Danberu Nan Kiro Moteru? - Vol. 10 Ch. 82 - Acupressure

[Nolonar]

@phil777
You are right about tradition not being an excuse nor a reason for anything, that's precisely why I find it baffling that people automatically dismiss TCM just because it is traditional.
It's like saying: "Traditionally, people sleep when they're tired. Science doesn't know why we sleep, nor what it does exactly. Let's stop sleeping until science knows." It's almost like we're too retarded to think for ourselves...
If you need to sleep, then sleep. It doesn't matter if science understands it, nor does it matter if it's traditional. You think drinking coffee is a valid alternative? Great! Drink coffee, then.

What I'm saying is, you don't have to believe in TCM, nor do you have to use or practice it. But saying it's "bullshit" or "unscientific" when science hasn't even tried to prove anything is the epitome of stupidity.
"Science" is not a fucking religion. It is the culmination of facts known to humanity. If something is unknown, it is neither "bullshit" nor "unscientific", until after we've experienced it and observed its effects (or lack thereof) for ourselves.

Science doesn't need ignorance. There's a reason why idiots don't become scientists.

@Wexmajor

Imagine being this simple.

Occam's Razor: The simplest solution is most likely the right one.
You don't need to cut people open to understand that some plants are effective against some ailments.
Give people some tea, see if it's effective. Rinse and repeat for 4000 years. "Hey, guys, maybe there's a correlation?"

@tfwnosuccubusgf

Yeah I really don't feel like getting into it with that dude, but what a shit argument right? Not only has he asked to prove a negative, his logic just has so many holes.

"So many holes" that you can't even name a single example. That's a shit argument.

And your "proving a negative" is actually "proving a positive": All it takes is to divide sick people into two control groups, give one group modern treatment, and the other group TCM treatment, and then compare the results. That's how modern medicine proves if a new treatment is effective or not.

Wait, did you really think modern medicine just summons treatments out of a magic hat without any kind of testing first?
If my logic has holes, yours is inexistent.

 

[perck]

@Nolonar
I'll start with, successful treatments have been derived from TCM. Tu Youyou won the 2015 Nobel prize in medicine for her discovery and isolation of an anti-malarial agent from a TCM treatment.

That being said, Acupuncture is bullshit. It's been tested, there have been hundreds of clinical trials, but somehow all of them have been low quality. A recent Meta-meta study (https://www.mdpi.com/1010-660X/56/1/6/htm) looked at 177 meta-studies, covering well over 1000 clinical trials and was still inconclusive "due in part to recurring methodological shortcomings" In most other fields, after failing to prove something works the thousandth time, we at the very least don't claim it works and sell it as a solution.

Even still, Tu Youyou didn't win the nobel prize on clinical trials alone. She didn't just give tea to people for 4000 years and say "Hey, guys, maybe there's a correlation?". Extracting and finding the active ingredient from the wormwood tea - artemisinin, then testing it against malaria showed not just that it worked, but also how it worked.

So I'll ask not just if, but how does acupuncture work? My guess is that the acupuncture studies failed to show positive results because the foundations of acupuncture - chi, meridians, acupoints, etc. simply don't exist. Ignoring the physical implausibility of some kind of spiritual energy, acupuncturists do not consistently agree on where meridians even are. (see: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2005290118300530) To say that it's actually about the nervous system won't work either, as the layout of the nervous system varies wildly between individuals and won't map onto any meridian chart. The explanation we are given doesn't explain how acupuncture works at all, it only leaves us with more questions.

 

[Nolonar]

@perck
Not sure why you're talking about acuPUNCTURE, when the chapter was about acuPRESSURE.
How does it work? Same way massage does, which, by the way, is used in modern Western medicine as well.

I mean, I get it. You want to discredit all I said about TCM by showing that acupuncture (a single treatment among many) doesn't work, based on some... meta-meta study that's not even conclusive? Yikes...
Let me remind you that in science, "inconclusive proof" is the equivalent of saying "I don't know if this statement is true or not", which is to say it might as well not exist.

In most other fields, after failing to prove something works the thousandth time, we at the very least don't claim it works and sell it as a solution.

You should probably read up on placebo. It's a medicine with no therapeutic value, which we still claim to work, and still sell as a solution.

