Within Asia, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is the system with the longest history. TCM was developed through thousands of years of empirical testing and refinement.
I cringed. Not only do I question what they are calling “empirical testing” but this Time Fallacy (I don’t know what else to call it, perhaps there is a better name) is everywhere in China. “Well, we’ve been doing it the wrong way for over 2000 years so it must be the right way!”
No, actually if you tell me 2+2=5 for 6 billion years, you will still be wrong and 2+2 will still equal 4.
The Economist recently had a much better, much more skeptical piece on TCM:
This nature article on TCM shows a similar lack of scepticism.
From the article you linked:
I cringed. Not only do I question what they are calling “empirical testing” but this Time Fallacy (I don’t know what else to call it, perhaps there is a better name) is everywhere in China. “Well, we’ve been doing it the wrong way for over 2000 years so it must be the right way!”
No, actually if you tell me 2+2=5 for 6 billion years, you will still be wrong and 2+2 will still equal 4.
The Economist recently had a much better, much more skeptical piece on TCM:
Medicine & its rivals
Except the belief that 2+2=5 isn’t going to survive for 6 billion years.