How do you feel about voting for people who promote pseudoscience?

I’m not a fan. Facts should be facts for someone leading our country and speaking for us.

From your link, the only issue I see with Sander’s position, that would paint him as “anti-science”, is his support for “alternative medicine”.
His opposition against nuclear energy and support for labeling GMO food is completely legitimate.
And his opposition against cloning is very likely an issue of ethical principles for him, so how can you fault him for that?

Love it.

A necessary evil. When you voted for Hillary how did you feel?

“I am committed to make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines.”

-Hillary Clinton, 2008

I think pandering to people who are uneducated and have been taken in by quackery is sadly more practical than trying to educate them all on why they’re wrong.

@ragingloli Because alternative medicine is a scam and people who promote it are dangerous.

@gorillapaws Hillary Clinton isn’t running (as far as we know) in 2020. And I didn’t know at the time I voted for her about her vaccine statement. Had I known I would have investigated further. Nice find though.

Last time I looked, alternative medicine has never been on Bernie’s platform or areas of importance. Do I disagree with Bernie on alternative medicine? Yes. But this is a drop in the bucket compared to the things that Kamala Harris and Kristen Gillibrand have done that have completely turned me off from supporting them.

@Caravanfan Technically Bernie hasn’t announced, and Clinton still might from an article I saw.

That said, 40 percent of Americans believe alternative therapies alone can cure cancer. It’s going to be hard to win an election if you alienate that group, and sadly, it’s a hopeless task to educate them all on why they’re wrong while simultaneously trying to make a case for your candidacy on every other issue.

@gorillapaws It doesn’t mean you need to be a proponent of it. The mere fact that a candidate believes in alternative medicine or any pseudoscience tells me more about them than pretty much anything else.

Now if Bernie were to say, “I was wrong about my position before, I know better now” then I’d give him a pass. I used to believe in alternative medicine myself many years ago. Just like years ago I didn’t believe in human-engineered global warming. I grew, learned, and know better now.

Let me add, though, that I will vote for literally anybody over Donald Trump, so even if God intervened and Bernie was the Democratic nominee against Trump, I would have a Bernie lawn sign.

@Caravanfan I agree with pretty much everything you just said, but there are other issues that are more concerning to me as a voter.

For one thing, I’ve never heard Bernie advocate for “Energy Healing for all,” or “Psychic Surgery for all,” etc. It’s always been “Medicare for all.” I have zero reason to believe that pseudoscience is a high priority from his hypothetical administration. He’s got a huge list of stuff he wants to accomplish and I don’t see anything on it about promoting pseudoscience. I rather doubt he’d have enough time to accomplish everything on that list and also pass a pro-pseudoscience agenda too in just 8 years.

@gorillapaws https://www.vox.com/2016/8/1/12341268/jill-stein-vaccines-clinton-trump-2016

You forgot Ben Carson and his disbelief in evolution. Lost my support quickly when he said things like the pyramids are for storing grain.

“Hillary Clinton isn’t running (as far as we know) in 2020.”
Of course she is. I bet you a round of drinks she’ll run again.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Everyone here seems to be hoping she will…..lol

It depends on the pseudoscience. I don’t look highly on alternative medicine, but I don’t categorically reject it. So I could see voting for someone who believed in alternative medicine, as long as I was sure that belief would not affect public policy. Now if they’re anti-vaxers or proponents of other kinds of conspiracy theory pseudoscience, that would probably prevent me from giving them my vote.

Honestly, I really don’t care about alternative medicine and all of this. It’s a bit absurd (elitist) to cry about people advocating acupuncture when there are millions of people in this country who can’t even afford to go to the doctor or fill a prescription. The day that everyone has full coverage and is not in fear of losing everything because they get ill is the day we can get cute about how silly (or “dangerous”) it is that people believe in homeopathy or something.

I actually hope Hillary does run, the more the merrier. All the establishment votes will be split.