Not to mention that we're talking about medicine here, which purpose is for people to "get better". How do we know people actually get better? Most of the time, they tell us themselves.
And that's the whole problem: If people have been telling us for 4000 years they "got better" thanks to TCM, then saying it doesn't work because we "failed to prove it works" is just petty.
TCM has been working for billions of people for 4000 years, so if we choose to believe it doesn't work, the burden of proof lies with us, not the Chinese.

And there lies problem nr. 2: there is no (conclusive) proof that it doesn't work, so where does our Western arrogance even come from? Racism?

 

[nobaka]

>wasting the amazing beautiful foreigner trope
sasuga zina

 

[perck]

@Nolonar

Not sure why you're talking about acuPUNCTURE, when the chapter was about acuPRESSURE.
How does it work? Same way massage does, which, by the way, is used in modern Western medicine as well.

Acupressure is based on the same meridian system as acupuncture. Massage and physiotherapy is based on stimulation of the musculoskeletal system, and claims only to aid the musculoskeletal system, any stress relief from endorphins being secondary (and can be explained through understood biochemical processes). Could you please point me to an explanation how stimulation of the inner pass meridian relieves nausea, or the joining valley is effective for various symptoms (as said in this chapter)?

Let me remind you that in science, "inconclusive proof" is the equivalent of saying "I don't know if this statement is true or not", which is to say it might as well not exist.

No, that's not how clinical trial statistics are done. very briefly, when testing any medication, be it aspirin, acupressure or rosuvastatin, you start with a null hypothesis: This medication x is not effective a treating y. and an alternate hypothesis: This medication x is effective a treating y. After collecting the data you use statistical analysis to decide whether there is a sufficiently high probability that the alternate hypothesis is true in every case, otherwise you reject it in favour of the null hypothesis. This is because it is safer to presume a medication is not effective, and it is astronomically more likely, among other things.

You should probably read up on placebo. It's a medicine with no therapeutic value, which we still claim to work, and still sell as a solution.

Placebo is not a medicine or a product (and selling it as a solution is unethical). It is the standard for something not working. If your treatment is as good as a placebo, then it doesn't work at all.

If people have been telling us for 4000 years they "got better" thanks to TCM, then saying it doesn't work because we "failed to prove it works" is just petty.

No it's not, because people have been getting better for 4000 years with or without TCM (and my argument isn't about TCM, it's about the meridian system chi, and the various forms of stimulating it, be it pressure or needle). Humans regress to the mean, have homeostatic systems that help them recover naturally, and just because a custom is popular doesn't mean it is effective. Just because people have been saying they "got better" from homeopathy for 200 years, doesn't mean it works. (as an aside if you want to include those 4000 years, you have to include the fact that China historically banned acupuncture twice.)

so if we choose to believe it doesn't work, the burden of proof lies with us, not the Chinese.

The burden of proof does not lie with us, nor does it lie with "the Chinese" it lies with those claiming acupuncture/pressure works, who are not necessarily Chinese nor are they the entirety of the Chinese population (who should not be caricatured as monolithic believers in any particular aspect of TCM)

there is no (conclusive) proof that it doesn't work, so where does our Western arrogance even come from?

Medicine (mainstream, not necessarily western) has higher standards of evidence (conclusive proof that a treatment works), because of the lives at stake. If a treatment does not work, and is used in place of one that does, thousands of lives can (and have been) lost. This is why drugs are regularly and frequently withdrawn if it turns out they don't work (e.g. tetrazepam)

Racism?

Bruh.

I'm going to bed, I assume this thread will still be up tomorrow.

 

[Ruhrpottpatriot]

@Nolonar
If you are convinced that acupressure works, I'm sure you can provide adequate sources (double blind at best, peer reviewed at minimum) for your claim, neither an argumentum ad populum, nor an argumentum ad antiquitatem cuts it.
For the rest; @perck has said it already.

 

[Nolonar]

@Ruhrpottpatriot

If you are convinced that acupressure works

Black or white fallacy:
Because I'm not convinced TCM is bullshit, I must be convinced it works?
Try again.

@perck

Could you please point me to an explanation how stimulation of the inner pass meridian relieves nausea, or the joining valley is effective for various symptoms (as said in this chapter)?

Burden of proof:
You guys claimed TCM was bullshit, so the burden of proof is yours. I don't have to disprove anything.

No, that's not how clinical trial statistics are done.

