Fallacies of the Scientific Method

[Minesweeper]

Note: this is not a disclaimer that the Scientific Method / Double-Blind experimentations are conclusive (and has indeed made many contributions). Rather, it is a direct statement providing concrete examples of where the Scientific Method fails to always provide unbiased results even in double-blind experiments, while addressing the complex human organism.

It shows explicitly why "the human body has to be conceived of as being entirely separate from the mind and from the emotions."

If a person who unconditionally believes the Scientific Method is unassailable reads this carefully, and lays aside personal feelings and convictions, this person will understand why it's not possible to always get unbiased trial results with something like the Bates Method using the current RCCTs (Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials). In fact, this article deals a cruel blow to the validity of the Scientific Method and its clinical trials as an appliance for every aspect of the complex human organism. In the sense that it works for some aspects and doesn't for others.
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The fallacy of an assumption of simplicity 28 June 2003

  Lawrence J. O,Brien,
retired health plan CEO
1200 N. nash Street #535,
Arlington, VA 22209 USA


The fallacy of an assumption of simplicity

Under the stimulus of a ridiculous idea like the ¨super pill¨ as a basis for adult humans to prevent disease and achieve health and long life, an Editorial like this in your highly respected Journal ought to first dissect what is really happening in contemporary medical experimentation. The conclusions of the meta-analysis that you cite are flawed because the clinical trials they are drawn from are fundamentally flawed. In an experiment conducted on the basis of classical scientific method the guiding presuppositions are that a specific cause is followed by a specific effect; that this effect can be predicted on the basis of an empirical understanding of its cause or causes; and that knowledge of the specific causation can be derived from knowledge of the effects. The fundamental error that calls into question conclusions being derived from an enormous number of randomized controlled clinical trials (RCCTs) being undertaken in the United States and elsewhere is that virtually every one of these medical experiments relies heavily on an ¨assumption of simplicity.¨ Any analysis of human organisms that depends upon an assumption of simplicity can lead to none other than erroneous conclusions, because these organisms--quite apart from their fundamental idiosyncrasy--have evolved as one of the most complex living systems to be found in Nature. As soon as an assumption of simplicity enters into a clinical trial or other experiment that involves human bodies, any claim that the trial or experiment is scientific becomes fraudulent. Simply put, it is impossible to hold that a study of human organisms can have anything at all to do with a notion that these organisms are simple. Thinking that human organisms can be meaningfully studied on the basis of an assumption that they are simple would represent a high point in intellectual bankruptcy. Most unfortunately, conventional medicine in the United States has not understood this very plain matter of fact. As a result, clinical trials and other medical experiments that are demonstrably rooted in a flawed idea--the assumption of simplicity--are being launched at a furious pace. The victims of this folly on the part of the medical profession would be difficult to quantify with accuracy, however the entire population is placed at risk through this radical and foolhardy burst of experimentation, most of it paid for with taxpayer funds.

The requirements of the scientific method have been traditionally defined as: ¨[P]rinciples and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.¨ (Merriam-Webster's tenth edition). The ability to precisely replicate an experiment on demand is an essential element of the scientific method.

In the face of the inescapable fact of overwhelming organismic complexity, biological science must proceed to make matters intelligible by describing what the structures and processes of an organism are, and how an organism does what it does. The scientist must begin by making certain that everything has been taken into consideration, and that nothing has been omitted from consideration. In classical scientific method, a theory or generalization is formed from empirically observed facts that are derived by the use of inductive and deductive reasoning; next, consistent connection must be demonstrated between and among the assembled facts, as well as with a body of systematic generalizations derived from other facts already accumulated and verified. Then, both the empirical and the logical implications and consequences that these ¨new¨ facts may have for the pre-existing body of systematic generalizations must be drawn out in specific terms; the ¨new¨ facts and any ¨new¨ generalizations must then be systematically and empirically verified and justified; and, finally, it must be shown that all of the ¨new¨ facts can be deduced, quantified, predicted, and replicated on the basis of the extant systematic body of generalizations.

