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It is not about religion nor is it about western science. If you are not knowledgeable enough about this subject to tell the difference, please take your much-needed editing skills to aticles that need your help. There are many. Vandalising this article is not helping much. heidimo 03:12, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
This article is a Wikipedia article. What it is not is a personal POV page for anyone. I think the article is very good, well written, and tends to be clear and fairly balanced. However, there is certainly more than one way of looking at TCM. I have moved all of RK's additions to more proper (IMHO) places within the text. I intend to edit these down or combine them with other statements in the article as I have time. I do not agree that disputing the tenets of any article on a social issue is something that must go at the top. Those most knowledgeable about TCM should dominate the description of it; not those most critical. Aafter all, until they fairly and well describe it, criticism is a waste of time. I see plenty of opportunity in the article's lower sections to discuss the scientific basis of TCM (or lack thereof). I expect that in these sections, the skeptical point of view will receive fair treatment. I also expect both sides to buy in on what I am saying here; that is, take the editing to those sections where it is most helpful. I remind both parties that this page will be editied by many others for years to come; long after your involvement has ended. Therefore, it is pointless to just protect a POV. Your only guarantee that your ideas will continue to be expressed here is by presenting them so well and non-controversial, that others will not bother to improve on them. - Marshman 00:57, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Thank you, Heidimo! Nice work you were doing there! (just linked to your parts from Wiki) - irismeister 17:42, 2004 Mar 26 (UTC)
Perhaps we should complain and reverse to your version systematically when people step in and start quibbling about "religious" matterns in a system that works continuously for what - six thousand years, twelve thousand years...
During that period we had shamanism and animism, Bon and Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and who knows what else. And yet Chinese Medicine works as good as ever.
If Dr Kim Bong Han was stupid enough to describe collagen "bodies" under some points and Swift's scientists were busy eating poems written on bread, it does not mean that Chinese Medicine has to yield some evidence for our poor minds. It means that we, in Western Medicin,e are not subtle enough to understand the marvelous human being.
As we started cutting the hair in four like we did, my feeling is that conventional medicine will never integrate Chinese Medicine, which is simply too much for everybody in the West to understand fully. Considering all this, you did a very subtle and great article by any standard. Thank YOU for doing it so fine, knowledgeable and profound. - Yours, - irismeister 21:08, 2004 Mar 27 (UTC)
Irismeister, thanks for your insightful comments on the topics at hand (tcm and vandalism). I'm sure the vandals will be back, since tcm is such an irresistable target. I appreciate your vigilance in these matters. Seems arrogant to me that a few scientists seem to feel that tcm owes them a scientific explanation as to why, how, and if something works after thousands of years of success, but that is only my opinion. heidimo 02:46, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
It's my opinion, too, Heidimo! Look, do not let yourself intimidated, and keep up the good work. With time, the difference will be made, as if all by itself (like in the glorious millennia of TCM so far.) I might not write you back for a while, since I'll be banned soon for defending the search for truth in various Wikipedic matters, but I'm not bitter at all. There is no valediction, only a caveat in such TCM editing case stories. As long as you keep your humor and your sense of everlasting value (which are abundent by all standards) you'll ride the tide. "There is the dark side, and then the luminous side... The lighting on the hill is subtle and can only be judged by its results..." :O) Yours - irismeister 07:34, 2004 Mar 30 (UTC)
Heidimo & Co.,
Well done. Traditional Chinese Medicine isn't "scientific," but it is academic and in many schools, effective. There are many different branches of TCM (China is a big country with a looong history), some more effective than others. To want to belittle all of TCM because it doesn't meet a narrow outside definition of proof (even though it has helped millions of people for thousands of years using techniques which are reproducible) is like saying the Egyptian pyramid builders were also so many useless frauds because they didn't subscribe to Scientific American. So, thank you for standing up for us quaint, childlike natives and preserving a dignified perspective for an important article.
Fire Star 20:29, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
This conversation was copied from the former talk:Conventional medicine.
I see a direct parallel between modern Chinese medicine and Western Medieval medicine. Medieval medicine is basically Greek medicine and Galen's work at its worst! Chinese medicine, like its counter part Western Medieval medicine, is a functional medicine that develops when surgery and dissections of the human body are not permitted.
Traditional Chinese medicine has Five Elements:metal, wood, earth, water, fire. Compare that to the Western Classical elements: fire, air, water, and earth. And Galen's four humours: phlegm (water), yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), and blood (air) has parallels in Chinese medicine.
In short, I would no more praise Chinese medicine than I would recommend Medieval medicine. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 14:54, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
~
Do you realize that you created a new section that already exists, resulting in two sections with the same name? Please read the article before you edit it. Cheers, Jia ng 02:21, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
There are many valid criticisms of Chinese medicine, just as there are many valid criticisms of Western medicine, and they certainly shouldn't be ignored, but vandalism is vandalism and reporting it is the way to go. One wonders why he is so threatened by the subject?
Chinese medicine is a huge, multifaceted subject with many side disciplines. The version of Chinese medicine that I am studying personally also involves the body mechanics of the Chinese martial arts (and their concomitant therapeutic effects) which is something medieval European medicine never approached. Basically, I can prove empirically that my "magical thinking" metaphors accurately describe a demonstrable technique because I am quite capable of knocking skeptics on their butts, or breaking their limbs, or paralysing their breathing, etc., with very little effort on my part and there isn't much short of firing a gun they can do to stop me! So, when they can actually do what I can do, physically, and demonstrate it to me, then I will accept their criticisms of what I do as valid. I don't say that to be pugnacious, rather I say it to point out that there are many ways (some of them painful, LOL) to demonstrate the depth of practical knowledge preserved by many traditional cultures that go beyond the limited semantic playing field some Westerners try to establish for what they insist is "reality" (as if they are the only people in the world who have a right to an opinion) because they have the scientifically approved jargonistically elaborate "magic spells" to describe things. This dismissive (at best) or coercive (at worst) attitude that many of these guys adopt smacks of the cultlike political behaviour associated with the religions they like to criticise. One begins to wonder if there is such a large functional difference between Carl Sagan's and the Amazing Randi's version of "science" and the medieval religions they would lump all us "magical thinkers" (sic) whom they feel the need to demonize, into. One gets the impression these types would dearly love to simply tell the people who work to preserve traditional Chinese culture to stop being so ethnic and start conforming to their technologically pure plan for the world. And we all know how healthy the polluting side effects of Western technology are, don't we?
Rant over...
Cheers, Fire Star 20:15, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Marshman,
Please refer to the page history starting from where Adam Carr touched this page on January 24 and refer to the discussion in /archive1 and /archive2. The text he inserted recently was inserted a couple months ago. It was not outright reverted by User:Roadrunner, but edited to be more NPOV. RR left extensive explanations of his edits, all of which can be found the the two archives. Since this text has already been inserted and parts of it shot down while others kept and reworded, it is entirely inapproprate for us to be reinserting it. Therefore, I will revert your edits.
Note that I have not reviewed Heidimo's edits and cannot say whether he deleted text to favor TCM. If the case is with his edits, then deal with those, not RR's, Fuzheado, or mine. This is not to say that all of RK's edits are invalid. Refer to the page history and view how they have been reworded and reinsert any text that has been removed that shouldnt have. We'll build on the article this way, not with the same wording from January where we have to start the process all over again and put many edits to waste.
-- Jia ng 01:34, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
See Talk:Traditional_Chinese_medicine/archive1#what?, Talk:Traditional_Chinese_medicine/archive1#questionable statement, Talk:Traditional_Chinese_medicine/archive2#RK_v._RR. There's no need to repeat arguments that have already been made and edits that have already been done. Please examine the page history to see what has come out of these paragraphs and how they were changed. We will work from there. -- Jia ng 06:43, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I can't really say I'm happy with the article at present since I haven't really been following its changes since TomSwiss edited on 8 Feb 2004. My point is that RK's text has been added once before and does not need to be added again (he so blatantly created a duplicate "TCM theory" section so this should be obvious). If he or anyone else has problems with the current version, they should address any changes that have been made since then and not reinsert material that may exist in edited for or be removed with explanation. -- Jia ng 08:57, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I am concerned about Heidimo's "allies". Mr Natural Health [
Refactoring out Personal Attack] who threatened me by claiming to be a Nazi, and as discussed on the Wiki-En list, [
Refactoring out Personal Attack]. Mr-Natural-Health has a long history of [
Refactoring out Personal Attack], and is currently [
Refactoring out Personal Attack]. He also claims that [
Refactoring out Personal Attack]. Please do not take my word for this; this is all verifiable. Jiang's unfounded criticisms against me also make him somewhat of a biased person as well. The point is this: A cadre of Wikipedians believe that any alternative medicine claim has to be accepted uncritically, and they view all mainstream scientific views as "vandalism" or "racism". They work hard to censor and delete all material that doesn't push their religious New-Age beliefs. Frankly, if we were to compare the recent Wikipedia article edits on this topic to real papers in peer-reviewed journals, our articles would look like a pro-New-Age religious tract, and it wouldbe laughed off as a joke. At this point in time, it still looks like they are trying to push their religious views and totally censor mainstream views. How do they justify pushing their beliefs? They merely add the sentence "This is not religious" to the nd of their religious beliefs! Frankly, I don't buy it. They can claim that these are not religious beliefs...and I can counter that having angels cure someone's cancer isn't religious as well. But such a claim is religious, no matter how much someone shouts otherwise.
RK 14:42, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)
I have removed the following from the article:
The above analysis is not allowed in Wikipedia; this is a clear case of "special pleading", and as such is a gross violation of our NPOV policy. The above nonsense is simply a formal way of saying that "If you don't accept our religious beliefs, then you can't find any proof of their existence, therefore the problem must be with you". In any formal philosophy course special pleading is one of the first topics studied. It is a well known trick, but nothing more. The same exact same argument is often used by Christian fundamentalists to explain why atheists and heretics cannot understand why God and angels exists and intervene in the world, which they see as clear as day, while the rest of us do not find any physical proof. It is beneath us to include such childish arguments in a world-class encyclopedia. RK 14:53, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)
RK - one problem I'm having with some of your additions is the use of terms such as "energies" and "forces" to describe Qi and Yin & Yang. This confuses the issue, because I think the article elsewhere avoids these characterizations (even though most New Agers do not). Also, although I know what you are saying by describing TCM as a religious belief, I am not so sure that term is helpful. If the concepts of Qi and other elements come from religious beliefs and practices in ancient China, then that fact must be reported. But the fact that some, many, or all modern proponents of TCM now hold on to beliefs that are religious-like (i.e., beliefs, not subject to standard methods of proof) needs to be stated in a different way, because painting TCM with a "religious" label (in my atheistic mind) is too broadbrush and borders on inflammatory POV. By the same token, I do see your point about "Special Pleading" above and the relationship to religious claims - Marshman 17:21, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I went through your recent addition/change. Much of the "new" stuff you added is actually already said elsewhere in the article. The critical points you raise are not appropriate under History but need to go under the sections that relate to evaluation of TCM. I understand what you are getting at, but it is simply not balancing the article to repeat criticism of TCM under every subheading. For example, your statement: Until recently, observations of the results of TCM have not been subject to controled experiements or peer-review. is true and an important point to make; but it is simply inappropriate under History of TCM. - Marshman 17:49, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
This article is a bit difficult to read. I'm not Chinese, so I can't read the labels on the jars in their medicine shops. Though I see things like dead animals in jars. What is that for? The American Cancer Society report on Chinese Meds did a better job because it stuck to the focus of a few herbs that are well known: ginger, soy, ect ect. If you are going to include something like a Dried Snake and Turtle picture, why not explain what that is for? Is a gecko the Chinese chicken soup for the cold?
My advice for this article is to start with the known herbs that have been studied. Keep out the things like dried snakes and turtles until it gets studied...
When I walk into a Chinese medicine shop it's a mystery, and when I leave it's still a mystery. This article feels much the same way. Fadedroots ( talk) 06:38, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
wwwwww I suggest we revert this article to the edit dated 02:19, 9 Apr 2004, by Jiang, as a preparation to bring the article up to standard for the Wikiproject on alternative medicine. Please comment. heidimo 03:15, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
John, thanks for your comments. I'd be happy to follow all of those guidelines, and hold off on the revert I suggest until the proper time in the process, if at all. I'm only soliciting comments at this time, not saying if or when I would actually do such a revert. heidimo 04:08, 1 May 2004 (UTC) P.S. I added the infobox. heidimo 04:27, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
Hello folks. It seems to me a revert now would be less desirable than the inevitable rewrite, which is to say, if you're going to work on it, work on the finished product instead of a temporary patch.
I like and agree with John G's statement on strategy;
"I always use the correct magic words, and I keep on referring to our standards of quality guidelines."
A nice, neutral presentation of information will do the trick, one thinks. As the guidelines say: Wikipedia is not about advocacy or propaganda of any kind, what I would add to that is that Wikipedia is about information of every kind, apparently. People can be as skeptical as they want to be, but the phenomenon exists and the information is out there and it isn't going away any time soon. Just as many aspects of traditional Chinese medicine make perfect sense if they are explained well, there are also many abuses of the traditional Chinese system, especially in the West, and they should not be glossed over. To present information as clearly as possible so that people can make up their own minds is all we can hope for. Fire Star 22:57, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
Agreed and agreed. The Tai Chi Chuan article is a good example of this, a discipline with roots and branches in ancient and modern Chinese medical traditions, a page with lots of info, but little overlap with the actual Chinese medicine article. Fire Star 20:48, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
[1] As part of the wikiproject on alternative medicine, sections are being removed from this article on topics with their own article. Removed sections are being placed in the talk page of the respective articles, for merging purposes. Please help with the merging, if you are so inclined. heidimo 15:59, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
Hi, heidimo. Please forgive me for my outrageous delay. I have some extra-Wiki commitments going on and on, and will come back with the long overdue comments Real Soon Now, promise! - irismeister 18:00, 2004 May 14 (UTC)
My preliminary review of the TCM is very favorable. Again, the primary problem seems to be coming from the science people.
I am referring of course to the TCM and Science and Does it work? sections. These sections seems to be trying to duplicate the articles on the scientific method. My suggestion would be to simply add a hyperlink.
