Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2001 5:31 pm
I'm curious, too. 
You make some interesting points. Let's take them one at a time. First, it didn't mean to create a firestorm, so I apologize if my brief (and abbreviated) response created misunderstandings. Second, you are exactly correct in saying that my reply to fable's question was not nuanced. Given the constraints of medium and my (perhaps erroneous) perception that it was a little off-topic, I gave a kind of nanoscopic readers digest version. As to my background, I worked in medical research for four years. Though I enjoyed my time in the ivory tower, the standards and perceptions there do not reflect the realities of actual practice in the front lines of medicine. I worked in "academic" hospital-based medicine for 12 years and I am not hostile to it. It is a valuable resource and we have an extensive network of oncologists, radiologist, dermatologist, gastroenterologist, etc. that we refer to and utilize extensively in our practice. However, in that 12 year period I did not see anything, philosophically, that convinced me that it had changed from the 1950's. Yes, it has advanced technologically, and no I am not suggesting we abandon it. What has occurred, IMHO, is that, like any monolithic socioeconomic institution, it has grafted pieces of alternative medicine onto itself (what you cannot suppress, consume), but as I will argue later, it does not possess the philosophic underpinnings to underwrite this attempted merger. I also want to be clear that I am not defending the whole of alternative medicine, only naturopathic medicine.
I also agree that we should define terms. Since, to give one example, acupuncture pre-dated the current form of Western medicine by approximately 4800 years, I feel that tradition medicine more accurate reflects the various indigenous medical systems sometimes incorporated under the umbrella term "alternative medicine." In deference to your views, I will use the term "academic" or biomedicine to refer to Western conventional medicine and alternative medicine to refer to various holistic practices.
Dualism can be defined as belief that mental things and physical things are fundamentally distinct kinds of entities. Reductionism can be defined as the belief that statements or expressions of one sort can be replaced systematically by statements or expressions of a simpler or more certain kind. To link the two, dualism (as defined by Descarte) says that there are two types of things: mind and matter, that can best be understood through the strategy of reductionism: take the object under study and reduce it to its simplest components, then analyze them step by step to see how they recombine to form the original object. Each had an important part to play in the evolution of medicine. For example, dualism (in this case, viewing the body as dead matter vs a vehicle for the soul) allowed the nascent field of medicine to pull away from the suppressive influence of the Church. I agree with fable that Bohr, Heisenberg, etc. would be spinning in their graves at the idea of their theoretical work supporting "New Age" therapies. However, if you reread my post, you will see I was careful not to write that alternative medicine is supported by the theories of Bohr and Hiesenberg, a often made and spurious claim in my opinion, only that (in this specific instance) naturopathic medicine's position was given philosophical structure by an explanatory strategy advanced by them. An explanatory strategy can be defined as "heuristic or pragmatically adopted metaphysical concept by which to approach the world." In short, I am attempting to compare two world views: one advanced by Descarte, Bacon, Galileo, and Newton and the other advanced by the adherents of quantum physics. In my mind, this is philosophically appropriate and defensible. Otherwise, why not simply revert to solipsism and be done with it?
I did write that interactionalistic, indeterministic, and nonlinear philosophical operatives support naturopathic medicine (I did not include multifactorial theory constructs). I stated this because academic medicine is based on an explanatory strategy defined by reductionism, dualism, mechanistic materialism and so on. That is to say, it based on a classical science design. This explanatory strategy engenders the first, or foundational, tier of a three tiered model. The second tier is comprised of the basic biophysical sciences that are exemplars of the work within this world view/model/ paradigm. For example classical thermodynamics, molecular biology, etc. The first and second tiers mutually influence each other and, taken together, define the paradigm for the subject of inquiry. The third tier is the applied medical sciences, supported by the operational directives of the first two tiers, that define, in this case, academic medicine (pathophysiology, histology, etc.). The summation of the three tiers have been called the biomedical model. In their excellent book, The Second Medical Revolution, Lawrence Foss and Kenneth Rothenberg amply document the reality of this viewpoint, arguing that the biomedical model, while scientific, is flawed and inappropriate apply to human beings. Interactionalism, indeterminism, etc. defined the explanatory strategy for a more appropriate medical model or what they call the infomedical design. While academic medicine, like Rome, grafts various alternative medicine practices into its "empire" it is, at its core, "Roman" and no amount of feel-good propaganda can make it otherwise. Likewise, naturopathic medicine is inherently "ecological." This doesn't make it better, just as natural supplements are not necessarily better than synthetic forms of medicine. It makes it different, and, with an adequate amount of mature intelligence, synergistic with academic medicine. While philosophically I feel that academic medicine is flawed, and at time injurious in its execution, pragmatically I understand the medicine is first and foremost an empirical undertaking. When my patient has asthma, TB, cancer or whatever, I don't really care about philosophical niceties. I care that my patient is returned to health or, as least, to their highest level of function. Realistically, I feel the two systems can, and should, work together. That would be a quest worth undertaking.