The American philosopher and educator John Dewey once observed that the greatest and most pervasive fallacy of human thinking is the neglect of context. Medicine's methodologies in the design and conduct of its ¨gold standard¨ clinical trials constitute a striking example of this fallacy at work. Technological medicine's first mistake has been its misperception of the ¨problem¨ about which knowledge is being systematically pursued. Its dominant and entirely erroneous conception of the human organism--the subject and the object of all medical inquiry--is that it is most like a clockwork, a machine. Although this remains in place as American medicine's most controlling and unquestioned paradigm, the concepts of clockworks or machines as useful analogies for the human organism can be seen to be entirely inappropriate as the basis for describing what the structures and processes of an organism are, and demonstrating how an organism does what it does. By its reliance on the assumption of simplicity, twentieth century technological medicine has most certainly neglected the context within which any legitimate inquiry involving the human organism must take place.

Today, many physicians believe that the double-blind study rises to the level of a ¨gold standard¨ because it results in ¨objective, evidence-based proof¨ on the basis of which subsequent medical practices may rationally be defended. However, since the object of medical inquiry is the human organism in all of its complexity and idiosyncrasy; and since there is no alternative to the admission that far more is unknown than is known about the inner workings of human organisms; it is plainly an unproven belief to hold that all RCCTs result in knowledge about the treatment of human organisms that is so ¨completely determined by the objective evidence¨ as to thereby be rendered certain and unassailable.

The fact that the science of medicine must be accepted as being a science of complexity, because its subject matter is the human organism, does not mean that it will never be possible to experimentally isolate a specific chain of causality to explain or to treat some abnormality of the human body. As complex and idiosyncratic as medicine's basic subject matter is, there are some instances in which cause and cure turn out to be related one-to-one. But it does mean that, in human experimentation, we must expect specific etiologies of this variety to be very rare occurrences, very much the exception and not the rule. To qualify as science, the study of human organisms must always be rooted in the recognition of the fittingness of Nobel Laureate Sir James Black's conclusion that, in studying human organisms, ¨we have entered the world of quantum theory, in which the whole is enfolded into each part and each part is enfolded into the whole, as in a hologram.¨ Whenever the specific subject matter of an RCCT is inherently more complex than a theory of specific causality could scientifically cope with, which will most often be the case in a clinical trial involving human organisms, it would thereby be demonstrable that no outcome of the trial could possibly be justified as representing ¨the full collection of impersonal and objective¨ quantitative evidence, but would instead be a result of an unsubstantiated personal belief by the investigators in the completeness of their experiment. This means that, except for those rare exceptions when a ¨specific etiology¨ basis for a trial can be conclusively demonstrated to be scientifically valid, the ¨gold standard¨ clinical trials in use by conventional medicine today are based principally on the subjective and often biased beliefs of the designers of the particular RCCT--that is, on acts of faith by investigators that cannot possibly qualify as scientific evidence. For those who study medicine's subject matter from an organismic point of view, then, the ¨gold standard¨ proofs claimed to be issuing from the plethora of RCCTs being conducted today can rarely be accepted as being based upon ¨the full collection of impersonal and objective evidence,¨ as leaders of the American medical guild such as Arnold S. Relman, MD would have us believe. In a public forum held in Arizona during April 1999, Relman said the following:

"Medical science teaches practitioners to look for objective evidence before adopting a clinical method. ...All clinical biases and preconceptions, whether in alternative or conventional medical practice, must fall before the objective evidence, and we should be assiduous in seeking such evidence to improve our practices. ...At the least, [physicians] owe their patients their best professional advice, based on the most reliable information."

These are valid and high-minded statements as far as they go, but Relman was using them to defend the scientifically untenable position that medicine's use of RCCTs does in fact uniformly result in ¨objective quantitative evidence¨ on which the medical treatment of individual patients can legitimately be based. What Relman and other physicians like him are doing in making unsound assertions like this is giving medical science a very bad name. They need to fully understand the following reminder by William James, which is called to mind in this connection:

"Our actions, and with them their consequences, actually change according to the beliefs which we have chosen." (¨Will To Believe¨).

Arnold Relman is defending his belief in the universal evidentiary validity of medicine's ¨gold standard¨ clinical trials. However, the RCCT usually will not qualify as science by any stretch of the human imagination. Instead, medicine's much-ballyhooed ¨gold standard¨ can most often be seen as a quest for certitude in medical judgments that is rooted in a belief system which often merely pretends to be scientific, objective, and impersonal. To the extent that everything has not been taken into consideration in a given trial, the fact is that that trial has little to do with valid scientific method. In that there is a very great deal that is simply not understood about the human organism, including those intricate fail-safe capacities of the body that are based upon layers of redundant molecular, cellular and humoral processes, it is almost impossible to determine all of the conditions that could affect outcomes for even one human subject, much less for the ¨average¨ subject in a supposedly randomized controlled trial. Recall what Dominique Lecourt has said of the living cell: ¨[W]e cannot help but marvel at the monitoring and self-correcting devices for detecting and rectifying errors and at the strategies -- and we might even say 'neat tricks'--that it uses for this purpose.¨ These complex ¨conditions¨ are part and parcel of every organism, and are inevitably ingredient in every clinical trial, yet they have been systematically--one might say chronically--omitted from consideration in most of the contemporary RCCT experiments.