I guess it really comes down to what is pseudoscience. Let me tell you a story. My wife had breast cancer. They found it early and she only had to have a lump removed. In the long process of getting her treated and healthy again, I found that the “science” involved looked more like big business instead of actual medical treatment. It started with the identification. The radiologist showed us the picture of her mammogram. It showed a spot that had a lot of white dots around it. He showed us a picture of a healthy breast and there were very few of those white dots to be seen. He said they were calcium deposits and that is how they tell there is a tumor there. I asked him why there was calcium to be seen. He said it always shows up around tumors and that’s how they identify when there is something there. I understand how x-rays work…30+ years working in the nuclear world has taught me much. The density of the calcium deposits is much greater than that of the surrounding tissue so it shows up white in an x-ray. But I persisted…why are there calcium deposits there at all? He had no idea, recommended I ask the surgeon. I did and got the exact same answer…almost to the word. When I persisted again, he deferred me to the oncologist. When I asked him, I got, again, almost word for word, the same answer. But when I persisted, he again had no idea. Claimed he had never heard that question before. In my mind, I’m thinking that if the body tries throwing calcium at cancer cells it might show a possible new treatment. Or it could be that the cancerous cells can no longer maintain calcium in solution and it falls out which could lead to a new detection method. But apparently no one cares enough to ask these questions. It gets worse. After removing the tumor and the margin they recommend radiation therapy. This consisted of two x-rays being passed through the breast from different angles, 5 days a week for 6 weeks. Cancer treatment centers use a more direct treatment. They make a small incision next to where the tumor was, slide in a small seed source, wait a few minutes and remove it. They do this twice a day for 3 days. Now, being knowledgeable in radiation, I recognize that if you put a radiation source close to what you want to treat, you can use less of a dose and get a greater treatment. Time, distance, and shielding….radiation 101. Not to mention, it would be more cost effective since 6 treatments is far less than 30. But no, passing radiation through healthy tissue at much higher dose rates to be able to treat the one small spot seems to be the standard (or was at the time). When questioned about this, the oncologist said they are looking at the seed source method but if I can only get it if I sign up on a waiting list and am willing to travel halfway across the country when and if they get around to calling.
So all in all, what is considered “standard science” in the treatment of cancer smelled more big business getting their piece of the pie. Lots of money to be made with that science. So I think before I jump on calling something pseudoscience, I will do a little more research before taking the word of someone else.

@seawulf575 I’m glad your wife is better!

@notnotnotnot I don’t think it’s elitist at all to decry politicians advocating magic therapies when their energy can be better spent on therapies that actually work. But maybe that’s just me.

^ I understand why you would feel this way, but we greatly disagree here.

Reading the article about Sanders, it does not concern me, as I agree with Sanders on almost all the points it brings up.

I know acupuncture as a valuable practice, so I don’t see it as “pseudoscience”. I also think there are many entirely sane forms of naturopathy that I also see as positive and don’t see as pseudoscience or problematic in any way worth being upset about.

As for having had the idea that mental and emotional conditions can cause cancer, I think that’s intelligent and reasonable and not something to condemn as “pseudoscience.” Humans are whole systems that include their brains and emotions, and being distressed can definitely affect your health, and I expect probably does end up causing cancer in people in some cases, indirectly, and I think it would probably be unscientific to assert that science knows otherwise.

Acupuncture and massage therapy definitely do have valuable therapeutic results, and I think they should be a part of preventative medicine and covered by our health system.

I don’t think being concerned about nuclear power or wanting to ban cloning constitutes being anti-science, either.

I too have “very serious concerns about the long-term goals of an increasingly powerful and profit-motivated biotechnology industry.” And I too am worried about “owners of technology” who are “primarily interested in how much money they can make rather than the betterment of society.”

I also think GMOs should be labelled.

Cortisol?
HPA axis?
Cytokines?

Psychoneuroimmunology isn’t pseudoscience, dude.

@Zaku @raum Oh, sure. If you believe that accupuncture has magical healing properties (it doesn’t), then I can totally see why it wouldn’t bother you.

