Alternative medicine, anyone? How about a little shamanism? I knew that these things threatened such wonderful creatures as tigers and rhinos with extinction, but didn't know that so many species of primates were similarly threatened. I found this on the BBC's Earth News:
Folk medicine poses global threat to primate species
<!-- S BO --> <!-- S IBYL --> By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News
Traditional folk medicine poses a significant and ongoing threat to the future of primates around the world.
According to a major scientific survey at least 101 primate species are still used in traditional folk practices and in magic or religious rituals.
For example, spider monkeys are eaten to treat rheumatism, while gorilla parts are given to pregnant women.
Such practises are accelerating the declines of many already vulnerable species, say the survey's authors.
<!-- E SF -->Details of the survey are published in Mammal Review, the journal of the UK Mammal Society.
Of 390 species studied, 101, or more than a quarter, are regularly killed for their body parts, with 47 species being used for their supposed medicinal properties, 34 for use in magical or religious practices, and 20 for both purposes.
The rest of the article is here:
BBC - Earth News - Folk medicine poses global threat to primate species (https://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8589000/8589551.stm)
sharingwisdom
03-30-2010, 10:11 PM
Yes, it's sad that animals are not respected in the variety of belief systems held throughout the world to the point of extinction. All animals feel anger and fear, pleasure and pain, just like humans, and their equality comes from their ability to feel pain (New York Jan.15 p30)...and love.
But Folk medicine is not the entire gamut of alternative medicine. There are many forms of alternative medicine which show great respect to the animal world. Alternative medicine is the practice of medicine without the use of drugs--it may involve herbal medicines, self-awareness, biofeedback,energy therapies (acupuncture, Reiki, Jin Shin Jyutsu etc), Biofield therapies, Bioelectromagnetic-based therapies, dietary supplements and more. None of this involves the killing of animals.
We can look to many factors about the decrease in primates and other species.
In traditional medicine alone, more than 3.2 million experiments on animals, including dogs, cats and monkeys, were carried out last year – the highest total since the early 1990s. Experiments on animals rose to 3.2m last year - Science, News - The Independent (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/experiments-on-animals-rose-to-32m-last-year-873747.html)
And then there is human encroachment on animal habitats and poaching.
Endangered Species (https://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/Endangered/esvI.html) Reasons for the gorillas' decline include habitat loss due to human encroachment (mostly for agriculture) and poaching for their hands, heads, and meat. The decline of the Asian elephant has been mainly due to habitat loss and fragmentation. Ironically, domesticated elephants are used to clear their own native habitat for human agriculture. Increasing human population growth and decreasing elephant habitat has led to a tragic conflict between humans and elephants over space and resources.
Around 20,000 dolphins are killed off the coast of Japan every year and it is widely regarded in the small fishing towns as a great honour to be able to hunt dolphins and whales. Japan even kills whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary for so-called scientific purposes. The way in which whales are killed is particularly cruel.
So though it is a great travesty that mammals and animals are killed to near extinction, blaming it on alternative medicine is not the cause.
Alternative medicine, anyone? How about a little shamanism? I knew that these things threatened such wonderful creatures as tigers and rhinos with extinction, but didn't know that so many species of primates were similarly threatened. I found this on the BBC's Earth News:
Folk medicine poses global threat to primate species
<!-- S BO --><!-- S IBYL -->By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News
Traditional folk medicine poses a significant and ongoing threat to the future of primates around the world.
According to a major scientific survey at least 101 primate species are still used in traditional folk practices and in magic or religious rituals.
For example, spider monkeys are eaten to treat rheumatism, while gorilla parts are given to pregnant women.
Such practises are accelerating the declines of many already vulnerable species, say the survey's authors.
<!-- E SF -->Details of the survey are published in Mammal Review, the journal of the UK Mammal Society.
Of 390 species studied, 101, or more than a quarter, are regularly killed for their body parts, with 47 species being used for their supposed medicinal properties, 34 for use in magical or religious practices, and 20 for both purposes.
The rest of the article is here:
BBC - Earth News - Folk medicine poses global threat to primate species (https://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8589000/8589551.stm)
Dixon
04-03-2010, 12:23 AM
Around 20,000 dolphins are killed off the coast of Japan every year...
Yes, and if you haven't seen the powerful documentary "The Cove" on this subject, check it out.