Because RCCTs are invariably designed within a mechanistic/dualistic rather than an organismic framework, there is no way around the consequence that the formulation of an issue to be tested will usually be flawed; or that, given the shortcomings of a reductionistic and mechanistic mind-set, the collection of data through observation and experiment will also be seriously flawed. Under the sway of this well- entrenched but erroneous paradigm of medical experimentation, the predominance of what Sir James Black has termed a ¨mechanistic metaphor of biology¨ places severe limits on the possibility of designing a truly scientific experiment or trial. Conventional medicine is therefore using the RCCT to once again force technology to the forefront; and, with the active assistance of giant pharmaceutical conglomerates and of many federal agencies, is aggressively marketing the results of RCCTs as if they bore a clear relationship to true scientific inquiry. The buyer certainly needs to be wary of RCCTs, for at least the following reasons:

- The conceptual basis of most RCCTs can be seen to be mechanistic, and not organismic. The two dominant notions that: a) a trial can isolate a specific chain of cause and effect; and, b) all relevant variables within the complex biochemical and biophysical factory that is the human organism can be or have been determined and controlled for; usually lack any basis in fact--yet these flawed notions continue to drive most of the rapidly proliferating experimental trials.

- The conceptual basis of most RCCTs can also be seen to be dualistic. The impact of a ¨placebo¨ group of subjects as representing an effective ¨control¨ simply misconstrues the actuality of the placebo effect. Christiane Northrup, MD has provided us with this trenchant observation about the human organism: ¨Thoughts and emotions can either create or destroy healthy tissue.¨ This concept would completely undermine any conclusive comparison between the outcomes for the ¨placebo¨ subjects and the experimental subjects in an RCCT. Therefore, in order to have a prayer of getting a marketable result from an RCCT, the human body has to be conceived of as being entirely separate from the mind and from the emotions.

Consider the comments of Ian R. McWhinney, MD on this latter point:

"Individual people have shown that they can alter their immune response both voluntarily and under hypnotic suggestion. The most plausible explanation of the beneficial effect of placebos--an anomaly within the mechanistic paradigm--is that it is a response of the organism to the symbolic meaning of a therapeutic relationship. There is abundant and growing scientific evidence, not only for the effect of relationships on health, but also for the physiological basis of these effects. The doctrine of specific etiology has been a dominant feature of the mechanistic paradigm, one cause being sought for each disease, based on the model of infectious diseases. ...In the organismic paradigm, etiology is viewed as a complex web of interacting causes, even when a proximal cause can provide the opportunity for therapeutic intervention. Rather than forces acting on a passive being, external agents may be triggers releasing processes that are already inherent in the person. The cause that precipitates an illness may be different from the causes that maintain it (i.e., the causes of chronicity, delayed healing, or death). This challenges the healer to identify the factors inhibiting healing and help the patient to strengthen and release his or her own healing powers." (Pew-Fetzer Task Force Report, pp.20-21)

On the assumption that the human organism is a machine, it would follow that clinical trials might be designed in which a specific, linear chain of causation could always be isolated, and in which all of the relevant variables within the ¨clockworks¨ could be known and controlled. However, once the concept of organism is given frank and full recognition, it becomes clear that the scientific basis of many RCCTs, and therefore the findings of such trials, would be exposed as unscientific. In her 1974 book ¨Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business,¨ Jessica Mitford reported the fact that drug companies and university-based medical ¨centers of excellence¨ were paying prisoners one dollar per day to participate in a variety of medical and drug testing protocols, many of which were life-threatening. This practice may still be going on in prisons, but probably at a higher wage level. Mitford was one of the first to take notice, about a quarter of a century ago, that only males were used in these experiments for the stated reason that the hormonal processes of premenopausal females were deemed to be so complicated and idiosyncratic as to render women prisoners unreliable subjects for these experiments. What Mitford did not point out at the time, probably because she was focused on the prison business and not on the medical business, was the fact that all of the medical/pharmaceutical miracles that emerged from the experimentation on this very captive audience were promptly prescribed for women patients, and usually with higher frequency than for male patients. Suddenly, and seemingly without a nanosecond of hesitation by physicians over the fact that the clinical trials of the specific pharmaceutical agents in question had excluded female subjects, medical concerns about the complex and idiosyncratic hormones of the female as a trial subject were dropped from practical consideration, and experimentally-sanctioned drug treatments were administered to female patients, willy-nilly.