Perhaps, but an "assumption" is not a proof.
Otherwise, I could make an assumption, never bother to prove it, and pretend my assumption is truth, because nobody has ever proved me wrong. Again, that's a burden of proof fallacy.

The fact that doctors aren't comfortable using a treatment when they're not convinced it works, is entirely reasonable.
To say a treatment is bullshit when doctors and scientists aren't sure it is, is stupid. That was my entire point, which you've apparently missed.

The burden of proof does not lie with us, nor does it lie with "the Chinese" it lies with those claiming acupuncture/pressure works

And how do you expect them to prove anything, if thousands of years worth of satisfied patients means nothing to you?
How do you expect them to prove anything, if the mere mention of "Chinese medicine" is enough for people to think you're a quack who is not to be trusted?

So, again, the burden of proof is yours for claiming it's bullshit.

 

[EcchiT]

The named Kure women are treasures.

 

[StuGLife]

@Nolonar bruh cringe

 

[ReaperCreeper]

That 4koma at the end is way funnier than it has any right to be.

 

[perck]

@Nolonar

Burden of proof

No, again, that's not how it works. When Kongzi/Confucius' disciples argued against Mozi's reinterpretation of righteousness as derived from the will of heaven, rather than traditon or Dao (later on), Mozi didn't just say "you guys claimed the will of heaven is bullshit, so the burden of proof is yours" because he knew that confucian thought was the established norm, and that the burden on proof lied on him to reject the null hypothesis that was Dao. Acupuncture as it is today is not 4000 years old. Even if it's use is really 4000 years old, (even though it's use in china only dates back to ~100 BC) It's reintroduction after its banning in 1929 is a novel interpretation of texts that does not have any history and should be scrutinized as closely as any modern medicine. It is not the established norm and the burden of proof lies against it. Even if the burden of proof lied solely within this argument, and that it lied on whoever made a claim first then it is the manga chapter that first introduced the claim that acupressure works, and my claim that acupressure is bullshit is in response to that.

Perhaps, but an "assumption" is not a proof.

Sorry, I don't understand your point here, could you clarify? If a treatment cannot be proven to work, it doesn't work. There is no "it maybe works" because then everything in the universe "maybe" both cures and causes everything.

Anyway resorting to claiming logical fallacies is pretty weak, especially when you can't back them up. I'm not gonna say fallacy fallacy or anything but a better way to argue would be to address the point, even if it is fallacious.

 

[Nolonar]

@perck

Even if the burden of proof lied solely within this argument, and that it lied on whoever made a claim first then it is the manga chapter that first introduced the claim that acupressure works, and my claim that acupressure is bullshit is in response to that.

Then why are we even arguing?

The claim I was responding to, which was the very first thing I had quoted, by the way, is:

I really don't get the East and their taste for non Western medicine. I don't think there is any basis for Chinese medicine, and yet millions of people swear by it.

to which my response was: "4000 years of history is not 'no basis'".

Next time you're going to waste your and other peoples times, make sure you understand what it is you're getting into.

Sorry, I don't understand your point here, could you clarify? If a treatment cannot be proven to work, it doesn't work. There is no "it maybe works" because then everything in the universe "maybe" both cures and causes everything.

Your misunderstanding comes from the fact that you're talking about medicine, while I'm talking about science.

While it's true that a treatment either works or not, science is about what we know. Here, the choices are either positive (it works), negative (it doesn't work), or unknown (we don't know either way). That's putting it simply, of course. There are plenty of variables, such as "works if...", "fatal, when...", "worked in x% of cases", and so on.

From a professional's point of view, it's natural to choose solutions that are positive (known to work) over solutions that are unknown (not known to work). But that is by no means a proof that it is negative (doesn't work).

There is no "it maybe works" because then everything in the universe "maybe" both cures and causes everything.

Of course there is. Take Covid-19 for instance: It's a virus we've never seen before. As a result, we didn't know which treatments work, and which don't. Back then, everything was "maybe works".
(Maybe it's changed in the meantime, and we do know of a treatment that works, but that's not the point of this example.)

Now, if we had a treatment that was proven to work, we wouldn't need to test treatments that "maybe work", but we didn't. So as long as a treatment "maybe works" and tests are "inconclusive", we need to keep trying it, until tests become conclusive.

Anything else would be like saying: "We're not treating patients, because tests of all known treatments have been inconclusive. And if we can't prove a treatment works, then it doesn't."
Fortunately, that's not how it works.