Does it work? As a reader, reading TCM for the first time, my response would be: What is it? And, what is it in reference to? Any reader, remotely familiar with science, would discount these sections as being totally mickey mouse. You cannot test for it, unless you have first defined what it is. And, then your conclusions about it would only be valid for a limited set of specific conditions which would probably mean specific medical conditions. Since, it is obviously referring to 100's of different things and since there are literally 1,000's of diseases the whole premise of this section is so fundamentally flawed that a sixth grader wouldn't believe it. -- John Gohde 20:46, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
Jiang, please stop your reversions. You need to stop pushing your religious beliefs as scientific facts. (You also need to stop denying that the belief in these forces was not religious; it was a religious belief, no matter what you claim, and these beliefs have no scientific validation.) Every time someone adds balance by merely presenting a scientific analysis of your claims, you revert the article. You often censor it by totally deleting all critical studies. That is a serious violation of Wikipedia NPOV policy. Its not just me that you have done this to; others too have suffered under your edits. Please know this - Wikipedia has a neutral point of view policy. When a controversial subject has a significant amount of mainstream criticism, we are obligated to present it. Instead of discussing the contoversy, you just keep on reverting and censoring, over and over. You did this a few months ago, and I am sad to see that you are doing it again, You must stop this inappropriate behaviour. RK 22:27, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)
The TCM page needs to represent the actual features of TCM with a balance of those topics that are of the greatest salience and importance in understanding TCM. It is an unreasonable imbalance in POV to have pages on western medicine which fail to represent the prominent criticisms of method and structure, while the TCM page dwells on critiques to the point of distraction. The page is not about controveries. Let controversies about TCM have a separate page, please.
Removed parenthetical (shen) after "observation of the patient's face". While shen is primarily diagnosed by facial observation, it can be observed in skin tone at other areas of the body. More significantly, observation of the face can be used to diagnose Lung, Kidney, Spleen, Liver, Qi, Blood, and Jue, not just Shen and Heart. Nick Argall
Obviously this article can do with some editing. For me some portions need verification. For example, who says Buddhism and Confucianism influenced TCM - I've never heard of it, where are the sources or explanation, for example? Excuse me while I do some very liberal copyediting, and add some fundamentals of TCM from Chinese webpages. Pls voice your opinion if the changes are not to your liking. Mandel 15:32, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I noticed that 中医学 has a separate page from 中药学 on the Chinese Wikipedia; the Chinese one seems to indicate that the former is more general, while the latter refers to an almost scientific study of the foundations of Chinese medicine. It seems a bit strange that we just list both as definitions without further comment. Also, it is strange that one is in traditional characters while one is simplified - does English Wikipedia have a standard for included Chinese? Also, I added and corrected the pinyin for both and verified it on pin1yin1.com; hopefully I did it right. Capybara 07:38, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
These names are not equivalents. Zhong yi-xue should pertain to the whole field of medical treatment, setting bones, immunization, etc., etc. Zhong yao-xue should pertain to (traditional) medications only. A person who practices Zhong yi uses Zhong yao (or cao3 yao4). I guess I should have a look at the relevant pages, but it would be a really strange use of language if the two names are taken to be synonyms. P0M 04:30, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
O.K. Just as I thought, the yi xue article is long and about the traditional practice of medicine, and the yao xue article is hardly more than a dictionary definition that says it is the botanicals, the animal parts, and that kind of thing that are used as medications in the traditional practice of Chinese medicine. P0M 04:34, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
There were many redundant statements as well as biases favouring one school or another that I have edited out. I tried (albeit imperfectly) to keep all pertinent information while taking out New Age and any other species of POV doublespeak I could. I apologise for stepping on anyone's toes, but TCM is such a huge subject that I believe that this central article should give mostly just a very general overview, pro and con, while specifics can go on their respective articles. Fire Star 21:20, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
By system: TCM, 5 elements, Korean hand, French Auricular, Japaneses, I Ching, others.
By History: Each step of the evolution of this medicine has been influenced by wars, emperors and famines.
By modality: acupuncture (each system puts the same points in different locations), tai qi, qi gung, moxabustion, tui na, acupressure, bleeding, purging, surgical (started about 1500 in China), sweating, cupping, gua sha, herbs and food, electrical, others
By system of diagnosis: yin yang, 5 element, 8 principles, zang fu, meridian, 6 divisions or 6 stages or 6 levels from the inner classic of the yellow emperor approximately 100 AD, 4 stages from discussion of warm diseases about 1667-1746. The 3 levels or 3 jiaos mostly from a systematic identification of febrile diseases 1758-1836. Modern diagnosis: this is not formal but in China diagnosis of acupuncture is being very heavily influenced by western diagnostic thought.
By book: Chinese Medicine has a very rich history of books. Many of these books are still used today in modern practices.
By school of thought often centered around a person and his great book or books. The Kidney school, The Spleen school, The 5 element school, the yin yang school, etc.
-- Magic.crow 23:26, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I cannot help laughing whenever I saw 'Does it work' section. Come on. It has been working in China for thousands of years already. I were personally treated by TCM for various internal and external problems and all worked. However, I admit TCM needs more scientific backup. Just my two cents.
Placebo has also been shown to work since it's been known to be around (thousands of years?). That doesn't mean that it's a valid, systematic methodology for solving health issues. -- 24.70.70.16 15:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, this seems like a good place to put this because people like to debate about the science of TCM here. The Chinese utilized inductive reasoning. They came up with their theories based on observations around them and then applied it to the human body. At any rate, when I read this article it made me wonder if the people who said Chinese medicine is unscientific have any notion of the scientific process. Most articles I read about Chinese medicine on Wikipedia have large sections devoted to the "effectiveness of TCM" (traditional Chinese medicine) and they go on at length about how certain people claim that TCM is unscientific. I think this is false and misleading. TCM is scientific. The Chinese utilized inductive reasoning to conclude things and then debated about it extensively amongst themselves and even performed clinical trials over thousands of years. Then they made theories based on their observations. They kept what worked clinically and elaborated or corrected it when needed. I think it is really absurd that people claim TCM is unscientific. It is like they're saying science is unscientific by completely dismissing the validity of inductive reasoning and the scientific process. And because every article (or almost every article) on Wikipedia devotes so much space to these false ideas, it reads as propaganda. (For references to my claims one can look at the comments in the Materia Medica by Dan Bensky, Steven Clavey, and Erich Stroger.) 24.69.176.48 ( talk) 20:23, 12 October 2008 (UTC)Harkannin
I think TCM is not TCM at all if there is no Five elements (Chinese) supporting it. Could anybody add a section for it, explaining the mapping between Five elements and internal organs, showing the special connection between eye and liver, how a symptom in head may a cause on feet etc?
The current content for theory part of TCM is not sufficient even from an amateur's view. -- 129.7.248.159 19:39, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
As I read this page and it's links I see a problem. Subjects like 5E and yin/yang have good pages already but they are not so good for TCM. Should we write almost duplicate pages or just link to pages that don't cover our subject so well? -- Magic.crow 04:47, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
The reader who wants to know about Chinese medicine may not be very well motivated to spend lots of time trying to absorb these other articles. Beyond that, the average reader would have no way to apply that information to Chinese medicine without some guidance.
The most interesting connection between the five "elements" and Chinese medicine is due to the five phases (as I prefer to call them) are phases of a single cycle just as the four seasons are phases of a year. In each day, a system of function (organ to us Westerners) can behave differently depending on which of the five phases it is in. Chinese medicine had an awareness that diseases behave differently at different times of the day, and that medicines can react with the body differently at different times of the day. In Western medicine we have only in the last few decades become aware of the importance of circadian cycles to the functioning of the human organism and to its reactions both to diseases and to medicines. P0M 23:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
==?, "li3" ??etc., etc.
I have to admit that I am a cynic at heart. First off, in order for a field to "be empirical", one has to remove any "unempirical" concepts in a field and put them through empirical testing before allowing them to be used. In that respect, what is the definition and proofs of 氣"qi4", 質"zhi2", and 理"li3"? Is "qi" something that can be tested and substantiated or is it just a loose mental concept like the western folk medicine "ether"? Sjschen 20:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Both acupuncture and acupressure have been proven scientifically, just because it hasn't been explained yet scientifically does not make it a fraud by definition. For example, the origin of the universe hasn't been proven scientifically, but that does not make the idea of the universe having an origin a fraud. Wiki wiki1 06:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Removed "The general distinction made by Chinese in China is that Western medicine involves cutting or acute care while Chinese medicine involves manipulation or chronic care. Hence medical procedures such as bone setting or chiropractic spinal manipulation would be seen as Chinese, while surgery tends to be seen as Western." and added more detail to same paragraph to more accurately represent my observations of Chinese medicine hospitals whilst in China in 2005. Piekarnia 22:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Why would the reader assume that TCM would be scientific? Does every article on Wikipedia about a nonscientific topic need to have "though unscientific" inserted in its lead section? I think a better way to address this would be as in acupuncture article. - Jim Butler 23:25, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with you Jim. Modern readers seeing the word "medicine" would expect it to be scientific and efficacious. It's unlcear here what you mean by the acupunture reference. Mccready 17:34, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I disagree Kevin. When most "modern people" hear the phrase "Traditional Chinese Medicine" they don't expect scientific trials to have even been completed - they think mystery and uncertainty. It's certainly the exception rather than the rule that people have even looked at any of the thousands of trials that have been conducted. I doubt that people would mistake the word "medicine" in Traditional Chinese Medicine for a scientific based medicine. The word "traditional" is certainly a giveaway, and "chinese" certainly makes it sound exotic or at least foreign. Nonetheless, I think the reword has removed all traces of ambiguity. For future reference, the word systematic means "based on a system". It neither means nor implies that TCM is a scientific system - particularly when in the same sentence the systems are named: yin-yang, five elements etc. Piekarnia 23:30, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
This user's only two contributions to wikipedia consist in placing this link California State Oriental Medical Association to a website in progress on the TCM page and acupuncture page. I'd rather see it removed at this stage, at least until their website is fixed. Mccready 06:18, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I've taken the liberty to delete the macro section. If anyone objects we can put it back in when the problems are ironed out. My reasons are that it:
This seems like a drastic step but it would take so much work to improve it, I've decided on this route. Please feel free to object. Mccready 06:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi Leo, Jim and I, from almost polar opposite ends of the spectrum on attitudes to TCM, both agree that this should be deleted temporarily. If you wish please feel free to improve it before replacing. I'm happy to give some further input into why it's not acceptable in its present form. Please understand that we would welcome the section back but it needs to be rewritten first. WP policy is that if material is deleted because it is unsourced then it stays deleted until sources are provided. I look forward to some cooperative editing on this piece. cheers, Kevin Mccready 00:57, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
The claim that "There are thousands of years of empirical knowledge [neutrality disputed] about TCM conceptualized and recorded in terms appropriate to that system" implies that all claims advanced by TCM are true. This is disputed in some cases. A NPOV replacement could be to differentiate between claimes which are generally accepted as true, versus those that are still being evaluated. -- Beland 22:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I am unable to reconcile TCM model of the body with the contents of this article. That article proceeds as if there is one, universally accepted model, but this article seems to indicate that there are multiple theoretical systems. It would be nice if this article contained examples of diagnoses, and that article explained the various theoretical systems. -- Beland 02:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
"Uses" section:
"TCM theory" section:
Soft helion 23:32, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
"Treatment techniques"
-- Beland 03:09, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi Belend, Looks like generally a good approach. A couple of points. 1. The capitalisation of western in the victorian govt quote shouldn't have happened - if it's a quote then it needs to be exactly what they wrote. They used lower case so the quote should be in lowercase. If you really feel the need to do so you can put in a (sic), but I don't think this needs it. 2. You are also asking questions about stuff which Jim and I agreed should be deleted and properly sourced before being replaced. Some stuff has been replaced which is not properly sourced. I'd prefer it be taken out unless it can be sourced. It appears to be rather florid OR to begin with. Keep up the good work. I liked Pearle but my computer science friends wouldn't be happy to call it AI :-) Mccready 04:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I edit lots of stuff which deserves the label pseudoscience, perhaps not the case here, and want to alert you to my editing principles lest I be accused of too rapidly reverting. Have a look at my userpage and please make comments if you wish. Happy editing. Mccready 04:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I guess my writing has some problems. So, I put a copy here in case somebody will delete it. Please refine it if you are interested in this piece of information. The key words here are: online web sites providing FREE herb prescriptions, having some positive results already. Unfortunatedly, all of them are in Chinese so far.
With the popularity of Internet, increasing number of TCM doctors are seeking new approaches to diagnose and treat diseases using remote, non-contact methods, mostly by filling online symptom questionaires and uploading the photos of tongues. Some TCM advocates even established web sites like Folks TCM to provide free herb prescriptions to patients having Internet access. Doctors and patients can actively exchange information about symptoms, prescriptions and feedbacks via Bulletin Board System there. While limited by remote diagnosis methods, some positive cases (including cancer, diabetes, leukaemia etc) have been reported on these websites.
-- Leo 17:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
The following article provides the needed information on sea horses and thier shrinking populations due to TCM. I do not know why people insist on reverting this, as 'citation needed' means 'go find an article relevant' which I have done. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/seahorse/vincent.html -- 168.56.111.83 16:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Do we really need this picture in here? Aren't there plenty of other great images that represent tcm besides dead sea horses, penises and some random photo of some store isle in HongKong? -- Travisthurston 23:29, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't see it being a bad thing. Besides, TCM is hard to capture in pictures due to the wide variety of disperate sub-disciplines that the term covers. Do you have any suggestions of images? Sjschen 01:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Deer penis seems like a bad choice to me. Would prefer an interior shot of a serious traditional pharmacy, for example. Viande hachée 15:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
The text on the this image is in Japanese. Why would a Chinese pharmaceutical shop use Japanese? Hanfresco 17:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
These images should be removed, since their labels are Japanese. Look carefully, and you'll see the yen sign. bibliomaniac15 04:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
So is anyone gonna obtain new pictures? I will if no one does in say, a month. Funny thing is the Chinese wiki also uses these pictures.. Hanfresco 09:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't this article describe "heat," "cold," "dampness," etc., as they relate to TCM? This seems a serious omission. Badagnani 02:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
This posting was made last year and this does need to be addressed! Badagnani 04:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Still needs to be addressed! Badagnani 22:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I know this is unrelated to the article, but does anyone know anything about her? She is mentioned several times as a prominant example of the effectiveness of TCM, but I cannot find much information about her, aside from that she was involved with an accident, and she was alledgedly curred by TCM 128.250.87.22 08:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
During the early 1900's, CCM developed the notion of germ theory: either oral- or food-borne pathogens. Concurrently, the West was also developing the same notion with the invention of the microscope, which provided proof of germs (bacteria) existing in food or in body fluids (mucus from a sneeze, for example). The West came to China along with the microscope in the 1930's, proving both theories valid.
Errr, "the West came to China in the 1930s"?!?! I can't even begin to express how dissapointed I am that this piece of misinformation has lasted through even one edit check. Anyone with a 6th grade education should have been suspicious. China had trade, both intellectual and commercial, long before the 1900s. And the germ-theory of disease was not developed in the 1900s, it was almost universally established and applied in the 1800s and was actually being developed in the 1700s (and was talked about long before that).
