new ideas

[Guest guest]

, " Alon Marcus "

<alonmarcus@w...> wrote:

> On the other hand, any

> careful development of ideas based upon the classics cannot really be

called

> MSU as this has been the method of development of new ideas for

centuries.

> >>>>Again this comes to wheatear one is going to look for clinical

evaluation or not as the only final judge, and possibly were we part

ways. I do not care how careful someone developed an idea (even when i

do it myself as in my next book), because as i said many times what

occurs in the real clinic is often totally divorced from such ideas.

 

 

I don't think we part ways here, but I do think the most efficient way

to develop new ideas is to root them in what comes before so as not to

waste time reinventing the wheel. If you cannot at least do a

literature review to see what is plausible and what is considered

outrageous, you run the risk of studying something worthless (such as

when Kaiser studied dang gui for menopausal sx). for that matter, how

does one conduct clinical research w/o first being able to review

relevant prior studies and hypotheses, most of which would be in

chinese? On the other hand, no idea, no matter how carefully developed

should be accepted by anyone without actual proof that it works. On

rarer occasions, serendipity might reveal something new of value, but I

do not think this is typical. In western medicine, new ideas also ride

on the backs of old ones. And most chance discoveries happen while

scientists are methodically pursuing some other goal. But it is by

applying the methodology that they even put themselves in a position to

make a new discovery. New discoveries of lasting value are almost

always made from within a discipline, not by total mavericks. the

methodology in CM to develop ideas of lasting value has ALWAYS first

involved extensive consultation with the classics.

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

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[Guest guest]

I don't think we part ways here, but I do think the most efficient way

to develop new ideas is to root them in what comes before so as not to

waste time reinventing the wheel. If you cannot at least do a

literature review

>>>Todd there are many thousands of books and commentaries in Chinese, no one

can even come close to reading a fraction of them in one's life time, even if

Chinese is one's native language. To me most of what i learned and practice is

modern day TCM. This literature was and is put out by some very smart people and

I have to trust their judgment. If I will take the view that there must be more

" secrets " to learn in the less modern main stream literature (and that for some

reason TCM is a very poor version of CM), before i can make some new conclusions

or try to develop new ideas, this would mean paralysis. So if one has learned

TCM and feels comfortable with its principles, i have no problem if then newer

ideas are brought into play.

By the way, the author of the Kaiser study was very well aware of dang gui

literature both in Chinese and west. He felt that since dong gui is sold in

health food stores and because it was the #1 herb Kaiser patients were reporting

to be taking. The study was valid and needed and i can not argue with that. It

was not a study on CM.

Alon