So though it is a great travesty that mammals and animals are killed to near extinction, blaming it on alternative medicine is not the cause.
Of course you're right about all those other causes of decline and extinction. Surely it's clear that I wasn't blaming it all on alternative medicine. Neither did I say or imply that all forms of alternative medicine cause such harm. There is no one cause. But the specific types of folk medicine cited in the article are indeed among the causes of decline and possible extinction in a number of species.
I make the connection between folk and alternative medicines because so much of what's called "alternative medicine" is borrowed from various folk practices, usually by people who seem to think that if it's an exotic, ancient practice (or claims to be), then it's automatically valid, so they accept it uncritically and are hostile to critique. One sad irony about these folk medicine practices that hurt or kill animals is that, with few if any exceptions, they don't really even work, rather than just seeming to work because of the usual psychological effects such as placebo effect, etc. etc. Often they're obviously based on magical thinking (i.e. ingesting powdered rhino horn will make your cock stand up stiff like a rhino horn, etc.). The poor animals give their lives for such stupidity!
If everybody insisted on critical thinking and scientific testing to decide on what medical practices to use, all or most of these brutal folk medicine practices would be seen as the superstitious folderol they are, and they'd disappear. But of course, if we became that reasonable, most SCAM (So-Called Alternative Medicine), including most of the modalities you mention in your post, would also disappear, and very few people are willing to become rational if it means dropping their favorite beliefs. So people continue to accept dubious practices on the basis of emotion, superstition, magical thinking and fallacious evidence, and brutal practices continue along with the harmless ones. So sad for the animals...
sharingwisdom
04-04-2010, 01:51 AM
I watched the coming attraction of The Cove in the New York Times entertainment section (weird commentary on entertainment) and it's on my list to see.
No, it wasn't clear that you weren't blaming all alternative medicine, or I wouldn't have researched the other information.
I can see that some of these folk practices have added to specific species distress and decrease.
You've made an assumption of what people think about different ancient practices in accepting them. Perhaps this has been your personal experience in living in this particular area because there is an openess to different paradigms. And I wonder how you present your point of view if so many are hostile.
Perhaps before you label things in your favorite belief systems, leave a space for possibilities for others. To me, a rational mind uses both hemispheres of the brain in balance which allows for the accessing of emotions and cognizant functioning of information and experience.
And I haven't seen an allopathic doctor in 31 years and have been a holistic alternative practitioner for this long too. I feel successful in what I do and in the many people I've helped over these 3 decades which includies raising 4 home-birthed children w/o doctors or antibiotics. And I'm not against doctors or allopathy. The medical field is just like any field...it takes discernment to know who to feel comfortable with in skill, knowledge and experience. I just have had other training and understandings.
Things change in science as well, and what is "scientific facts" can be something different tomorrow. And I realize that we may agree to disagree in your opinions of what helps people or how the mind functions. It's so wonderful that diversity of thought is plentiful in its many ways.
Yes, and if you haven't seen the powerful documentary "The Cove" on this subject, check it out.
Of course you're right about all those other causes of decline and extinction. Surely it's clear that I wasn't blaming it all on alternative medicine. Neither did I say or imply that all forms of alternative medicine cause such harm. There is no one cause. But the specific types of folk medicine cited in the article are indeed among the causes of decline and possible extinction in a number of species.
I make the connection between folk and alternative medicines because so much of what's called "alternative medicine" is borrowed from various folk practices, usually by people who seem to think that if it's an exotic, ancient practice (or claims to be), then it's automatically valid, so they accept it uncritically and are hostile to critique. One sad irony about these folk medicine practices that hurt or kill animals is that, with few if any exceptions, they don't really even work, rather than just seeming to work because of the usual psychological effects such as placebo effect, etc. etc. Often they're obviously based on magical thinking (i.e. ingesting powdered rhino horn will make your cock stand up stiff like a rhino horn, etc.). The poor animals give their lives for such stupidity!
If everybody insisted on critical thinking and scientific testing to decide on what medical practices to use, all or most of these brutal folk medicine practices would be seen as the superstitious folderol they are, and they'd disappear. But of course, if we became that reasonable, most SCAM (So-Called Alternative Medicine), including most of the modalities you mention in your post, would also disappear, and very few people are willing to become rational if it means dropping their favorite beliefs. So people continue to accept dubious practices on the basis of emotion, superstition, magical thinking and fallacious evidence, and brutal practices continue along with the harmless ones. So sad for the animals...
