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Comment by 52-6F-62 | Hacker News Reader

If you’re trying to legitimize something that isn’t rooted in modern science, I’d advise against the use of “allopathic” as the adjective of choice when speaking of modern, science-based medical study.

The term was coined by a homeopathic doctor with he perceived intent of siloing modern scientific medication and medical study rather than attributing the legitimacy it’s earned due to the accepted rigours of the scientific process.

Not that homeopathic or Ayurvedic is not necessarily effective, but unless it’s submitted to the rigours of scientific study, it’s not science. Therefore if it passes itself off as science, it is a pseudoscience. In that case it doesn’t matter how many names anyone knows.

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"Not that homeopathic or Ayurvedic is not necessarily effective"

Homeopathy is not effective. It cannot be effective.

Not science != not true

Nobody said that.

The point was `not science != science`

Science is a course to best-effort prove things to be true—to that end it's been the most successful yet. The reason it's been successful is rigorous testing and data-gathering. And intellectual honesty. That's another discussion, maybe.

Yes fair enough, good points.

I agree, but if something really works the profit seeking soulless bigpharma corporation will run a clinical experiment and start to sell it in bottles.

So if some cure is true and has a wide profitable market, it will be part of science soon. Most of the traditional cures that worked has been absorbed in science and are no longer call "traditional". What we call "traditional" are the leftovers.

Nope, it's the other way around. Because they can't protect the recipe there are no profits to be made and therefore no incentive to run trials. It get's worse. If a traditional recipe works better, doctors can't prescribe that because it's 'untested' and in the end we get people paying more for inferior products.

> The term was coined by a homeopathic doctor with he perceived intent of siloing modern scientific medication and medical study rather than attributing the legitimacy it’s earned due to the accepted rigours of the scientific process.

The term was coined -- before 'medicine' became 'scientific' -- to point out the philosophical defects of 'heroic medicine', which used bloodletting, blister agents, mercury treatments, etc to punish the illness out of the patient. Allopathic doctors were commonly despised because they weren't helpful for many conditions.

Homeopathic philosophy was that the body can fix itself, if it were properly supported - clean environment, good diet, etc.

Homeopathy is not about the body fixing itself. It's the idea (as implied by the homeo- part) that a disease can be cured by a substance that causes the same symptoms as those of the disease.

To make this idea work without killing the patient, the substance is diluted to such a degree that literally nothing (literally literally!) of it is left, because atoms and molecules were not known at the time the homeopathic ideas were dreamed up. So it's no surprise that it doesn't work, as a homeopathic medicine is entirely devoid of any trace of active ingredient.

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