Talk:Traditional Chinese medicine

This page is scientifically inaccurate and negatively biased

Wow! Quite apart from the overall racist tone, this page is objectively inaccurate and misleading. There is a LOT of reliable evidence about various TCM mechanisms of action, readily available on google scholar. Much of the research relates to areas of medical science that are relatively new to western understanding eg inflammatory responses, the HPA axis, the nervous system, the microbiome/s and how all of these systems talk to each other. The sources cited here are outdated and mostly disproven - the critique uses sources from 2008 to justify the bulk of the argument (back when we were still using flip phones). It’s very sad that wiki has such a poor quality page for TCM, it’s an incredibly interesting field both scientifically and culturally. It’s also potentially turning people away from using potentially effective TCM treatments for conditions that are difficult to treat otherwise, like chronic pain disorders This really needs to be fixed. 49.185.83.184 (talk) 06:07, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia follows reliable sources and for biomedical claims needs WP:MEDRS. Bon courage (talk) 06:13, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Kowtowing to WP:BESTSOURCES is not racism. You don't get away with pushing quackery at Wikipedia just because you accuse Wikipedians of racism. WP:NOTDUMB.

There will always be crappy papers which have not been debunked yet. Mainly because a lot of papers are simply ignored by mainstream scientists, instead of taking them seriously.

A few rare TCM remedies could be developed into mainstream medicines. But this requires hard work instead of rhetorical ploys. Accusations of racism are not what gets your medicine approved on US/EU market.

Let's take the microbiome: the evidence that all TCM cures are good at the microbiome is simply missing. That's just hand waving at the idea of microbiome. It's not a claim that could be taken seriously, unless there are WP:MEDRS-compliant sources for thousands of TCM remedies.

Chinese medical scientists lack funds for performing research, lack freedom of speech, lack a culture of contradicting their peers if objective evidence so demands—they're basically educated that speaking truth to power is insanity. They know that criticizing TCM could make some CCP boss angry, and that would mean jail time. Totalitarianism is a ruthless game, and science is its victim. The PRC government is not interested whether TCM is effective, they just see it as a cash cow. Research about its effectiveness could only ruin the cash flow. tgeorgescu (talk) 09:50, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

This is factually not true. First of all, it's incredibly narrow-minded to just assume all Chinese medical scientists lack in the areas you described, and that the CCP would generally be so offended by critisising TCM. TCM has declined in China due to the more government-funded Western medical system including pharmaceutics. So to assume that the CCP directly somehow profits off TCM or that it is their "cash cow" is laughable. Research funds in China for TCM do still exist - but they are very competitive and generally geared towards Western medicine disease patterns and only available to doctors or researchers who work in clinical contexts.

Apart from that, it is untrue that TCM research only takes place in the People's Republic. TCM is practiced worldwide, and there are many, much more innovative studies coming from countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan. So we're not really talking about "crappy papers" here, we're talking about scientific studies. While not all of the TCM principles can be proven, its efficacy in certain areas of treatment has been proven and continues to be proven as more insights on the nervous system and stimulus processing are made.

I agree that the article lacks a more updated, modern tone. It's not written objectively at all. 2A02:3103:274:3800:11ED:B92D:BFC2:1FCC (talk) 18:48, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Can you please provide links or bibliographical data for these scientific studies? Simonm223 (talk) 19:03, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Artemisinin was broadcasted as a success of TCM. In fact, the way Artemisia got administered as in TCM rendered it ineffective against illness. Artemisinin is a success of modern medicine and chemical industry, rather than that of TCM.

