I am not sure how to respond. You are welcome? You said as much about nfq, and since the rest of us are not persuaded by your documentary, I guess you consider us crazy/misguided/blind/deluded, too. I don't mind.
Like I said, it's in the eye of the beholder.
sonicpacker wrote:
Truncated wrote:
There are also multiple personal accounts of alien contact, crystal healing, astrology, and (conflicting) accounts of religious contact with god. Do you believe all these to be true, too?
I can't even describe how shitty of an analogy that is. Those personal accounts you mentioned would have to be believed by trust, not evidence/proof. The ones I was referring to, I believe because of multiple human medical records, not simply word of mouth.
As I understood it, your reason for believing this man was
1) published medical results, and
2) personal accounts.
Judging from what you wrote above, you seem to agree with me that personal accounts are extremely unreliable, have to be taken on faith and do not constitute evidence/proof. Great, we agree on something!
I wrote in the previous post three strong reasons why the medical results were unconvincing. As I understand it you choose to believe this man in spite of the abysmal level of his published work and lack of repeatability of his results. So be it then, but that is not going to convince anyone else.
Your argument that the FDA (and by extension all comparable organizations in other countries and all other medical researchers, since all those must also agree to keep silent) are evil seems to rest on the notion that this man is right. I guess you could narrow it down to two basic options (somewhat simplified):
A) The FDA, comparable organizations in other countries and other medical researchers are suppressing Burzynski's research and willingly letting millions of people die in cancer, including themselves and their relatives, in order to make money somehow.
B) Burzynski is lying about his results in order to make money selling his medicine.
One alternative is infinitely more likely than the other, even without knowing the quality of Burzynski's research.
Yeah... the advocate of that-which-causes-discussion. The thing is, I once used to be very rational and scientific, like the people here on tasvideos. But then I lost a girl I loved, so I went insane to the point that I no longer even cared about rationality, logic or beliefs. That's when I found the Truth with capital T. Some argue that I still care about rationality. It could be true. I don't really know.
sonicpacker wrote:
Thank you for implying I'm crazy.
Welcome to my world. I get that all the time, even though I'm not crazy or unscientific, just different. People often call people crazy who are different from themselves, because people don't understand things that are different from themselves. Like the witches they burned in the middle ages because they used magic and science. "What? They're different than everyone else? Burn them! They are the devil!" People fear different things and love similar things.
Sincerely yours,
Truth
If we were meant to eat meat, it would come prepackaged as steaks, and not have to be grown on a cow!
Correct. We are not meant to eat meat. Eating meat is usually immoral for humans, because we are intelligent creatures, so we know that it's wrong to kill animals.
We weren't 'meant' to cook food any more than we were 'meant' to build computers or 'meant' to put a man on the moon. We discovered cooking! The whole concept that we were 'meant' for anything is pure absurdity.
By "meant" I mean that all creatures have always eaten natural food (perhaps I should have used the word adapted instead of "meant"). No other creatures have ever cooked their food, and nature and evolution knows what's best for us. Our bodies have evolved to eat food that is in nature, so it's not a good idea to start burning food suddenly... if we want to do that, we should first change our bodies so that they can handle that kind of food.
In fact, some theorize that the ability of humankind to grow large brains was directly related to cooking.
Yeah, that's a common myth. It's surprising that there are scientists who say that. Strange how poisoning the body with chemicals and smoke would make the brains grow...
Warp wrote:
You seem to give nature some kind of sentience and will, like it's a benevolent being who tries to protect and benefit us, as long as we obey nature.
Accurate statement. If we go against natural laws like gravity, we will die. If we eat unnatural food, we will get diseases or die (because our bodies are not adapted that that kind of food). We have to live in harmony with nature.
A) Morality is a non-scientific, emotional construct.
B) Evolution is a process of a species changing over the course of a period of time to adapt to its environment. For every beneficial gene that gets passed on, there are many more genes which don't. But the scientific theory of evolution has nothing to do with how one person changes, so evolution can't "know what's best for us"
C) Contradicts (B)
D) Scientists say things because they have evidence to back up their statements. The quality and amount of evidence behind their statements will decide how "good" their statements are (i.e. whether you should believe them or not).
E) Successful space flight would disagree with you.
F) Harmony is a non-scientific, emotional construct.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Truncated wrote:
I am not sure how to respond. You are welcome? You said as much about nfq, and since the rest of us are not persuaded by your documentary, I guess you consider us crazy/misguided/blind/deluded, too. I don't mind.
Like I said, it's in the eye of the beholder.
