tradition and science

[Guest guest]

Dear scientists, traditionalists and mixed breeds

Forgive me for my simplistic views and language before I start.

From reading this debate about science and tradition, I get the sense that

perhaps we are calling science biomedical or reductionism and tradition merely

an historical record of medical/herbal philosophy.

Surely our Tradition is based on science, not THE sciences that completely seem

to override all else in our society but a number of different sciences. The

study as Jan mentions of using our senses to begin to understand how a medicine

works, how and where our plants grow, recognising the symptoms and signs of

illness by observation and listening, when it is best to plant and harvest

plants, what types of people tend to get which type of imbalance/illness etc

etc.

Salim Khan told a story about a group of people wanting to know what an elephant

was. They all took a different part of the elephant and studied it in detail,

what did it look like, what did it smell like etc. When they came together again

they all began to relay what they had seen and an argument ensued. None of them

could truly explain what an elephant was but only a part of that elephant. If

they had brought that information together and then also observed the elephant

as a whole, studied how it lived etc etc then the knowledge gathered would have

been a lot more accurate and beneficial to their understanding.

If we only look at tradition or as seems to be the tendency at the moment, we

only look at a few dominant sciences we will not even begin to have the

understanding that those herbalist of the past recorded for us to continue.

It would seem that TCM, Unani Tibb and Ayuvedic traditions hold the historical

perspective of their tradition in such high regard, placing it at the forefront

of their teachings and treatments. Why are we so afraid to acknowledge, explore

and further our tradition? To talk about it with pride, use it and talk about it

as a vast knowledge base that greatly increases our understanding and ability to

treat patients

Whilst modern science may have brought us a whole range of new developments, is

it not also true to say that the seed of the idea often came from observation of

nature, a traditional science. Was it not the traditional knowledge/science that

lead to many chemical drugs?

For me the way forward, is to embrace all science, which includes our tradition,

our senses, our intuition, our life force. Use all of this knowledge to build

the whole picture. Whilst modern society and science may have much to offer, it

has also brought with it nightmares. Likewise looking back over our traditional

history, there are some nightmares but it also has much to offer. Should we not

acknowledge that which is good and dismiss that which we believe to be wrong,

not try and please, impress the very system that we truly believe has blinkered

its self from the whole and in so doing done much harm. How and why do we defend

ourselves by trying to prove the effectiveness of our tradition using a means

that by itself we know to be inaccurate? Surely it is better to equip ourselves

with a much wider gathering of science (including tradition), in so doing

increase our confidence and knowledge and then we can be brave enough to argue

the world is round and not flat.

If we continue to be so afraid that our medicines and practice will be taken

from us, should we be unable to prove by a couple of scientific models that our

medicines, philosophies and tradition work, what will become of our tradition?

Whilst so occupied with being accepted by a system of believes and society that

gives us nightmares at times, are we not forgetting the bigger picture?

Chris