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Comment by moh_maya | Hacker News Reader

Look, you obviously have an axe to grind. And you are conflating too many different things.

So I'll limit myself to the original point.

Science, particularly modern science, even with all its baggage and flaws and politics, is evidence based.

Evidence in this case is statistics and data. Those are not present, from many reasons (as an aside, I don't think there is any evidence of statistical trials being performed in the Vedas).

There is no work in medicine in the Vedas that satisfies this criteria. Ergo, it is not yet evidence based science. It's observational. Now, if the govt. through AYUSH [AYUSH added in edit] actually invests in performing clinical trials etc. and publishing them in peer reviewed journals, then your argument may hold water. You are conflating correlations with causation / evidence.

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No axe to grind. What could I possibly have?

> Science, particularly modern science, even with all its baggage and flaws and politics, is evidence based.

Can be reworded as: "Science, particularly Vedic science, even with all its baggage and flaws and politics, is evidence based." The vedas are not any different than any sciences that mankind honestly developed. Only, it goes far beyond what we (aka modern science) are/is able to comprehend, about the consciousness of the universe etc. With time, that will also be rediscovered. Also not to take away anything from modern science, many things have been discovered & invented far more than Vedic sciences. My problem is treating the Vedas as purely a religious book like the Bible & Quran and neglecting the great expanse of knowledge in it.

Now you are shifting the goalposts. This is what I am alluding to when I say, conflating multiple things.

Who, in this comment chain, is making any point about Vedas being purely religious? That is not apposite to this discussion.

The Vedas are a work of knowledge. In philosophy, in natural sciences. There is a strong argument to be made that they capture large parts of the essence of scientific temperament, which is analysis, refection & observation. But, modern scientific research is not just scientific temperament.

Practicing science, modern science, also requires evidence & follows a hypothesis-driven model that makes testable & provable / disprovable predictions.

You seem to be eager to misinterpret OR re-interpret terms to suit your perspective / point of view. "Evidence" based has a specific meaning. This [1] is a reasonable definition of what evidence based medicine means TODAY.

The vedas provide observations. They record correlations (perhaps). That's not evidence!

Lots of work has been lost; that's not unique to the Indian subcontinent. The library of Alexandria was lost. Many of Plato's works are lost. What does that have to do with modern science apart from regret & grief at what was lost?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_medicine

I think you've misunderstood evidence based medicine as end-all, be-all of scientific analysis & only restricted to modern science. It is quite natural & largely common sense. Agreed, it is the gold standard for today, but it may not be so in the future, something else will come & upend that too as it always happens with scientific development. Remember Radium painting, that was also part of evidence-based medicine. By that account the Ayurvedic science has had fewer mishaps than science as practiced in modern times. Science is always about trial & error, my point is that it was not different from the times of ayurveda. This is as opposed to the biblical or quranic words of god, not the same thing at all.

Also, it is fair to say that Indian ancient texts have suffered significantly more destruction than others due to religious persecution and genocides against a peaceful civilization. The genocides are especially important because most information was transferred through word of mouth.

You do realize AYUSH ministry funds Unani Tibb, too? Just saying.

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