And perhaps I wasn't clear enough: Chinese scientists aren't afraid of making all party bosses angry, or even many of them. Making one angry is enough for doing prison time. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:22, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree 100%. The first line is completely inaccurate and such a far-reaching claim should be viewed with skepticism. "A large share of its claims are pseudoscientific, with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence of effectiveness or logical mechanism of action." This shows a complete disregard for hundreds of papers (peer reviewed included) published. A few minutes searching National Institutes of Health should help the authors discover papers written in English, since they implied that the ones written in Chinese are not valuable. There is some good information this document, but now I feel that it is being used to hide the claim that TCM is fringe science. The article left me with a completely negative feeling about TCM, even though as a researcher I know the information to be inaccurate and based on narrow references and bias. Shumanji (talk) 00:00, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Biomedicine is rife with dodgy papers and fraud, see the replication crisis article for details. Many papers supporting TCM are also in journals specifically about TCM, which raises concerns about bias and conflict of interest. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:38, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

People who complain about that need to be told that they are at the wrong website. This website will never agree with their complaints. It is futile trying. What they want is simply put incompatible with Wikipedia. Even if all here wished to make TCM acceptable to mainstream science, we could not do it. And Wikipedia mirrors mainstream science. So, it's not even our fault: that's how mainstream science is, outside of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a PR venue for pseudoscientists and quackademics.

Any of us, including me and Hemiauchenia, would get quickly topic banned if we would seek to whitewash TCM. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:03, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Replaced source on Mao not believing in TCM

I was interested by this claim, so I checked the source to find out more. Previously, it was this one. That's a perfectly respectable source, but the claim is sort of a footnote in an article not very focused on history, written by a non-historian. Looking closer and following the old source's own references, that writer seems to be mainly relying on this Slate article. Said article is a more detailed historical treatment by an academic specializing in a related field, so it seems more appropriate as a source. The claim itself can be traced back to The Private Life of Chairman Mao which is an imperfect but important primary source. Given that, and the sensitive nature of this article, I will also attribute the claim.

This is just a routine improvement, but given how important and touchy this article I felt I ought to explain my edit. Nicknimh (talk) 01:09, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Fringe

@TommyKirchhoff: You're edit warring with WP:PROFRINGE in an article under the purview of WP:ARBCAM and WP:ARBPS. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:36, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

In addition to the credible source I added, I will add many more credible sources to this article, and this page will change for the better. TommyKirchhoff (talk) 21:08, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Removal of credible source

The members who consider themselves the gangsters of this page, who use the word quackery as if it is legitimate, have removed my credible citation. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9844554/ which is a violation. name=:"Houston P 2016">Pam, Houston (Nov 2016). "Health benefits of tai chi". Can Fam Physician. 62 (11): 881–890. PMC 9844554. PMID 28661865. I will add this citation and many more credible citations to this page, and we will all follow the rules. TommyKirchhoff (talk) 20:59, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

From the quoted paper: "... many of the initial trials were small and had methodologic weakness. A key weakness was the lack of blinding of participants... A final limitation of tai chi research is that trial lengths of 6 to 12 weeks might not be sufficient to assess benefit, especially for chronic conditions." tgeorgescu (talk) 21:11, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Also from the quoted paper:

"Conclusion

Physicians can now provide evidence-based recommendations on tai chi to their patients, understanding that this is an active area of research. As with any exercise program, ongoing medical follow-up for any clinical condition is indicated.

EDITOR’S KEY POINTS

More than 500 studies and 120 systematic reviews have been published. The strongest evidence of benefit is for preventing falls in older adults living in the community, osteoarthritis, Parkinson disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease rehabilitation, improving cognitive capacity, and improving balance and aerobic capacity." TommyKirchhoff (talk) 21:17, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Garbage in, garbage out. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:18, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

You're a cherry picker, George. It's not going to work. TommyKirchhoff (talk) 21:25, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

The proper place for addressing that is WP:RSN. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:30, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

BOLD is me. Especially when I see on the talk page that you guys are incorrigible. TommyKirchhoff (talk) 22:05, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Again the advice is: be bold, but not reckless. Is Jimmy Wales also incorrigible? See why at WP:LUNATICS. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

I did nothing reckless. You guys are reckless. TommyKirchhoff (talk) 22:16, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