How can this possibly be considered science? It would appear to be not only unscientific, but simply a fraud to exclude females from clinical trials on the basis that their complex hormonal activity would be likely to distort the results, and to then utilize drugs resulting from such trials as if they had a legitimate, scientifically established unisex applicability. Male-only pharmaceutical experiments could prove nothing with regard to females of the species, nothing at all. Yet the drugs flowing from such experiments are actively prescribed by physicians in the treatment of females. There has been a great deal of talk from the medical guild about the integrity of ¨gold standard,¨ double-blind clinical trials, yet in terms of actual medical practices resulting from these prisoner-based pharmacutical experiments, the snake-oil salesmen of yesteryear can be seen as a more honest bunch than the medical ¨scientists¨ who designed these particular clinical trials, or than those physicians who have acted clinically on the basis of the reported outcome of such experiments.

(continued...)

[Minesweeper]

As another more recent example, diagnosed diabetics have been excluded from RCCT protocols governing experiments with new drugs to treat hypertension, for the stated reason that their disease would skew the results of the trial in ways that would simply be unfathomable. If the pancreas is functioning abnormally, as is the case with diabetics, hormonal activity would also be abnormal, which alone would render the results of an RCCT questionable if not meaningless. However, hypertension is a very common side effect of diabetes. It should not be a surprise to learn that it has been and is common practice for physicians to prescribe for their diabetic patients with hypertension the very hypertensive drugs that were ¨proven¨ in trials in which diabetics were explicitly excluded as subjects. This is another concrete example of conventional medicine's ¨gold standard¨ in action. It would also be well to recognize that, once a drug has been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a specific use, any licensed physician may then proceed to employ that drug for any other use that they personally deem to be appropriate. Again, it is a puzzle to figure out how any of this can possibly be considered to be science.

Every RCCT being contemplated by medical professionals, and most certainly all such experiments being financed from the public treasury, ought to be required at the very least to demonstrate that the following criteria have been met:

1. The vision of the general nature of things which forms the intellectual framework of the clinical trial is explicitly organismic, taking into full consideration the processive characteristics of the human body; and the trial design does not in any manner reflect a mechanistic or dualistic conception of human organisms. This should be the standard for all trials, including those in which it appears to be scientifically possible to isolate a specific chain of causality for the treatment being tested.

2. An overarching organismic vision of the nature of things explicitly underscores the importance of recognizing and of taking into full account the complexity and the idiosyncrasy of each of the individual human organisms participating in a medical experiment or trial.

3. The principal yardstick to be used in defining the parameters and content of any trial shall be the irreducible fact that human bodies are natural systems, designed and equipped to tend toward health. Therefore, the highest possible level of reverence must be paid to the processes of homeostasis within each individual subject, and to the full range of organismic messages that a physician, a true healer, should be capable of discerning from natural systems in which disease is present.

4. RCCTs must be designed in frank and full recognition of their ¨ever-not-quite¨ character, as well as of the fact that a linear chain of cause and effect is seldom achievable because the quantity and complexity of the variables at work in such experiments can only rarely be either determined or controlled.

5. No federal dollars will be invested in any RCCT unless or until there is a clear demonstration and assurance that the trial will not result in harm to any subject, either during the relatively short term of an experiment, or over the long term beyond the termination of a trial; and unless or until it can be affirmatively demonstrated that interventions or procedures used in the RCCT will not harm the natural and inherent processes of the human organism that tend toward health. In other words, a stipulation must be required that no intervention or procedure will interfere with, inhibit, or damage the organism's immune system, the heart of its natural and inherent processes of maintaining homeostasis; and that, to the contrary, steps that have been scientifically validated will be undertaken as an element of all such trials to support and strengthen immune function for all prospective experimental subjects. Medicine cannot afford to support the deeply flawed idea that the immune system of an individual patient must be destroyed in order to save that patient.

