--- Santosh Helekar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Hi Filomena: > > The Scientific method involves the following steps: > 1. Observing a phenomenon. > 2. Formulating a hypothesis to explain the > phenomenon, based on pre- > existing scientific knowledge. > 3. Deriving experimentally testable predictions from > the hypothesis. > 4. Testing these predictions by performing > experiments to determine > if they hold true or not. > 5. If all the predictions are true, the hypothesis > becomes a valid > scientific explanation for the phenomenon. > 6. If any of the predictions turn out to be false, > then the > hypothesis is falsified, and steps 2 through 6 have > to be repeated. > . I am talking about pneumonia, cholera, typhoid, dysentery, > small pox, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, diphtheria, leprosy, syphilis, and so on."
Santosh, I am going to do my own research about whether there are studies on Ayurvedic treatments for disease. But meanwhile, I offer a general response to the valid points you raise. 1. Ayurveda does not use the modern scientific method because it pre-dates it by a couple of thousand years. Impossible to make it retro-actively fit the paradigms that you will only accept. The modern scientific method is not that old anyway and it isn�t the only way that medical treatments are found today. Why, it wasn�t until the mid-nineteenth century that a doctor in Poland discovered that washing hands before handling childbirth cases could decrease deaths in the mothers. It wasn�t very long ago that it was discovered that blood transfusions could give AIDS. This was not due to the scientific method but due to observation first, the same as Ayurveda used to develop its system. Modern doctors often study traditional herbal treatments, then test them in the lab. Thus, they also rely on plain observation even before they look for the biochemical evidence. 2. In its own way, Ayurveda has tested its treatments and herbs. As Vivian put it succinctly, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Even the most uneducated people would know if a treatment works or not � they are interested in results, not whether the scientific method was followed. 3. Ayurvedic texts do list all the diseases mentioned by you and offers its treatments. They may not be the best but they had some efficacy according to the observations made by both practitioners and patients. My own mother always told us how her father brought a root and completely cured the pneumonia of the twins in Mons. Lucio Coutinho�s family in Margao. They lived well into old age. 4. Regarding epidemics such as plagues and flus, one only has to see the difficulty that modern medicine has with AIDS and SARS to know that it takes years of experimentation to get a cure. One cannot just dismiss Ayurveda because it didn�t find a quick cure for the plague in Goa and assume that modern medicine would have done any better! 5. It is illogical to surmise that treatments developed through scientific method are better than the treatments used by alternative systems that were developed without this method. In fact, some of us have good reason to fear the strong medicines of modern medicine. Last year�s big medical story was that Hormone Replacement Therapy was no longer considered safe for women � many women were getting strokes and heart attacks despite earlier scientific studies that said that HRT protected women from them. So what about these supposedly scientific studies? Are they always true and failproof? Now, doctors (my own included) are recommending the phytoestrogens that women have traditionally been taking as in Ayurveda. I myself suffered a brain haermorrhage or brain stroke from HRT before last year�s study was released. So I should know the dangers of relying exclusively on treatments derived from the modern �scientific method.� Another member of my family has been suffering from incurable insomnia for some years. Finally, the doctor himself told him to try Ayurvedic herbs and he�s taking them, sleeps normally and well without any side-effects as with the western pills. Then there is the entire realm of antibiotics. Congrats to western medicine for discovering and using them. But now bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics. We have diseases that are resistant to antibiotics, and we are told not to dose our children with them for every cough and cold. Just because antibiotics were developed by the scientific method does not make them automatically superior to traditional treatments for infections. My conclusion: I agree with Vivian de Sousa, use whatever medicine works best with the least side effects, be it modern or Ayurvedic. Thanks for reading through this long post Filomena __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
