Enemies of Reason by Prof. Richard Dawkin (alternative medicine)?

Question

On 20th August , Channel 4 aired a television programme titled "Enemies of Reason". It was written and presented by Prof. Richard Dawkins debunking "alternative medicines" including Homeopathy, Ayurveda, etc saying that they did not stand up to stringent tests as modern medicine does. He also proposes that these systems are based on concepts that defy reason and mostly work on the placebo effect (most well-placed to deliver placebo, in his words).

Link to an article on the same documentary on his official website:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1492,New-age-therapies-cause-retreat-from-reason,David-Harrison-Sunday-Telegraph

Here are the videos :
Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason (part 1),
http://video.google.com/url?docid=8669488783707640763

Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason (Part 2)
http://video.google.com/url?docid=6004927014381716642

Now, the reason I am writing is that I would be most interested in reading your opinions on this topic.

Answer 1

Dawkins is parroting the medical/pharmaceutical propaganda. If you want more propaganda, visit Steven Barrett's websites.



So-called 'Alternative Medicine' is a major concern for the pharmaceutical biz. People are waking up in droves to the price we have all paid for an exclusively drug-based 'health care' system. Like infant mortality and cancer rates out of control.



As people get more educated regarding natural health alternatives - and more healthy as a result - they gradually free themselves of the 'addiction' to prescribed drugs, and to the "medical" system which has an exclusive monopoly in this and many countries.



Ridicule and 'debunking' have historically been very effective tactics to ward people off from underlying truths that threaten Big Pharma's power and profit... Mix a few accepted truisms with some half-truths and a healthy dose of slander, and WA-LA: a (hopefully) best-selling book that scares people away from alternative health care, and herds them back into the Dr's offices and hospitals!!!



Intelligent, health-conscious people, more often than not, look at books like Dawkins' as indicators of health care approaches to investigate further, rather than to turn away from. If it concerns the medical/pharmaceutical profiteers enough to get one of their shills to write a book about it, IT'S PROBABLY GOOD FOR OUR HEALTH!

Answer 2

Dawkins is logical. Trouble is, the fundamentals of the universe sometimes appear not to be so logical. Alternative therapies seem to work for some, but not all, people.



Maybe there is a 'mind connection'. We do not know exactly how the placebo affect works, but even now, are admitting that the mind has a contribution to healing.



The findings of quantum physics are really hard for a logical scientific type to swallow, yet they are there in undeniable mathematical fact.



Perhaps it matters little whether god exists or not, but rather that the mind believes that there is some force greater than itself which can heal.



Perhaps it takes such an atheistic, scientific approach to the world to 'know me by my works', as the deity said in the bible.



There is no one source that can possibly reveal the mind of a god, if it exists, so maybe atheists are also a part of the 'plan'.

Answer 3

Dawkins has an agenda.



His agenda is that you must be an atheist like him.



If you're not, he'll treat you like a delusional idiot.



Any "alternative medicine" has origins in peoples who have some sort of "faith."



That makes those people his enemy too.



P.S. If double-blind studies are the only proof (a very Newtonian ideal which the rest of the scientific world debunked about 100 years ago) then we should consider vaccination as "alternative medicine" too. There has never been a double-blind study to prove that vaccinations work.

Answer 4

I view myself to be a very logical person, I have a philosophy degree and always question my beliefs. However, I have had reiki, which was one of the therapies he doubted, and I have to say I did feel better after wards. Perhaps it was psychosomatic, I don't know. I think Mr Dawkins speaks a lot of sense and there are too many people in the world today who are not questioning themselves and subsequently believing a whole load of someones old lies.

Answer 5

Well, personally, I don't like Dawkins' tone much, but I think he does have some valid points. Double-blind clinically controlled trials are the only way to gain widespread scientific acceptance of alternative therapies. Also he notes that alternative and complementary therapists are often very empathetic and spend a lot of time talking to their patients....something doctors in the NHS have very little time for.



In a way, it doesn't matter for the paitients what the mechanism of a therapy is (be it drugs or "energy work") what really matters to them is that they feel better.

Answer 6

He is getting rather hilarious.



The poor chap must have been spanked too much in his childhood...



The more he spews the more I doubt his theories of evolutionary biology....



because "The God Delusion" and now "this" only serves to highlight his willingness to bend or ignore facts to prove his point....



so perhaps he does the same with his "evolutionary biology".

Answer 7

Dawkins is making a lot of money and building a great reputation while giving people who have no belief and no imagination a platform of quotations. If it makes them feel better about themselves and makes him feel better about himself, it's no big deal.

Answer 8

Ahriman. That's all.