It seems certain that a renaissance of disciplined classical taxonomy will be required in order to ¨prove¨ much of anything that would be of real clinical value in medicine. Today, conventional medicine in the United States stands a very long way from an insight of this kind, a vision that would directly contradict the radical course of human experimentation that it is currently pursuing. The medical guild would first have to recognize and accept a most disturbing fact: that many of the ¨evidence based¨ procedures or treatments derived from the accumulation of RCCTs constitute aberrations of a particularly malignant variety, especially in light of the often untold but nonetheless lethal ramifications of such experiments for human subjects who have been recruited into these trials as ¨volunteers.¨ Many of these souls are potential victims of medicine's wrongheaded ¨assumption of simplicity.¨

The notion that an aggregation of conclusions from a selection of non- scientific medical experiments could somehow yield a super pill that will optimize health and prevent disease in adults over the age of fifty-five represents the pinnacle of absurdity for technological medicine.

Competing interests:  None declared


Article obtained from:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/326/7404/1407">http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/326/7404/1407</a><!-- m -->

[otis]

Dear Spock and people with IMAGINATION,

Subject: Pure SCIENCE separated from the profound
BIAS of "medicine".

With all due respect -- please do not confuse
an effort to determine the dynamic behavior
of all fundamental eyes with, "MEDICINE".

There are many people who do -- and
simply get wrapped around the axle as a result.

The OD wants to "please" you in 5 minutes
with a strong minus lens.  You want
to be "pleased" (in ignorance) with
that strong minus lens.

The result is stair-case myopia -- as
a result of BOTH public ignorance
and incredible arrogance by
people like Dr. Catman Grant.

Bates pointed this out -- and was FIRED because
he OBJECTED.  Perhaps he was not articulate
in his "objection".

In any event, Bates has kept the "objection"
alive for the last 80 years.  It is up
to us to make these second-opinion
methods effective for our children.

I will post the exact quote of Bates
about the effect of a minus lens
on a 20/70 eye -- as soon as
I can find it.

Best,

Captin Kirk

P.S.  And yes, I though the original
star trek series was the BEST.  It
appeals to your IMAGINATION!

Otis

[Minesweeper]

With all due respect -- please do not confuse
an effort to determine the dynamic behavior
of all fundamental eyes with, "MEDICINE".

Otis, I understand you're just clarifying a point for everyone. It's not MEDICINE itself I'm talking about, however; what I'm directly addressing is the effort to determine the dynamic behavior of the body (including the eyes).

How is the effort done? Through the scientific method, of course.

But when does the Scientific Method become useless, even in Double Blind experiments? Ask yourself this question.

Can you explain it better than this article does? In fact, this is the best article I've ever seen addressing the fallacies of the Scientific Method. The body is a complex organism, subject to our thoughts and emotions (think of how the mind affects our vision).

The article illustrates, "¨Thoughts and emotions can either create or destroy healthy tissue.¨ This concept would completely undermine any conclusive comparison between the outcomes for the ¨placebo¨ subjects and the experimental subjects in an RCCT."

Ask yourself, how would the Scientific Method come to an accurate assessment, since thoughts and emotions are so fickle and subject to a person's own personality and beliefs? As for Bates Method, it is done through the process of relaxation to achieve visual clarity; our results can be controlled by our thoughts itself, which may differ greatly from person to person. It may not work for certain people, but will for others. But how do you objectively measure the Bates Method given this problem of not being able to make any conclusive comparsion between the "placebo" subjects and the experimental subjects in an RCCT?

That's my point. I'd love to see the answers one can come up with for those questions.

[Minesweeper]

For example, someone may say that a tranquilizer could be used to relax a person's nerves/muscles and see if eyesight improves; now, are there any side effects from tranquilizers that could impair seeing? Side effects are often the "primary" effects, rather than secondary effects. Is there a way to do it without the side effects?

If one has no proof of the scientific method being done objectively in such a way, then there is no reason to argue that the eye doesn't have the ability to heal itself through the muscles relaxing. Also, is there any objective data out there showing muscular tension in the extrinsic eye muscles? How about the secondary perspective that eye muscles are weak, since there is so much confusion out there about it. It's open to speculation since nothing modern has been shown as far as I know through the scientific method, so it could be anything.

And this is where personal experience and judgment comes into the picture.

"The skeptic will say, 'It may well be true that this system of equations is reasonable from a logical standpoint, but this does not prove that it corresponds to nature.' You are right, dear skeptic.  Experience alone can decide on truth."

                                        Albert Einstein

[Minesweeper]

Observe this.