I don’t love it, but no single issue determines my vote. It’s always amusing to watch people work themselves into a lather defending their preferred candidates with arguments they’d never let someone else’s preferred candidate get away with, though.

If you thought I would was talking about acupuncture (I wasn’t BTW), I kind of have to ask…what exactly do you do for a living again?

@raum Don’t mind @Caravanfan. The only reason he asks questions is to bloviate. He’s not really interested in what anyone else has to say.

@Caravanfan Who said magical? Only you.

Acupuncture has absolutely real therapeutic effects, which are directly observable. The framework of ideas doesn’t match Western science, but so what? It relaxes and destresses a person like crazy, which is a great thing.

Nope. Actually if it were magical it might work. Acupuncture is nothing more than theatrical placebo.

But again if you do think it’s true (it’s not) then I can see why it wouldn’t bother you that he promotes the pseudoscience.

@Caravanfan
It doesn’t matter except to skepticism-obsessed pseudo-scientific dweebs that it doesn’t have a basis in Western science. Of course it doesn’t, as it comes from a many (8?) thousand-year-old non-Western practice. That doesn’t matter. It has effects that many people benefit materially from.

It doesn’t matter if skeptics insist on categorizing it at placebo pseudoscience. But it’s extremely hypocritical (i.e. it’s a pseudo-scientific) for them to claim so, because there is nothing scientific about that conclusion – it’s presumptive dismissal asserting a conclusion not supported by research, and acupuncture itself makes no claim to being proven by science. It just asserts it helps people, and people experience that help. If it’s placebo, great who cares, if it does good things, which it does.

I would vote for Bernie but never Trump. Supporting alternative medicine isn’t the same as dismissing scientific evidence, such as the evidence for man-made global warming. Alternative medicine is just that, an alternative to traditional medicine. If traditional medicine isn’t working satisfactorily why not try alternatives? Dismissing them out of hand isn’t even scientific. The pseudoscience we need to worry about is people who manipulate or deny facts to promote a point of view.

I didn’t vote for either candidate you cite, but at the time it wasn’t because of pseudoscience reasons, I had other reasons.

I don’t think Bernie falls on the pseudoscience side as much as he tries to get funding for therapies that people feel is helping them. Things like acupuncture as mentioned in the article. I’m not saying I agree with medical insurance covering that type of therapy, I’m just saying it helps some people, even if you want to argue it’s psychological. I personally steer clear of acupuncture, chiropractors, and most herbal type of remedy concoctions. I don’t want the government forcing medical
coverage for these things, but I don’t mind some grants being given to research if it really helps or not.

Bernie saying pharmaceutical and biotech companies are money driven industries is correct, and those companies too often are “working” the system and acting unscrupulously in my opinion. I’d need the whole context of what he was talking about.

The article quoted him saying sexual attitudes increase cancer, yes they do! Although not as he stated. In the 60’s it was about free love I guess, and he was saying some sort of psychological connection to getting cancer and being uptight, which I believe to be crazy talk. But, he was much younger then, it’s so long ago, hopefully he knows better than that now. However I do harp on sexual attitudes causing cancer, misery and death. Women die, lose their fertility and suffer, because of the puritanical views in this country. Hell, men die also. Now, I’m way off on a tangent though, and it wasn’t the original meaning of what Bernie stayed..

My feeling is Bernie usually is trying to help people feel better, and generally speaking he doesn’t want others picking for you what you believe helps you. I don’t think he does it just for votes. Trump will say anything for votes. Of course twitter is perfect for Trump, he is the master at throwing out 3 word phrases to fire people up, and short sentences to reinforce the feelings and fears of the citizenry. His is pure strategy including the pseudoscience. He doesn’t care if things are true or not.

I guess my point is I see the intentions of the two men as very different even though you can argue they both aren’t scientists.

@JLeslie
Yes, Bernie says what he thinks is right based on doing his best to consider things, and has good intentions. He’s also willing to listen to others.

Trump says what he thinks will get the reaction he wants (seemingly based on whatever comes into his head, based on how often he contradicts himself), and has greedy megalomaniac intentions. He has little or no interest in listening to others.