I'm not saying anything about whether or not CCM developed germ-theory independently. But this whole paragraph is of suspect veracity due to the glaring innacuracies that surround that contention. I'm deleting it. If you put the parts that might be true, such as the independent development of germ-theory, then put it back with a cite. But please keep the "the West came to China in the 1930s" bit out--its downright silly. Brentt 19:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Someone more familar with this field than I should carefully go over the new content added by Spiritprimer. S/he appears to have "signed" the new stuff with the URL of a commercial site. I'm tempted to revert the whole thing, but there may be something of value in it.
While looking at the most recent edits I also noticed that the English grammar in the article is poor. P0M 05:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
The recent additions to this article all seem to be advancing the agendas of individuals, and seem to have been added by people who did not read the entire article. If the information in these newer edits is to be retained, the sections themselves ("TCM and the Internet," "Branches," etc.) need to be merged into the history section. More importantly, the numerous unsourced statements added to this article seem to support minority positions.
The section about "CCM" and TCM needs to be reconciled with the rest of the article. First of all, it should be established that the term CCM is in general use, and not just by this Jeffrey Yuen person. Also, those two paragraphs should be merged with the "uses" section below, which contains many of the same pieces of information. Soft helion 00:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
If more details are added, then the entire article needs to first be simplified (or hyperlinks should be applied). This article is disorganized and WAY TOO LONG. June 24, 2010
The article has been written by a lamer, who does actually know anything about TCM. He just draws general conclusions. The article needs detailed prescriptions and explanations of real procedures. Btw, this applies to most of the Wikipedia. Teemu Ruskeepää 16:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
HuangDiNeiJing source-work for early Chinese medicine exists as textus receptus only from the 11th Century, C.E. Mythic tradition dates it to 26 or so centuries B.C.E. Consensus among scientific historians, East and West, is that it was collected from preexistant fragments in 1st Century B.C.E., or later. Tomb finds from the 3rd to 2nd Centuries B.C.E. reveal only fragmentary similarities. The historical evidence doesn't support the now popular claim that the book was substantially from the Warring States period. Source: Paul Unschuld's books, esp. the recent volume on the SuWen. Signed Cjmacie 05:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I think Wenbing is supposed to be Wáng Bīng (王冰) Mugwumpjism 12:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I've found a page in relation to the use of seahorses in TCM. Perhaps someone would be able to sum up the information on this page, [2]? I am unsure in whether some information about the effects of the seahorse in TCM is valid in this article or another listing all the various ingredients should be created. Thank, Aeryck89 18:03, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
isn't it a good idea to mention the training TCM doctors and the procedure of obtaining licenses in certain countries, e.g. Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan? Avis12 18:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Cleaned up this section for readability and content. Fixed the link/quote from the 1997 NIH consensus, clarified conclusions of Cochrane/Bandolier reviews. Tried to edit for a more 'neutral' tone. Splendide 00:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
It is too bad that this section in this article has the phrase "TCM treatments are based on their apparent basis in magical thinking". This point of view is neither cited or explained and the phrase itself makes the article have a non-nuetrual point of view. From "The channels of Acupuncture" by Giovanni Maciocia, TCM is based on deductive and inductive reasoning with thousands of years of clinical trials. Sept, 13, '07 --Harkannin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.180.113.13 ( talk) 23:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
"...TCM is based on deductive and inductive reasoning with thousands of years of clinical trials."
Ah, the appeal to antiquity. IIRC, we used to burn people who disagreed with our world view and kill left-handers. It's a good thing we've changed and started demanding double-blind placebo controlled studies and peer review. Which, unfortunately, prove a lot of TCM to be based on "magical thinking." I'd be delighted to read of well constructed research which proves otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.28.152.245 ( talk) 21:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
If you can call what TCM does "thousands of years of clinical trials", then urine therapy and Witch doctoring might just as easily count. Jeanpetr ( talk) 00:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Removed text: The basic mechanism of TCM is akin to treating the body as a black box, recording and classifying changes and observations of the patient using a traditional philosophy. In contrast to many alternative and complementary medicines such as homeopathy, practically all techniques of TCM have explanations for why they may be more effective than a placebo, which Western medicine can find plausible. Most doctors of Western medicine would not find implausible claims that qigong preserves health by encouraging relaxation and movement, that acupuncture relieves pain by stimulating the production of neurotransmitters, or that Chinese herbal medicines may contain powerful biochemical agents. However, the largest barriers to describing the mechanisms of TCM in scientific terms are the difference of language and lack of research. TCM concepts such as qi and yin and yang are used to describe specific biological processes but are difficult to translate into scientific terms. Some research is now beginning to emerge explaining possible scientific mechanisms behind these TCM concepts.
This is a personal opinion piece. Phrases like 'which Western medicine can find plausible', and 'Most doctors... would not find implausible' are unsubstantiated (and questionable) assertions. And the passage 'However, the largest barriers to describing the mechanisms of TCM in scientific terms are the difference of language and lack of research. TCM concepts such as qi and yin and yang are used to describe specific biological processes but are difficult to translate into scientific terms. Some research is now beginning to emerge explaining possible scientific mechanisms behind these TCM concepts' begs questions of scientific evidence and efficacy of TCM practices. This doesn't really belong under the 'Scientific view' heading; perhaps parts of it can be integrated elsewhere in the article. Splendide 05:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Merged relevant content in to other sections, removed redundant content, and performed general article editing for readability. Criticisms of Western medicine belong under "Scientific view" or "Relationship with Western Medicine". This article has a long way to go; there are still too many unreferenced assertions, and a lot of redundant content. Splendide 18:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I have no problem with having an Opposition section. What I find misleading is this claim:
"Starting from late 19th century, politicians and Chinese scholars with background in Western medicine have been trying to phase out TCM totally in China. Some of the prominent advocates of the elimination of TCM include:..."
The section goes on to list POLITICIANS/WRITERS and SOCIAL THEORISTS. Who in their own respective biographies list hardly any experience in Western medicine. While the quote does mention that these are politicians and scholars. I find the entire section misleading (as it is already unsourced) and irrelevant. I propose Refocusing it toward either Western medical experts or known Chinese doctors (Western medicine) voicing opposition would be more effective. I find it disturbing on why we should care that a politician with hardly any background in either Traditional Chinese Medicine (or Western Medicine for that matter) voices an opinion against Traditional Chinese Medicine. Selfexiled 09:23, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
It says that TCM developed "over several hundred thousand years". Someone having a laugh? Otherwise the timeline further on is severly lacking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.177.190.147 ( talk) 12:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
It would be nice if someone could make a clera distinction between TCM and CCM in this article. I dont know why your guys so emphasize at these two words, actual, as a pharmacy worker, i dont know the different of it. and i couldn't find any clear different in your word.
maybe you think Mao Zedong hate Classic Chinese Medicine? why? even medical could be a political tool to anti Mao Zedong? you think Mao is a idiot?
Yes, recent years(after Mao), someone try to reform TCM to based on modern science, but they failed, now, researcher acknowledged, TCM is TCM, it couldn't base on western medical theory. this is not a political movement, it's just a matter of scinece and philosophy.
In TCM school, ancient medical book is still a important part of study, many researchers write report based on ancient medical book. No one try to forbidden ancient Chinese medical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.95.5.81 ( talk) 00:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I suggest to remove the sentence: However, Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM) is notably different from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). CCM represents the medicine and its evolution through thousands of years.
It seems that the sentence on so-called "CCM" has already been removed. But whoever proposed it was trying to point to a difference between modern TCM and Chinese medicine in the past, when it represented much more than what we now mean by "TCM." The term "CCM" is not widely established, so it's probably not very useful. But I think it's crucial to distinguish modern TCM from the history of Chinese medicine. Of the current six paragraphs of the section called " Ancient (classical) TCM history," only two are on history, and only one of these two cites studies by historians. The entire article is actually about TCM as a form of alternative medicine, not as something that has a history. I really think there should be a new Wiki called "Chinese medicine (History)" where the voluminous scholarship on Chinese medical history could be discussed. -- Madalibi ( talk) 10:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
This article is missing a critical peice of the theory. Not only does TCm differ in how it describes the body, it differs in how it defines the nature of disease. User:Badagnani has been complaining about this for years apprently, and they've got a point. Someone needs to step up and write a blurb about what it means when TCM adherents talk about "cold," "heat," "wind," "damp," etc. This information is important as hell to this topic and should be made a priority by the folks that regularly contribute to this article. -- Shaggorama ( talk) 12:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
It may involve pseudoscientific claims by modern day quacks, but the topic as a whole isn't any more "pseudoscience" than Aristotelism or Alchemy: it's a historical tradition, or perhaps protoscience. -- dab (𒁳) 15:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Added a rewrite tag to this section. The section reads like it came out of a translator bot. I read it 5 times now and still don't get what it is saying. Content may be ok (I can't tell) but it needs to be aligned with 21st century English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.234.0.2 ( talk) 07:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
The entire paragraph is illegible (typical translator bot junk), and all the Bold types should be removed. The part on the "fractal dimension" of many concepts of Chinese medicine has an original here in the Chinese wiki on TCM. In addition to being unclear even in the original, this wiki presents recent "conceptual research" on TCM as if it were an accepted view. It's actually a marginal and little-known re-interpretation of some basic TCM concepts, and therefore shouldn't belong in the "History" section. The so-called "discoveries of Deng Yu" are actually his personal interpretations. Properly translated, the entire paragraph would open with platitudes on the development of TCM starting in the 1950s ("great strides," merging with "Western medicine," increased investments, etc.), followed by the recent conceptual interpretation just mentioned. This would not be a well-structured paragraph, and would still lack any kind of reference. Not sure it's worth spending time rewriting it.-- Madalibi ( talk) 08:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
Added rewrite tags to the two sub-sections under "Modern History List." They seem to have been written by the same person (bot?), and they are equally illegible.-- Madalibi ( talk) 01:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
I see that Wee_Jimmy erased the problematic paragraph. This was probably the best solution.-- Madalibi ( talk) 04:10, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
"Fractal channel" has references link "The traditional life of the first World Congress", Asian medicine (J), october 1996 (first world tradition life study congress).
[1], link of Chinese paper
http://www.chinaschool.org/sgzy/computer/03-0905_jl.htm . Zhang Shenghong "gap dimension" of Quasi-Fractal dimension (Science & Technology Review (Beijing), 1996; Nature exploration, 1997), that was non-fractal gap dimension, their gap dimension=0.3?
Chinese fractal set, Journal of Mathematical medicine, 1999.
Chinese "Modern History List" look link [ [3]] . souce
-- dalaody ( talk) 04:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
This is English Wikipedia. As such, any topics discussed here should be understandable by the average English-speaking reader who is not familiar with the topic. Well, the section I commented out is absolutely NOT understandable to an average (or above-average!) English-speaker unfamiliar with the concepts of TCM. (What is a newcomer to TCM to make of "*Li Dexin: The Qi was material and the function unification Lysenkoism" ??? I could substitute "Shannon Hoon: The eggplant and the overarching bucket of marble drumsticks mozzarella" and it would make precisely as much sense to the uninitiated.) What is needed here is admittedly going to be difficult to find: an editor fluent in English and Chinese, who also has the requisite knowledge to summarize and explain these concepts of TCM in a brief, comprehensible manner. Til that particular superhero arrives, however, this section is going to stay commmented out, for the good of the article. Thank you. Gladys J Cortez 07:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
There is something a little bit "off" with the in-line citations -- not merely a matter of format regularity, but also something askew in the relationship between the text and its presumptive support material. In the process of tweaking in-line citations, my primary goal was to create external links to to an on-line version of the source; and at best, I hoped to identify a link to the pages being referenced. At the same time, I was checking in a superficial manner to see how the gist of article text and the reference sources might -- or might not -- match, e.g., in the "Ancient (classical) TCM history" section
These small changes in the citations might be helpful? -- Tenmei ( talk) 01:48, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
At some point, I found this page very helpful for finding TCM schools around the US. Now I find this list is gone. Does anyone mind if I recreate it? Or, better yet, add an external link to a source that already has this? thanks Admiralblur ( talk) 08:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Hi everyone. I just added tags requesting a clean-up and improved copyediting. Why the article needs editing:
I will start working on the article myself in early December, but I will keep an eye on it until then. Cheers, -- Madalibi ( talk) 02:02, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I only recently took a look, but this article is a mess. It needs to be completely rewritten by an actual TCM Doctor or medical historian. Some suggestions:
Pbfpfoss ( talk) 02:45, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
In the section about TCM's relationship with western medicin the term western should be changed to something more appropriate or left out altogether because:
Therefore it should be replaced by something like conventional medicine, scientific or evidence-based medicine (as opposed to chinese traditional). Rokpok ( talk) 21:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Ariedartin's tag was correct, so I moved it down to the section needing attention. As pointed out above, the section title is not really appropriate. The section also seems to consist mostly of OR with a strong slant in favor of TCM. Beach drifter ( talk) 16:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Hello everyone,
I just posted a message on the talk page of the wiki on
Classical Chinese medicine, in which I propose a simple solution to the current
POV fork and
content fork between so-called "TCM" (traditional Chinese medicine) and "CCM" (classical Chinese medicine). I propose the following modifications:
This simple structure (1. complex history; 2. 20th-century reforms and institutionalization; 3. current TCM precepts; 4. CCM protests) under a neutral title like "Chinese medicine" would help to present a more historically accurate picture of the development of Chinese medicine, and would get rid of the current "POV fork' and "content fork" between TCM and CCM. Any suggestions?
Madalibi (
talk)
06:09, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't think this is suitable for the article (too minor paper), but when I was reading on structure learning in Bayesian networks today, I bumped into this paper and was much amused: Statistical Validation of Traditional Chinese Medicine Theories (apparently published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine). Might be amusing (and good) reading for someone else too, so I'm mentioning it here.
