Hi Chinmay, Continuing my earlier response, my criticism of Ayurveda is directed at the claim of its promoters that it is a science of life in the modern sense of that word. I have written a great deal about this on Goanet and other Goan forums. Briefly, the least any science must do is tell us why an assertion taken from its knowledge base is true. How does one know something to be true in Ayurveda? For example, How does one know that madhura rasa settles vata and pitta and makes kapha worse? Or that vata is a combination of air and space? Are these assertions based on real evidence, or they simply represent someone's intuition or revelation? You will not be able to find answers to these simple questions in Ayurveda.
To phrase it in terms of the specific point you raised, if each treatment is uniquely tailored because each patient is different or unique then how does an Ayurvedic physician know how to tailor a new unique treatment for the next unique patient that he/she encounters? By definition, he/she has never encountered such a patient before. Therefore, experience and evidence in the ordinary sense of those words cannot be a guide. So each physician has to rely either on his/her unique intuition or on some form of epiphany or mysterious knowledge revealed at the very moment he/she sees a new patient. Science cannot be based on revelation and pure intuition. Regarding astrology, an overwhelming amount of evidence gathered by performing large-scale studies has already debunked it. I have provided some of this evidence on Goanet before. For example, a study of large numbers of "time twins" (unrelated individuals who were born at the same time) has shown absolutely no similarities between such twins on over 100 different parameters, including occupation, longevity, marital status, love of music, health status, level of anxiety, tendency for aggression, etc. Cheers, Santosh --- Bhandare <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > as regards ayurveda, proponents argue that the > treatment is usually tailored for the individual not > for the disease..this makes more sense to me because > the human body is indeed too complex to be treated > simply as a sum of parts... > > if you mean to say that ayurveda is not science > because it doesnt confirm to the standards of double > binded placebo controlled trial than you are correct > but is it fair to apply this test to ayurveda > especially when the treatment is not uniform? isnt > that an assumption made in these clinical trials? > > as regards astrology i am as sceptical as you are > but > are you opposed to the idea that we ned to study it > only maybe to conclusively debunk it? wouldnt it be > against the scientific temperament to simply reject > it > outright? > Regards > > Bhandare > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship > answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - > Check it out. > http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545433 >
