"He's an odd bird? maybe Asperger's or something?"

Post Reply New Topic

From my perspective & experience Mercola pretty much F'n nailed it.

Remember: There once was a time when everyone Knew that the world was flat. Those who said otherwise were persecuted. It took a long time for the round earth theory to gain acceptance.

Same applies to all of these recent findings & publishings about autism, IMO. In time I expect these things to be broadly accepted and well known w/ probiotics being the predominantly prescribed treatment. Only time will tell if I'm correct or not.

Last edited by goldfish21 on 16 Oct 2014, 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, I thought you'd like Mercola. Was surprised you hadn't heard of him, tbh, but there you go: by introducing you to him I've done my good deed for the day.

Bravo! You deserve a NiceCupOfTea! Perhaps I could make you a bitter cup of a blend of anti fungal herbal teas in my collection?

Oh god, no. I hate herbal teas. I'll have Twinnings' English Breakfast with milk and no sugar, please >_>.

Goldfish21, I'm working on looking through your posts. Not done yet navigating through the tangled mass of complex and long-winded explanations you've given as to why you must be right and others must be wrong. In the meantime, let me summarise my position:

1. If you share your story you are sharing it. If someone then says something negative about your story, and you carefully explain to them why they're wrong, then someone else says something negative about your story, and you carefully explain to them why they're wrong, then someone else says something negative about your story, then you carefully explain why they're wrong, and the process goes on endlessly, then you are not sharing. You are forcing your opinion on others. If you disagree with me then I'm afraid you simply don't understand what "Forcing your opinion on others" means, or you pretend not to understand. That's all there is to it. Others have already explained this to you as simply as they can. If you then claim that you're not trying to argue with them, but do it anyway, then you are lying to them and possibly your self. Again, that's all there is to it. I can't put it more plainly.

2. The best way to find out if your treatment works is not to try it for my self. It is to prove it. I don't need to try painkillers to know if they work for me. It has been proven by professionals that they work for 99.99% of people. You don't need to present a scientific study you have done. Just show me one someone else has done that proves that there is a direct link between Autism in adults and dietary problems. None of your links do this. None of them. On the other hand, people have presented to you, in previous threads you started, proof from actual scientists that dietary changes can't cure Autism. I can put up a link if you wish.

3. The best way to prove that you don't care if we try it or not is to stop explaining why we're wrong that it won't work for us. The best way to prove that you want to do more than share it is to reply to this post I'm writing now. Again, it's simple. I don't see why you don't understand this, and I have no better way of explaining it to you. If you were sure of your self, or disinterested in what choice we make about your treatments, then you would see no need to validate your opinions by arguing with us. You perpetuate this debate by joining in. If you wish us to stop "Attacking" you, by which I mean politely disagreeing with you, then you should lead by example. Just stop arguing and we will stop arguing back. You started this thread, amongst others about the same thing.

4. You have written several hundred posts and started many topics. I have started no topics. I have written less than 40 posts. Ignoring me is easy. Why not try it now? Ignoring you is very hard to do when you keep forcing your opinions on us.

5. I won't try it for my self because it might be a waste of time and it sounds hard to do. How hard? Here is a direct quote from you: [i]"?diet alone, as extreme as I went with overdosing on medicinal herbs/spices may not have EVER cleared my digestive tract as well as I've managed to do. Even drinking kilos of fine powdered clay in my protein shakes to push things through the digestive tract. I'm sure it's all helped, but I never would have passed the parasites out of my intestines if it weren't for the gross science of doing dozens and dozens of high volume herbal enemas over the past couple of years. I had to do them many times over a period of months before I passed 15-20 or so "jellyfish" out of my intestines that must have been clinging to my intestinal walls.?[/i] High volume enemas don?t sound easy to me. How can you know that this will work for anyone at all? You've admitted that you don't have a diagnosis. You made a guess. You have admitted that you don't know what your brain wiring is like. The best way to prove it is not to try it for our selves, but for you to offer proof. I can say that as many times as it takes for it to sink in to your mind. If you weren't insisting that we try it, and don't care if we do, then you wouldn't keep arguing with us. How hard do we have to work before you realize that? You strike me as obsessive and unable to understand other people's feelings. Two typical Autistic traits. I doubt you've treated Autism to even a 5% extent to be honest, and I only have the word of someone who admits he doesn't have an official diagnosis.