I’m going to rewrite @Zaku post above tagged to me:

“It doesn’t matter except to ad hominem that it doesn’t have a base in Western science. Of course it doesn’t because it comes from ancient wisdom fallacy. That doesn’t matter because ancecotes.”

I could keep going, but I think we get the idea.

@Caravanfan
So, you are an inquisitor for faith in conventional “science” rather than actual science, looking for targets to brand as “pseudo-scientists” (though your claims are pseudo-scientific themselves), to cover up your fear of realizing how little you really understand about what actual science and its limitations are, and how little actual science actually provides in terms of complete knowledge and understanding?

The premise of your question is false. Go ahead and believe in your fairy magic—I don’t give a crap. Just know that people who actually understand how the body works and the patholphysiology of disease know it’s complete bullshit.

I’m completely on the side of acupuncture being a complete load of bullshit because it is. No, really… it is. Chiropractic is bullshit and so is homeopathy. Colon cleansing too, colloidal silver, ear candles, ionic foot detox cleansing…all bullshit.

@ARE_you_kidding_me What if the acupuncture makes the person feel better? A placebo effect. I don’t believe in accupuncture either, but some people swear by it. Chiropractors scare me, I won’t go to one, but some people wear by their chiropractor too.

@Caravanfan You don’t seem to even know what I’m referring to. I understand the perspective of Western mechanical medicine to see many ways that it would make no sense of the literal statements of acupuncturists. But that’s just evaluating an ancient traditional framework using the thinking and standards of another.

As for whether there are very often clear positive effects, yes there are. It doesn’t matter if it’s psychosomatic, placebo, or the inscrutable effect of receiving caring attention and being in an unusual position for an unusual amount of time and receiving unusual attention and stimulation (all of which do happen, and do have input to the nervous system and the mind), doesn’t really matter to the question of whether or not it is a valuable and therapeutic thing to do or not. Talk to a good psychiatrist about whether taking time to pay close present attention to the body can be therapeutic or not.

Doctors tend to recognize stress as an important element of health, and check out the responses from people reporting reduced stress from acupuncture.

I’m not making any magic claims. You’re just trying to ridicule or shame me for having a positive opinion of something that has helped many people, out of some bizarre “psuedo-science” crusade idea you have.

@JLeslie Sugar pill makes people feel better too without the risk, cost and general dubious origin/practice.
Acupuncture is not an ancient traditional framework

I have a slight and completely under control case of Trichotillomania, I imagine the effects are similar to acupuncture as it mildly relieves stress. Some of the more outlandish claims made by proponents of acupuncture like energy meridians and whatnot… um, no.

”@raum Don’t mind @Caravanfan. The only reason he asks questions is to bloviate. He’s not really interested in what anyone else has to say.”

Exactly this. He’s trying his hardest to get under the skin of the Bernie supporter crowd here but it’s a lost cause. As an observer it appears his only pleasure on Fluther is that of feeling superior to everyone else.

@Aethelwine I disagree, he is one of the few here sparking conversation other than “Trump Sucks” or “what does it mean when my boyfriend…”

Having a diversity of thought, expertise and experience is part of what makes this site valuable and useful.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Thank you! That’s my intent.

@Zaku And I believe you misunderstand me. I don’t care what you believe. What I care about is that if a politician believes in pseudoscience, it tells me they lack critical thinking skills and I don’t want them to be my leader.

@Aethelwine You seem to spend some energy complaining about my questions and my point of view. If you don’t like me and you think I’m “bloviating” then just frikking ignore me.

@Caravanfan “You seem to spend some energy complaining about my questions and my point of view.”

Not nearly as much as you try to cause strife. I’m good. I think I’ve complained twice where you are concerned. You know what you are doing and I won’t be your fall boy. If you have feels you need to reflect and act accordingly. Own your shit.

@ARE_you_kidding_me There are many questions to engage in. If politics are your spiel, don’t be surprised if you are in the minority here.