Anyway resorting to claiming logical fallacies is pretty weak, especially when you can't back them up. I'm not gonna say fallacy fallacy or anything but a better way to argue would be to address the point, even if it is fallacious.

I mean, I even said: "You guys claimed TCM was bullshit, so the burden of proof is yours."
We can argue about whether it is fallacious, but you can't pretend I didn't address the point.

 

[whyktor]

"4000 years of history" is totally no basis in science or medicine.

 

[perck]

@Nolonar

Then why are we even arguing?

cause it's fun _3 」∠)_
and for the enjoyment of the peanut gallery.

to which my response was: "4000 years of history is not 'no basis'".

And you know what, for the everyman that's fine, but it's not good enough for science. The (or at least my) argument moved on to the role of acupressure/puncture in science based medicine, and you did not address any of my points that:
1. Historical evidence has no value in modern science due to the endless confounders (Regression to the mean, not following the scientific method, historical revisionism, societal conditions etc.)
2. It's not 4000 years old.
3. It's use has been banned in China before
4. Despite thousands of modern studies done on acupuncture It has shown no efficacy in any of the trials rigorous enough to pass modern standards.
4a. To quote Mozi (yes I'm a fanboy, screw Confucius and mengzi) "To accomplish anything whatsoever one must have standards. None have yet accomplished anything without them."
5. The very foundations of meridians and chi are paraphysical and are inherently incompatible with every explanation we have of the universe.

among others.

you're talking about medicine, while I'm talking about science.

Medicine is a science.

Take Covid-19 for instance

Sure, lets look at Covid-19. There are two main drug candidates for treatment of ongoing cases that "maybe" work(rather than preventative vaccines, which are at least a year away): remdesivir and a hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combination. the hydroxychloroquine combo was pushed hard by its PI Dr. Didier Raoult on preliminary evidence before proper clinical trials had taken place. It's been taken up by multiple countries as a possible treatment but since then better trials had taken place and what do they find? Not only does it not "maybe work" but it is actively harmful, increasing CV mortality and heart failure (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.08.20054551v1.full.pdf). Instead of jumping on a treatment that "maybe works", had they waited for proper results lives would not have been lost. Acupressure has been around a lot longer, so where is the evidence that gives me more confidence than it "maybe works"?

I don't want to waste your time, I'm seriously just doing this for fun. All I'm saying is that stimulation of meridians ( not all of TCM ), has been tested enough, with enough negative results, that were it a conventional drug, like aspirin, no one would consider it functional, and no amount of historical longevity can overturn that modern evidence, only new evidence can. If you think that the words of historical practitioners, interpreted through modern historians, is stronger evidence than not just modern trials, but the collective human understanding of physics, chemistry and biology, then I really don't know what to say.
Okay that was a little strong, but seriously go check out Mozi he was a cool dude.

 

[le_demiurge]

get owned nolongular

 

[Nolonar]

@perck

Medicine is a science.

But science is not medicine.

cause it's fun _3 」∠)_
and for the enjoyment of the peanut gallery.

Oh, great. A troll.

Well, that's it from me. Enjoy your fish.
<><

 

[StuGLife]

lmao mald

 

[comedyxtragedy]

Man, having a Kure as supplementary teacher is terrifying

 

[perck]

But science is not medicine.

An astute observation, I see you have noted the non reflexive nature of the relations between science and medicine! Could it be that when medicine is a subset of science, while the properties of science are transitively applied to medicine, you cannot construct a 1:1 function mapping them? And yet this observation does not help your point at all.

A troll.

Man, I can't believe those people at the debate club weren't arguing with each other for fun, just trolling each other.

But yeah I'm done.

Spoiler

 

[daywithoutgames]

page 3 :
sensei : i will grant you a punishment worse than dead : i will shove big , thick , long , hard "thingie" inside your holes and make you cum non-stop .

page 7 : the b!tch-slaps make me feel so satisfied , lol . the new girl is a b!tch .

personally , i dont trust anything from china , some of their "traditional medicines" are make from pi$$ , sh!ts and human corpses , and they think that eating human fetuses is good for your health . and they think that eating bats and pangolins is very good . corona virus .

too bad that the doctor from ashura doesnt make a cameo : https://mangadex.org/chapter/228518/1