I don't consider you crazy, I consider you ignorant. If you can't see that the FDA does horrible things on purpose, with so much evidence (more than the documentary) to back that up, you are not only ignorant, but stupid (again, talking about the FDA, not Burzynski).
Truncated wrote:
As I understood it, your reason for believing this man was
1) published medical results, and
2) personal accounts.
Judging from what you wrote above, you seem to agree with me that personal accounts are extremely unreliable, have to be taken on faith and do not constitute evidence/proof. Great, we agree on something!
I wouldn't use "believe" as the term for how I feel towards him. As I said, I don't believe it's some miracle cure for all types of cancer. Evidence shows that it is MORE EFFECTIVE AGAINST SPECIFIC TYPES OF CANCER (caps locked because you didn't get it the first time) than chemo or radiation. You wrote "As I understood it," however, you understood incorrectly. I was saying that the people that can testify for Burzynski's methods have their own personal medical records to back up their statements. That is good evidence.
Truncated wrote:
As I understand it you choose to believe this man in spite of the abysmal level of his published work and lack of repeatability of his results. So be it then, but that is not going to convince anyone else.
The man has not released his methods. Of course they cannot be replicated (unless it is through sheer luck). If I told you to go bake a cake and all I said was "this is what it looks like, now you make it" and you had no prior knowledge of baking, there is no way in hell you would be able to make the cake.
"Truncated wrote:
A) The FDA, comparable organizations in other countries and other medical researchers are suppressing Burzynski's research and willingly letting millions of people die in cancer, including themselves and their relatives, in order to make money somehow.
B) Burzynski is lying about his results in order to make money selling his medicine.
One alternative is infinitely more likely than the other, even without knowing the quality of Burzynski's research.
Why would other regions FDA equivalents have anything to do with a man in Texas? He came to the US to practice because it is supposedly a "free country." The way you word what you say makes me think you don't know what's going on. His research is not being suppressed. However, his want to make his method public is. That is why he can still treat his own patients. Now I don't know about you, but considering he WANTS his method to be available to the public (and has been trying to do so for ~30 years), I don't believe he is in it for the money.
The man has not released his methods. Of course they cannot be replicated (unless it is through sheer luck).
sonicpacker wrote:
His research is not being suppressed. However, his want to make his method public is. That is why he can still treat his own patients. Now I don't know about you, but considering he WANTS his method to be available to the public (and has been trying to do so for ~30 years), I don't believe he is in it for the money.
Uhh, excuse me? Did FDA cut off his tongue and fingers?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
B) Evolution is a process of a species changing over the course of a period of time to adapt to its environment.
I know what you meant is pretty much accurate, but I'm going to be extra nitpicky here (simply because I have quite a pedantic personality).
As you worded it, it sounds like species make a conscious (or possibly subconscious) effort to change their own genes to adapt to their environment, in a similar way as eg. a human society could change its culture and habits to adapt to a changing environment. I know that's not what you meant, but the way you worded it makes it sound like that.
Of course what happens is that small random changes happen in genes all the time. Some of these random changes help the lineage inheriting those changes to survive slightly better than others. Bad genetic changes will make the chances of survival of that lineage worse. The worst changes just die out sooner or later and end up disappearing from the general population. Over long periods of time this natural selection of best genes makes species evolve to naturally adapt to a changing environment.
What would you say if I postulate that aging (and death itself, in the form of phenoptosis) are mostly programmed organism behavior installed to facilitate evolution? There is a very interesting link between life expectancy, reproduction rate, and position in the food chain indeed.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
moozooh wrote:
Uhh, excuse me? Did FDA cut off his tongue and fingers?
He is trying to make his methods known by getting things done legally through the FDA. If the FDA won't cooperate, then his methods will never be publicly available throughout the US.
moozooh wrote:
What would you say if I postulate that aging (and death itself, in the form of phenoptosis) are mostly programmed organism behavior installed to facilitate evolution? There is a very interesting link between life expectancy, reproduction rate, and position in the food chain indeed.
I would call you crazy and an idiot for believing something that the general population doesn't. God damn free thinking. Who do you think you are?
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
sonicpacker wrote:
I was saying that the people that can testify for Burzynski's methods have their own personal medical records to back up their statements. That is good evidence..... The man has not released his methods. Of course they cannot be replicated (unless it is through sheer luck).
I don't want to jump into this one too, because I really have no idea of any of the supposed research or why/how it was suppressed/erased/etc., but the two statements above, so close together, made me LOL.
FYI, medical records are not scientific evidence, they are anecdotal accounts.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
mmbossman wrote:
sonicpacker wrote:
I was saying that the people that can testify for Burzynski's methods have their own personal medical records to back up their statements. That is good evidence..... The man has not released his methods. Of course they cannot be replicated (unless it is through sheer luck).
