A good read about this is Orientalism by Edward Said.
The key difference is western medicine is tested objectively, while traditional medicines are based on belief. A million people getting sick and taking a treatment and recovering doesn't mean the treatment does any good, but they'll believe it does because everyone else believes it too.
I don't know much about Eastern medicine outside of India to be honest. One exception: Chinese people buy tiger bone Viagra, elephant tusk art, rhino horn something, and shark fin soup.
I was born Hindu but became closer to Buddhist as I learned more about the scientific revolution and how it built the modern world.
Cars kill more people per year than heroin, therefore heroin is healthier than cars.
Let's wait until pseudo-scientific treatments become multi-billion dollar industries and then we'll talk about what does more harm to what.
1.) A meat-based diet is directly linked to higher cancer rates.
"The World Health Organization has determined that dietary factors account for at least 30 percent of all cancers in Western countries and up to 20 percent in developing countries. When cancer researchers started to search for links between diet and cancer, one of the most noticeable findings was that people who avoided meat were much less likely to develop the disease. Large studies in England and Germany showed that vegetarians were about 40 percent less likely to develop cancer compared to meat eaters."
http://www.pcrm.org/health/cancer-resources/diet-cancer/fact...
2.) A meat-based diet is directly linked to clearing wild habitat for more farm animals.
"Both the meat-based average American diet and the lactoovovegetarian diet require significant quantities of nonrenewable fossil energy to produce. Thus, both food systems are not sustainable in the long term based on heavy fossil energy requirements. However, the meat-based diet requires more energy, land, and water resources than the lactoovovegetarian diet. In this limited sense, the lactoovovegetarian diet is more sustainable than the average American meat-based diet.
The major threat to future survival and to US natural resources is rapid population growth. The US population of 285 million is projected to double to 570 million in the next 70 y, which will place greater stress on the already-limited supply of energy, land, and water resources. These vital resources will have to be divided among ever greater numbers of people."
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.full
3.) U.S. eats more meat than any nation on Earth and also has the most expensive health care in the world too, 20% of the GPD. We have a society whose delusions cause diseases and destruction around the world. If I was wrong, there wouldn't be so many brilliant scientists, doctors, artists, and entrepreneurs on this same train of thought.
4.) Yoga, meditation, plant-based diet have all played a major part in creating the modern world including computers and the internet. If people don't have discernment to know true from false, that is their shortcoming and not Dharma. ;)
> We have a society whose delusions cause diseases and destruction around the world. If I was wrong, there wouldn't be so many brilliant scientists, doctors, artists, and entrepreneurs on this same train of thought.
Argumentum ad populum.
> Yoga, meditation, plant-based diet have all played a major part in creating [...] computers and the internet.
This is probably the most absurd statement I've read all week.
I was interested in your argument about meat and then I got to this, which immediately unraveled any point you had for me.
Investments in military technology played a major part in creating the modern world including computers and the Internet. That hippies were so intimately involved at a few important points is more a reflection of the time period and culture than causality, more an observation of the type of people drawn to the work for a season. Stating that we have the existence we have in large part because of yoga and meditation and not eating meat is so revisionist and misguided that I don't even know how to dispute it. I'm sorry, but that's just blatantly ridiculous because it's such a complete inversion of the actual truth.
That you take it further and imply someone is defective and invoke Dharma for believing otherwise is quite something. You should really bring it down a bit if you want your point to make sense, because you're coming across as far more arrogant than I think you intend.
Semantics. What I typed, how he reacted, how I reacted, and now your reaction. We are so far from my original thought that I don't know how to respond. In fact, I think I'm going to stop here because I am wasting time talking about nothing of consequence.
Ayurvedic medicine clearly does more harm than good. It has never been shown to be significantly more effective than placebo. Ayurveda poses a major risk of heavy metal poisoning, due to the pseudoscientific theories of rasa shastra.
I think I should explain my thoughts on HN a little clearer going forward.
Sorry for the harsh words, but I've seen the damage, and I am tired of how alternative medicine is handled with silk gloves and shown infinite respect, in the name of being open minded.
B, the original comment was focused on taking what works from both and leaving the rest behind. You're making the same mistake as a billion other people...clinging to the paradigm you are currently in thinking there is nothing beyond it.
C, I'm tired of people thinking they are smart because they used the word 'orthogonal' and say things like 'sorry for the harsh words bro', which doesn't apply in this context and this is a pretty typical reddit/HN thread. Do you have any original insights into any of this or are you just gonna drop more vocab words and 'harsh words'?