It's pretty sad when science questions even curing cancer if it won't turn a profit. Sickening.
Concur. Perhaps no book so deeply illustrates the degeneration of european medicine over many centuries than the Canon of Medicine by Ibn Sina (Avicenna) - especially the translation by the very knowledgeable British doctor Grunen who added invaluable commentary in the footnotes showing the shocking contrast as Grunen is thoroughly knowledgeable of both schools of medicine.
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Medicine-Avicenna/dp/1871031672/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291444930&sr=1-1Murder By Injection By Eustace Mullins is an illuminating highlight of the lowlights of modern american medicine. Mullins is particularly critical of the american financial system and its centrepeice - the "federal reserve" system.
http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Injection-Medical-Conspiracy-Against/dp/B001E0A758/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291445429&sr=1-1However, I will grant to modern western medicine that it has excelled impressively with respect to most aspects of emergency medical treatment.
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For almost a thousand years (until at least about 1945) the chief source of both greed and bad science has been the european nations. The entities which colonized and enslaved much of the world were the same as those which tried to eradicate ancient native scientific traditions and spread heilocentrism and other false sciences.
The spread of "enlightenment" nationalist ideologies in the nineteenth century were the founding myths upon which wealthy minorities conditioned different peoples' minds to conform to common standards. Nationalist ideology was usually indoctrinated and control maintained in three ways:
1) The FORCED SCHOOLING of all children in a country instills all inhabitants with a common language making them much easier to control. Illiterate are usually more easy to control than literate, and the literate (which is different from intellectual) are more capable of SERVING the systems established by the upper classes. Forced schooling indoctrinates a population with whatever the ruling class desires. In the case of european colonialism, this means forced indoctrination in false science like heliocentrism.
The greatest tragedy is that the problem is so entrenched that the better part of the rebellion against these systems have some characteristics of that against which they rebel which causes them to ultimately fail. For example, Mao Tse tung (and a fair amount of the Marxist movement) victoriously ousted their oppressors and established systems better than their predecessors in many respects. However, Marx himself was a european who accepted the false ideas of modern science. Mao and others from the non-european world also uncritically accepted these falsehoods along with the good things which Marx wrote such as his politics and economics. Even Mao's achievements were overturned after his lifetime by Deng Xiaopeng and his successors which have taken China gradually right back to capitalist exploitation like it was before Mao came along. Asia and Africa have thrown off the colonial yoke but mostly replaced it with native despotisms modeled upon the european systems which teach european science.
2) MANDATORY MILITARY SERVICE familiarizes members within a given country with a common language, a common loyalty, and to a slightly lesser extent a common culture.
3) The JUDICIARY is reserved for the minority who refuse to cooperate with these artificial systems.
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America is the offspring of european colonialism and has become the chief source of bad science (and many other worthless things).
I recently came across 'THE NAZI HYDRA IN AMERICA' which is largely based on the work of the nonconformist muckraking journalist George Seldes. While not directly about science, this book as much as any other clearly analyzes the trail of the fascist american business elite.
George Seldes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_SeldesTHE NAZI HYDRA IN AMERICA
http://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Hydra-America-Suppressed-History/dp/0930852435"The Nazi Hydra is not only a colossal document, it's a monument to the American spirit of individual initiative. Author Glen Yeadon has no PhD in history or political science; he's just an inquiring citizen who was interested in World War II. Yet he achieved two things all the history departments and politicians in the country never could.
In Nazi Hydra, Yeadon documents how American fascists in top corporate suites built up Hitler's Nazi Party and war machine, and came very close to turning our country into a Nazi dictatorship in the 1930's. He also lays bare the roots of the problem -- the creeping encroachment of the constitutional powers of government by corporations -- and he recommends a solution.
In ancient mythology, the hydra was a monster with many heads, which grew back when they were cut off. Like The Octopus, it's an apt description of the oligarchy whose tentacles reach the head of every institution in our country.
American GI's cut off one head of the Hydra on the plains of Europe, but treachery was afoot. The money boys like the Dulles brothers were busy funneling Nazi assets back to the United States, to head up the CIA. Ever wonder how the war against Germany turned to the war against "our ally" Russia overnight? Same way the Cold War turned to the War on "Terror," of course. Always got to have a war to keep the slaves working the galleys."
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"Peter the Great was the first Bolshevik."
- Voroshilov
My study of the changes in Russia during the 1600's found that a new (corrupt european modeled) system emerged which replaced the old one which thus paved the way for Peter the Great who thoroughly europeanized Russia and made it an accomplice in the crimes of the european colonial powers. I studied the changes in iconography but found that I could not help but notice parallel changes in these other areas in Russia at the same time such as music, theology, and even politics. Evidently they had a common source - the west. And money (greed) played a role. Russian historian Serge Penkovsky has produced evidenced that the two patriarchs who forced the hated novelties upon the Russian peasantry were convinced to do it with large bribes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_BelieversI believe that more widespread knowledge and interest in the sacred traditions would have stifled the attack upon them.