Whether or not you may think this bears a relevance to the Bates Method, the point has just been illustrated that the Scientific Method (and its RCCTs) cannot always portray an accurate assessment of the complex human organism. Even though the scientific method is capable of adapting, it is not possible to accurately evaluate everything within the complex human organism given current methods.

If the Scientific Method is fallible in one instance, it could be in other similar instances as well.

[Minesweeper]

Read the How to Persuade Skeptics 101 thread.

[otis]

Dear Spock,

Please try to avoid confusing pure-science
or Engineering-science, with medicine.  They
are profoundly DIFFERENT.

Science does not fail, rather we "fail" science.

The "error" will be found in the terminology
we use to RESPECT the natural eye as
a dynamic system.  (Don't go ballistic -- this
is just an observation -- not a fact.)

Kirk

[Minesweeper]

I know the difference, Otis.

...too many people don't understand how scientists have distorted the reasoning process of science even though the principles behind the Bates Method are very logical from a true scientific perspective.

It's from a post I created earlier at the How to Persuade Skeptics 101 thread.

[otis]

Dear Spock,

It is easy to "think up" methods of prevention.  But
just try to get a person to FOLLOW THEM.  (And I
say that with DEEP RESPECT for anyone who has
attempted to do so.)

So when we talk about scientific truth, or concept, that
is EASY.  To attempt ANYTHING requiring strong
personal commitment I say the following:

Thinking is easy,
Acting is difficult,
and to put one's thoughts into action
is the most difficult thing in the world.

- Goethe

And for the poor optometrist in his office I say:

Men live by their routines; and when these are called into question, they lose all power of normal judgment. They will listen to nothing save the echo of their own voices; all else becomes dangerous thoughts.

- Harold Laski


I guess this is what Dave means when he describes
the concept of "imagination blindness".

Starship Commander Kirk

[elias]

Dear Otis,

I don't agree that engineering or pure science is different.
Science is science and it is brought by trial and error.
All of the science is based on iteration. For example we see the sun rises up each day, thus we conclude that the sun will always rise up each day. But this is incorrect. It has been shown later that the sun will collapse someday.
This is my opinion:
Theories can not be proved but can be discredited.
To prove something we must perform unlimited observations, but a single observation is enough to discredit a theory. Therefore we cannot prove that Bates is right, but we can discredit the theory proposed by eye doctors which states that errors of refraction are incurables, because there are numerous cases whom have succeeded by using the Bates method.

Regards,

[otis]

Dear Friend,

Subject:  Science is science -- NOT MEDICINE.

There is a tendency to call "medicine" or quick-fix
with the minus "science" -- but
the quick-fix artists, i.e., majority-opinion
ODs.

I think that is nuts.  As Bates pointed out,
if you put a strong minus on a person with
20/70 Snellen, his vision will go down
rapidly to 20/200.

The majority-opinion ODs DENY this effect
that the minus has on the refractive STATE
of the natural eye.

I seek to prove Bates statement about
the behavior of all natural eyes on a
SCIENTIFIC (NOT MEDICAL) LEVEL.

So a take a population of natural eyes,
and measure the refractive STATES of
all of them.

I then take a -3 diopter lens and place
it on 1/2 of them.

If Bates is WRONG, then on a scientific
level, the refractive STATES of the
test group will not change relative
to the STATES of the control group.

So, OK, which is it.

Will the refractive STATE of the -3 diopter
change by -2 diopters in six months -- or
will they not.

What Bates right or wrong about
this on a scientific level, i.e.,
and objective, repeatable scientific
test -- or not.

You tell me.  (Not as an "argument, but
as a friendly discussion.)

I think my lieutenant Spock agrees on this point.

Captain Kirk.


Theories can not be proved but can be discredited.
To prove something we must perform unlimited observations, but a single observation is enough to discredit a theory. Therefore we cannot prove that Bates is right, but we can discredit the theory proposed by eye doctors which states that errors of refraction are incurables, because there are numerous cases whom have succeeded by using the Bates method.

Regards,

[Minesweeper]

Otis,

Please do not suggest that I agree on things I have not even posted about or given my agreement on.

In another thread you misinterpreted what I was pointing out, and then said that I was right twice. Don't distort your own understanding with my own. I would appreciate that. Nothing personal. Just wanted you to know.

Back on topic, there is clearly a difference between scientists distorting the facts as opposed to the true science behind it. This is due to incorrect research procedures.