I agreed with @Irukandji. If you want to bitch that’s where your energy should go. ffs. Get a life. Fucking bullies is what some of your are.

@Zaku As far as science goes, all it really does is take a claim, and try it out vs a blind control multiple times and compare the differences. I don’t see how East vs West has anything to do with it. Treatments that have proven to work better than controls and are safe for humans (sometimes there are negatives that have to be weighed against the benefits of course) get the thumbs up. I have a hard time finding fault with that approach.

It is my understanding (and I’m not a MD nor an acupuncturist) that recent studies have shown that needles can trigger a response that causes a spike in adenosine levels in mice. These levels in the body seemed to improve the animal’s response to pain. So there may be a plausible biological mechanism that explains the apparent benefits that people describe from acupuncture. The problem is that this same effect seems to be able to be triggered by toothpicks that don’t break the skin. Furthermore people seem to get the same benefit when the toothpicks are used in arbitrary locations by untrained people in a blinded control. That seems to rule out meridian lines and other explanations put forth by acupuncturists.

Taking this into consideration, why should anyone seek acupuncture, which is more invasive and caries greater risk from the needles breaking the skin, when toothpicks would be less invasive and equally effective?

This article has a solid breakdown.

@Caravanfan People are suffering across our country but your privileged white ass thinks it’s funny to try to get under the skin of Bernie supporters on Fluther. How pathetic can a person be?

You know what’s funny is that the only people who insult me on this site are Bernie supporters, when I agree with 80% of their point of view. Trump supporters never do.

But that mirrors online with what I see. The Bernie Bros are terrible to people in general who dare to disagree with them. I’ve seen awful sexist, racist, and anti Semitic comments on Twitter.

I don’t blame you. It’s the culture.

There’s nothing wrong with asking this question or with thinking that alternative medicine is BS. But you’re responding to everyone who doesn’t think it’s BS with condescending dismissive comments, which makes it seem that you weren’t actually looking for anything other than people to agree with you. I’ve been falsely accused of being a “troll” for asking political questions here, but I didn’t respond to every comment that disagreed with me with a smug rude answer. So I can see why some people consider this trolling.

@Caravanfan Trump supporters on Fluther don’t insult you because they see you as being more closely aligned with them than you are to their opponents. But just because they don’t insult you doesn’t mean they don’t insult anyone else.

@Irukandji No, I don’t think any Trump supporter would think that I remotely am aligned with their political views. Left wing supporters for some reason seem to think I’m aligned with Trump, but they would be mistaken. If I were to pick a politician who is most closely aligned with my views it would be Obama (except for some foreign policy missteps)

@Caravanfan I have found that unless you are willing to say the most hateful things about Trump, buy into the innuendo of the day about Trump, and blindly believe whatever the MSM says about Trump, the lefties will hate you and call you a Trump supporter. They also imply that all Trump supporters are racists and white supremacists and all sorts of other things. So don’t let it get you down…just know you are less manic than they.

@Caravanfan I’m with you there. If you look at my political leaning I’m actually slightly left and libertarian. I’d rather be associated with moderate republicans and conservatives simply because the overall behavior of the left has become something I want to distance myself from. I’d take pleasure in watching them eat their own as they are doing now if it did not scare me so much. I have never seen so much hate in this country and it has happened so fast. All or nothing attitudes and ideology rule the left today. If you don’t tow the line or if you disagree you’re an enemy. I’ll have no part of that.

@ARE_you_kidding_me I think that’s a common position. Not just with the left of course; I know conservatives who are not Trump supporters and are called “RINO” and “cuck” and whatever for being so. As the left becomes more “SJW” and the right becomes more “alt-right” I find myself more alienated from both. But certainly there is an attitude (not rare on Fluther) that anyone right of Ocasio Cortez is a “Trump supporter”, which is not true at all. We’re in the viral video/court of public opinion/zero tolerance age of “one independent thought and you’re the enemy”. It’s unfortunate.