This paper was written by people who certainly know their statistics, but my guess is that they aren't TCM experts (just guessing from the fact that they also published a similar paper in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series). They applied learning latent tree models to some TCM data sets and (quite cursorily) looked at whether the structure matches what TCM says. They "found that the resulting statistical model matches the relevant TCM theory well". Essentially there was some latent variable and conditional dependencies that matched with some yin-yang explanatiomajig or whatever. IMO it's an interesting (and a good) approach, but the data set is way too small, making it something of a proof of concept. -- Coffee2theorems ( talk) 20:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
‘’Supporters of TCM say that this functional approach makes it possible to treat the entire mind and body, rather than one or the other.‘’Sounds like unnecessary POV to me. I'd rather leave this sentence out. Mallexikon ( talk) 08:50, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
I'll try to streamline the text a little in order to make it more accessible. This will mean I'll have to delete some sentences (there's overabundance of irrelevant/redundant information here). Comments are welcome. Mallexikon ( talk) 06:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Streamlining the lead and history sections wasn't so hard as there are plenty of useful facts there that mainly had to be re-arranged a little. I'm moving to the ‘’theory‘’ section now and this seems much harder. At the present it contains:
I recommend deleting this whole section. Please comment. Mallexikon ( talk) 09:59, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Alright, since no one seems to object, I'll delete this section now. Mallexikon ( talk) 02:24, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
I went through the commented-out section regarding post-50s new developments in tcm. None of the discoveries mentioned here did have any effect on the system of tcm (to my knowledge). The only exception might be the development of ear acupuncture by Nogier. Then again, ear acupuncture doesn't have anything to do with meridians, qi etc. but is based solely on the theory of reflex zones. I know a lot of chinese acupuncturist do use ear acupuncture, but since the whole theory is not anchored in the tcm system, I recommend to delete the whole section. Please comment. Mallexikon ( talk) 08:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Ok, Hk, that last series of edits was out to lunch. Intentionally skewing the material to disparage the subject matter is not acceptable for an encyclopedia. You knew these edits were contentious, and you powered through on them anyway; go slower, discuss more, be less POV about the whole thing, otherwise this is just going to deteriorate into a fight. I don't want that, do you? -- Ludwigs2 18:57, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
- Safety section material
I restored this material, which was the only RS material in the Safety section lede. -
TCM has been found to have adverse effects. [8] TCM herbs may contain toxins. [9] [10]
Is there any reason not to include it in this science criticism section? HkFnsNGA ( talk) 22:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
HkFnsNGA, you got my full sympathies for trying to warn against the dangers that come with TCM. However, this is an encyclopedia, and it should be neutral in tone. Trying to lace every bit of information about tcm with a warning is not neutral. Please try to look at this from a mere cultural-anthropologic point of view: we have to try to give the reader a detailed picture of this ancient medicine. I'm not saying the medicine is of any use (in my experience, it's not). It's definetely not scientific. Then again, the shamanism of Siberian tribes isn't, either - it still has to get its place in an encyclopedia.
I tried to structure the criticism you voiced in the appropriate section. I think it needs more structuring, more material, and more citations - maybe you can help with that? But please stay within the given organizational structure. In medicine, we stick to a strict system of overview / history / theory / diagnosis / treatment. I think it's best if we apply it in this article as well.
This article is still a stub. It still needs a lot of work, especially the "concept of disease", "diagnosis", "therapy" and "efficacy" sections. Any help is greatly appreciated - particularly if it comes from scientific minded users.
Mallexikon (
talk)
09:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
I am going back in and inserting Mallexikon's other, more specific, good edits. PPdd ( talk) 19:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
PPdd: This problem with your heavy-handed edits is not that they have no merit. The problem is that you so obviously have an agenda here and are misrepresenting TCM in addition to misleading readers away from the basic plot points and into the rare and sensational "Tiger Penis" which is not promoted by any of the 55 TCM colleges in the US. Please do some more research and work on a more objective writing style. Zoopeda ( talk) 00:50, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Dear All,
I logged on to read about TCM today, and this page is in desperate need of some moderation. It reads like it's been written by someone with a personal vendetta against Traditional Chinese Medicine! I'm a western person and see MDs like the rest of us, but these articles are supposed to teach objectively, providing a balanced portrayal of a subject. Instead, every paragraph follows with statements attacking the credibility of TCM or bringing up controversial issues that may or may not be true (because they don't have citations), and re-using old stereotypes that everyone knows are not true (ie, "Snake Oil" isn't even used by TCM practitioners, according to my acupuncturist!)
Anyway, my problem isn't just that things aren't cited. The big problem here is that even the things that ARE cited are simply very slanted or misleading, highlighting only one side of controversial issues that, ultimately, really only ought to be in ONE of the later sections of the article. Why doesn't this article begin like a history book, explaining the origins and practices of the medicine, rather than begin with attacks on whether or not TCM holds up to scientific rigor, etc? For example, why would the oldest and the planet's single largest medical system contain these sentences in the INTRODUCTION (!) (one being in the first paragraph!): "TCM is subject to criticism regarding a number of issues," "It uses metaphysical principles that have no correlates in science based medicine, and would generally be rejected by it", "...found to be ineffective...contain dangerous toxins," "ineffective medicines" etc? These things may or may not be true--this is beside the point. They're just extremely biased, and I, furthermore, challenge the neutrality and organization of this article.
Finally, how is it that 7 of the 8 photos on this page are of grotesque or controversial animal substances yet some basic internet research reveals that the VAST majority of substances used in TCM practice today are simple PLANTS (most of which seem to also be native to north American traditions). Obviously there are also some definite controversies that should be mentioned, in this article, but that ought to be put in a section to deal with skepticism and criticisms. This article is just so very misleading in layout and organization. It seems odd that the medicine that lasted 3,000 years of practice (something you don't learn reading this article) would have endured all the cultural and political invasions it did if this article were representative of its merits. I'm not asking for a pro-TCM page, but let's seriously organize this thing like adults...
New to wikipedia talk, please advise, Zoop Zoopeda ( talk) 00:42, 12 February 2011 (UTC) Zoopeda ( talk) 00:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
The fact that something is available readily in China does not mean it is considered an appropriate treatment by eatablished TCM universities. ie- Just because American stores sell penis pumps and American doctors preform breast augmentation surgeries doesn't mean that American Medicine IS entirely made up of ridiculous elective procedures. (When you view the medicine page, certainly the horrors of western drug side effects and drug resistant hospital bacterias and crooked doctors that sleep with anesthetized patients certainly do comprise the article!) Secondly, I would trust the experienced licensed TCM doctor I spoke with about this topic before I trusted your friend in China. Either way, the ultimate point is that snake oil and tiger penis and toxic herbs consume this webpage while most TCM treatments (the vast majority) do not include such treatments. It's not that snake oil doesn't exist; it's that it's extremely misleading to highlight this ludicrous side of the medicine when it's such a small minority in terms of practice. This is why wikipedia can never become a reliable source for controversial topics. Whichever side has more free time will dominate the page and swing it way out to one side of the picture. Sad story... 71.237.181.49 ( talk) 05:43, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Although the edits were heavy handed, I've gone and changed the last sentence of the first paragraph because the most reliable footnote to support that statement (ie, the NIH study just mentioned above) actually concludes that "promising results have emerged, for example, showing efficacy of acupuncture in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in postoperative dental pain. There are other situations such as addiction, stroke rehabilitation, headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma, in which acupuncture may be useful as an adjunct treatment or an acceptable alternative or be included in a comprehensive management program" (and obviously not the claim that TCM has "no correlates in science based medicine, and would generally be rejected by it."). Zoopeda ( talk) 19:03, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
A {{POV-statement}} tag was added to this sentence I wrote - "Those that have been scientifically analyzed have sometimes been found to be ineffective, have sometimes made contributions to science-based pharmacology, and sometimes have been found to contain dangerous toxins." [11] neutrality is disputed
The article says: “Western medicine documents the efficacy of its pharmaceuticals through controlled, double blind experiments. Yet this is rarely applicable to TCM. It is impossible to create an effective placebo for acupuncture, for example.” – this is completely wrong and also directly contradicted by other passages in the article which cite such placebo-controlled studies using sham needling. Furthermore, the way in which that review by Ernst et al. is cited suggests a conclusion which is actually quite the opposite of what the review found: namely, that most applications of acupuncture (with some notable exceptions) are ineffective. The article makes it sound as though the opposite were true. The sentence stating that clinical studies cannot test the efficacy of combination treatments (taking multiple herbs at the same time) is also wrong. At most such studies are more complex than studies for a single factor, but by no means are they impossible.-- 94.223.90.171 ( talk) 11:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Dear PPdd, the guideline WP:Bold is not meant to encourage users to go around and delete material they think is not sourced - please read it again. "In wikipedia, you don't have to cite that the sky is blue" and that is for good reason. Regarding my Chinese citations, I'll try to find additional English source where possible. However, English sources are not as reliable - there's a lot of misunderstanding and wrong translations going around. Mallexikon ( talk) 06:57, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
"The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed. How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources yourself that support such material, and cite them. Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, and do not move it to the talk page. [12]".
PPdd please stop deleting this material again and again. I added lots of citations (all English), even though the level of citation was already fine. Please remember that a citation can refer to a whole chapter, not just one sentence. If you have any specific objections, let's talk about it. Mallexikon ( talk) 01:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Working on the history section I came across the information that the Huangdi Neijing "states that to be a master physician, one must master the use of metaphors as they apply to medicine and the body". That's fascinating (and well sourced), but - as far as I can see - it's also insignificant. Would the editor who wrote this mind if I deleted it? Mallexikon ( talk) 09:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Hi, there are two glaring unacceptable practices here that I would like to point out.
1) All listed items should be in a stylistic order (alphabetically, chronologically, etc.) but the orders are inconsistent. I have edited the herbal medicine section in alphabetical order (even that is mostly unacceptable). The use of scientific names for plants would be best but it may render it inconvenient for pedestrian access as a reference.
2) The article fails to present full view of the subjection, so far there are more negative, efficacy comments cited online that fails to represent fully the complexity of the topic. To present proper reference material, the coverage should cover all aspects. As a page written on religion by mostly Christians would fail to represent the full diversity of religious attitudes in the world. The examples given are woefully minimal, 5000 years of medical history has been reduced to 10 examples per section. Some of these research are designed to test only one herb. The essence of Traditional Chinese Medicine is the use of a combination of herbs and proteins blended together in various amounts in order to induce a bodily reaction in the patient that may help them treat their condition. I would to present an analogy: the pathogenicity of cholera, Vibrio cholerae is the pathogenic cause of cholera, one of the most devastating diseases in human history. We cannot eradicate this bacteria easily because other species of the Vibrio family harbor pieces of the pathogenic gene and may transform themselves genetically into Vibrio cholera after bacterial conjugation with other species of the Vibrio family, hence any eradication targeting V. cholera tends to fail but eradication of the Vibrio family would cause a high level of environmental upset and resource cost. The point of this example is to say that one single strain of bacteria can be non-pathogenic, harmless, impotent, but a few strains of them together with the right genes can cause a disease that has killed millions and still is killing people today, please reference the Haitian disaster outbreak for the latest issues. Chinese medicine works in similar fashion except for the benefit of people, a combination of herbs and proteins/toxins/etc. must be used in order to active their effectiveness. This is something that Western science has failed to comprehend fully and is just now beginning to realize and medical professionals are starting to use these herbs in complement with normal allopathic treatments. Not all Chinese medicine is useful, harmless, or helpful. Some are known to be quite toxic, pointless, and wasteful. Those arise from ancient traditions and times and should be documented as such alongside what is useful, harmless, or helpful. Some of the practice of using animal parts such as the placenta is used today in a variation. In the most common use of the placenta is used to make hair conditioner for thinning or dull hair, the placenta used in this case is cow or sheep in Chinese Medicine. Western medicine has adopted this practice and now uses it for various purposes also including asthma, obesity, et cetera, please see Alternative Uses for Placenta, not the least of which, stem cell technology. Chinese medicine's modern use of animal parts from threatened and endangered species is a condemnable act. These concepts were derived from the ancient times and the belief in them is rooted without any scientific proof. Even if there were benefits (I do not claim there are any at all, I do not believe there are any at all.), because these animals are endangered and threatened then alternatives to these should be sought. Many Chinese remain ignorant and there is a movement amongst some more famous Chinese Celebrities, such as Jackie Chan, Yao Ming, et cetera who are appearing in public announcements in China to reduce the consumption/popularity of such medicinal items in China. I believe that Wikipedia is a tool to educate and transfer ideas and should allow readers to come to their own conclusions with FULL inclusion of all information regarding the topic instead of only a partial glimpse.
I am currently an allopathic medical student who has worked in the past translating Chinese medical research documents for a year working on the latest Chinese medical/scientific research regarding medications for a multi-million dollar biotechnology firm that invests/advises on patents for US investors. One of my parents is an Eastern pharmacist and has taught me the basics of pharmaceutical herbalism in Traditional Chinese Medicine, I hold 4 degrees in Biology, Microbiology, Chemistry, and English along with minors in Biotechnology, Genetics, and Physics. I give these two opinions as a past research reporter and and someone who has sat on the fence between Western views and Eastern medicine for a long time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kytica ( talk • contribs) 10:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
Wiki is viewed with skepticism by many, who think they may find junk information hidden in it. Skeptical readers like to be able to verify everything. A problem with Chinese language sources, and even with hard copy sources, is that they are difficult or impossible for most readers to verify, making the article essentially useless. From Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English_sources –
“When citing such a source without quoting it, the original and its translation should be provided if requested by other editors: this can be added to a footnote or the talk page.”
It is best in a footnote, since it will be hard for average future non-editor users to find in the talk page archives, if they even know what a talk page or its archive is. PPdd ( talk) 17:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
I understand why there has been a misunderstanding. WP:V requires both' (1) a copy of the original in the original language, and (2) a translation of it, when requested by an editor. (3) This is not just a copy and translation of the title and author, but of the text that is referenced by a line in the article. If it is so extensive as to be a copyright violation, it should go in the talk page where the request is made, otherwise it is best in a footnote. PPdd ( talk) 16:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
In the meridian section there's this sentence: "The locations are not based on anatomical structures discovered using dissection and the scientific method, but are based on the number of rivers considered to be major that flowed through a particular ancient Chinese empire, and calculations of Chinese astrology relating heavenly bodies to the human body" It has 6 citations (too many, actually, according to wikipedia standards). Out of these 6, 4 are accessible online. I just checked - all of them don't actually line this (ridiculous) claim! I challenge the editor who wrote this to come up with the exact quotations from the other 2 sources, otherwise I'm going to delete this sentence as a whole. I'll delete the 4 unfaithful citations right now. Mallexikon ( talk) 10:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
You can't delete material because quotes are not provided except for foreign languge sources. Quotations are only required for foreign language sources. Also, you must establish that these are reliable sources. This has not been done. There have been citation needed tags up for many weeks now, and you took them off without providing translations. You can't just delete blocks of reliable sources such as Biocommunicatoin and the American Cancer Society because it does not fit your personal views, nor challenge their conclusions without reason other than your personal views. You must establish that your many sources are reliable sources, then provide translations. These requests were up for weeks. PPdd ( talk) 06:58, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be tagged with a "needs a cite" tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.