6. You know what has happened in your life. Fine. I know what has happened in mine. You don't know what happened in mine and I can only take your word about what happened in yours. Logic suggests that you have no idea what your treatment would do to my life. None. It might make me worse for all you know. This is the problem with personal experience verses proof.

7. How are you happier and healthier and moving on with your life? You are stuck in a constant loop where you go up to people and say "Try my cure! Try it! It works! Try it! Oh, you don't think it works? Well it does because of this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this." That isn?t moving on and it isn't being healthy. It isn't productive. It is obsessive. How do we know your healthier and happier? You've taken a treatment you can't prove works for a disability you don't know you have, but have just guessed you have.

8. When I told you that I don't think you'll ever give up, I didn't mean you won't stop your tireless efforts to improve mankind. I meant that you're incapable of admitting that you might be wrong. I was trying to be polite but your efforts have shown me that I need to be harsh. Please show me that you are capable of admitting that you're wrong. I would much rather think kindly of you.

9. I could claim eating a hairdryer cured my dyslexia. I would get shouted down, and rightly too, because my personal experience is irrelevant in the face of science and logic. I'm a Christian. I don't evangelise here. I don't even argue when an Atheist drops his/her disbelief into a conversation that has nothing to do with religion. The reason is that other people haven't asked for it, and science isn't on my side. If people want to PM you or e-mail you or read your story then I won't stop them. They are making a choice. When you act the way you are acting now, you are not giving people a choice (If you intend to argue that you're not doing this then see my first point.)

I'm getting tired of writing this list. I'm just going to present you with a final challenge: If you want to prove that you're happy if we try the treatment and equally happy if we don't, then stop arguing. If you want to halt this debate then stop arguing. Do you dare say that you might be wrong when you say this can help others? I challenge you to say it and mean it. Dare you agree to disagree? Again, I challenge you to say it. Not say it and add a long explanation underneath that undermines what you've said. Just say it. Or type it to be more precise. Dare you say that you don't know for sure that you have Autism? Again, I challenge you to say this. Without adding something that undermines it.

Just because you don't believe me doesn't make me a liar.

Yep.

If autism is due to an altered brain wiring opposed to a neurotypical brain wiring and you say you treated your symptoms caused by autism thus by an altered brain wiring opposed to a neurotypical brain wiring it implies that you altered your brain wiring as you only feel 5% autistic symptoms left (however you assess it).
The question also is where you were on the spectrum to begin with (mild/moderate/severe in which symptoms).
Still it is a good thing that you feel better and that your diet works for you.

So he claims. Unfortunately it's hard to believe anything he says at this point. His assertion that this extreme medicinal diet has "functionally cured" him is dubious at best. I have reasonable doubt it's truly cured him, much less anyone else.

Make no mistake, I do believe a healthy lifestyle can improve quality of life for others. However I'm not in a position to recommend specific treatments to anyone, especially on an internet community discussion forum.

Quacks frequently cover their office with books. It's a way of making them seem more credible to the ignorant. Another trick is sticking up dubious or irrelevant qualifications in frames. Ironically, this is one of the few things they do that is supported by science! People who don't have the ability to tell the crappy science that naturopaths spout also don't have the ability to judge the quality of the books or qualifications they display.

