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Did Rupert Sheldrake make a factual error?
An editor at TED seems to suggest that Rupert Sheldrake made a factual error in his talk "The Science Delusion" when he said governments "ignore complimentary and alternative therapies." She writes:
"Sheldrake says that governments do not fund research into complementary medicine. Here are the US figures on NIH investment in complementary and alternative medicine 2009-2010: http://nccam.nih.gov/about/budget/institute-center.htm "
http://www.ted.com/conversations/16894/rupert_sheldrake_s_tedx_talk.html
At the NIH link we find that the NIH invested $441,819, 000 in complimentary and alternative medicine in 2011.
But the total NIH budget is about $31,000,000,000 or $31 billion.
http://www.nih.gov/about/budget.htm
This means the NIH invested about 1.425% of its budget in complimentary and alternative medicine in 2011.
To what extent have other governments funded research in complimentary and alternative medicine?
Ranko Pinter
David Marshall
A double standard was applied. Because Sheldrake disagreed with materialism, they went looking for "factual errors." But we could find the same sort of things and probably a lot worse in other TED videos. The "factual errors" were never the point.
The point was always that Sheldrake had disagreed with materialism. The TED science board couldn't debate him on that issue because they knew he would expose them as dogmatists, so they trumped up these "factual errors."
That is how dogmas are defended -- by distracting people from the real issues, ad-hominen remarks, and straw-man arguments, all of which we saw on display here.
It's okay that TED and its science board have different views; that's their right. But I think they could have treated Sheldrake and Hancock a lot more fairly.
Time Walker 10+
Worse, when TED advanced reasons to justify pulling the lectures and those reasons were demonstrated to be fallacious, Chris Anderson refused to address their wrongness for days, but then did so by crossing them all out. TED's reasons were thoroughly refuted and he conceded that. He has yet to demonstrate any errors that would justify the lectures being pulled. No one from TED has even attempted to address the substance of the talks since. They've also refused to put anyone forward to debate the authors, despite offers from both. In the final analysis TED has pulled these lectures for no reason at all that they are wiling to identify. I'm left to assume that they don't actually know why they pulled them.
http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/
The other "error" identified by TED, and later crossed out, was that Sheldrake raised questions about the measured speed of light. Jerry Coyne misrepresented him as saying that he claimed the speed of light was falling. Coyne posted an explanation of the issue by physicist Sean Carroll who ended up validating Sheldrake's statements about the variations in the data and about speed of light having been fixed by definition. This was what TED put forward as "careful analysis" in its justification for pulling the talk. They apparently didn't notice that it validated, but did not refute Sheldrake. Sheldrake was further validated by two new studies that show fluctuations in the speed of light. http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0325/Scientists-examine-nothing-find-something
It's no wonder TED won't debate Sheldrake. He makes them look like rank amateurs. And all the nitpicking and semantic quibbling in this discussion doesn't change that.
edward long 100+
Steve Stark 50+
edward long 100+
Steve Stark 50+
Steve Stark 50+
Arkady Grudzinsky 50+
At this point, I'm not sure what's causing more brouhaha - the talks themselves or TED's quashing them. None of this nonsense looks like intelligent behavior to me. How can you, people, be so blind to this obvious truth? :-).
sandy stone 30+
And without TED!
http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/brother-can-you-spare-a-paradigm-an-exted-production/
David Marshall
Sheldrake is not making assertions in his talk. Rather, he is inquiring, in the spirit of C. S. Peirce, whom he mentions. The idea with inquiry is to apply the scientific method everywhere, even on dearly held assumptions that don’t have hard evidence to back them up, and not privilege any interpretation without reason or evidence.
Notice that he asks, “What if . . . ?” five times in his discussion about Big G. He uses the language of inquiry in Science Set Free as well (emphasis mine):
“MAYBE the constants fluctuate, too, and PERHAPS one day scientific periodicals will carry regular news reports on their latest values. The implications of varying constants WOULD BE enormous." (p. 93).
This is a scientific attitude -- open, curious, non-dogmatic.