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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
It is not about religion nor is it about western science. If you are not knowledgeable enough about this subject to tell the difference, please take your much-needed editing skills to aticles that need your help. There are many. Vandalising this article is not helping much. heidimo 03:12, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
This article is a Wikipedia article. What it is not is a personal POV page for anyone. I think the article is very good, well written, and tends to be clear and fairly balanced. However, there is certainly more than one way of looking at TCM. I have moved all of RK's additions to more proper (IMHO) places within the text. I intend to edit these down or combine them with other statements in the article as I have time. I do not agree that disputing the tenets of any article on a social issue is something that must go at the top. Those most knowledgeable about TCM should dominate the description of it; not those most critical. Aafter all, until they fairly and well describe it, criticism is a waste of time. I see plenty of opportunity in the article's lower sections to discuss the scientific basis of TCM (or lack thereof). I expect that in these sections, the skeptical point of view will receive fair treatment. I also expect both sides to buy in on what I am saying here; that is, take the editing to those sections where it is most helpful. I remind both parties that this page will be editied by many others for years to come; long after your involvement has ended. Therefore, it is pointless to just protect a POV. Your only guarantee that your ideas will continue to be expressed here is by presenting them so well and non-controversial, that others will not bother to improve on them. - Marshman 00:57, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Thank you, Heidimo! Nice work you were doing there! (just linked to your parts from Wiki) - irismeister 17:42, 2004 Mar 26 (UTC)
Perhaps we should complain and reverse to your version systematically when people step in and start quibbling about "religious" matterns in a system that works continuously for what - six thousand years, twelve thousand years...
During that period we had shamanism and animism, Bon and Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and who knows what else. And yet Chinese Medicine works as good as ever.
If Dr Kim Bong Han was stupid enough to describe collagen "bodies" under some points and Swift's scientists were busy eating poems written on bread, it does not mean that Chinese Medicine has to yield some evidence for our poor minds. It means that we, in Western Medicin,e are not subtle enough to understand the marvelous human being.
As we started cutting the hair in four like we did, my feeling is that conventional medicine will never integrate Chinese Medicine, which is simply too much for everybody in the West to understand fully. Considering all this, you did a very subtle and great article by any standard. Thank YOU for doing it so fine, knowledgeable and profound. - Yours, - irismeister 21:08, 2004 Mar 27 (UTC)
Irismeister, thanks for your insightful comments on the topics at hand (tcm and vandalism). I'm sure the vandals will be back, since tcm is such an irresistable target. I appreciate your vigilance in these matters. Seems arrogant to me that a few scientists seem to feel that tcm owes them a scientific explanation as to why, how, and if something works after thousands of years of success, but that is only my opinion. heidimo 02:46, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
It's my opinion, too, Heidimo! Look, do not let yourself intimidated, and keep up the good work. With time, the difference will be made, as if all by itself (like in the glorious millennia of TCM so far.) I might not write you back for a while, since I'll be banned soon for defending the search for truth in various Wikipedic matters, but I'm not bitter at all. There is no valediction, only a caveat in such TCM editing case stories. As long as you keep your humor and your sense of everlasting value (which are abundent by all standards) you'll ride the tide. "There is the dark side, and then the luminous side... The lighting on the hill is subtle and can only be judged by its results..." :O) Yours - irismeister 07:34, 2004 Mar 30 (UTC)
Heidimo & Co.,
Well done. Traditional Chinese Medicine isn't "scientific," but it is academic and in many schools, effective. There are many different branches of TCM (China is a big country with a looong history), some more effective than others. To want to belittle all of TCM because it doesn't meet a narrow outside definition of proof (even though it has helped millions of people for thousands of years using techniques which are reproducible) is like saying the Egyptian pyramid builders were also so many useless frauds because they didn't subscribe to Scientific American. So, thank you for standing up for us quaint, childlike natives and preserving a dignified perspective for an important article.
Fire Star 20:29, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
This conversation was copied from the former talk:Conventional medicine.
I see a direct parallel between modern Chinese medicine and Western Medieval medicine. Medieval medicine is basically Greek medicine and Galen's work at its worst! Chinese medicine, like its counter part Western Medieval medicine, is a functional medicine that develops when surgery and dissections of the human body are not permitted.
Traditional Chinese medicine has Five Elements:metal, wood, earth, water, fire. Compare that to the Western Classical elements: fire, air, water, and earth. And Galen's four humours: phlegm (water), yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), and blood (air) has parallels in Chinese medicine.
In short, I would no more praise Chinese medicine than I would recommend Medieval medicine. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 14:54, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
~
Do you realize that you created a new section that already exists, resulting in two sections with the same name? Please read the article before you edit it. Cheers, Jia ng 02:21, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
There are many valid criticisms of Chinese medicine, just as there are many valid criticisms of Western medicine, and they certainly shouldn't be ignored, but vandalism is vandalism and reporting it is the way to go. One wonders why he is so threatened by the subject?
Chinese medicine is a huge, multifaceted subject with many side disciplines. The version of Chinese medicine that I am studying personally also involves the body mechanics of the Chinese martial arts (and their concomitant therapeutic effects) which is something medieval European medicine never approached. Basically, I can prove empirically that my "magical thinking" metaphors accurately describe a demonstrable technique because I am quite capable of knocking skeptics on their butts, or breaking their limbs, or paralysing their breathing, etc., with very little effort on my part and there isn't much short of firing a gun they can do to stop me! So, when they can actually do what I can do, physically, and demonstrate it to me, then I will accept their criticisms of what I do as valid. I don't say that to be pugnacious, rather I say it to point out that there are many ways (some of them painful, LOL) to demonstrate the depth of practical knowledge preserved by many traditional cultures that go beyond the limited semantic playing field some Westerners try to establish for what they insist is "reality" (as if they are the only people in the world who have a right to an opinion) because they have the scientifically approved jargonistically elaborate "magic spells" to describe things. This dismissive (at best) or coercive (at worst) attitude that many of these guys adopt smacks of the cultlike political behaviour associated with the religions they like to criticise. One begins to wonder if there is such a large functional difference between Carl Sagan's and the Amazing Randi's version of "science" and the medieval religions they would lump all us "magical thinkers" (sic) whom they feel the need to demonize, into. One gets the impression these types would dearly love to simply tell the people who work to preserve traditional Chinese culture to stop being so ethnic and start conforming to their technologically pure plan for the world. And we all know how healthy the polluting side effects of Western technology are, don't we?
Rant over...
Cheers, Fire Star 20:15, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Marshman,
Please refer to the page history starting from where Adam Carr touched this page on January 24 and refer to the discussion in /archive1 and /archive2. The text he inserted recently was inserted a couple months ago. It was not outright reverted by User:Roadrunner, but edited to be more NPOV. RR left extensive explanations of his edits, all of which can be found the the two archives. Since this text has already been inserted and parts of it shot down while others kept and reworded, it is entirely inapproprate for us to be reinserting it. Therefore, I will revert your edits.
Note that I have not reviewed Heidimo's edits and cannot say whether he deleted text to favor TCM. If the case is with his edits, then deal with those, not RR's, Fuzheado, or mine. This is not to say that all of RK's edits are invalid. Refer to the page history and view how they have been reworded and reinsert any text that has been removed that shouldnt have. We'll build on the article this way, not with the same wording from January where we have to start the process all over again and put many edits to waste.
-- Jia ng 01:34, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
See Talk:Traditional_Chinese_medicine/archive1#what?, Talk:Traditional_Chinese_medicine/archive1#questionable statement, Talk:Traditional_Chinese_medicine/archive2#RK_v._RR. There's no need to repeat arguments that have already been made and edits that have already been done. Please examine the page history to see what has come out of these paragraphs and how they were changed. We will work from there. -- Jia ng 06:43, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I can't really say I'm happy with the article at present since I haven't really been following its changes since TomSwiss edited on 8 Feb 2004. My point is that RK's text has been added once before and does not need to be added again (he so blatantly created a duplicate "TCM theory" section so this should be obvious). If he or anyone else has problems with the current version, they should address any changes that have been made since then and not reinsert material that may exist in edited for or be removed with explanation. -- Jia ng 08:57, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I am concerned about Heidimo's "allies". Mr Natural Health [
Refactoring out Personal Attack] who threatened me by claiming to be a Nazi, and as discussed on the Wiki-En list, [
Refactoring out Personal Attack]. Mr-Natural-Health has a long history of [
Refactoring out Personal Attack], and is currently [
Refactoring out Personal Attack]. He also claims that [
Refactoring out Personal Attack]. Please do not take my word for this; this is all verifiable. Jiang's unfounded criticisms against me also make him somewhat of a biased person as well. The point is this: A cadre of Wikipedians believe that any alternative medicine claim has to be accepted uncritically, and they view all mainstream scientific views as "vandalism" or "racism". They work hard to censor and delete all material that doesn't push their religious New-Age beliefs. Frankly, if we were to compare the recent Wikipedia article edits on this topic to real papers in peer-reviewed journals, our articles would look like a pro-New-Age religious tract, and it wouldbe laughed off as a joke. At this point in time, it still looks like they are trying to push their religious views and totally censor mainstream views. How do they justify pushing their beliefs? They merely add the sentence "This is not religious" to the nd of their religious beliefs! Frankly, I don't buy it. They can claim that these are not religious beliefs...and I can counter that having angels cure someone's cancer isn't religious as well. But such a claim is religious, no matter how much someone shouts otherwise.
RK 14:42, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)
I have removed the following from the article:
The above analysis is not allowed in Wikipedia; this is a clear case of "special pleading", and as such is a gross violation of our NPOV policy. The above nonsense is simply a formal way of saying that "If you don't accept our religious beliefs, then you can't find any proof of their existence, therefore the problem must be with you". In any formal philosophy course special pleading is one of the first topics studied. It is a well known trick, but nothing more. The same exact same argument is often used by Christian fundamentalists to explain why atheists and heretics cannot understand why God and angels exists and intervene in the world, which they see as clear as day, while the rest of us do not find any physical proof. It is beneath us to include such childish arguments in a world-class encyclopedia. RK 14:53, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)
RK - one problem I'm having with some of your additions is the use of terms such as "energies" and "forces" to describe Qi and Yin & Yang. This confuses the issue, because I think the article elsewhere avoids these characterizations (even though most New Agers do not). Also, although I know what you are saying by describing TCM as a religious belief, I am not so sure that term is helpful. If the concepts of Qi and other elements come from religious beliefs and practices in ancient China, then that fact must be reported. But the fact that some, many, or all modern proponents of TCM now hold on to beliefs that are religious-like (i.e., beliefs, not subject to standard methods of proof) needs to be stated in a different way, because painting TCM with a "religious" label (in my atheistic mind) is too broadbrush and borders on inflammatory POV. By the same token, I do see your point about "Special Pleading" above and the relationship to religious claims - Marshman 17:21, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I went through your recent addition/change. Much of the "new" stuff you added is actually already said elsewhere in the article. The critical points you raise are not appropriate under History but need to go under the sections that relate to evaluation of TCM. I understand what you are getting at, but it is simply not balancing the article to repeat criticism of TCM under every subheading. For example, your statement: Until recently, observations of the results of TCM have not been subject to controled experiements or peer-review. is true and an important point to make; but it is simply inappropriate under History of TCM. - Marshman 17:49, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
This article is a bit difficult to read. I'm not Chinese, so I can't read the labels on the jars in their medicine shops. Though I see things like dead animals in jars. What is that for? The American Cancer Society report on Chinese Meds did a better job because it stuck to the focus of a few herbs that are well known: ginger, soy, ect ect. If you are going to include something like a Dried Snake and Turtle picture, why not explain what that is for? Is a gecko the Chinese chicken soup for the cold?
My advice for this article is to start with the known herbs that have been studied. Keep out the things like dried snakes and turtles until it gets studied...
When I walk into a Chinese medicine shop it's a mystery, and when I leave it's still a mystery. This article feels much the same way. Fadedroots ( talk) 06:38, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
wwwwww I suggest we revert this article to the edit dated 02:19, 9 Apr 2004, by Jiang, as a preparation to bring the article up to standard for the Wikiproject on alternative medicine. Please comment. heidimo 03:15, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
John, thanks for your comments. I'd be happy to follow all of those guidelines, and hold off on the revert I suggest until the proper time in the process, if at all. I'm only soliciting comments at this time, not saying if or when I would actually do such a revert. heidimo 04:08, 1 May 2004 (UTC) P.S. I added the infobox. heidimo 04:27, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
Hello folks. It seems to me a revert now would be less desirable than the inevitable rewrite, which is to say, if you're going to work on it, work on the finished product instead of a temporary patch.
I like and agree with John G's statement on strategy;
"I always use the correct magic words, and I keep on referring to our standards of quality guidelines."
A nice, neutral presentation of information will do the trick, one thinks. As the guidelines say: Wikipedia is not about advocacy or propaganda of any kind, what I would add to that is that Wikipedia is about information of every kind, apparently. People can be as skeptical as they want to be, but the phenomenon exists and the information is out there and it isn't going away any time soon. Just as many aspects of traditional Chinese medicine make perfect sense if they are explained well, there are also many abuses of the traditional Chinese system, especially in the West, and they should not be glossed over. To present information as clearly as possible so that people can make up their own minds is all we can hope for. Fire Star 22:57, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
Agreed and agreed. The Tai Chi Chuan article is a good example of this, a discipline with roots and branches in ancient and modern Chinese medical traditions, a page with lots of info, but little overlap with the actual Chinese medicine article. Fire Star 20:48, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
[1] As part of the wikiproject on alternative medicine, sections are being removed from this article on topics with their own article. Removed sections are being placed in the talk page of the respective articles, for merging purposes. Please help with the merging, if you are so inclined. heidimo 15:59, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
Hi, heidimo. Please forgive me for my outrageous delay. I have some extra-Wiki commitments going on and on, and will come back with the long overdue comments Real Soon Now, promise! - irismeister 18:00, 2004 May 14 (UTC)
My preliminary review of the TCM is very favorable. Again, the primary problem seems to be coming from the science people.
I am referring of course to the TCM and Science and Does it work? sections. These sections seems to be trying to duplicate the articles on the scientific method. My suggestion would be to simply add a hyperlink.
