User talk:Amusedspaceman
Max Gerson
[edit] Welcome to Wikipedia. Please be aware of Wikipedia's policy that biographical information about living persons must not include unsupported or inaccurate statements. Whenever you add possibly controversial statements about a living person to an article or any other Wikipedia page, as you did to Max Gerson, you must include proper sources. If you don't know how to cite a source, you may want to read Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners for guidelines. Thank you.
Please review WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE, WP:MEDRS, and WP:NOT, which also apply. --Ronz (talk) 21:08, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
The previous writer has a clear bias against the subject and has cited research of the American Cancer Society. I have cited The Gerson Therapy book, but that's not good enough?
- Please focus on the content. Accusations against other editors aren't justification for changes to content.
What American Cancer Society research?- Gerson's book isn't good enough. --Ronz (talk) 21:37, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- ACS statements and research will most likely always meet MEDRS criteria. --Ronz (talk) 21:41, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
What American Cancer Society research? Please look at the writer's reference numbers 2, 5, and 9.
I find it funny that you say a book written by the subject's daughter isn't good enough, while statements by an organization with a bias against him are ok. Please clarify why the Gerson book isn't good enough.
- Yes, I'm clear now that you're against having ACS research included because you believe it is somehow biased. It meets WP:MEDRS.
- As for Gerson's book, let me know how you feel it meets WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE, WP:MEDRS, and WP:NOT. --Ronz (talk) 21:58, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Not that I'm against having ACS research, but I think it should be allowed to be balanced with a differing point of view. Thanks for your help. I will make edits on it that meet the guidelines.
- Sorry, but you don't appear to understand what we mean by neutral here. Please take some time to learn about the relevant policies and guidelines. --Ronz (talk) 22:10, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- Please note that others have similiar concerns about your editing the article further [1]. --Ronz (talk) 22:12, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
I understand neutral now as far as Wikipedia is concerned, thanks. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the term as well because the article as written does not meet the standard of neutrality and I challenge several things in it.
- I'm happy to help improve the article. Why not start a discussion on the article's talk page with your concerns on its neutrality? --Ronz (talk) 22:28, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
So you're saying if it goes against what the ACS says, it's not neutral? That's called censorship and bias and would make Wikipedia worthless. However I have to believe it's more than that. I don't very much care for other's suggestions that I not edit the article, because it's my right to challenge it. I'm just learning about editing articles, but I will come back to post and site quotes from reputable national and international sources, and we'll see if there's any integrity to Wiki's policy of neutrality.
- If you want to discuss something, best to base it upon an effort to seek more information. Misrepresenting others and presenting straw-man arguments is a waste of time.
- I think it would be helpful for you to take a look at WP:SOAP and WP:RGW before you start an article talk page discussion. --Ronz (talk) 22:48, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
This might be interesting reading, Ronz. It's about censorship and bias in Wikipedia medical articles. Should be interesting to you. Who knows where all this will take us. http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread570411/pg#pid13057549
- Allow me to corroborate what Ronz said; Gerson's protocol is not respected, hasn't adequately been tested, is biologically improbable, not published in the peer reviewed literature and it's generally a fringe theory that should not get undue weight. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 23:44, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Who are you to say what is fringe and what is not, what is "biologically improbable" or not? Who is any Wiki moderator to decide what should and shouldn't get "weight"? Gerson not respected? Nobel prize winner Albert Schweitzer called him "the preeminent medical genius of our time". In other countries he's extremely well respected by established medical practitioners. Do a little research and see for yourself that Gerson Therapy goes far beyond "fringe", for example, take a minute to look at this article So here we have "Wiki gatekeepers" effectively telling me they would make sure an article or reference from a paper like this won't make it into Wikipedia, despite it being within the rules of Wikipedia because they think it's not worthy. People like this are working hard (possibly even on the payroll of pharmaceutical or medical establishment?) to make sure that the current Gerson write up is kept biased and negative. Meanwhile, someone out there who is sick who may have heard about Gerson would find it on Wiki and might be turned off of what could very well have ended up saving their life. By keeping information from people who need it, people like this are almost certainly contributing to people not getting the care they deserve or need, and some might say there's even blood on their hands. I will be editing this article and will be challenging attempts to keep people from learning the truth about Gerson.
- As an editor I am familiar with both the policies and the sources used. You need to read those policies. Schweitzer won the Nobel Peace prize, which grants him zero expertise in medicine. Plus, there is always the Nobel disease - winning the prize didn't stop Kary Mulis from believing in glowing alien raccoons and AIDS denialism, or Linus Pauling thinking vitamin C cures cancer. "Toxins" don't cause cancer, gene mutations do - and even if "toxins" did cause cancer, once cancer exists then removing them won't cure it. Cancer is caused by rapidly dividing cells, and varies according to the type of cancer, with each tissues having a different form, often several different forms. You might try reading a real book about cancer, such as The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.