David Marshall
Crystal Roo
1. Everything is essentially mechanical. Dogs, for example, are complex mechanisms, rather than living organisms with goals of their own. Even people are machines, “lumbering robots”, in Richard Dawkins’s vivid phrase, with brains that are like genetically programmed computers.
>>> Mechanism actually refers back from the object or process, along some chain of causation. No description of mechanism is ever complete. The function of the object or process looks forward along some chain of causation to a *goal or evolutionary success.
2. All matter is unconscious. It has no inner life or subjectivity or point of view. Even human consciousness is an illusion produced by the material activities of brains.
>>> Um, he obviously isn't up to date on scientific advances. He should totally check out VS Ramachandran, a popular neuroscientist who has been and is on the case.
Steve Stark 50+
Crystal Roo
What percentage is "almost all?"
Who does he consider "educated people?"
Most importantly... What does he consider "think?"
Steve Stark 50+
You are making the mistake of trying to find fault by pretending not to understand English very well. What Sheldrake meant is obvious enough.
Crystal Roo
I didn't say it required a definite percentage (as if that could somehow be achieved — let's just forget the term "limits" altogether). Vagueness is sketchy. Pseudoscientists often use the tactic of vague and/or exaggerated claims and ambiguous language.
I think I know what "think" is; However, Sheldrake is uncertain. He thinks it has a little something to do with the brain. Really? OK. Yeah, it has a little something to do with the brain. Thank you, Sheldrake. I feel so learned now. Maybe that's what he means by educated people.
Steve Stark 50+
The main point here though is that your questions about my post amounted to nothing. A request for a %age you now deny making. Complaints about ambiguities in language which are completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. And then a request for a definition of "think" in a context in which you understand full well what it means. Thus it's hard to take your complaints about the talk or your complaints about my response seriously.
Crystal Roo
>>> Where did I ignore the fact that it existed or say that only one person refuted his claim?
"Re the stuff about "think" - now you're mixing up the discussion of what kind of scientific account we can give of thinking and what the word means in normal discourse."
>>> His mantle is what "think" means. That's why I question what he means by "think." I was merely staying on topic and used the term pejoratively, hoping you would make the connection. I didn't mean to offend you.
"A request for a %age you now deny making."
>>> I didn't deny making a request for a percentage. Please stop putting words in my mouth. I said that I didn't say it required a *definite percentage (since that's impossible to achieve — see the definition of the limit of a function).
"Complaints about ambiguities in language which are completely irrelevant to the issue at hand."
>>> Oh, but it's completely relevant. Real science doesn't deal in ambiguity. It does deal in limits, however.
"Thus it's hard to take your complaints about the talk or your complaints about my response seriously."
>>> Your logical fallacy is the fallacy fallacy: You presumed that because a claim has been poorly argued, or a fallacy has been made, that the claim itself must be wrong. Not, that I think it has been poorly argued, but you seem to "think" that.
Sheldrake's overarching logical fallacy is burden of proof: that the burden of proof lies not with the person making the claim, but with someone else to disprove.
Steve Stark 50+
You now deny you denied asking for a percentage, and yet here you say "I didn't say it required a definite percentage".
You are mixing up the points about ambiguities in language and ambiguities in science. The ambiguities in language you are complaining about have no relevance here and are not ambiguities in the science of Sheldrake's claims in any event. It's unclear there really were any ambiguities in the way suggest in any event. I suspect you just said it because it sounded good to you.
I've not concluded your complaints are wrong because they are poorly argued - I simply said they are grossly confused, wrong and poorly argued. Given that, it is hard to take them seriously.
Re the preposterous claim that Sheldrake's overarching fallacy is the burden of proof. You appear to be just throwing out jargon in some scattergun (Gish gallop) attempt to confuse people sufficiently that they might believe there is actually a point in there somewhere.The fallacy you are making here is Occam's fallacy of affirming the begging of the consequent's question whilst simultaneously denying the wishfully thought antecedent via personal incredulity - or something.
Crystal Roo
>>> That was merely an example. I didn't realize I was responsible for offering a *definite percentage. Almost all educated people believe the Easter Bunny exists. Now you disprove.
"You now deny you denied asking for a percentage, and yet here you say "I didn't say it required a definite percentage."
