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by nollidge
5637 days ago
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(Thanks for the homeopathy citation. I'll have to check that out.) > The author seems to have a complete inability to just point out any errors Weil has made Are we reading the same thing? The quote you cited was from the fifth paragraph of the 18-paragraph first section of a five-section piece which contains countless references to Weil's own words. Admittedly I have not read the whole thing yet myself, but I would hope you could reserve judgment on the intellectual honesty of the essay after reading somewhat past the introductory portion. |
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"Weil's writings are ambiguous about the conflict between science and alternative medicine, as they are about many other issues in alternative medicine."
What conflict between science and alternative medicine? How is his writing ambiguous? How is this a problem? How is his writing ambiguous about other issues in alternative medicine?
"[weil] thinks that all healing methods ought to be tested; and yes, modern science can make useful contributions to our understanding of health and disease. Yet the scientific method is not, for Weil, the only way, or even the best way, to learn about nature and the human body."
What does Weil actually get wrong? Is there actually some error in either his epistemology or what he is advocating?
"Many important truths are intuitively evident and do not need scientific support, even when they seem to contradict logic."
Where does he actually say this? What's the context? There isn't even any inherent problem with this statement, so it doesn't make any sense to criticize him for it unless you're going to actually go out and find something wrong.
"Weil is not bothered by logical contradictions in his argument, or encumbered by a need to search for objective evidence."
What logical contradictions?
The typical Redditor could write exactly the same article without even reading any of Weil's books. And it really only gets worse from there, e.g.
"According to Weil, many of his basic insights about the causes of disease and the nature of healing come from what he calls 'stoned thinking'"
Again he can't find any actual problem with what Weil is saying, so he's just poisoning the well.
He does eventually make a couple of points that appear to be solid, but there is so much other crap in there that it's hard to take seriously. If there are cases where Weil is wrong then by all means he should be called out on it, but this article is just nonsense.