Monday, May 01, 2006

What would you do to save your child?

Here's a little exercise. Let's say that to our horror our toddler has just ingested a spoonful of rat poison pellets we've so carelessly laid in the corners of our kitchen. Let's assume a teaspoon is enough to take out a Rottweiler. Let's assume as well that we have no medical training and that inducing our child to throw up is not an option. Which of the following would you do and which do you think would most probably save her life?

1. Do nothing. You carry on as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.

2. You sit beside him and assume the lotus position. You close your eyes, bring your brain waves down to the alpha level, and visualize white light dissolving the poison in his tummy. With more blinding white light you clean his entire digestive and circulatory systems. (For Old Agers out there, that's the Silva Method for treating any and all diseases)

3. You rush your child to a Chinese medicine man or a shaman or a chiropractor or a faith healer or a psychic healer or some "alternative medicine" practitioner.

4. You fall on your knees and start praying to Kuan Yin (the goddess of mercy), Allah, Buddha, Salus (Roman goddess of health), Feta (uh perhaps not), Baal, or whichever deity/deities you subscribe to.

5. In addition to #4 you run to the phone and call all your relatives and friends and ask them to pray with you. You also send SMS (text) messages to everyone in your address book to spread the word and get the whole world praying, chanting, lighting incense, ....

6. You rush her to the nearest ER or clinic and have doctors give her atropine (or whatever it is they give to counteract the effects of the poison) or get the poison out of her.

7. Number 6 and then #2, 3, 4, and/or 5. (#3 is done after her discharge from the clinic/hospital, while #2, 4, 5 can be performed while she's being treated by doctors).


If you choose #7, why do you think performing #2, 3, 4, and/or 5 in addition to #6 will or might help.


What do you think are the chances that supernaturalists and woowoos would choose #7 or a variation thereof?

2 comments:

EoR said...

Strangely enough, for all the claims of the potency of alternative therapies, I suspect most people would opt for the urgent standard medical treatment. Then they start doing all the acupuncture, aura massage, reflexology etc. And credit the last thing they performed with the actual cure (ie, the acupuncture, aura massage, reflexology etc). Not the standard medical treatment.

Bronze Dog said...

Somewhere, I remember hearing a story about some altie convention in a forest. A lot of the convention goers went barefoot to absorb the Earth's chakra soulmelds or something, and got fairly well cut up on the sharp rocks. All of them went to the evidence-based first aid, even though there were plenty of altie "first aid" places.

My verification word is "dylobxb". Sounds almost like a mental condition these people would suffer from as a result of massive cognitive dissonance.