@gorillapaws ”@Zaku As far as science goes, all it really does is take a claim, and try it out vs a blind control multiple times and compare the differences. I don’t see how East vs West has anything to do with it. Treatments that have proven to work better than controls and are safe for humans (sometimes there are negatives that have to be weighed against the benefits of course) get the thumbs up. I have a hard time finding fault with that approach.”
– Acupuncture varies a lot by patient and practitioner, and involves intuition and experience that doesn’t seem very conducive to pigeon-holing into Western-science-style studies where you try to measure and compare effectiveness. Not that you couldn’t try that and the results might be interesting, but even Western medicines don’t really reduce down so well to reproducible studies where you can get consistent numbers that aren’t confined to limited measurable things. Because humans are very complicated systems. And even when you do manage to get some accurate statistics on how method A affects statistic B for subjects and controls, it often turns out that controls do rather well, sometimes as well or better than people taking an actual drug, which tends to demonstrate that the mind is a very effective method for treating the body even without physical medicine.
– And that being the case, a tradition of sensitive healers with thousands of years of development, even if it were just great bedside manner and saying something is being done, would probably be really effective even if nothing mechanical were actually done.
– And what’s more important: that something have positive effects, or that a mechanical cause and effect be understood and proven?

”It is my understanding (and I’m not a MD nor an acupuncturist) that recent studies have shown that needles can trigger a response that causes a spike in adenosine levels in mice. These levels in the body seemed to improve the animal’s response to pain. So there may be a plausible biological mechanism that explains the apparent benefits that people describe from acupuncture. The problem is that this same effect seems to be able to be triggered by toothpicks that don’t break the skin. Furthermore people seem to get the same benefit when the toothpicks are used in arbitrary locations by untrained people in a blinded control. That seems to rule out meridian lines and other explanations put forth by acupuncturists.”
– From a perspective that is overly desperate for understanding and proof of mechanical methods, that might be. From a perspective that is most interested in what actually seems to work best for people and is interested in the developed practice of acupuncture and Chinese traditional medicine and not worried by slightly breaking the skin, it’s not so relevant.

”Taking this into consideration, why should anyone seek acupuncture, which is more invasive and caries greater risk from the needles breaking the skin, when toothpicks would be less invasive and equally effective?”
– Maybe because they have had recommendations of great results from some acupuncturists, and are not really worried about tiny skin punctures from scrupulously antiseptic needles?
– If someone is concerned about the needles, sure, acupressure or any number of other somatic healing techniques may be preferable.
– I’ve found many different healing techniques to be effective, and complimentary when used in combination and/or different approaches for different things.
– I’m just saying I think the extreme skepticism arguments that acupuncture (and politicians who support it) is terrible harmful pseudoscience, are quite wrong. I am not advocating it as the best thing for everyone for every condition, or even something everyone “should” try, or anything like that. Just that I and billions of others have benefited from it, so these political skeptical jabs should be dismissed.

@Zaku The thing is we could apply that same set of standards you mentioned to advocate for blood letting, tobacco smoke enemas, and snake oil too. People deserve to have informed consent, and if there is not proof that a treatment is safe and more effective than placebo in well-controlled studies, then I think patients should be informed that is the case.

@gorillapaws Thank you for taking a reasoned answer to that. Mine would have been significantly more salty.

@gorillapaws In writing that, you’re massively simplifying several issues and collapsing them into what ends up being something impossible to specify or perform, and that most modern Western conventional medicine also doesn’t meet.

No one I know of is claiming that traditional Chinese medicine or acupuncture have been proven effective by Western scientific methods, so I don’t think anyone is being misled.

And, there have been major effects that I and people I know have experienced, which are quite obvious and have nothing to do with claims that need any more proof – i.e. it’s damn relaxing and stimulating in a really nice way, akin to a really nice masterful massage and/or Feldenkrais session, but different. There’s no question about that.

And again, this is a sloppy disingenuous lame political attack thread, and in that context, it’s just offensive low nonsense to try to turn it into a “voting for people who promote pseudoscience” argument, any way you slice it. But collapsing several points of logic as in your last point seems to get it a few logic leaps closer to making sense, which it does not.