On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:34:53 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@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)