>>> No. Again, I deny asking for a DEFINITE percentage. I placed an asterisk before the word, but maybe all caps will do the trick. You said "There's no requirement for a *definite percentage" and I agreed. What's the argument?
"You are mixing up the points about ambiguities in language and ambiguities in science."
>>> Ambiguity is ambiguity. "You are making the mistake of trying to find fault by pretending not to understand English very well."
Either way, I have limited patience debating semantics. Taking the high road outta here.
I leave you with one final image. Enjoy.
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/images/us101/sciencerecipe.jpg
Crystal Roo
>>> Did someone say Higgs Boson? The (simplified) idea is this: energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but it can be transformed. Instead of zooming out into oblivion, elementary particles, which have no intrinsic mass, interact with the Higg’s field, causing them to slow and change their kinetic energy into mass-energy. There are many other models of the Universe that don't involve the Big Bang. Even Fred Hoyle, who coined the term on a radio broadcast, used the term pejoratively.
4. The laws of nature are fixed. They are the same today as they were at the beginning, and they will stay the same forever.
>>> Science includes many principles at least *once thought to be laws of nature: Newton's law of gravitation, his three laws of motion, the ideal gas laws, Mendel's laws, the laws of supply and demand, and so on. Other regularities important to science were not thought to have this status. These include regularities that, unlike laws, were (or still are) thought by scientists to stand in need of explanation. These include the regularity of the ocean tides, the perihelion of Mercury's orbit, the photoelectric effect, that the universe is expanding, and so on.
5. Nature is purposeless, and evolution has no goal or direction.
>>> In science, teleology is a way of modelling a system's behaviour by referring to its end-state, or goal. Opinions divide over whether Darwin's theory of evolution provides a means of eliminating teleology from biology, or whether it provides a naturalistic account of the role of teleological notions in the science. Many contemporary biologists and philosophers of biology believe that teleological notions are a distinctive and ineliminable feature of biological explanations.
Crystal Roo
>>> His theory of morphic resonance dismisses causal elements that lead to multiple discovery. Multiple discoveries in the history of science provide evidence for evolutionary models of science and technology, such as memetics (the study of self-replicating units of culture), evolutionary epistemology (which applies the concepts of biological evolution to study of the growth of human knowledge), and cultural selection theory (which studies sociological and cultural evolution in a Darwinian manner).
A recombinant-DNA-inspired "paradigm of paradigms" has been posited, that describes a mechanism of "recombinant conceptualization." This paradigm predicates that a new concept arises through the crossing of pre-existing concepts and facts. This is what is meant when one says that a scientist or artist has been "influenced by" another—etymologically, that a concept of the latter's has "flowed into" the mind of the former. Of course, not every new concept so formed will be viable: adapting social Darwinist Herbert Spencer's phrase, only the fittest concepts survive.
7. Minds are inside heads and are nothing but the activities of brains. When you look at a tree, the image of the tree you are seeing is not ‘out there,’ where it seems to be, but inside your brain.
>>> Consciousness, by the dictionary definition, is interdependent and causal. "Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself." Since it's dependent on other factors (something to be aware of), it's interdependent and causal. Stimulus–response models, predicting a quantitative response to a quantitative stimulus, are applied in neuroscience and neurally-inspired system design.
Crystal Roo
>>> Again with morphic resonance. Just because you can imagine something doesn't make it true. Also, many memories are wiped out well before death due to synaptic pruning.
9. Unexplained phenomena like telepathy are illusory.
>>> True, scientific consensus does not view telepathy as a real phenomenon. However, this view is far from dogmatic. Until it can be proven as fact, it remains a belief. Therefore, the opposite is true. Believing in unexplained phenomena like telepathy is dogmatic.
Many studies seeking to detect, understand, and utilize telepathy have been done, but according to the prevailing view among scientists, telepathy lacks replicable results from well-controlled experiments.
The notion of telepathy is not dissimilar to two psychological concepts: delusions of thought insertion/removal and psychological symbiosis. This similarity might explain how some people have come up with the idea of telepathy.
Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists believe and empirical findings support the idea that people with schizotypal personality disorder are particularly likely to believe in telepathy.
10. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.
>>> If scientists really held this view, there would be no need to add a placebo as a comparative factor in medical trials. Neuroscientists are studying the effects of yoga on neuromodulators. Doctors tell patients to eat right and exercise. There are obviously many other factors besides mechanistic medicine that are given scientific merit.
Time Walker 10+
>>> True, scientific consensus does not view telepathy as a real phenomenon. However, this view is far from dogmatic. Until it can be proven as fact, it remains a belief. Therefore, the opposite is true. Believing in unexplained phenomena like telepathy is dogmatic."
Belief and dogma are not the same thing. Beliefs can be dogmatic. We call those dogmatic beliefs. Having anecdotal experience of something like psychic phenomena and being open to it is pretty much the exact opposite of dogmatism.
Even Richard Wiseman said that it's been proven to a normal standard of evidence, if not to the extraordinary degree that would satisfy him. He said that regarding remote viewing, but later amended his statement to mean ESP generally. http://barenormality.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/that-wiseman-quote/
Crystal Roo
Saying "I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do." is a condemning statement. For example, we have the tools of measurement to determine the weight of a calculator, but not a ghost.
The scientific method can't measure qualia. Before we can even attempt to accurately study qualitative phenomena, we'd have to first develop an effective method to accurately study qualitative phenomena.
Believing in unexplained phenomena like telepathy is dogmatic because they are tenets put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds.
Steve Stark 50+
Re qualia - nothing to do with anything here I'm afraid - no qualititative phenomena involved at all in fact. Re belief in telepathy - nobody, certainly not Sheldrake in this talk, was suggesting telepathy should be believed in. His point was that it is considered impossible because of some of the dogmas of the materialist/reductionist world-view - thus many don't need to look at the evidence because they already know it can't be true.
Time Walker 10+
“I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do.
“If I said that there is a red car outside my house, you would probably believe me.
“But if I said that a UFO had just landed, you’d probably want a lot more evidence.
“Because remote viewing is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionise the world, we need overwhelming evidence before we draw any conclusions. Right now we don’t have that evidence.” ~ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-510762/Could-proof-theory-ALL-psychic.html
He later appears to have clarified, and I've seen this posted a couple of places, but the original link is gone:
“It is a slight misquote, because I was using the term in the more general sense of ESP — that is, I was not talking about remote viewing per se, but rather Ganzfeld, etc as well. I think that they do meet the usual standards for a normal claim, but are not convincing enough for an extraordinary claim.”
You write:
"Believing in unexplained phenomena like telepathy is dogmatic because they are tenets put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds."
Maybe somewhere there are people who believe in psychic phenomena because they've been told to by authority figures. That's not been my experience. The prevailing culture, at least in the West, doesn't accept these beliefs, so it's the opposite. Most people who believe in psychic phenomena have experienced something that caused them to question the prevailing belief in their falsity. For it to be a dogmatic belief, it would need to come from a religion or some other culturally reinforced set of beliefs, because that's what dogma is. I know I didn't grow up in such a culture. Did you?
Crystal Roo
"Authoritative without adequate grounds" is the definition for dogma.
If you use a dictionary you don't need a crystal ball.
au·thor·i·ta·tive : Able to be trusted as being accurate or true; reliable:
"Having anecdotal experience of something like psychic phenomena and being open to it is pretty much the exact opposite of dogmatism."
"Re qualia - nothing to do with anything here I'm afraid"
Anectodal evidence is typically considered qualitative here, I'm afraid.
Time Walker 10+
n. pl. dog·mas or dog·ma·ta (-m-t)
1. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church.
2. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true. See Synonyms at doctrine.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dogma
Can you think of an orthodoxy in the West that enforces belief in psychic phenomena? I really can't. And what bodies do believe in such things emphasize personal experience and validation. The standards of even anecdotal evidence in a public very skeptical of such things is pretty darned high.
To be authoritative, one must be vested with authority. Who are these doctrinaire enforcers of belief in psychic phenomena you speak of?
