[zazen]

The point is, the parts of traditional medicine that work are adopted by modern medicine. Meaning, although they're still part of traditional medicine, they're no longer distinctive of traditional medicine. Traditional medicine is distinct from modern medicine only by virtue of the parts that don't work.

This is what is meant by the "traditional medicine that works is called medicine" soundbite. The soundbite on its own condenses the argument very imperfectly, and people should be wary of using it.

[paraditedc]

Please educate yourself with the term TCM (traditional Chinese medicine, 中药) before making such condescending comments. It's a very specific branch of medicine, not related to the generic English term "traditional medicine".

Your argument, to a Chinese person, is equivalent to "JavaScript is old because Java is old." It makes no sense at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine

Edit: It's also worth noting that in Chinese, TCM is simply 中医, which literally means Chinese medicine. I'm not sure who decided to add the "traditional" in front, but it's not actually how it's called in China.

> Traditional medicine is distinct from modern medicine only by virtue of the parts that don't work.

If you say it this way, then maybe we should stop using the term TCM and just call it its original name "Chinese medicine" so we can both be happy.