Does it work? As a reader, reading TCM for the first time, my response would be: What is it? And, what is it in reference to? Any reader, remotely familiar with science, would discount these sections as being totally mickey mouse. You cannot test for it, unless you have first defined what it is. And, then your conclusions about it would only be valid for a limited set of specific conditions which would probably mean specific medical conditions. Since, it is obviously referring to 100's of different things and since there are literally 1,000's of diseases the whole premise of this section is so fundamentally flawed that a sixth grader wouldn't believe it. -- John Gohde 20:46, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
Jiang, please stop your reversions. You need to stop pushing your religious beliefs as scientific facts. (You also need to stop denying that the belief in these forces was not religious; it was a religious belief, no matter what you claim, and these beliefs have no scientific validation.) Every time someone adds balance by merely presenting a scientific analysis of your claims, you revert the article. You often censor it by totally deleting all critical studies. That is a serious violation of Wikipedia NPOV policy. Its not just me that you have done this to; others too have suffered under your edits. Please know this - Wikipedia has a neutral point of view policy. When a controversial subject has a significant amount of mainstream criticism, we are obligated to present it. Instead of discussing the contoversy, you just keep on reverting and censoring, over and over. You did this a few months ago, and I am sad to see that you are doing it again, You must stop this inappropriate behaviour. RK 22:27, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)
The TCM page needs to represent the actual features of TCM with a balance of those topics that are of the greatest salience and importance in understanding TCM. It is an unreasonable imbalance in POV to have pages on western medicine which fail to represent the prominent criticisms of method and structure, while the TCM page dwells on critiques to the point of distraction. The page is not about controveries. Let controversies about TCM have a separate page, please.
Removed parenthetical (shen) after "observation of the patient's face". While shen is primarily diagnosed by facial observation, it can be observed in skin tone at other areas of the body. More significantly, observation of the face can be used to diagnose Lung, Kidney, Spleen, Liver, Qi, Blood, and Jue, not just Shen and Heart. Nick Argall
Obviously this article can do with some editing. For me some portions need verification. For example, who says Buddhism and Confucianism influenced TCM - I've never heard of it, where are the sources or explanation, for example? Excuse me while I do some very liberal copyediting, and add some fundamentals of TCM from Chinese webpages. Pls voice your opinion if the changes are not to your liking. Mandel 15:32, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I noticed that 中医学 has a separate page from 中药学 on the Chinese Wikipedia; the Chinese one seems to indicate that the former is more general, while the latter refers to an almost scientific study of the foundations of Chinese medicine. It seems a bit strange that we just list both as definitions without further comment. Also, it is strange that one is in traditional characters while one is simplified - does English Wikipedia have a standard for included Chinese? Also, I added and corrected the pinyin for both and verified it on pin1yin1.com; hopefully I did it right. Capybara 07:38, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
These names are not equivalents. Zhong yi-xue should pertain to the whole field of medical treatment, setting bones, immunization, etc., etc. Zhong yao-xue should pertain to (traditional) medications only. A person who practices Zhong yi uses Zhong yao (or cao3 yao4). I guess I should have a look at the relevant pages, but it would be a really strange use of language if the two names are taken to be synonyms. P0M 04:30, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
O.K. Just as I thought, the yi xue article is long and about the traditional practice of medicine, and the yao xue article is hardly more than a dictionary definition that says it is the botanicals, the animal parts, and that kind of thing that are used as medications in the traditional practice of Chinese medicine. P0M 04:34, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
There were many redundant statements as well as biases favouring one school or another that I have edited out. I tried (albeit imperfectly) to keep all pertinent information while taking out New Age and any other species of POV doublespeak I could. I apologise for stepping on anyone's toes, but TCM is such a huge subject that I believe that this central article should give mostly just a very general overview, pro and con, while specifics can go on their respective articles. Fire Star 21:20, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
By system: TCM, 5 elements, Korean hand, French Auricular, Japaneses, I Ching, others.
By History: Each step of the evolution of this medicine has been influenced by wars, emperors and famines.
By modality: acupuncture (each system puts the same points in different locations), tai qi, qi gung, moxabustion, tui na, acupressure, bleeding, purging, surgical (started about 1500 in China), sweating, cupping, gua sha, herbs and food, electrical, others
By system of diagnosis: yin yang, 5 element, 8 principles, zang fu, meridian, 6 divisions or 6 stages or 6 levels from the inner classic of the yellow emperor approximately 100 AD, 4 stages from discussion of warm diseases about 1667-1746. The 3 levels or 3 jiaos mostly from a systematic identification of febrile diseases 1758-1836. Modern diagnosis: this is not formal but in China diagnosis of acupuncture is being very heavily influenced by western diagnostic thought.
By book: Chinese Medicine has a very rich history of books. Many of these books are still used today in modern practices.
By school of thought often centered around a person and his great book or books. The Kidney school, The Spleen school, The 5 element school, the yin yang school, etc.
-- Magic.crow 23:26, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I cannot help laughing whenever I saw 'Does it work' section. Come on. It has been working in China for thousands of years already. I were personally treated by TCM for various internal and external problems and all worked. However, I admit TCM needs more scientific backup. Just my two cents.
Placebo has also been shown to work since it's been known to be around (thousands of years?). That doesn't mean that it's a valid, systematic methodology for solving health issues. -- 24.70.70.16 15:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, this seems like a good place to put this because people like to debate about the science of TCM here. The Chinese utilized inductive reasoning. They came up with their theories based on observations around them and then applied it to the human body. At any rate, when I read this article it made me wonder if the people who said Chinese medicine is unscientific have any notion of the scientific process. Most articles I read about Chinese medicine on Wikipedia have large sections devoted to the "effectiveness of TCM" (traditional Chinese medicine) and they go on at length about how certain people claim that TCM is unscientific. I think this is false and misleading. TCM is scientific. The Chinese utilized inductive reasoning to conclude things and then debated about it extensively amongst themselves and even performed clinical trials over thousands of years. Then they made theories based on their observations. They kept what worked clinically and elaborated or corrected it when needed. I think it is really absurd that people claim TCM is unscientific. It is like they're saying science is unscientific by completely dismissing the validity of inductive reasoning and the scientific process. And because every article (or almost every article) on Wikipedia devotes so much space to these false ideas, it reads as propaganda. (For references to my claims one can look at the comments in the Materia Medica by Dan Bensky, Steven Clavey, and Erich Stroger.) 24.69.176.48 ( talk) 20:23, 12 October 2008 (UTC)Harkannin
I think TCM is not TCM at all if there is no Five elements (Chinese) supporting it. Could anybody add a section for it, explaining the mapping between Five elements and internal organs, showing the special connection between eye and liver, how a symptom in head may a cause on feet etc?
The current content for theory part of TCM is not sufficient even from an amateur's view. -- 129.7.248.159 19:39, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
As I read this page and it's links I see a problem. Subjects like 5E and yin/yang have good pages already but they are not so good for TCM. Should we write almost duplicate pages or just link to pages that don't cover our subject so well? -- Magic.crow 04:47, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
The reader who wants to know about Chinese medicine may not be very well motivated to spend lots of time trying to absorb these other articles. Beyond that, the average reader would have no way to apply that information to Chinese medicine without some guidance.
The most interesting connection between the five "elements" and Chinese medicine is due to the five phases (as I prefer to call them) are phases of a single cycle just as the four seasons are phases of a year. In each day, a system of function (organ to us Westerners) can behave differently depending on which of the five phases it is in. Chinese medicine had an awareness that diseases behave differently at different times of the day, and that medicines can react with the body differently at different times of the day. In Western medicine we have only in the last few decades become aware of the importance of circadian cycles to the functioning of the human organism and to its reactions both to diseases and to medicines. P0M 23:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
==?, "li3" ??etc., etc.
I have to admit that I am a cynic at heart. First off, in order for a field to "be empirical", one has to remove any "unempirical" concepts in a field and put them through empirical testing before allowing them to be used. In that respect, what is the definition and proofs of 氣"qi4", 質"zhi2", and 理"li3"? Is "qi" something that can be tested and substantiated or is it just a loose mental concept like the western folk medicine "ether"? Sjschen 20:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Both acupuncture and acupressure have been proven scientifically, just because it hasn't been explained yet scientifically does not make it a fraud by definition. For example, the origin of the universe hasn't been proven scientifically, but that does not make the idea of the universe having an origin a fraud. Wiki wiki1 06:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Removed "The general distinction made by Chinese in China is that Western medicine involves cutting or acute care while Chinese medicine involves manipulation or chronic care. Hence medical procedures such as bone setting or chiropractic spinal manipulation would be seen as Chinese, while surgery tends to be seen as Western." and added more detail to same paragraph to more accurately represent my observations of Chinese medicine hospitals whilst in China in 2005. Piekarnia 22:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Why would the reader assume that TCM would be scientific? Does every article on Wikipedia about a nonscientific topic need to have "though unscientific" inserted in its lead section? I think a better way to address this would be as in acupuncture article. - Jim Butler 23:25, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with you Jim. Modern readers seeing the word "medicine" would expect it to be scientific and efficacious. It's unlcear here what you mean by the acupunture reference. Mccready 17:34, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I disagree Kevin. When most "modern people" hear the phrase "Traditional Chinese Medicine" they don't expect scientific trials to have even been completed - they think mystery and uncertainty. It's certainly the exception rather than the rule that people have even looked at any of the thousands of trials that have been conducted. I doubt that people would mistake the word "medicine" in Traditional Chinese Medicine for a scientific based medicine. The word "traditional" is certainly a giveaway, and "chinese" certainly makes it sound exotic or at least foreign. Nonetheless, I think the reword has removed all traces of ambiguity. For future reference, the word systematic means "based on a system". It neither means nor implies that TCM is a scientific system - particularly when in the same sentence the systems are named: yin-yang, five elements etc. Piekarnia 23:30, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
This user's only two contributions to wikipedia consist in placing this link California State Oriental Medical Association to a website in progress on the TCM page and acupuncture page. I'd rather see it removed at this stage, at least until their website is fixed. Mccready 06:18, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I've taken the liberty to delete the macro section. If anyone objects we can put it back in when the problems are ironed out. My reasons are that it:
This seems like a drastic step but it would take so much work to improve it, I've decided on this route. Please feel free to object. Mccready 06:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi Leo, Jim and I, from almost polar opposite ends of the spectrum on attitudes to TCM, both agree that this should be deleted temporarily. If you wish please feel free to improve it before replacing. I'm happy to give some further input into why it's not acceptable in its present form. Please understand that we would welcome the section back but it needs to be rewritten first. WP policy is that if material is deleted because it is unsourced then it stays deleted until sources are provided. I look forward to some cooperative editing on this piece. cheers, Kevin Mccready 00:57, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
The claim that "There are thousands of years of empirical knowledge [neutrality disputed] about TCM conceptualized and recorded in terms appropriate to that system" implies that all claims advanced by TCM are true. This is disputed in some cases. A NPOV replacement could be to differentiate between claimes which are generally accepted as true, versus those that are still being evaluated. -- Beland 22:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I am unable to reconcile TCM model of the body with the contents of this article. That article proceeds as if there is one, universally accepted model, but this article seems to indicate that there are multiple theoretical systems. It would be nice if this article contained examples of diagnoses, and that article explained the various theoretical systems. -- Beland 02:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
"Uses" section:
"TCM theory" section:
Soft helion 23:32, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
"Treatment techniques"
-- Beland 03:09, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi Belend, Looks like generally a good approach. A couple of points. 1. The capitalisation of western in the victorian govt quote shouldn't have happened - if it's a quote then it needs to be exactly what they wrote. They used lower case so the quote should be in lowercase. If you really feel the need to do so you can put in a (sic), but I don't think this needs it. 2. You are also asking questions about stuff which Jim and I agreed should be deleted and properly sourced before being replaced. Some stuff has been replaced which is not properly sourced. I'd prefer it be taken out unless it can be sourced. It appears to be rather florid OR to begin with. Keep up the good work. I liked Pearle but my computer science friends wouldn't be happy to call it AI :-) Mccready 04:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I edit lots of stuff which deserves the label pseudoscience, perhaps not the case here, and want to alert you to my editing principles lest I be accused of too rapidly reverting. Have a look at my userpage and please make comments if you wish. Happy editing. Mccready 04:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I guess my writing has some problems. So, I put a copy here in case somebody will delete it. Please refine it if you are interested in this piece of information. The key words here are: online web sites providing FREE herb prescriptions, having some positive results already. Unfortunatedly, all of them are in Chinese so far.
With the popularity of Internet, increasing number of TCM doctors are seeking new approaches to diagnose and treat diseases using remote, non-contact methods, mostly by filling online symptom questionaires and uploading the photos of tongues. Some TCM advocates even established web sites like Folks TCM to provide free herb prescriptions to patients having Internet access. Doctors and patients can actively exchange information about symptoms, prescriptions and feedbacks via Bulletin Board System there. While limited by remote diagnosis methods, some positive cases (including cancer, diabetes, leukaemia etc) have been reported on these websites.
-- Leo 17:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
The following article provides the needed information on sea horses and thier shrinking populations due to TCM. I do not know why people insist on reverting this, as 'citation needed' means 'go find an article relevant' which I have done. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/seahorse/vincent.html -- 168.56.111.83 16:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Do we really need this picture in here? Aren't there plenty of other great images that represent tcm besides dead sea horses, penises and some random photo of some store isle in HongKong? -- Travisthurston 23:29, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't see it being a bad thing. Besides, TCM is hard to capture in pictures due to the wide variety of disperate sub-disciplines that the term covers. Do you have any suggestions of images? Sjschen 01:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Deer penis seems like a bad choice to me. Would prefer an interior shot of a serious traditional pharmacy, for example. Viande hachée 15:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
The text on the this image is in Japanese. Why would a Chinese pharmaceutical shop use Japanese? Hanfresco 17:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
These images should be removed, since their labels are Japanese. Look carefully, and you'll see the yen sign. bibliomaniac15 04:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
So is anyone gonna obtain new pictures? I will if no one does in say, a month. Funny thing is the Chinese wiki also uses these pictures.. Hanfresco 09:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't this article describe "heat," "cold," "dampness," etc., as they relate to TCM? This seems a serious omission. Badagnani 02:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
This posting was made last year and this does need to be addressed! Badagnani 04:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Still needs to be addressed! Badagnani 22:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I know this is unrelated to the article, but does anyone know anything about her? She is mentioned several times as a prominant example of the effectiveness of TCM, but I cannot find much information about her, aside from that she was involved with an accident, and she was alledgedly curred by TCM 128.250.87.22 08:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
During the early 1900's, CCM developed the notion of germ theory: either oral- or food-borne pathogens. Concurrently, the West was also developing the same notion with the invention of the microscope, which provided proof of germs (bacteria) existing in food or in body fluids (mucus from a sneeze, for example). The West came to China along with the microscope in the 1930's, proving both theories valid.
Errr, "the West came to China in the 1930s"?!?! I can't even begin to express how dissapointed I am that this piece of misinformation has lasted through even one edit check. Anyone with a 6th grade education should have been suspicious. China had trade, both intellectual and commercial, long before the 1900s. And the germ-theory of disease was not developed in the 1900s, it was almost universally established and applied in the 1800s and was actually being developed in the 1700s (and was talked about long before that).
