Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Doctor Shortages & the Licensed Falsehood Racket: ND Rothenberg At Huffpo

here, I cite from a recent Huffington Post ND's article promoting naturopathy as suitable for physicianship [see 001., below] and comment; and then, I muse upon this question -- 'should we fill a doctor shortage from a system that has a rationality deficit?':

 001. Rothenberg, A. (ND NCNM) states in "Naturopathic Doctors Fill in Gap in Physician Shortage" (2012-12-18) [vsc 2012-12-18; my comments are in unquoted bold]:

"[speaks of] non-MD options for patient care [but recently] missing from the list of options was naturopathic doctors [...] NDs should be high on the list of providers to bridge the gap in our imminent provider shortage";

heavens!

"NDs must graduate from an accredited naturopathic medical school [...which is] state-of-the-art [...] and pass an extensive postdoctoral board examination (NPLEX) in order to receive a license [...] licensable naturopathic doctors attend four-year, in-residence, full-time naturopathic medical school at institutions recognized by regional accrediting bodies. Schools are recognized by the Federal Department of Education, and students are eligible for federal loan monies";

did you know that that examination labels nonscience science?  In other words, that examination is QUITE WRONG BLATANTLY.  E.g.: it labels homeopathy a clinical science.  It certainly isn't a science of any kind.  ND Rothenberg is, coincidentally, quite the homeopathy proponent.  So, I call 'irrationality foul on the play'!  The mode of thinking isn't postdoctoral at all.  In fact, it doesn't pass muster for K-12 national SCIENCE standards.  Orac recently asked a great question at National Geographic's Science Blogs: "just how stupid do homeopaths think we are?"  Now, ND Rothenberg went to NCNM, the trunk of the North American naturopathy tree, so to speak.  At NCNM, you can see that CODIFIED into naturopathy's worldview is the irrationality of placing the FOR SEVERAL DECADES science-exterior FALSELY within the category of science.  This has been going on via the naturopathy racket for decades.  It is a licensed falsehood.  Exchange of money is always interesting when the premises and labels are false.  It gets even more interesting when the parties involved are so, shall we say, institutional.

"we use industry standards";

really? Lets pose this situation: the industry we are talking about is academic science and 'the science of scientists'.  Since when is nonscience, blatant nonscience, science therein?  It is not rational.

"naturopathic doctors work with natural medicine modalities including therapeutic nutrition, botanical medicine, Chinese medicine and lifestyle modification";

I'm surprised the ND-homeopath hasn't mentioned HER homeopathy!  How selective.

"for information about naturopathic medicine, see http://naturopathic.org/";

ok, I'm SO there.  So, at naturopathic.org, the web pages of the AANP, NDs Coward and Lewis write,  in "Zicam is NOT Homeopathy!" [vsc 2012-12-18]:
"homeopathy is a 200 year-old medicinal science"; 

bullshit.  So, there's naturopathy's epistemic irrationality in a nutshell: science subset nonscience. 

003. 'should we fill a doctor shortage from a system that has a rationality deficit?':

well, it may happen even though naturopathy is quite the 'junk thought' area.

therein, licensed falsehood racket marches on.

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