I don't want to jump into this one too, because I really have no idea of any of the supposed research or why/how it was suppressed/erased/etc., but the two statements above, so close together, made me LOL.
FYI, medical records are not scientific evidence, they are anecdotal accounts.
How can professional medical records not be used for scientific research? IMO, the anecdotal factor is the people testifying. The records themselves are the evidence to back up the claims.
Uhh, excuse me? Did FDA cut off his tongue and fingers?
He is trying to make his methods known by getting things done legally through the FDA. If the FDA won't cooperate, then his methods will never be publicly available throughout the US.
Because clearly it's impossible to publish results without going through the FDA.
The FDA's job is to make certain that medicine (and procedures?) are not provided if they don't pass a rigorous battery of tests. It has nothing to do with the availability of information. Burzynski is free to publish his methods by any means he likes. He just can't apply them (outside of strictly restricted test cases) without the FDA's approval. This is why the FDA is completely powerless to stop the spread of his work -- he can always publish somewhere else, get another country involved, and start performing his procedures there instead of in the States.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Medical records are written documentation of a patient's course of care. They are not (in isolation) a form of "proof" that some form of treatment "works", just that the patient likely had some sort of change. The fact that what's-his-face won't release his methods for his drug trials makes any sort of medical records that stem from that essentially meaningless. Example:
A) I'm a big drug company and make a new cancer drug. I give 5 people my medicine, and all 5 of them have a full remission of their cancer! I tell the scientific community that my medicine is a success.
B) I'm a big drug company and make a new cancer drug. I give 1000 people my medicine, and 5 of them have a full remission of their cancer, but 995 of them have no change! I tell the scientific community that my medicine cured 5 people of cancer, but I leave out anything about the other 995.
In both scenarios, 5 people had full remission of their cancer, which their medical records will show. But when you don't have a scientific study behind the records, you won't know about the other 995, especially if what's-his-name won't release his methods.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
Derakon wrote:
It has nothing to do with the availability of information. Burzynski is free to publish his methods by any means he likes. He just can't apply them (outside of strictly restricted test cases) without the FDA's approval.
Exactly. So why release them? So the methods can be stolen by other people in other countries exactly like the FDA tried to do? Sounds good to me.
mmbossman wrote:
In both scenarios, 5 people had full remission of their cancer, which their medical records will show. But when you don't have a scientific study behind the records, you won't know about the other 995, especially if what's-his-name won't release his methods.
Jesus Christ, have I not said more than once that he claims it to be ~25% EFFECTIVE ON SPECIFIC TYPES OF CANCER.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
sonicpacker wrote:
Derakon wrote:
It has nothing to do with the availability of information. Burzynski is free to publish his methods by any means he likes. He just can't apply them (outside of strictly restricted test cases) without the FDA's approval.
Exactly. So why release them? So the methods can be stolen by other people in other countries exactly like the FDA tried to do? Sounds good to me.
mmbossman wrote:
In both scenarios, 5 people had full remission of their cancer, which their medical records will show. But when you don't have a scientific study behind the records, you won't know about the other 995, especially if what's-his-name won't release his methods.
Jesus Christ, have I not said more than once that he claims it to be ~25% EFFECTIVE ON SPECIFIC TYPES OF CANCER.
And you're missing my entire point. I don't care if it's 1% or 100% more effective, without any sort of science behind it, IT'S NOT MEANINGFUL DATA.
Joined: 9/21/2009
Posts: 1047
Location: California
mmbossman wrote:
without any sort of science behind it, IT'S NOT MEANINGFUL DATA.
Maybe just as "crazy" is in the eye of the beholder, meaningful is as well. We seem to disagree as to what constitutes real evidence. So I suppose discussing it further would be pointless.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
sonicpacker wrote:
mmbossman wrote:
without any sort of science behind it, IT'S NOT MEANINGFUL DATA.
Maybe just as "crazy" is in the eye of the beholder, meaningful is as well. We seem to disagree as to what constitutes real evidence. So I suppose discussing it further would be pointless.
Meaningful as in "statistically significant", which is a very real scientific concept. If you have yet to take college or doctorate level statistics, then do some research on it.
It has nothing to do with the availability of information. Burzynski is free to publish his methods by any means he likes. He just can't apply them (outside of strictly restricted test cases) without the FDA's approval.
Exactly. So why release them? So the methods can be stolen by other people in other countries exactly like the FDA tried to do? Sounds good to me.
Why release them? Maybe so that people in other countries can be cured of cancer? Little detail, that.