I'm not saying anything about whether or not CCM developed germ-theory independently. But this whole paragraph is of suspect veracity due to the glaring innacuracies that surround that contention. I'm deleting it. If you put the parts that might be true, such as the independent development of germ-theory, then put it back with a cite. But please keep the "the West came to China in the 1930s" bit out--its downright silly. Brentt 19:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Someone more familar with this field than I should carefully go over the new content added by Spiritprimer. S/he appears to have "signed" the new stuff with the URL of a commercial site. I'm tempted to revert the whole thing, but there may be something of value in it.
While looking at the most recent edits I also noticed that the English grammar in the article is poor. P0M 05:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
The recent additions to this article all seem to be advancing the agendas of individuals, and seem to have been added by people who did not read the entire article. If the information in these newer edits is to be retained, the sections themselves ("TCM and the Internet," "Branches," etc.) need to be merged into the history section. More importantly, the numerous unsourced statements added to this article seem to support minority positions.
The section about "CCM" and TCM needs to be reconciled with the rest of the article. First of all, it should be established that the term CCM is in general use, and not just by this Jeffrey Yuen person. Also, those two paragraphs should be merged with the "uses" section below, which contains many of the same pieces of information. Soft helion 00:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
If more details are added, then the entire article needs to first be simplified (or hyperlinks should be applied). This article is disorganized and WAY TOO LONG. June 24, 2010
The article has been written by a lamer, who does actually know anything about TCM. He just draws general conclusions. The article needs detailed prescriptions and explanations of real procedures. Btw, this applies to most of the Wikipedia. Teemu Ruskeepää 16:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
HuangDiNeiJing source-work for early Chinese medicine exists as textus receptus only from the 11th Century, C.E. Mythic tradition dates it to 26 or so centuries B.C.E. Consensus among scientific historians, East and West, is that it was collected from preexistant fragments in 1st Century B.C.E., or later. Tomb finds from the 3rd to 2nd Centuries B.C.E. reveal only fragmentary similarities. The historical evidence doesn't support the now popular claim that the book was substantially from the Warring States period. Source: Paul Unschuld's books, esp. the recent volume on the SuWen. Signed Cjmacie 05:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I think Wenbing is supposed to be Wáng Bīng (王冰) Mugwumpjism 12:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I've found a page in relation to the use of seahorses in TCM. Perhaps someone would be able to sum up the information on this page, [2]? I am unsure in whether some information about the effects of the seahorse in TCM is valid in this article or another listing all the various ingredients should be created. Thank, Aeryck89 18:03, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
isn't it a good idea to mention the training TCM doctors and the procedure of obtaining licenses in certain countries, e.g. Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan? Avis12 18:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Cleaned up this section for readability and content. Fixed the link/quote from the 1997 NIH consensus, clarified conclusions of Cochrane/Bandolier reviews. Tried to edit for a more 'neutral' tone. Splendide 00:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
It is too bad that this section in this article has the phrase "TCM treatments are based on their apparent basis in magical thinking". This point of view is neither cited or explained and the phrase itself makes the article have a non-nuetrual point of view. From "The channels of Acupuncture" by Giovanni Maciocia, TCM is based on deductive and inductive reasoning with thousands of years of clinical trials. Sept, 13, '07 --Harkannin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.180.113.13 ( talk) 23:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
"...TCM is based on deductive and inductive reasoning with thousands of years of clinical trials."
Ah, the appeal to antiquity. IIRC, we used to burn people who disagreed with our world view and kill left-handers. It's a good thing we've changed and started demanding double-blind placebo controlled studies and peer review. Which, unfortunately, prove a lot of TCM to be based on "magical thinking." I'd be delighted to read of well constructed research which proves otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.28.152.245 ( talk) 21:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
If you can call what TCM does "thousands of years of clinical trials", then urine therapy and Witch doctoring might just as easily count. Jeanpetr ( talk) 00:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Removed text: The basic mechanism of TCM is akin to treating the body as a black box, recording and classifying changes and observations of the patient using a traditional philosophy. In contrast to many alternative and complementary medicines such as homeopathy, practically all techniques of TCM have explanations for why they may be more effective than a placebo, which Western medicine can find plausible. Most doctors of Western medicine would not find implausible claims that qigong preserves health by encouraging relaxation and movement, that acupuncture relieves pain by stimulating the production of neurotransmitters, or that Chinese herbal medicines may contain powerful biochemical agents. However, the largest barriers to describing the mechanisms of TCM in scientific terms are the difference of language and lack of research. TCM concepts such as qi and yin and yang are used to describe specific biological processes but are difficult to translate into scientific terms. Some research is now beginning to emerge explaining possible scientific mechanisms behind these TCM concepts.
This is a personal opinion piece. Phrases like 'which Western medicine can find plausible', and 'Most doctors... would not find implausible' are unsubstantiated (and questionable) assertions. And the passage 'However, the largest barriers to describing the mechanisms of TCM in scientific terms are the difference of language and lack of research. TCM concepts such as qi and yin and yang are used to describe specific biological processes but are difficult to translate into scientific terms. Some research is now beginning to emerge explaining possible scientific mechanisms behind these TCM concepts' begs questions of scientific evidence and efficacy of TCM practices. This doesn't really belong under the 'Scientific view' heading; perhaps parts of it can be integrated elsewhere in the article. Splendide 05:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Merged relevant content in to other sections, removed redundant content, and performed general article editing for readability. Criticisms of Western medicine belong under "Scientific view" or "Relationship with Western Medicine". This article has a long way to go; there are still too many unreferenced assertions, and a lot of redundant content. Splendide 18:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I have no problem with having an Opposition section. What I find misleading is this claim:
"Starting from late 19th century, politicians and Chinese scholars with background in Western medicine have been trying to phase out TCM totally in China. Some of the prominent advocates of the elimination of TCM include:..."
The section goes on to list POLITICIANS/WRITERS and SOCIAL THEORISTS. Who in their own respective biographies list hardly any experience in Western medicine. While the quote does mention that these are politicians and scholars. I find the entire section misleading (as it is already unsourced) and irrelevant. I propose Refocusing it toward either Western medical experts or known Chinese doctors (Western medicine) voicing opposition would be more effective. I find it disturbing on why we should care that a politician with hardly any background in either Traditional Chinese Medicine (or Western Medicine for that matter) voices an opinion against Traditional Chinese Medicine. Selfexiled 09:23, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
It says that TCM developed "over several hundred thousand years". Someone having a laugh? Otherwise the timeline further on is severly lacking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.177.190.147 ( talk) 12:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
It would be nice if someone could make a clera distinction between TCM and CCM in this article. I dont know why your guys so emphasize at these two words, actual, as a pharmacy worker, i dont know the different of it. and i couldn't find any clear different in your word.
maybe you think Mao Zedong hate Classic Chinese Medicine? why? even medical could be a political tool to anti Mao Zedong? you think Mao is a idiot?
Yes, recent years(after Mao), someone try to reform TCM to based on modern science, but they failed, now, researcher acknowledged, TCM is TCM, it couldn't base on western medical theory. this is not a political movement, it's just a matter of scinece and philosophy.
In TCM school, ancient medical book is still a important part of study, many researchers write report based on ancient medical book. No one try to forbidden ancient Chinese medical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.95.5.81 ( talk) 00:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I suggest to remove the sentence: However, Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM) is notably different from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). CCM represents the medicine and its evolution through thousands of years.
It seems that the sentence on so-called "CCM" has already been removed. But whoever proposed it was trying to point to a difference between modern TCM and Chinese medicine in the past, when it represented much more than what we now mean by "TCM." The term "CCM" is not widely established, so it's probably not very useful. But I think it's crucial to distinguish modern TCM from the history of Chinese medicine. Of the current six paragraphs of the section called " Ancient (classical) TCM history," only two are on history, and only one of these two cites studies by historians. The entire article is actually about TCM as a form of alternative medicine, not as something that has a history. I really think there should be a new Wiki called "Chinese medicine (History)" where the voluminous scholarship on Chinese medical history could be discussed. -- Madalibi ( talk) 10:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
This article is missing a critical peice of the theory. Not only does TCm differ in how it describes the body, it differs in how it defines the nature of disease. User:Badagnani has been complaining about this for years apprently, and they've got a point. Someone needs to step up and write a blurb about what it means when TCM adherents talk about "cold," "heat," "wind," "damp," etc. This information is important as hell to this topic and should be made a priority by the folks that regularly contribute to this article. -- Shaggorama ( talk) 12:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
It may involve pseudoscientific claims by modern day quacks, but the topic as a whole isn't any more "pseudoscience" than Aristotelism or Alchemy: it's a historical tradition, or perhaps protoscience. -- dab (𒁳) 15:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Added a rewrite tag to this section. The section reads like it came out of a translator bot. I read it 5 times now and still don't get what it is saying. Content may be ok (I can't tell) but it needs to be aligned with 21st century English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.234.0.2 ( talk) 07:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
The entire paragraph is illegible (typical translator bot junk), and all the Bold types should be removed. The part on the "fractal dimension" of many concepts of Chinese medicine has an original here in the Chinese wiki on TCM. In addition to being unclear even in the original, this wiki presents recent "conceptual research" on TCM as if it were an accepted view. It's actually a marginal and little-known re-interpretation of some basic TCM concepts, and therefore shouldn't belong in the "History" section. The so-called "discoveries of Deng Yu" are actually his personal interpretations. Properly translated, the entire paragraph would open with platitudes on the development of TCM starting in the 1950s ("great strides," merging with "Western medicine," increased investments, etc.), followed by the recent conceptual interpretation just mentioned. This would not be a well-structured paragraph, and would still lack any kind of reference. Not sure it's worth spending time rewriting it.-- Madalibi ( talk) 08:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
Added rewrite tags to the two sub-sections under "Modern History List." They seem to have been written by the same person (bot?), and they are equally illegible.-- Madalibi ( talk) 01:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
I see that Wee_Jimmy erased the problematic paragraph. This was probably the best solution.-- Madalibi ( talk) 04:10, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
"Fractal channel" has references link "The traditional life of the first World Congress", Asian medicine (J), october 1996 (first world tradition life study congress).
[1], link of Chinese paper
http://www.chinaschool.org/sgzy/computer/03-0905_jl.htm . Zhang Shenghong "gap dimension" of Quasi-Fractal dimension (Science & Technology Review (Beijing), 1996; Nature exploration, 1997), that was non-fractal gap dimension, their gap dimension=0.3?
Chinese fractal set, Journal of Mathematical medicine, 1999.
Chinese "Modern History List" look link [ [3]] . souce
-- dalaody ( talk) 04:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
This is English Wikipedia. As such, any topics discussed here should be understandable by the average English-speaking reader who is not familiar with the topic. Well, the section I commented out is absolutely NOT understandable to an average (or above-average!) English-speaker unfamiliar with the concepts of TCM. (What is a newcomer to TCM to make of "*Li Dexin: The Qi was material and the function unification Lysenkoism" ??? I could substitute "Shannon Hoon: The eggplant and the overarching bucket of marble drumsticks mozzarella" and it would make precisely as much sense to the uninitiated.) What is needed here is admittedly going to be difficult to find: an editor fluent in English and Chinese, who also has the requisite knowledge to summarize and explain these concepts of TCM in a brief, comprehensible manner. Til that particular superhero arrives, however, this section is going to stay commmented out, for the good of the article. Thank you. Gladys J Cortez 07:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
There is something a little bit "off" with the in-line citations -- not merely a matter of format regularity, but also something askew in the relationship between the text and its presumptive support material. In the process of tweaking in-line citations, my primary goal was to create external links to to an on-line version of the source; and at best, I hoped to identify a link to the pages being referenced. At the same time, I was checking in a superficial manner to see how the gist of article text and the reference sources might -- or might not -- match, e.g., in the "Ancient (classical) TCM history" section
These small changes in the citations might be helpful? -- Tenmei ( talk) 01:48, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
At some point, I found this page very helpful for finding TCM schools around the US. Now I find this list is gone. Does anyone mind if I recreate it? Or, better yet, add an external link to a source that already has this? thanks Admiralblur ( talk) 08:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Hi everyone. I just added tags requesting a clean-up and improved copyediting. Why the article needs editing:
I will start working on the article myself in early December, but I will keep an eye on it until then. Cheers, -- Madalibi ( talk) 02:02, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I only recently took a look, but this article is a mess. It needs to be completely rewritten by an actual TCM Doctor or medical historian. Some suggestions:
Pbfpfoss ( talk) 02:45, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
In the section about TCM's relationship with western medicin the term western should be changed to something more appropriate or left out altogether because:
Therefore it should be replaced by something like conventional medicine, scientific or evidence-based medicine (as opposed to chinese traditional). Rokpok ( talk) 21:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Ariedartin's tag was correct, so I moved it down to the section needing attention. As pointed out above, the section title is not really appropriate. The section also seems to consist mostly of OR with a strong slant in favor of TCM. Beach drifter ( talk) 16:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Hello everyone,
I just posted a message on the talk page of the wiki on
Classical Chinese medicine, in which I propose a simple solution to the current
POV fork and
content fork between so-called "TCM" (traditional Chinese medicine) and "CCM" (classical Chinese medicine). I propose the following modifications:
This simple structure (1. complex history; 2. 20th-century reforms and institutionalization; 3. current TCM precepts; 4. CCM protests) under a neutral title like "Chinese medicine" would help to present a more historically accurate picture of the development of Chinese medicine, and would get rid of the current "POV fork' and "content fork" between TCM and CCM. Any suggestions?
Madalibi (
talk)
06:09, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't think this is suitable for the article (too minor paper), but when I was reading on structure learning in Bayesian networks today, I bumped into this paper and was much amused: Statistical Validation of Traditional Chinese Medicine Theories (apparently published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine). Might be amusing (and good) reading for someone else too, so I'm mentioning it here.
