traditional knowledge

[Guest guest]

>Hey Jonno, , Sally, , Geoff

Love the comment about the armour-plated science and bows and arrows ,

tho 20/20 hindsight, particularly with regard to politics, is a wonderful

thing. My own bete noir is the imbalance between the energy put into

underpinning herbs with science, and the energy we have put in over the

last two or three decades actually examining, discussing, enriching,

documenting, you name it, even defining, for goodness sake, what

traditional knowledge is. g it off and recovering its value. Finding

out what we have in our own tradition before we decide that we really can't

do without TCM or Ayurveda.

What is our traditional understanding of herbs? where are the discussions

about the differences between the information that is transmitted by

Culpeper and Grieve, and Commission E and Bone? and what information do we

want our new practitioners to be familiar with? what is useful for us? if

all we know is the cautions and contras and can relate constituents to

actions, even if we can discuss the limitations and eventual futility of

that exercise, but can't intelligently discuss the 'other stuff' then where

are we?

What are the traditional influences on contemporary western herbal

medicine? And what right do we have to call ourselves traditional

practitioners if we can't say what our traditions are, and intelligently

discuss them?

Maybe much more is happening over there (UK) than over here (Oz), and I

have missed it, but I really don't see a whole lot of energy being put into

the development of traditional knowledge. Tobyn on Culpeper, Menzies-Trull

on Physiomedicalism, useful as they are, and great that they have been

written, but they are really just a start, not the final word, and only

useful if people then chew them over, discuss, comment on them, build on

them, make the connections between these perspectives and contemporary

practice. And while I don't know much about Goethean science Jonno, it

seems to me that at least it is an attempt to find a different perspective

on these matters, to put new energy into an old perspective.

If some integrative higher level, an new synthesis, is going to happen, it

certainly ain't gonna happen if, as Sally I think said in a slightly

different context, there is huge imbalance between the poles. My concern is

not that science is 'sick' ( as I think Sally implied but I might be wrong)

but that our own traditional knowledge is going to have withered so much by

the time we get to attending to it that it will be even more difficult to

revive.

I agree with you Geoff that it is about art and science, but it is more

than that as well. It is about feeding not only the science of herbal

medicine but also understanding its traditional basis, using both science

and tradition, working and developing them into an art, developing our

intuition based on both of those rather than just one.

regards

Sue

>Sue's mail:

>

><<The approach Ernst represents is a problem because it is changing the

>knowledge base of our craft, and if we allow that <<to happen unthinkingly,

>uncritically then we are in danger of throwing out the baby with the

>bathwater in completely <<underpinning our knowledge with science, rejecting

>that which does not have an 'evidence base' and eventually losing <<what is

>the most important part of our craft, our ability to synthesise different

>sources of knowledge regarding the plan

>

>surely the threat is diminished by having broadly trained herbalists able to

>look at both 'sides' in an informed way. My understanding is that that was

>the basis of Zeylstra/Mills line, which was, surely a very brave step to

>take. But perhaps some see it as a foolhardy step too, because, in a sense,

>it seems to have said " OK, we'll beat these tin-pot scientists who deny

>empirial truths with...................... " and with what ?? My bete noir

>these ten years is that they mistakenly took on armoured plated science with

>bows and arrows. And this was bound to result in the appearance of mercenary

>factors to crusade against us. That was a serious strategic weakness,

>despite a policy that may have been sound, just, true and noble.

>

> Chenery

Sue

Course Coordinator, Bachelor of Naturopathy

Lecturer in Herbal Medicine

School of Natural and Complementary Medicine

Division of Health and Applied Sciences

Southern Cross University

PO Box 157 Lismore NSW 2480

http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/ncm

email - sue.evans@...

phone - 02 66203854