WP:1AM. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:23, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Remember what I stated above: Any of us, including me and Hemiauchenia, would get quickly topic banned if we would seek to whitewash TCM. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:08, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

From the Eigenshink paper: "Furthermore, an exploration of Tai Chi in comparison to other mobility programs in Parkinson’s disease and other disorders has more recently drawn considerable attention [112]. These TCM-based interventions apparently improve the patient’s ability to move in a reproducible way;" TommyKirchhoff (talk) 21:19, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Yup, physical exercise improves life. Captain Obvious. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:22, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, let's have Parkinson's patients lift weights and jog, Jorge. You're brilliant. TommyKirchhoff (talk) 21:26, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Tai chi is physical exercise, that's what I meant. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:30, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for playing, Captain CherryPicker. TommyKirchhoff (talk) 22:01, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Tai chi is martial art, not medicine. It does not belong in this article. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:01, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Exactly. And we don't have to assume that a mystical energy exists in order to admit that physical exercise has health effects. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:43, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Tai Chi is a martial art and not traditional chinese medicine so I'm not sure why this article is relevant here. Plus there's always been evidence to suggest that regular physical activity improves health so I'm not sure what this study proves that hasn't already been proven. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 13:13, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

The first reference for this article (Eiginshink) states: "Furthermore, an exploration of Tai Chi in comparison to other mobility programs in Parkinson’s disease and other disorders has more recently drawn considerable attention [112]. These TCM-based interventions apparently improve the patient’s ability to move in a reproducible way; however, this cannot be ascertained in many other areas of TCM: The standardization of herbal remedies is difficult to achieve." This and hundreds of other credible references denote that Tai Chi is one of the four main branches of Traditional Chinese Medicine. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9844554/ TommyKirchhoff (talk) 16:10, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

The solid consensus at WP:RSN is that QuackWatch is reliable for claims pertaining to WP:FRINGE medicine. It should not get removed.

Otherwise, the claim that physical activity is good for health is not particularly new or notable. It's actually quite boring. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:36, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Clearly, your reading and comprehension level is below 9th grade. The excerpt from the very first reference on the page says Tai Chi is both an integral part of TCM, and is different than other exercise interventions. Mere, strength-based "physical activity" is not appropriate for Parkinson's patients. If your reading and comprehension is actually above the 9th-grade level, you are the gaslighting king ! You ignore any truth that is not spoon-fed to you. TommyKirchhoff (talk) 19:42, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Don't be so sure I can't read. The claim that Tai chi is medical treatment is, ehm, unconvincing. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:32, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Read WP:NPA and WP:FOCUS. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:21, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Can we at least all agree on one point

Can we at least all agree that before the introduction of Western science to China, before the cultural revolution TCM is simply unable to be considered pseudoscience because it existed before science and never claimed itself to be backed by science? SecretSpectre (talk) 21:43, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I think that's accurate to when the content is about history, but it goes against consensus to use that as a rationale for how to discuss TCM as "medicine" today. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:34, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

There’s also the idea that Confucianism was hostile to empiricism which may have slowed scientific progress. Viriditas (talk) 18:09, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Could you explain to me what the legendary Confucius (one of the most important philosophers in the history of humanity) has to do with this discussion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.255.178.217 (talk) 20:53, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Philosophy without empiricism is theory without praxis. This is why traditional medicine isn’t considered scientific, and is largely a placebo response. Viriditas (talk) 21:27, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

It makes no sense to devalue a person who has contributed significantly to the culture of human history; there is much more beyond science, and beyond your way of thinking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.255.178.40 (talk) 00:13, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Critical inquiry isn't a form of "devaluing". Many people have contributed significantly to human history and culture; not all of their contributions are good. As for what lies beyond, science explains how, but questions of why are left to other fields. Just because we don't know something doesn't mean we need to fill the gaps with nonsense. I don't know why the universe came into existence; should I just assume it did so because it had a hankering for chocolate and needed to create itself to eat it? Theobroma is the food of the gods, after all. Now bow down and worship my church of chocolate and don't forget to send me a blank check. See how easy this is? Viriditas (talk) 00:24, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