People who believe in psychic phenomena are working against the grain of the greater society, not with it. And they generally do so because they've had experiences that challenged that prevailing view. People don't buck the dogmas of their churches or the authority of the vast majority of scientists for no reason. A conversation I had recently with Sandy Stone on another thread is illustrative, I think: http://www.ted.com/conversations/17348/discuss_the_note_to_the_ted_co.html?c=644617
Steve Stark 50+
Crystal Roo
>>> I don't. It's an adjective. It doesn't only apply to an "authority figure." In this case, it applies to the definition of dogma: "Authoritative without adequate grounds."
"Qualia have nothing to do with anything here. You are confused/mistaken about what this word means I'm afraid."
>>> "The importance of qualia in philosophy of mind comes largely from the fact that it is seen as posing a fundamental problem for materialist explanations of the mind-body problem." It's at the heart of Sheldrake's talk. I'm not even remotely confused. Are you?
At any time, feel free to join the realm of quanta. Then we might actually get somewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
Time Walker 10+
>>> I don't. It's an adjective. It doesn't only apply to an 'authority figure. In this case, it applies to the definition of dogma: 'Authoritative without adequate grounds.'"
The problem, Crystal, is that you've posted a truncated definition of dogma that distorts the meaning. See where I posted a more complete definition from a dictionary? Only a person or body with some vested authority can enforce a dogma.
As to your issue with the definition of qualia, perhaps you should address your concerns to Steve as he is the person you are quoting, not me. All of which calls into question your reading comprehension.
Sebastian Penraeth
David Marshall
Maybe we should all be more careful in our fact checking before we go accusing or correcting people on alleged factual errors.
But the important thing is that we, together, as a group --TED, materialist dogmatists, Sheldrake, and everyone else-- get the facts right in the end. As Hilary Clinton once wrote, it takes a village.
As any mature editor understands, no one editor will catch every mistake or clarify every point him- or herself, let alone every author or speaker on their own. Why be so quick to elevate oneself and put others down over minor factual errors?
We need to take more of a process-oriented view where we are all in this together, all working on this together, as one group, rather than looking to go one-up on each other over minor details.
Sandy, Edward, Pandelis, Bill, and Murray, thank you for your comments.
Murray, I think you make a really important point when you say, "I am shocked to find that . . . the debate is about the minutiae of what he [Sheldrake] said, rather than the broad thrust of his argument."
This is how the dogmatists of all stripes tend to go about their business, I have noticed -- ad-hominem remarks, one-upmanship, and nitpicking, as if showing that Sheldrake or someone didn't cross their t's or dot their i's somewhere means we are all justified -- nay, obligated! -- to dismiss all their work.
Ted Fellow
http://nccam.nih.gov/about/offices/od/directortestimony/0511.htm
edward long 100+
Thanks for the reference from the TED blog on this subject. Dr. Sheldrake's response is enlightening but does nothing to convince TED to render honor to the TED x Talk. TED has decided to remove the talk to the Blog. Their justification is that it contains untrue statements including one where Rupert says, "governments ignore complementary and alternative medicine. . . ". That flat statement is a sweeping generalization and should not have been stated. This post asks very specifically a single question: Did Rupert made a factual error? The answer, sadly, is YES.
sandy stone 30+
edward long 100+
sandy stone 30+
edward long 100+
sandy stone 30+
~ Rupert Sheldrake.
Prior to TED becoming a venue of the radical atheist movement, most people would not have considered TED a less-than-friendly venue for Sheldrake's ideas. And take a look at the name of the talk he was invited to participate in.
This whole business is rather sad. TED has lost all credibility in the eyes of the public. The story is spreading rapidly across the internet. And all TED seems to do is act as if the public is just stupid and needs to be told what to think. TED not only slandered and insulted Sheldrake, it owes the public an apology too.
Steve Stark 50+
So we have some interpretations under which what RS said was true and some interpretations under which what he said was false. That means we do not have a clear factual error - as opposed to a mere ambiguity - and, moreover, since RS has already clarified what he said, and explained why he said it the way he did, that would seem to be the end of that. No?