If research is done on the Bates Method, the approach used to obtain results needs to be considered. If the wrong research approach is used, and since Bates Method is dependent on a person's attitude and thoughts/emotions, you may find significant results for some people and insignificant results for others -- which can confuse the researchers.

This purpose behind this thread is to address the research approaches employed when studies are done. This article is very interesting and it makes you think about the research procedures used on several alternative methods.

Here is another interesting article: Constraints Analysis. This article seems biased towards conventional medicine, but it is worth reading to understand that there is a big ongoing debate between both sides, and it gives you an insight into the close-minded attitude of conventional medicine compared to the first article.

I'll post it below for people to read.

[Minesweeper]

CONSTRAINTS ANALYSIS

Constraints analysis is a study of the reasons why some high quality research papers do not have the clinical impact they deserve.

Attempting to reach a consensus on the criteria for 'quality' turned out to be complex in itself. Criteria that were obvious for the conventional medicine were sometimes seriously objected to by unconventional medicine. Many misunderstandings had to be clarified and prejudice on both sides had to be explained away to finally arrive at a consensus that could be accepted by all.

One of the main obstacles was resistance by unconventional medicine to the acceptance of the randomized clinical trial, with a control group as a 'gold' standard. Some felt that it would not allow enough room for the alternative methods to express themselves fully, particularly with regard to 'individualised' treatment of patients.

Obstacles like 'holistic evaluation', 'reductionism', idiosyncrasy or individual reaction on treatment, and labelling by slogans of the other side had to be overcome. Some representatives of unconventional medicine are convinced that it would be impossible to test some therapies by what they considered as conventional methods. Their objections were overcome by demonstrating the possibilities of varied designs for trials and the possibility to quantify subjective parameters with the use of research methods from sociology.

It should be noted that many methods that are in use in conventional medicine today, even at university level, have not been evaluated sufficiently. An important consensus was finally accepted that patients' and/or therapists' satisfaction alone is not sufficient as evidence. In future all medicine should, in so far as it is practicable, be evidence based. It was agreed that a transition period should be allowed for methods that can look back on a long history of use and safety. Some parts of the consensus document may look very obvious to some readers, but it has to be recognised that it was a long and difficult process to find a common language and to obtain the agreement of groups that initially were philosophically very far apart.

The analysis of the articles also proved to be a very interesting exercise: A number of studies pro and contra were analysed. In the end no articles could be accepted by both conventional and unconventional medicine representatives as meriting clinical consequences. Studies with results supportive of unconventional medicine were rejected because of flaws of design or execution. Studies that were against unconventional medicine were rejected because of incorrect application of the specific methods for that particular therapy or treatment. The inventory of objections brought the working group to formulate important conclusions and recommendations. The list of criteria for quality was amended and a list of constraints was made. Comments and suggestions for remedies were proposed.

Consensus: criteria for quality in research protocols

1. The experiment should have the approval of an official ethical committee before the start.

It is recommended that this should form the basis for a registration system for all trials undertaken with mandatory communication of the results.

2. The hypothesis to be tested must be stated before the start.

Phenomenon to be studied (principal and eventual secondary objectives of the study) must be clearly and unambiguously defined before the start of the study. This can be in one of 3 ways:

    * as an affirmation
    * as a negative (zero or null hypothesis),
    * or as a question.

It should be mentioned on what this hypothesis is based: (e.g. previous research, observations, anecdotal evidence)

3. It is highly recommended to limit the number of phenomena to be studied.

The more parameters one wants to analyse, the more patients are needed in the study. The "holistic" assessment of too many parameters is a statistical near impossibility. The choice of parameters to be measured must be carefully considered. General well-being though can be a valid parameter.

4. The target group, persons or objects, to be studied must be well defined before the start of the study.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria, whether they are from the realm of conventional or unconventional medicine must be unambiguous, objective and controllable. They may contain unconventional medical diagnostic parameters as long as the method of measuring can be reproduced and falsified and can be communicated to or learned by others. In this case it is advisable to give some explanation for the uninformed reader and provide the necessary information to make it reproducible.

5. Methods for treatment or intervention should be clearly defined at the start of the study.

It is recommended that the unconventional medical practitioner should have satisfactory qualifications (curriculum, credentials) inside his therapeutic community to make the results acceptable and valid for his peers. Therefore, ideally, unconventional medical practitioners should organise themselves to reach an internal consensus for a uniform terminology and methodology and thus define their criteria for acceptance. This will allow the verification of the methodology of a trial, as it can be assessed for compatibility with the specific therapeutic method.