- Pharmanoia is not a substitute for an actual argument, it just means you don't have any good evidence so you accuse others of bias to divert attention from the fact. You keep editing the article the way you have, you'll be blocked from editing. Read the policies cited, base your arguments on them rather than accusations, conspiracy and appeals to emotion. If you want a source that specifically addresses Gerson "therapy" from the perspective of mainstream medicine, you might try here. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 12:00, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
I do believe you are familiar with the policies and sources used, but I'm calling you out for blatantly disregarding those policies. You can throw around precious terms like pharmanoia, but also look at good old fashioned terms like corruption, bias and censorship. I guess Schweitzer's being a medical doctor granted him zero expertise in medicine (?!) while a Wiki moderator's knowledge trumps Albert Schweitzer's views, as well as the views of, let's say Dr. Takaho Watayo, MD and countless other doctors and researchers around the world. There is mountains of evidence supporting Gerson Therapy, however for whatever reason Wiki chooses to suppress it when it's provided by myself and others. I'm sure donations to Wiki by the American Cancer Society and National Cancer Institute have absolutely NOTHING to do with this policy of one-sided information. Your lecture on cancer displays a dangerous lack of knowledge for someone who is allowed to edit information that could otherwise save lives. You say "toxins don't cause cancer, gene mutations do", but the fact is, toxins cause gene mutations. Gene mutations don't occur spontaneously in a healthy body. By your logic, smoking doesn't cause cancer. In Gerson Therapy, by taking away toxins and strengthening the immune system, the body heals itself naturally, as opposed to mainstream medicine's "cure" of further poisoning the sick body with chemotherapy and radiation and suppressing the immune system. Comprehend the arrogance of a medical establishment that thinks that something created by man in a lab is better than allowing the body to heal itself using natural plants that we've evolved with since the beginning of time. In turn, maybe I can lecture you on how history is full of ultimately failed attempts by biased little minds to hold back men of genius. There's also the increasingly hollow words of Wiki's founder: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. ~Jimmy Wales" Amusedspaceman (talk) 19:22, 22 December 2011 (UTC)Greg
- Your logic appears impeccable, but since numerous of your premises are flawed your conclusions are moot. But you've nicely ticked off a hat trick of alternative medicine tropes - conspiracy, "nature cures" and a Galileo Gambit. Come back when you have some reliable sources and understand the policies that guide content. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 01:55, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Here's a debate tip: just calling a premise flawed isn't a rebuttal, it's a cop out. I understand Wiki policies perfectly: try to get past the hidden little, biased gatekeepers of the Wikipedia monoculture. You're hidden, have no accountability, so you feel free to push your agenda on Wiki write ups.
- If you understood wikipedia's policies perfectly then you'd understand why we can't give Gerson's theories large amounts of text and why we give more credibility to the ACS than someone who charges people lots of money for an unproven therapy. Claim conspiracy and greed all you want, but anyone who uses Gerson's techniques to "treat" cancer is doing something extraordinarily unethical - promising they can treat cancer with a fundamentally unprove approach. If Gerson's theapy genuinely works, it should be trivial to demonstrate it under appropriately controlled conditions. If it's as effective as it is promoted to be, you could do so with a sample 10 people with untreatable cancer, and when their cancer goes into remission or disappears, the discovery would be hailed throughout the world and its researchers given the highest of accolades. However, instead of actually tesing it using adequate control procedures, a bunch of lazy, greedy and/or deluded quacks proclaim themselves to be misunderstood Galileos and continue to charge their desperate clients for something unproven. The thing is, Galileo didn't say "the earth revolves around the sun" then sat down and waited for everyone to believe him. He tested it. He proved it. He made it impossible to disagree due to the amount of evidence he accumulated. The only way people could continue to believe in the Aristotelean theory about the solar system wasy by refusing to look at the evidence. So before you proclaim the promoters (and profiters) of Gerson therapy to be misunderstood geniuses, understand that a true genius will be correct and demonstrate it. Just proclaiming yourself correct isn't enough. And in medicine, it's not just wrong. It's unethical. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 16:30, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
To be proven in a control group that's acceptable to the medical establishment, you have to be using a pill, a shot, one single thing that can dissected, broken down, patented, run through a lab, tested, etc. That scientific protocol does not work for a therapy that is basically a lifestyle change, that includes a wide range of vegetables, supplements, avoidance of toxins, etc. The fact is, there ARE many people that beat cancer using Gerson Therapy, but the American medical establishment (the FDA, the American Cancer Society, National Cancer Institute, Big Pharma, the American Medical Association, etc.) won't give it credence because it would mean upsetting the status quo, threatening the billions made in pharma and by doctors every year. They protect their interests ferociously. (don't take my word for it, please look at a movie documentary called "Burzynski"--his is a different kind of cure than Gerson, but you will see first hand how someone with a real cure will be vilified and dragged through the mud by the FDA and the establishment when they dare to potentially reap all the rewards and praise from a cure). To call the Gerson institute "greedy" is myopic. I would hardly call them a money machine. If you want to talk greed--real, EPIC greed--let's talk Big Pharma, Big Cancer, let's talk the american medical establishment. Trillions in profits. To say corporations would not protect these kind of profits would be pollyanna, to say lawmakers and people in power at the FDA and other places can't be bought by these interests would be just naive. Here's the thing: for those reasons, the American medical establishment won't give Gerson credence, but the REST OF THE WORLD does. Most of the rest of the world is not under the thumb of the American medical establishment like we are in America. Look at Japan, for instance, where Gerson is seen as a savior, almost a god. Top doctors there are embracing Gerson Therapy and saving people's lives. Gerson clinics are popping up all over the place. But unless you dig, you won't hear about it in America too much in our media (Wiki included) because he and his therapy are marginalized as "crackpot". The reason for that is because there are big interests to protect.