A further question being: do you suppose there is a single TED(x) talk that could not be criticised in exactly the same manner?
edward long 100+
sandy stone 30+
http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/
"This is a good opportunity to correct an oversimplification in my talk. In relation to the dogma that mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works, I said, “that’s why governments only fund mechanistic medicine and ignore complementary and alternative therapies.” This is true of most governments, but the US is a notable exception. The US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine receives about $130 million a year, about 0.4% of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) total annual budget of $31 billion.
Obviously I could not spell out all the details of my arguments in an 18-minute talk, but TED’s claims that it contains “serious factual errors,” “many misleading statements” and that it crosses the line into “pseudoscience” are defamatory and false. "
Pandelis P.
And even if there was was an error in a statement, is it enough to delete the talk form Youtube? It's as sick as it can get...
Murray Morison
Sheldrake's whole view of science is different - and not without an evidential basis. He may not be correct in all aspects, but then are all TED talks subject to this level of scrutiny, for every jot and tittle. What Sheldrake is doing is questioning the orthodoxy. It appearrs that the Orthodoxy Strikes Back. Shame on TED for stifling what should be a really interesting debate.
Bill Greenjeans
"We believe that NCCAM [National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine] funds proposals of dubious merit; its research agenda is shaped more by politics than by science; and it is structured by its charter in a manner that precludes an independent review of its performance. In view of the popularity of alternative therapies, it is appropriate to evaluate the efficacy and safety of selected treatments."
Many therapies supposedly being studied by the NCCAM have been around for a very long time with already many private studies showing efficacy and yet the NCCAM has never found one therapy that was effective.. Maybe they aren't really wanting to find anything worthwhile.
I have Dr. Sheldrakes book and I could find no reason to censor his remarks. Let those who made complaint debate Dr. Sheldrake if you really are interested in "ideas worth spreading". At least replace the video.
David Marshall
http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/comment-page-6/#comment-33178
But as I said in my previous post, the Ted science board actually makes a number of factual and/or interpretive errors of its own and doesn't show that Sheldrake made any.
The board, for example, says that Sheldrake claims "scientists have ignored variations in the measurements of natural constants" and that this constitutes a factual error.
But what Sheldrake actually said, at about 9:50, was this:
“I want to focus on the constants of nature. Because these are again use [sic] assumed to be constant.”
He is saying they are "usually" assumed to be constant, which is true.
More to the point, those that hold the raw data on big G, for example, and refuse to publish it think G is constant -- they are dogmatic on the issue, and it is their voice that counts most here since they hold the data.
The board also says Sheldrake made an error in saying that scientists believe animals don't have consciousness when there is a consensus they have some form of consciousness. But Sheldrake's point is that materialists reduce consciousness to matter, which is an assumption he wants to question, so this is a semantic/scientific difference rather than a factual error.
Finally, the board says that "Sheldrake claims to have 'evidence' of morphic resonance in crystal formation and rat behavior" when the studies have "never appeared in a peer-reviewed journal." But immediately following that remark, at 9:45, Sheldrake says, "Anyway that’s my own hypothesis in a nutshell of morphic resonance.”
"Hypothesis" -- so the context makes it clear he's not claiming it as a proven fact, but rather as something to suggest further study.
Sheldrake does cite replications of these experiment in his book The Presence of the Past, beginning on page 199, so why not simply open a discussion about it and let Sheldrake respond?
David Marshall
Katie I think you make a very important point about pharmaceutical "science" -- when they exclude all non-patentable agents for research money a priori it begins to look more like profiteering than research into the very best medicine.
I also think you make an important point when you say:
"One also needs to know whether the researcher applying for money to test an alternative claim was in favour or opposed to the alternative claim being tested. The fact of the matter is that many conventionally trained doctors wish to see alternative claims banned."
It may be that every bit of the $441 million that the NIH spent, or most of it, was dedicated to finding fault with alternative therapies or at least applying them in a mechanistic fashion. We would have to really get into the details to know.
Edward, I think you make a reasonable argument that spending $441 million on research doesn't amount to "ignoring," even if it is merely 1.425% of the budget. But that is assuming that it was sincere research into the efficacy of alternative treatments, as Katie points out.
In any case, it has been shown that in Denmark they do truly ignore alternative medicine, and the same appears to be true for the UK, Sheldrake's home country, and Sheldrake's remark was about governments in general, not merely the U.S.