Such a consensus within a therapeutic tradition will also facilitate the evaluation of treatment offered by a practitioner against agreed standards. Alternatively, organisations in unconventional medicine can form a "board of recognition" that can certify that the methods used by practitioners are representative. The procedure to accord this approval should be explicit and verifiable. This procedure will prevent trials to be labelled afterwards as relating to the skills of one person (or little group) only and thus allowing the results to be ignored.

Some good quality studies on unconventional medicine with negative results have been completely ignored by the unconventional medical therapeutic community of that particular system because the therapist was "not good". This sort of argument only strengthens opponents of unconventional medicine in arguing against all future funding for unconventional medicine trials. They claim that only accidental positive results are widely used for publicity while all negative results are ignored for the above reasons.

Another argument used by some unconventional medicine therapists is that a clear definition of their method is not applicable. They use poly-therapy (e.g.acupuncture plus massage plus diet plus homeopathy on the same patient). This objection is not correct and can be overcome by the use of the black box method, the same way as the outcome results of a whole hospital can be quantified.

6. Methods for measuring the results of the intervention must be well defined and validated before the start of the study.

The parameters can be objective clinical measurements but also holistic and subjective measurements by questionnaires about psychological and social factors as well-being; quality of life, etc. It should be realised that measurements of subjective parameters such as feelings (e.g. analogue well being scales) contain a large risk of inaccuracy and should be used only if sufficiently large numbers of subjects are involved.

7. The study must be so designed as to minimise possible bias.

Wherever possible, a control group should be used. The control group should be blinded where possible. The absence of a control group makes the results less convincing because there is no way to estimate the influence of placebo-effect, spontaneous fluctuation or spontaneous healing.

8. The division into the groups should be randomized.

The process of randomization should be well described and administered by a third and neutral party. Both groups should be comparable.(age, sex, weight, disease) Reasons should be given if blinding and randomisation are not possible.

9. Ideally all data should be used.

Patients who drop-out must be recorded and an explanation given. Researchers should realise that bias is a very human quality and that all are susceptible to it. Anecdotal reports have no convincing power. In turn, no therapeutic conclusions can be derived from such studies. At most they can be an incentive to start prospective trials. Statistical validity of the results has to be determined.

10. Sample size and power should be sufficient.

It is advised to ask the (second) opinion of a statistician before the start of the study. The conclusions should be in accordance with and restricted to the starting hypothesis.

11. Care should be taken when formulating general conclusions.

Subjective evaluation by the researcher should be avoided. Studies of nominated papers often showed conclusions where the author went far beyond the reach of what the results suggested.

12. The results should be reproducible, repeatable and generalisable.

The article should contain sufficient information to allow other independent researchers to control and duplicate it. Correlations that are found retrospectively cannot be considered as proof. They may be interesting however and point to areas for further investigations.

"Proof" can only be accepted as such if supported by a sufficient number of prospective studies. No clinical consequences can be proposed unless multiple confirmation of the results has been obtained by independent research teams in prospective studies.




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[otis]

Dear Spock,

Subject: Reducing the probability of ENTRY into
myopia from 30 percent to 1 percent.


Otis> You are correct about Ignaz Semmelwies.
(Doctors who REFUSED to wash their hands,
and were killing women at a rate of 30 percent) AFTER he reduced
the death rate from 30 percent to 1 percent, he was declared
a fraud.

TynerOD>  When you reduce the incidence of myopia from 30% to 1%, we'll
listen. I promise.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I would be pleased to work on true-prevention
of ENTRY into myopia (a negative refractive
STATE of the fundamental eye)
provided some basic conditions are met.

1.  The study be classed as engineering-scientific,
and is clearly NOT another MEDICAL study.


2. The person's involved have a college-engineering
education.  (Or are in a college with that type
of background, and are cognizant of
scientific issues.


3. The majority-opinion stated by Catman Grant
be read before the group -- and analyzed in
detail.


4.  The study be open, and respect the
scientific competence of EACH person
in the study.


5.  The study be conducted at an ENGINEERING
college, where the participants fully understand
the dynamic-eye concept, and can follow
instructions in the CORRECT wearing
of a plus lens.


6.  No individual will have a Snellen of less
than 20/50.  (Cycloplegic will be taken and
recorded at the start.  Individuals will be
taught the technique and will make the
measurements.)


7. Results to be judged by competent
engineers and scientists.


That works for me.


Best,


Otis