Heroesnotzombies

Tue Jul 15
clouds (via bobsee)

clouds (via bobsee)

Sun Jul 13
“ Schumacher went on to point out the difference between what he called “science for understanding” and “science for manipulation.” The former, he explained, has often been called wisdom. Its purpose is the enlightenment and liberation of the person, while the purpose of the latter is power. During the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century, Schumacher continued, the purpose of science shifted from wisdom to power. “Knowledge itself is power,” he said, quoting Francis Bacon, and he observed that since that time the name “science” remained reserved for manipulative science. “The progressive elimination of wisdom has turned the rapid accumulation of knowledge into a most serious threat,” Schumacher declared emphatically. “Western civilization is based on the philosophical error that manipulative science is the truth, and physics has caused and perpetuated this error. Physics got us into the mess we are in today. The great cosmos is nothing but a chaos of particles without purpose or meaning, and the consequences of this materialistic view are felt everywhere. Science is concerned primarily with knowledge that is useful for manipulation, and the manipulation of nature almost invariably leads to the manipulation of people. Fritjof Capra: Encounter at the Edge of the New Paradigm
“ Because EBM is largely an effort to manage the unruly social world in which medicine is practiced via objective scientific procedure, the movement appears to be the latest expression of “scientism”, modernity’s rationalist dream that science can produce the knowledge required to emancipate us from scarcity, ignorance, and error. However, such efforts tend to disguise political interests in the authority of so-called “scientific evidence”. The configuration of policy considerations and clinical standards into questions of evidence conveniently transform normative questions into technical ones. Political issues are not resolved, however, but merely disguised in technocratic consideration and language. Thus the goals of medicine and other normative considerations lie just below the surface of these evidentiary questions, and evidence becomes an instrument of, rather than a substitute for, politics ScienceDirect - Social Science & Medicine : On evidence and evidence-based medicine: Lessons from the philosophy of science
“ Between the fancy words Jackson points out that physicians, and particularly psychiatrists, are trained to ignore the testimony of their own eyes and ears in favor of (mis)information from published drug trials. “Evidence biased medicine” she calls them. The design of these trials has been manipulated to obscure the drugs’ inefficacy and the harm they do. “The pharmaceutical industry pays the piper, and the pharmaceutical industry calls the tune. In the field of psychiatry, the tune has one lyric: drug therapies are effective, safe, and well tolerated.” In reality, the data reveal that the drug with the highest efficacy and safety rates is consistently the placebo. Comparison of data pertaining to psychiatric patients in Northwest Wales in 1896 and 1996 show that mortality was higher in the second group. In other words, one hundred years later, outcomes are worse than before psychopharmacology was invented. In a longitudinal study in Vermont, all of the patients with full recoveries were among the 50% who had stopped taking medications. Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs
Sat Jul 12
52books: For the love of books. (via)

52books:

For the love of books. (via)
“ The truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or desire for more. Gabriel Zaid (via scout)
“ EBM’s attempts to replace subjectivity with precise empirical methods are problematic when clinicians must negotiate between scientific medicine and patients’ experience

10.1007/s10912-007-9050-0 

Journal of Medical Humanities
Sun Jul 6
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via u.helgon.net

via www.tofslie.com

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Venecia [PIC]