This paper was written by people who certainly know their statistics, but my guess is that they aren't TCM experts (just guessing from the fact that they also published a similar paper in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series). They applied learning latent tree models to some TCM data sets and (quite cursorily) looked at whether the structure matches what TCM says. They "found that the resulting statistical model matches the relevant TCM theory well". Essentially there was some latent variable and conditional dependencies that matched with some yin-yang explanatiomajig or whatever. IMO it's an interesting (and a good) approach, but the data set is way too small, making it something of a proof of concept. -- Coffee2theorems ( talk) 20:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
‘’Supporters of TCM say that this functional approach makes it possible to treat the entire mind and body, rather than one or the other.‘’Sounds like unnecessary POV to me. I'd rather leave this sentence out. Mallexikon ( talk) 08:50, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
I'll try to streamline the text a little in order to make it more accessible. This will mean I'll have to delete some sentences (there's overabundance of irrelevant/redundant information here). Comments are welcome. Mallexikon ( talk) 06:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Streamlining the lead and history sections wasn't so hard as there are plenty of useful facts there that mainly had to be re-arranged a little. I'm moving to the ‘’theory‘’ section now and this seems much harder. At the present it contains:
I recommend deleting this whole section. Please comment. Mallexikon ( talk) 09:59, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Alright, since no one seems to object, I'll delete this section now. Mallexikon ( talk) 02:24, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
I went through the commented-out section regarding post-50s new developments in tcm. None of the discoveries mentioned here did have any effect on the system of tcm (to my knowledge). The only exception might be the development of ear acupuncture by Nogier. Then again, ear acupuncture doesn't have anything to do with meridians, qi etc. but is based solely on the theory of reflex zones. I know a lot of chinese acupuncturist do use ear acupuncture, but since the whole theory is not anchored in the tcm system, I recommend to delete the whole section. Please comment. Mallexikon ( talk) 08:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Ok, Hk, that last series of edits was out to lunch. Intentionally skewing the material to disparage the subject matter is not acceptable for an encyclopedia. You knew these edits were contentious, and you powered through on them anyway; go slower, discuss more, be less POV about the whole thing, otherwise this is just going to deteriorate into a fight. I don't want that, do you? -- Ludwigs2 18:57, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
- Safety section material
I restored this material, which was the only RS material in the Safety section lede. -
TCM has been found to have adverse effects. [8] TCM herbs may contain toxins. [9] [10]
Is there any reason not to include it in this science criticism section? HkFnsNGA ( talk) 22:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
HkFnsNGA, you got my full sympathies for trying to warn against the dangers that come with TCM. However, this is an encyclopedia, and it should be neutral in tone. Trying to lace every bit of information about tcm with a warning is not neutral. Please try to look at this from a mere cultural-anthropologic point of view: we have to try to give the reader a detailed picture of this ancient medicine. I'm not saying the medicine is of any use (in my experience, it's not). It's definetely not scientific. Then again, the shamanism of Siberian tribes isn't, either - it still has to get its place in an encyclopedia.
I tried to structure the criticism you voiced in the appropriate section. I think it needs more structuring, more material, and more citations - maybe you can help with that? But please stay within the given organizational structure. In medicine, we stick to a strict system of overview / history / theory / diagnosis / treatment. I think it's best if we apply it in this article as well.
This article is still a stub. It still needs a lot of work, especially the "concept of disease", "diagnosis", "therapy" and "efficacy" sections. Any help is greatly appreciated - particularly if it comes from scientific minded users.
Mallexikon (
talk)
09:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
I am going back in and inserting Mallexikon's other, more specific, good edits. PPdd ( talk) 19:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
PPdd: This problem with your heavy-handed edits is not that they have no merit. The problem is that you so obviously have an agenda here and are misrepresenting TCM in addition to misleading readers away from the basic plot points and into the rare and sensational "Tiger Penis" which is not promoted by any of the 55 TCM colleges in the US. Please do some more research and work on a more objective writing style. Zoopeda ( talk) 00:50, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Dear All,
I logged on to read about TCM today, and this page is in desperate need of some moderation. It reads like it's been written by someone with a personal vendetta against Traditional Chinese Medicine! I'm a western person and see MDs like the rest of us, but these articles are supposed to teach objectively, providing a balanced portrayal of a subject. Instead, every paragraph follows with statements attacking the credibility of TCM or bringing up controversial issues that may or may not be true (because they don't have citations), and re-using old stereotypes that everyone knows are not true (ie, "Snake Oil" isn't even used by TCM practitioners, according to my acupuncturist!)
Anyway, my problem isn't just that things aren't cited. The big problem here is that even the things that ARE cited are simply very slanted or misleading, highlighting only one side of controversial issues that, ultimately, really only ought to be in ONE of the later sections of the article. Why doesn't this article begin like a history book, explaining the origins and practices of the medicine, rather than begin with attacks on whether or not TCM holds up to scientific rigor, etc? For example, why would the oldest and the planet's single largest medical system contain these sentences in the INTRODUCTION (!) (one being in the first paragraph!): "TCM is subject to criticism regarding a number of issues," "It uses metaphysical principles that have no correlates in science based medicine, and would generally be rejected by it", "...found to be ineffective...contain dangerous toxins," "ineffective medicines" etc? These things may or may not be true--this is beside the point. They're just extremely biased, and I, furthermore, challenge the neutrality and organization of this article.
Finally, how is it that 7 of the 8 photos on this page are of grotesque or controversial animal substances yet some basic internet research reveals that the VAST majority of substances used in TCM practice today are simple PLANTS (most of which seem to also be native to north American traditions). Obviously there are also some definite controversies that should be mentioned, in this article, but that ought to be put in a section to deal with skepticism and criticisms. This article is just so very misleading in layout and organization. It seems odd that the medicine that lasted 3,000 years of practice (something you don't learn reading this article) would have endured all the cultural and political invasions it did if this article were representative of its merits. I'm not asking for a pro-TCM page, but let's seriously organize this thing like adults...
New to wikipedia talk, please advise, Zoop Zoopeda ( talk) 00:42, 12 February 2011 (UTC) Zoopeda ( talk) 00:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
The fact that something is available readily in China does not mean it is considered an appropriate treatment by eatablished TCM universities. ie- Just because American stores sell penis pumps and American doctors preform breast augmentation surgeries doesn't mean that American Medicine IS entirely made up of ridiculous elective procedures. (When you view the medicine page, certainly the horrors of western drug side effects and drug resistant hospital bacterias and crooked doctors that sleep with anesthetized patients certainly do comprise the article!) Secondly, I would trust the experienced licensed TCM doctor I spoke with about this topic before I trusted your friend in China. Either way, the ultimate point is that snake oil and tiger penis and toxic herbs consume this webpage while most TCM treatments (the vast majority) do not include such treatments. It's not that snake oil doesn't exist; it's that it's extremely misleading to highlight this ludicrous side of the medicine when it's such a small minority in terms of practice. This is why wikipedia can never become a reliable source for controversial topics. Whichever side has more free time will dominate the page and swing it way out to one side of the picture. Sad story... 71.237.181.49 ( talk) 05:43, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Although the edits were heavy handed, I've gone and changed the last sentence of the first paragraph because the most reliable footnote to support that statement (ie, the NIH study just mentioned above) actually concludes that "promising results have emerged, for example, showing efficacy of acupuncture in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in postoperative dental pain. There are other situations such as addiction, stroke rehabilitation, headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma, in which acupuncture may be useful as an adjunct treatment or an acceptable alternative or be included in a comprehensive management program" (and obviously not the claim that TCM has "no correlates in science based medicine, and would generally be rejected by it."). Zoopeda ( talk) 19:03, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
A {{POV-statement}} tag was added to this sentence I wrote - "Those that have been scientifically analyzed have sometimes been found to be ineffective, have sometimes made contributions to science-based pharmacology, and sometimes have been found to contain dangerous toxins." [11] neutrality is disputed
The article says: “Western medicine documents the efficacy of its pharmaceuticals through controlled, double blind experiments. Yet this is rarely applicable to TCM. It is impossible to create an effective placebo for acupuncture, for example.” – this is completely wrong and also directly contradicted by other passages in the article which cite such placebo-controlled studies using sham needling. Furthermore, the way in which that review by Ernst et al. is cited suggests a conclusion which is actually quite the opposite of what the review found: namely, that most applications of acupuncture (with some notable exceptions) are ineffective. The article makes it sound as though the opposite were true. The sentence stating that clinical studies cannot test the efficacy of combination treatments (taking multiple herbs at the same time) is also wrong. At most such studies are more complex than studies for a single factor, but by no means are they impossible.-- 94.223.90.171 ( talk) 11:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Dear PPdd, the guideline WP:Bold is not meant to encourage users to go around and delete material they think is not sourced - please read it again. "In wikipedia, you don't have to cite that the sky is blue" and that is for good reason. Regarding my Chinese citations, I'll try to find additional English source where possible. However, English sources are not as reliable - there's a lot of misunderstanding and wrong translations going around. Mallexikon ( talk) 06:57, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
"The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed. How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources yourself that support such material, and cite them. Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, and do not move it to the talk page. [12]".
PPdd please stop deleting this material again and again. I added lots of citations (all English), even though the level of citation was already fine. Please remember that a citation can refer to a whole chapter, not just one sentence. If you have any specific objections, let's talk about it. Mallexikon ( talk) 01:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Working on the history section I came across the information that the Huangdi Neijing "states that to be a master physician, one must master the use of metaphors as they apply to medicine and the body". That's fascinating (and well sourced), but - as far as I can see - it's also insignificant. Would the editor who wrote this mind if I deleted it? Mallexikon ( talk) 09:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Hi, there are two glaring unacceptable practices here that I would like to point out.
1) All listed items should be in a stylistic order (alphabetically, chronologically, etc.) but the orders are inconsistent. I have edited the herbal medicine section in alphabetical order (even that is mostly unacceptable). The use of scientific names for plants would be best but it may render it inconvenient for pedestrian access as a reference.
2) The article fails to present full view of the subjection, so far there are more negative, efficacy comments cited online that fails to represent fully the complexity of the topic. To present proper reference material, the coverage should cover all aspects. As a page written on religion by mostly Christians would fail to represent the full diversity of religious attitudes in the world. The examples given are woefully minimal, 5000 years of medical history has been reduced to 10 examples per section. Some of these research are designed to test only one herb. The essence of Traditional Chinese Medicine is the use of a combination of herbs and proteins blended together in various amounts in order to induce a bodily reaction in the patient that may help them treat their condition. I would to present an analogy: the pathogenicity of cholera, Vibrio cholerae is the pathogenic cause of cholera, one of the most devastating diseases in human history. We cannot eradicate this bacteria easily because other species of the Vibrio family harbor pieces of the pathogenic gene and may transform themselves genetically into Vibrio cholera after bacterial conjugation with other species of the Vibrio family, hence any eradication targeting V. cholera tends to fail but eradication of the Vibrio family would cause a high level of environmental upset and resource cost. The point of this example is to say that one single strain of bacteria can be non-pathogenic, harmless, impotent, but a few strains of them together with the right genes can cause a disease that has killed millions and still is killing people today, please reference the Haitian disaster outbreak for the latest issues. Chinese medicine works in similar fashion except for the benefit of people, a combination of herbs and proteins/toxins/etc. must be used in order to active their effectiveness. This is something that Western science has failed to comprehend fully and is just now beginning to realize and medical professionals are starting to use these herbs in complement with normal allopathic treatments. Not all Chinese medicine is useful, harmless, or helpful. Some are known to be quite toxic, pointless, and wasteful. Those arise from ancient traditions and times and should be documented as such alongside what is useful, harmless, or helpful. Some of the practice of using animal parts such as the placenta is used today in a variation. In the most common use of the placenta is used to make hair conditioner for thinning or dull hair, the placenta used in this case is cow or sheep in Chinese Medicine. Western medicine has adopted this practice and now uses it for various purposes also including asthma, obesity, et cetera, please see Alternative Uses for Placenta, not the least of which, stem cell technology. Chinese medicine's modern use of animal parts from threatened and endangered species is a condemnable act. These concepts were derived from the ancient times and the belief in them is rooted without any scientific proof. Even if there were benefits (I do not claim there are any at all, I do not believe there are any at all.), because these animals are endangered and threatened then alternatives to these should be sought. Many Chinese remain ignorant and there is a movement amongst some more famous Chinese Celebrities, such as Jackie Chan, Yao Ming, et cetera who are appearing in public announcements in China to reduce the consumption/popularity of such medicinal items in China. I believe that Wikipedia is a tool to educate and transfer ideas and should allow readers to come to their own conclusions with FULL inclusion of all information regarding the topic instead of only a partial glimpse.
I am currently an allopathic medical student who has worked in the past translating Chinese medical research documents for a year working on the latest Chinese medical/scientific research regarding medications for a multi-million dollar biotechnology firm that invests/advises on patents for US investors. One of my parents is an Eastern pharmacist and has taught me the basics of pharmaceutical herbalism in Traditional Chinese Medicine, I hold 4 degrees in Biology, Microbiology, Chemistry, and English along with minors in Biotechnology, Genetics, and Physics. I give these two opinions as a past research reporter and and someone who has sat on the fence between Western views and Eastern medicine for a long time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kytica ( talk • contribs) 10:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
Wiki is viewed with skepticism by many, who think they may find junk information hidden in it. Skeptical readers like to be able to verify everything. A problem with Chinese language sources, and even with hard copy sources, is that they are difficult or impossible for most readers to verify, making the article essentially useless. From Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English_sources –
“When citing such a source without quoting it, the original and its translation should be provided if requested by other editors: this can be added to a footnote or the talk page.”
It is best in a footnote, since it will be hard for average future non-editor users to find in the talk page archives, if they even know what a talk page or its archive is. PPdd ( talk) 17:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
I understand why there has been a misunderstanding. WP:V requires both' (1) a copy of the original in the original language, and (2) a translation of it, when requested by an editor. (3) This is not just a copy and translation of the title and author, but of the text that is referenced by a line in the article. If it is so extensive as to be a copyright violation, it should go in the talk page where the request is made, otherwise it is best in a footnote. PPdd ( talk) 16:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
In the meridian section there's this sentence: "The locations are not based on anatomical structures discovered using dissection and the scientific method, but are based on the number of rivers considered to be major that flowed through a particular ancient Chinese empire, and calculations of Chinese astrology relating heavenly bodies to the human body" It has 6 citations (too many, actually, according to wikipedia standards). Out of these 6, 4 are accessible online. I just checked - all of them don't actually line this (ridiculous) claim! I challenge the editor who wrote this to come up with the exact quotations from the other 2 sources, otherwise I'm going to delete this sentence as a whole. I'll delete the 4 unfaithful citations right now. Mallexikon ( talk) 10:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
You can't delete material because quotes are not provided except for foreign languge sources. Quotations are only required for foreign language sources. Also, you must establish that these are reliable sources. This has not been done. There have been citation needed tags up for many weeks now, and you took them off without providing translations. You can't just delete blocks of reliable sources such as Biocommunicatoin and the American Cancer Society because it does not fit your personal views, nor challenge their conclusions without reason other than your personal views. You must establish that your many sources are reliable sources, then provide translations. These requests were up for weeks. PPdd ( talk) 06:58, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be tagged with a "needs a cite" tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.