Misunderstanding Empiricism

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Licensed medical doctors who choose to use natural approaches to healing along with traditional medicine are not quacks.

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They are if those "natural methods" have not been demonstrated to work in rigorous double-blind controlled studies.

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But personal experience should not be considered inferior. All the studies in the world won't make Midol work for me or Tylenol work for you.

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But the studies don't claim that Tylenol or Midol will definitely work for every single person.What they claim is that they work for specific conditions better than placebo.Personal experience is inferior when making broad claims because personal experience isn't tested against placebo. Personal experience when used to extrapolate to groups isn't tested at all, and can't help but be riddled with bias and error.And, this is fron your own source on "soft evidence":

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That's your opinion, not fact. A quack is one who pretends to have medical skills. A licensed MD has medical skills. So you would need to show incompetence or malpractice. Quack doesn't fit.

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Sure it does.Let me give you another example to illustrate my point.There are people with legitimate advanced scientific degrees in relevant fields who reject Evolution, either in full or in part. Not many, but a few. Their reasons for doing so are not scientific, yet they use their credentials as scientists to give weight to their unscientific views. Many of this group of scientists have published legitimate(non-creationist/ID) work in journals and some remain active in their fields.By your rationale, we shouldn't reject those scientists' error-filled and unscientific views of Evolution simply because they have a PhD and have or are doing good-quality work otherwise.

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Exactly, but if one is trying to convince an individual, then the personal experiences shared need to be respected when making an argument.

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No, they really don't, PD. Not when making scientific claims. That's kinda the whole reason I wrote what you were responding to: Unless you are trying to claim that castor oil packs work just for you or something...

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When you come through like a bulldozer, all they have to do is shut you off and leave. If they leave, they don't see your message. If you want someone to listen, you have to keep their attention. Preferably without stress. (Universal "you".)

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By the same token, if you want to avoid being steamrollered by frustrated people, then I suggest that you start actually responding to what people write and debating a bit more forthrightly. In other words, stop avoiding direct questions, feigning dumbness, and stonewalling. (Universal "you")

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My bad, you didn't see the light.
I'm out.

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Translation:I don't like it that nobody in this thread will let me simply repeat myself over and over and that everybody in this thread keeps pressing me to actually respond to rebuttals.

This is so perfectly appropriate, I just had to post it here.Obviously, for a scenario of this type to be turned into a comic, it must happen frequently, as PD and others have demonstrated.

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In the absence of conclusive scientific studies, the individual has to rely on what is available and glean what they can from what science does know.

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The chemists and biologists told you in the Castor Oil thread that they couldn't see how the castor oil could be getting into the blood stream through the skin, that the McGarey studies appeared to be of poor quality, and that the increased T-cell counts reported could have been just from the heat or low-level ricin poisoning.This is what the scientists here have told you they know about castor oil packs.How have you incorporated this information into your individual experience?It appears to me that you haven't incorporated this scientific information into your individual experience at all.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

There is no positive evidence to support the idea that you have incorporated the facts and conclusions provided to you in that thread, since you have indicated that you still consider McGarey's work to be in any way useful.For example, how have you incorporated this message from Coragyps? You never replied to him there: Or this one from Meddle, that you also didn't reply to:

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Yes

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PD, I didn't ask any yes or no questions in my previous post.I noted that the fact that you still think that McGarey's work is useful indicates to me that you haven't incorporated what Meddle and Coragyps told you in the Castor Oil thread.I asked you how you had incorporated what they told you into your individual experience.Based upon how you are continuing to argue in this thread, you haven't incorporated any of it.Look, if all you are going to do every time your claims about castor oil packs, or any healthcare stuff, are questioned is refuse to answer because it is "personal", then you should really stop making claims at all. Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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there is a whole lot more genuine science in it than in the conventional method and as well,

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False. This has been demonstrated to you many times.

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a whole lot more evidence that treating wholistically leaves the patient more healthy than treating via the conventional method.

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You have never supported this claim with evidence.You have had many opportunities to do so and never have.

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Deborah Ray, Dr Whitaker and a number of others talk science daily relative to the products and practices which they advocate.

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Both of these people advocate various forms of unscientific quackery.This has been pointed out to you many times.

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Dr Whitaker did not build the largest naturopath wellness facility in the US on quakery.

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Sure he did. That he advocates non-scientific quack treatments oin his practice has been pointed out to you many times.

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He being a former conventional MD integrates using mostly naturopath methodology and consistently saves basket cases which the conventionalists have left for hopeless or dead.

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He lists several quack, unscientific treatments on his website.This has been pointed out to you many times but you refuse to address it.

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Saturating the body with products which are not natural to the body or fit for introduction into the diet is not good science.

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You mean like ingesting non-nutritive toxic herbs that contain proven liver poison, like comfrey?This has been pointed out to you many times but you have yet to address it.

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The rapid advance of the science of naturopath is mushrooming and being used in Europe, Mexico and other nations where it is tolerated.

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There is little to no scientific basis for much of Naturopathy, and its underlying philosophy is based in Spiritualism and New Age mumbo jumbo. The "Vital Force" and all that.This has been demonstrated here many times.

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Obviously you are not aware of the extent of the science in it all but we who are following and applying it daily are apprised on it.

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I've asked you in the various past threads to provide the science, but of course you haven't.All you ever do is make baseless proclomations.