On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:34:53 -0800, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
> OK, so let's take this test and try it on an
article.
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons
> Here we have a case where some very sincere people are campaigning
> to get the medical establishment to recognise a disease. The
> medical establishment refuses, saying this is just symptoms of
> already known diseases.
> Read
www.morgellonswatch.com if you have the time; the top two or
> three posts are a very balanced statement of the medical
> establishment's POV here.
I neither know nor want to know anything about
Morgellons. There are
clearly some people who believe that it is a validly distinct syndrome,
and others who don't. It is not for us to judge which of them is
correct. The fact that the medical establishment is in opposition is
not in itself a valid argument against this concept. It is an argument
from authority. We can only say what each side believes.
That rather misses the point. What we're doing here is looking at
the actual article, the actual editors of the actual article, and
seeing if the proposed test yields an unambiguous answer: who are
the Martin Luther Kings and who are the Jason Gastriches?
In broader terms definition is the sole responsibility
of the
proponents. Defining a phenomenon is not a scientific or falsifiable
process. I can define something completely silly, and that definition
will remain valid. The definition says nothing one way or the other
about whether what I have defined has any connection with the real
world. That comes later.
That rather misses the point. They insist that the medical
establishment's failure or refusal to accept their definition is
evidence of a problem. Well, no, medicine doesn't work that way -
you are expected to follow the scientific method. You don't go to a
Western medical doctor to be treated for evil spirits, however
sincerely you believe that you are possessed by evil spirits.
What I find happens frequently is that opponents expand
definitions to
include something that was not originally implied. They proceed to
disprove their expansions and believe that they have debunked the whole
thing.
And in this case we have the opposite: proponents have expanded the
definition to the point that common symptoms of a dozen or more
common complaints are all listed as diagnostic of this supposed
disorder, and people are encouraged to self-diagnose, and told that
their self-diagnosis is accurate *because doctors won't diagnose
this disorder*; doctors won't diagnose this, therefore those who
will diagnose it (i.e. you, the patient, and we, the company that
will sell you a treatment) are the only ones whoa re right.
Balancing the true believers on either side of such
issues is not an
easy task, but one has to begin from a position of respect for both
sides. That cannot be accomplished if one is predisposed to dismiss
eccentric views.
I don't think it's a matter of dismissing them. It's a matter of
identifying them as eccentric, that's the heart of this problem. How
do we, as a community, diagnose the difference between Dr. King and
"Dr." Gastrich when they tell us we are wrong? Or does it matter?
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG