal.
and don’t forget aflatoxin, one of the most potent carcinogens known and completely natural
She actually just told me that maybe I should quit smoking and start eating meat to lower my chances of getting sick. I guess technically she is right, but now she is really making me upset…