In your comment you implied that Confucius' contributions are not good (I'm not referring to traditional Chinese medicine), which is your opinion (although very strange and grossly inaccurate, I respect it). Furthermore, we are talking about a serious thing, not chocolate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.255.178.218 (talk) 00:34, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

"Good" and "bad" is how we teach children morality. For adults, and especially for philosophers, Confucius's philosophy had both positive effects (e.g. secularism) and negative effects (noted above). tgeorgescu (talk) 00:42, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

No, it is not a negative effect, because in Confucius' time traditional Chinese medicine was right (what's the point of evaluating a past custom with today's Western eyes?), but unfortunately it is and has been politically sponsored too much by the dictatorial Chinese government; perhaps this should be specified in the lead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.255.178.218 (talk) 02:31, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Please stop. This is not a forum. Confucius is not relevant, and agreement or disagreement among Wikipedia editors about when TCM became pseudoscience is not relevant. Only what reliable sources say is relevant. See WP:OR. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:25, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Confucian philosophy is mentioned in the lead section. The connection between weak and non-existent empiricism and Confucianism is in the sources, such as Allen 2021. I will attempt to add the material about Chinese medicine here. Viriditas (talk) 22:26, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

There's an enormous amount of material here, as the book is 541 pages. Some highlights:

The idea that serious statements should be subject to experiential testing goes back to a still earlier source in the philosophy of the Mohists, whose founder, Mo Di, was a young contemporary of Confucius. The sect is unique in Chinese thought for their advocacy of impartial standards, which they think should replace partial human judgment everywhere. In service to their ideal, Mohist scholars carried out pioneering research in optics, logic, methodology, and epistemology. Apart from a devoted sect, however, few intellectuals warmed to the project, and when the school disappeared from history (it seems not to survive the Han dynasty), their innovations fell into oblivion until modern times...Not all the philosophers of Chinese tradition approved holding statements to an experiential norm or expecting verification by use. These ideas are more uniformly held among authors associated with the so-called school of laws (fa jia), China’s administrative philosophy, of which Hanfeizi is the culmination. Xunzi is a Confucian work, but the detestation Mencius expressed toward Mozi and the obsession with "profit" (li) diminished the appeal of experiential verification in later Confucian thought...

The renaissance of Confucian philosophy under the Northern Song (eleventh–twelfth century) coincided with a new direction in medical learning that transformed the whole later history of Chinese medicine. For the first time the literati, Confucian scholar-officials, started paying attention to medical texts...It was Confucian scholar-officials, not practicing physicians, who took the lead in collecting, collating, revising, and printing ancient medical canons. The sea change may have something to do with all four of the first Song emperors being interested in medicine, to the point of writing on medical topics, and even practicing acupuncture and prescribing drugs...

These Confucian physicians started taking over a medical hierarchy previously dominated by hereditary medical families, drawing elite and medical culture closer and widening the distance between learned practitioner and village healer. For instance, the Yuan dynasty ru yi Zhu Zhenheng regarded the practice of medicine as a form of classical study and Confucian "investigation of things" (ge wu). "The ancients believed that medicine is one of the concerns of us ru [Confucian scholars] in extending knowledge by investigating things." His experience as a physician exerted no pressure on his natural philosophy, however, and philosophy did not change what he and peers did as physicians. All that changed was the tenor of their exposition of medical canons, which became more closely aligned with the natural philosophy that Confucianism had by then become...