We're still waiting for data from other countries. But while you can argue it both ways, I don't think anyone can strongly claim Sheldrake made a factual error here. In fact, he is largely correct, even in the U.S.
But the bigger news is that Ted has removed the video from YouTube, citing factual errors:
http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/comment-page-6/#comment-33178
However, it turns out that Ted's board of scientists actually makes several errors of their own. More on that in my next post.
Katie McClymont
Many drug medicines come from plants. The pharmaceutical companies create synthetic forms with the goal of a patentable product for higher profits. These are not tested compared to the original plant extract but to a placebo instead. There are biases like this in the methods.
Another fact is that alternative practitioners, seldom treat patients with a single therapy at a time and for example may drastically change the patients diet. Conventional medicine does not do this when testing, it is generally reduced to a test of a specific single aspect compared to a drug or placebo, seldom a whole lifestyle change.
For example, if one were to test a how a seed grows on a lab bench by testing water, light, soil, etc. all in isolation, one at a time, one could present a claim none of these work
Sheldrake has suggested in past the following solution to avoid biased medical tests, to avoid putting theories before empirical evidence and focussing on the actual outcome.
'...“In terms of medical research, the placebo-controlled double blind procedure is still standard, but a far better method is to compare different treatments looking at outcomes. For example, people with persistent migraines could be allocated at random to acupuncturists, osteopaths, physiotherapists, homeopaths,allopaths and anyone else who claimed to be able to cure it. With reasonably large randomized samples, the question would then be, what works best? This would give theory-free, pragmatic, evidence-based medicine, and would be the best method for evaluating alternative therapies..' - Rupert Sheldrake
edward long 100+
Michael Carmichael
edward long 100+
Michael Carmichael
edward long 100+
Michael Carmichael
edward long 100+
Rome Viharo
Obviously I could not spell out all the details of my arguments in an 18-minute talk, but TED’s claims that it contains “serious factual errors,” “many misleading statements” and that it crosses the line into “pseudoscience” are defamatory and false."
David Marshall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine#Research_funding
I've looked at more documents at the UK organization (MRC) website, but I haven't been able to find anything.
I have more to say, but I'll save it for later.
David Marshall
So the NIH devotes 1.425% of its budget to alternative medicine. As Theodore said without exaggeration, this is "a thousand times better" than my original calculation suggested.
Thank you all for your comments, Julie, Theodore, TL, Ed, Barry, Daryl, Fritzie.
So, I think Barry's point that this can be argued both ways is a good one. The word "ignore" is arguably an absolute, so if the NIH or any other governmental agency invests even a dollar (or a Euro or a Yen) in alternative medicine, Sheldrake has arguably made a factual error.
On the other hand, since the budgets are probably all so skewed toward "mechanistic" (or allopathic, pharmaceutical, conventional) medicine, we could also say that he was largely correct in what he said.
We might also subtract 1.425 from 100 and say Sheldrake was 98.575% correct in what he said, at least with regard to the U.S.
I was kind of hoping we would have an international gathering and people would pop in with numbers from Denmark, Sweden, the UK, Japan, Germany.
Thank you for the university numbers from Alberta, Ed. We might not hold that against Sheldrake because his comment referred to governments, and the policy of University of Alberta, while in part publicly funded, may not qualify as public policy. But it sounds like a very progressive university.
I have made some attempt to find the numbers for the UK. I think I may have the right document for 2011/12 here:
http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Utilities/Documentrecord/index.htm?d=MRC008776
But I haven't been able to find anything about alternative medicine in there. Perhaps the MRC really does "ignore" such medicine.
I have a few more things to say, but I will have to leave it for another post as I am running out of room and time.
Theodore A. Hoppe 200+
However my algebra teacher urged me to always double check my math. :-)
Theodore A. Hoppe 200+
Its nor $441,819 but rather it says, "(Dollars in thousands)1"
This means that the figure is actually $441 million dollars. Still a small percentage of the over all budget but a thousand times better than your calculation suggests.
http://nccam.nih.gov/about/budget/institute-center.htm