And you can't steal methods. His name will be attached to this procedure/medicine/whatever, for good or ill. If it works, then he gets the fame. If it doesn't, then he gets the blame. "Theft" is really not an issue for this kind of thing. The ultimate goal for research doctors is to come up with new procedures and publish them so that practicing doctors can start using them. Where those doctors are located should be a trivially minor secondary concern.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
>Evidence shows that it is MORE EFFECTIVE AGAINST SPECIFIC TYPES OF CANCER (caps locked because you didn't get it the first time) than chemo or radiation. You wrote "As I understood it," however, you understood incorrectly. I was saying that the people that can testify for Burzynski's methods have their own personal medical records to back up their statements. That is good evidence.
I got it fine and your caps lock isn't necessary. I am simply telling you that you are wrong.
- There is no evidence that it is more effective than other treatments because none of his published research has had a control group. Also, the sample sizes have been very small and there has been no blinding. All in all it is textbook examples of extremely shoddy science.
- Medical records are not good evidence. Only looking at the successful cases without any statistics or control behind it can make any treatment look successful. Take for example bloodletting with leeches. It was continued for 2000 years, in spite of being harmful to the patients, exactly because they used the approach you are suggesting.
Thanks for your time, I think I'm done.
Why release them? Maybe so that people in other countries can be cured of cancer? Little detail, that.
Wouldn't it be ironic (and hypocritical) to complain that the FDA is shutting down a miraculous cancer cure because of greed... discovered by a doctor who doesn't want to divulge this cure worldwide because of, you guessed it, greed (ie. he wants to patent it to get rich).
(Of course the more likely explanation is that the cure doesn't really work that great, and he's not divulging it because he knows it, and he wants to cash as much as he can while the hype is going on.)
I was saying that the people that can testify for Burzynski's methods have their own personal medical records to back up their statements. That is good evidence..... The man has not released his methods. Of course they cannot be replicated (unless it is through sheer luck).
I don't want to jump into this one too, because I really have no idea of any of the supposed research or why/how it was suppressed/erased/etc., but the two statements above, so close together, made me LOL.
Bossy, I did some research on pubmed - if you ignore Burzynski's NUMEROUS publications (of which he is ALWAYS first author, #1 sign of an arrogant asshole.) It looks like people are finally (in the last 3 years) actually testing his 'drug' and finding that it works well on some cancers, most of which looks like breast cancer (ironically, the most curable of all cancers). However, it does appear to have a pretty quick toxicity level.
So yeah, all this huffing and puffing and conspiracy theories!!!11eleventy is probably because Burz is a major arrogant asshat. So, as opposed to letting science run its normal safe course, he is trying to push his OMG MIRACLE CURE through by shaming the FDA, and finding random links to other drug companies exploring similar avenues.
Also, sonicpacker is just out of high school, so he'd have no concept of doctoral level statistics. God, I remember I believed the X-Files were truth back in high school. "The government is evil and hiding aliens! We must expose the conspiracy!"
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
I was saying that the people that can testify for Burzynski's methods have their own personal medical records to back up their statements. That is good evidence..... The man has not released his methods. Of course they cannot be replicated (unless it is through sheer luck).
I don't want to jump into this one too, because I really have no idea of any of the supposed research or why/how it was suppressed/erased/etc., but the two statements above, so close together, made me LOL.
Bossy, I did some research on pubmed - if you ignore Burzynski's NUMEROUS publications (of which he is ALWAYS first author, #1 sign of an arrogant asshole.) It looks like people are finally (in the last 3 years) actually testing his 'drug' and finding that it works well on some cancers, most of which looks like breast cancer (ironically, the most curable of all cancers). However, it does appear to have a pretty quick toxicity level.
So yeah, all this huffing and puffing and conspiracy theories!!!11eleventy is probably because Burz is a major arrogant asshat. So, as opposed to letting science run its normal safe course, he is trying to push his OMG MIRACLE CURE through by shaming the FDA, and finding random links to other drug companies exploring similar avenues.
Also, sonicpacker is just out of high school, so he'd have no concept of doctoral level statistics. God, I remember I believed the X-Files were truth back in high school. "The government is evil and hiding aliens! We must expose the conspiracy!"
DarkKobold confirms the location listed in his profile.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Ahhh, makes sense. Occams razor says that its a lot easier to be a arrogant asshat than to have a multi-national conspiracy, so I'll believe the first.
More worrisome to me is how the word 'evidence' is just thrown around, as if it's all the same. For those that want to know, this wiki article should be required reading.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_medicine#section_3
Sorry for the mobile link, on my phone right now.