In drug therapy, when physicians actually applied their pharmaceuticals, criteria of proof were permissive. The connections these physicians seek among their concepts, observations, and outcomes make it difficult for any single factor to be controlled or perceived as specifically efficacious, nor was any effort made to simplify drug compounds by eliminating superfluous ingredients. In a world where everything relates to everything else, nothing is really superfluous and anything could be part of the cause of anything else, which makes controlled experiments counterintuitive. While these doctors would "try" therapies, and even try them on animals, they made no orchestrated use of experimental test. They followed inherited formulas, enjoyed merited reputations for curing, and could rationalize their diagnosis and treatment in the terms of orthodox natural philosophy. They understood the value of observation, practiced it professionally, developed methods of standardized observation for case histories, and organized the large-scale collection of data, all of which resembles a sort of empiricism, exposing themselves to an encounter with nature and learning from it...However, we should also notice a persistent philologism. The scholar-physicians know that their texts need revision but they cannot forget about books and return to experience, as Gilbert and Harvey proudly claimed to have done. Natural studies became a field for scholars fascinated by etymology. Natural phenomena were approached through their names, whose derivations connoisseurs of learning fondly traced in the texts of the past. Their compendia presented information about wu (things, phenomena) by way of a history of glosses on their names...The expressions of empiricism in Chinese medicine are chiefly in modes of observation, including case histories and the large-scale collection of data. While the relation to patients made careful observation and records a professional duty, there is little empiricism in their observations, which confirm texts but do not originate concepts, provoke theories, or interact with hypotheses. Professional medicine seems to have done little to liberate experience, or make it an instrument of discovery. The Song dynasty alliance with Confucianism associated medicine with this philosophy of nature, but concepts and practice were never discomfited by an experience unanticipated in the texts. These doctors did not need discoveries. They already had the most important knowledge, which was in their texts, a patrimony of the ancient sages held under imperial imprimatur. What could be more credible? The challenge was not to correct the text or get out of the text, but to come into the right relation with the text as an individual practitioner. Sincerity will take you further in this medicine than empiricism...Traditional China engaged in fruitful experimentation on many fronts without self-conscious empiricism or experimental philosophy. Practitioners did not conceptualize experiments as a topic-neutral art that could be directed at problems in traditionally noncommunicating domains. In sum, theirs were experiments (including observations) without empiricism, that is, experiments without a philosophical concept of an experiment admitting of topic-neutral use on problems of knowledge...Despite far-ranging experiments, thinking about experimentation remained undeveloped in China. No philosophy of experiment emerges from their experimental practice, and none of the philosophical lineages introduce experimental experience into their ideas on nature, knowledge, or virtue. That does not mean they were not "empirical," or offer no variation on empiricism's themes, but rather that we should not expect their empiricism to share a European assumption about the value of knowledge...

It would be a mistake of another kind to interpret the Confucian "investigation of things" on the Western model of empirical research. The investigation of things does not seek the solution to problems of knowledge under discussion in a research community. Training in Confucian investigation should make one accomplished in apprehending the relations of things together, as proved by sagacious action. That is what investigating principle cultivates, although the "things" to be investigated include books as much as nature. All experience, from books to nature, from words of the sages to personal history, is material for "the investigation of things." The classics provide templates, and investigating things is really just a deeper experience of the classics, not the inquiry of European empiricism...

The author, philosopher Barry Allen, goes on to connect this to traditional Chinese medicine, referring to Li Shizhen and his Bencao Gangmu as a "widely used reference of traditional Chinese medicine both in China and the diaspora." (423) Allen describes this work as an "effort to rectify pharmaceutical nomenclature as a Confucian 'rectifcation of names' (zheng ming)" and spends a lengthy paragraph describing its Confucian origins. Allen concludes: "Confucians use experience artfully, and disavow innate ideas; knowledge begins with experience, which is not just perception but selection and memory; and we are directed to extend knowledge through investigation. That should be a kind of empiricism, though these Confucians envision no use of artfully orchestrated experience to advance research problems. The investigation of things is an ethical practice, a technics of self-cultivation, not an Organon, an instrument of knowledge. Extending and perfecting knowledge means bringing the competence of individuals to perfection, making their knowledge sagacious, and not enhancing a corporate body of professional knowledge like the Hippocratic techne." Viriditas (talk) 00:33, 8 February 2025 (UTC)