Dixon
04-10-2010, 03:26 AM
You've made an assumption of what people think about different ancient practices in accepting them.
Well, at the risk of over-generalizing, I'll say this: I hear people talking about "ancient wisdom" frequently, but I never hear them mention "ancient stupidity", "ancient ignorance", "ancient fallacy" or "ancient superstition". This is an imbalance. And I've often heard people cite the ancientness of a belief as if that were evidence of its truth, which it's not.
Perhaps this has been your personal experience in living in this particular area because there is an openess to different paradigms.It's not openness that bothers me. Quite the contrary; it's lack of openness that I'm frustrated with. Let's be clear on the fact that being open doesn't mean you believe the claim in question; it means you're open to the possibility that it's NOT true as well as to the possibility that it IS true. And of course, such openness resolves nothing until we apply reasonable standards to determine whether the claim in question is likely to be true or false.
So many people seem to feel that being open to something means believing it, and are utterly closed to the possibility that it may be untrue. That is not open-mindedness. Sharingwisdom, are you open to the possibility that some of the healing modalities you mention may not be real after all--even including the ones you make money from?
And, note that if we presume someone isn't open-minded just because they don't believe in something we believe in, that's ironically a closed-minded defense mechanism. The underlying assumption is "If they don't agree with me that this is true, they must be closed-minded, because I KNOW it's true and if they were open-minded they'd see it too".
And I wonder how you present your point of view if so many are hostile.That's a reasonable thing to wonder. My experience has been that, no matter how gently critique is expressed, some people are hostile to it. In fact, many people more-or-less explicitly state their hostility to critique, for instance by negatively characterizing any and all critique as "making someone wrong". These are the actions and attitudes of people who are rigidly defended.
Perhaps before you label things in your favorite belief systems, leave a space for possibilities for others.I already do, and I have changed my mind, including quite basic beliefs, a number of times. In principle, anything is possible. But note that if anything is possible, it's possible that any particular belief is wrong. So it's important to ask ourselves questions about our cherished beliefs, such as "Am I open to the possibility that I'm mistaken about this belief, that it's actually false?" "If it is false, would I want to know it, or would I want to keep the belief without being corrected on it?" and "Am I seeking correction by engaging open-mindedly in mutual critique with those who disagree with me?"
To me, a rational mind uses both hemispheres of the brain in balance which allows for the accessing of emotions and cognizant functioning of information and experience.An optimally functioning person integrates all aspects of him/herself, fluidly moving through all points on the medicine wheel, including emotional and cognitive experience. But that doesn't mean that all tasks use all functions. We would not want to be too much into our cognitive space when dancing or making love, for instance. By the same token, it's inappropriate to be in our emotions when performing essentially cognitive, logical functions such as assessing the efficacy of some treatment modality. Our feelings are simply irrelevant in that process, and will only distort our judgment through such follies as wishful thinking, power fantasies, biases, financial conflict of interest (especially if we make money with the treatment modality). That's why we have rules of logic and scientific procedures--to screen out those emotional (and political, and economic, and sociological) sources of illusion.
I could expand on these ideas for hours, but I'll shut up now.
Sylph
04-10-2010, 11:40 AM
An optimally functioning person integrates all aspects of him/herself, fluidly moving through all points on the medicine wheel, including emotional and cognitive experience. But that doesn't mean that all tasks use all functions. We would not want to be too much into our cognitive space when dancing or making love, for instance. By the same token, it's inappropriate to be in our emotions when performing essentially cognitive, logical functions such as assessing the efficacy of some treatment modality. Our feelings are simply irrelevant in that process, and will only distort our judgment through such follies as wishful thinking, power fantasies, biases, financial conflict of interest (especially if we make money with the treatment modality). That's why we have rules of logic and scientific procedures--to screen out those emotional (and political, and economic, and sociological) sources of illusion.
Beautifully said, Dixon!
My friend didn't take chemo for breast cancer because it didn't 'feel' right to use a 'poison'. So far, she's OK. But, I am afraid for her that she didn't use the judgment she should have in this situation.
It's always a challenge for us humans to use logic in such emotional situations....