- For it to be a blinded, placebo-controlled trial you would need that. If you're not controlling for placebo effects and using a hard end point (like death) you can simply match for cancer type and stage. That whole "you can't test my theory" is also a CAM talking point - why couldn't you compare two groups? You can test complicated interventions, despite what you've been told by proponents. Again, if so many people are getting cured, and reliably so, it's trivial to demonstrate this. Science is inherently iconoclastic, it doesn't give a shit if something is received truth or not - it just cares if something works.
- You mean this Burzynski? The guy who injects people with piss while dosing them with chemotherapy? These assholes are dragged through the mud because they are giving false hope to desperate people and taking money for it. Burzynski is particularly bad because he's pretending to run clinical trials while charing them for it (whereas most experimental trials are free).
- Incidentally, seeing as Gerson therapy is basically nothing but fruit juice and enemas, why do they charge anything? There's no drugs involved, right? Because drugs are just nasty and toxic, while everything natural in the world exists solely to cure humans of disease and have zero side effects, right? After all, there's no such thing as a natural poison, and vegetables don't produce actual toxins (like, say, cyanide in peach pits) to prevent it from being digested, right?
- Incidentally again, I wasn't aware popularity determined if a therapy worked. Funny thing about popularity, Galileo was actually extraordinarily unpopular -but right, because he used actual evidence rather than bitching and moaning about how unfair it was that people didn't just accept his work on his word.
- Gerson's therapies are marginalized as crackpot because they don't make any biological sense, they don't reflect how the body works, they don't show any actual data demonstrating they work and they charge money for an experimental therapy. Claim conspiracy all you want, there's just no data and all the whining about how it's not taken seriously and Big Bad Pharma doesn't make that data magically appear. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 01:22, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
"Science is inherently iconoclastic", "It just cares if something works" are wrong and sounds ridiculously pollyanna. What world do you live on? Science just cares if something turns a profit, but you should know that first hand. (really why else would you support an industry of death and failure unless you were getting paid to push their agenda on Wiki) If you put billions into research costs, you expect a profit on your money, no? Re: Burzynski, the FDA forced his patients to do chemo before they were allowed to take Burzynski's therapy, get your facts straight. You sound irrational when you say Gerson's therapy doesn't make sense and "that's not how the body works"? Allowing the body to cure itself naturally by strengthening the immune system is wacky, huh? But chemotherapy makes sense to you? Injecting a poison first derived from mustard gas in order to ruin the immune system is the correct way that the body works? Re; peach pits, really? That's your argument? Um, maybe that's something you enjoy munching on while collecting checks from the medical establishment for your work on Wikipedia (really, I'd love some transparency and accountability here, little hidden one. Give us a name.) but most of us avoid eating peach pits. Your points are so laughable, at this point I have assume you're just messing with me. So thanks for the laughs, pal! And if not, I only hope when you get a tumor the size of a peach pit, our little discussion will help you make the right decision. Good luck, you'll need it!
Your comment at Talk:Jimmy Wales was removed. This page is for discussing improvements to the article Jimmy Wales. If you wish to contact Wales, please comment on his talk page User talk:Jimbo. Thanks. - SummerPhD (talk) 13:37, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
- In general please do not post the same commentary to multiple venues per our guidelines on canvassing. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 17:08, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
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December 2011
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, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first. Salvio Let's talk about it! 23:37, 24 December 2011 (UTC)