The same thing has happened in the case of Chinese Medicine. The premises and presuppositions of that paradigm are different to modern mainstream Science... and cannot necessarily be measured by the same criteria.
The thing is we can quantify aspects of CM... as in testing people's health markers before, during, and after treatment. When that occurs, it is undeniable that the treatment has worked.
the problem is when CM is taken into the lab, its hard to find repeatable quantifiable data.
The practice of the medicine evolved in a paradigm that didn't place weight on the 'repeatability' of results - which is crucial to scientific research (and rightly so).
The question I always ask detractors and colleagues alike is this - if the results are found in the clinic, but not in the lab, what does that suggest in the bigger picture?
How can we bring two very different paradigms of understanding together? Seemingly if we can stand aside from our respective parochialism, we might take our understanding of pathophysiology to a whole new level.
Great article!!!
YEP.
and eventually, science slowly catches up. i.e. Science Finally Proves Meridians Exist - or like the comment on Part ONE talking about the scientist that attempted to disprove astrology, yet ended up proving correlations he didn't expect.
I suppose the final question embodies the nature of the east-west, yin-yang balance... :-)