You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

aelephant comments on A few questions on International Rationality - Less Wrong Discussion

15 Post author: Locke 30 April 2012 10:27PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (86)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: aelephant 02 May 2012 12:28:03AM 4 points [-]

From the article you linked:

Within Asia, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is the system with the longest history. TCM was developed through thousands of years of empirical testing and refinement.

I cringed. Not only do I question what they are calling "empirical testing" but this Time Fallacy (I don't know what else to call it, perhaps there is a better name) is everywhere in China. "Well, we've been doing it the wrong way for over 2000 years so it must be the right way!"

No, actually if you tell me 2+2=5 for 6 billion years, you will still be wrong and 2+2 will still equal 4.

The Economist recently had a much better, much more skeptical piece on TCM:

Medicine & its rivals

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 May 2012 03:33:38AM 3 points [-]

No, actually if you tell me 2+2=5 for 6 billion years, you will still be wrong and 2+2 will still equal 4.

Except the belief that 2+2=5 isn't going to survive for 6 billion years.