Your friend Jack talks about Candidiasis, Leaky Gut, Roundup Bioaccumulation, acid/alkaline dietary imbalance, and GMOs being poison. These are common claims made by clueless pseudoscientists that have no grounding in reality (i.e. they are not supported by the scientific literature). Spouting pseudoscientific crap is common amongst homoeopaths, who are often opposed to vaccination, antibiotic use, and other triumphs of evidence-based medicine, instead preferring homoeopathy, reflexology, iridology and acupuncture, as well as using vitamin supplementation as a magic bullet. I do not know whether your friend believes in any of that rubbish, though I would question why he doesn't practice medicine if he's not clueless.

My reasons for "hating on naturopaths":
- They kill people whose lives would be saved if they sought evidence-based approaches
- They also reduce the quality of lives for many of the patients they don't kill
- My mother is particularly incapable of distinguishing science from pseudoscience and has forced ineffective treatments on me in the past, as well as wasting huge sums of money on treatments for herself

I would like to remind you that I am a Biology student, not a "pre-med" student or anything like that. I find Biochemistry dull and I don't want to be a doctor and fail to help some people. I'm probably going to become an ecologist if I stay in science. I still know more about Biochemistry and particularly how science works than most people. If you are interested in leaving the bottom quartile, the previously recommended "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre will help you. Or "Bad Pharma", if you prefer.

This discussion has become very polarised, which is no surprise. Continued polarization tends to morph into hardened positions, which can and often do then morph into personal insults. At that point, any balance tends to get lost.

Goldfish, I don't think you are a liar. I think you have represented your own experience, as you have perceived it, honestly and that your initial motivations for "spreading the word" were positive: you wanted to help others find the relief that you experienced. I do think that your enthusiasm "over-egged the pudding" and that you tended to overlook the important fact that individuals have very different biology, biochemistry and physiological function. There is no one size fits all. I can understand your hope that this could happen. The fact is that it won't.

On the other hand, some of your detractors write as if evidence based science is always 100% reliable. It isn't. Science has made some whopper mistakes, some due to dirty dealing in the background for personal gain, some due to carelessness in method etc some due to pigheadedness: long term professors whose pet theories are eventually proven wrong have been known to try and suppress compelling evidence that disproves the theory they have built long careers on.

This thread is deteriorating into the predictable: evidence based science, all good, alternative medicine all bad. I don't think that represents reality. Allopathic medicine (Western medicine) developed out of natural palliatives: as most people know, the ancient Persians thousands of years ago discovered that willow bark tea reduced fever. That knowledge led to the modern development of synthesised aspirin by the German company Bayer. Foxglove was known to stabilise some heart conditions, as far back as the druids. Today it is manufactured as Digitalis by drug companies. The whole field of food as medicine has exponentially developed in the past 30 years as previously undiscovered constituents in everyday foods have been identified, with considerable therapeutic applications by both naturopaths, orthodox nutritionists and medicine.

So I take the view that polarity is unhelpful, generally, because there is not a sharp dividing line between "natural cures" and orthodox medicine. I'n sorry to say that there are dodgy dealers on both sides.

What does concern me is the enthusiastic promotion by some naturopathic supporters who generalise from a single case (often themselves) and promote their own miracle cure to others on this basis alone. Suppose I have intractable excema. One day I try a new food, and the next day I find my excema has gone, it never comes back. Did the food cure it? Probably not. It is statistically likely that applying a postage stamp to the back of my neck would have produced the same effect. Yet we can all understand why that particular food hypothesis is attractive to the cured person.

I try to keep an open mind. By going the "all science" way, we risk missing something really groundbreaking and important; by going the "all naturopath way" we risk mistaking random outcomes for proof, and exploitation of the ignorant by the ignorant (sometimes). It's Pla net Earth: nothing's perfect...

This feels like a dog chasing it's tail. I wish you the best Goldfish21.

The topic is locked:

1. It's going nowhere.

2. The OP keeps referencing a topic that was locked. Discussing locked topics is against the rules.

Additionally, I'm official disappearing the other locked topic in question.

Thanks.