Issues of Legitimacy @ Florida State University

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by cehi, Jan 20, 2005.

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  1. cehi

    cehi New Member

    In today's publication of Chronicle of Higher Education......."Lawmakers' Plan to Create a Chiropractic College Gives Florida State U. a Pain in the Neck"

    A quote from the article ..."Ultimately, the battle is about legitimacy. Supporters hope that a public chiropractic college would give the profession respect, but opponents say such respect isn't deserved."


    Cehi: It seems to me that alternative education always have a perception and acceptance problem in the public eyes as to what is legitimate and what it isn't. It is a very interesting article. Thank you.
     
  2. jugador

    jugador New Member

    I sympathize with FSU. About 20 years ago, Ohio State University taught a course in astrology -- ASTROLOGY MIND YOU! Some of us went ballistic and got it out of the curriculum through a letter writing campaign. Just as vigalence is the eternal price of freedom, so to is it the eternal price of accreditation. It's just incredible to see some of the courses that are offered at mega-universities and some of those wacko liberal arts colleges in the Northeast. In the case of the former, I guess they slip through the cracks of the huge beauracracy. In the latter, well...What can I say?

    http://www.smith.edu/wst/queerstudies.html
     
  3. agilham

    agilham New Member

    Eh?

    It looks like a perfectly reasonable concentration in queer studies within a women's studies programme to me. It's a bit deconstructionist and far too concentrated in the modern era for my taste, but the range of disciplines engaged is exemplary.

    Or are you trying to say that sexuality, gender and their reception, particularly by the dominant cultural norm are not legitimate subjects for rigorous academic investigation?

    Angela
     
  4. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    The thing about chiropractic is that there seems to be buried under all the snake oil and smoke a useful and effective therapy. Even Dr. Barrett of www.quackwatch.org fame said so in his address to a professional gathering of chiropractors.

    I don't know...maybe a state university connection would contribute to a science based as opposed to post modernist approach to the profession. Lord knows they could use it.
     
  5. Jack Tracey

    Jack Tracey New Member

    My sense of this, based solely on hanging around hospitals for the past 20 years, is that the "old school" MDs don't like non-MDs stealing their work. It's a type of turf issue. On the other hand, I've known quite a few people who swear by the effectiveness of this treatment (based on their personal experience as patients). Beyond that I'd say that one level of legitimacy (or the perception of legitimacy) is that an increasing number of insurance companies, HMO's, etc. are including this treatment regimen in their list of covered , approved services. Money talks.
    Jack
     
  6. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Personally, I'm inclined to be very skeptical of chiropractic. But my brother, who isn't a fool, has been seeing a chiropracter and says that it's been good for some problems he's had.

    So I don't really know what to say about it. Perhaps there's something there. Or perhaps it's some kind of placebo effect.

    I'd be more comfortable about a state university creating a chiropractic school if I knew of a sound body of credible research, not conducted by the chiropractors themselves, that scientifically verified and delineated the scope of the technique's therapeutic effects.
     
  7. edowave

    edowave Active Member

    I'm almost embarrassed to say, but UF teaches a course called "The Tao of Star Trek." and another one on the Survivor TV show. They are honors courses!

    http://www.honors.ufl.edu/coursesspring05.html#I

    My favorite quote from the honors website..."These courses are not harder, just different, "
     
  8. Greystead

    Greystead New Member

    I was quite surprised by the tone of this thread, given that here in the UK we get the impression that in the US alternative therapies are more accepted than here. Also that courses in such fields are more wide spread in the "traditional" educational establishments.

    The National Health Service in the UK is not known for its acceptance of therapies that are "off beam". So, you may be interested to see that two UK universities (real ones with Royal Charters) offer course in chiropractic and the NHS will fund chiropractic treatment.

    http://www.medical-colleges.net/chiropratic2.htm

    http://www.nhsdirectory.org/default.asp?Page=Chiropractic
     
  9. Khan

    Khan New Member

    Turf war

    This is a turf battle, but only part of it is about the legitamacy of the Chiro school. T.K. Wetherell, the president of FSU, is very politically connected and got the money approved by the legislature before he swung it past the newly created Board of Governor's that is supposed to overlook all the state universities. So now everyone is all bunged up about the process and the Chiro school is sortof caught in the middle of the first turt war.
     
  10. Khan

    Khan New Member

    errrr...turf war.
     
  11. marilynd

    marilynd New Member

    I had the same impression until last year. After herniating a disc in my neck, I went to a spine care unit affiliated with the hospital I go to. It is a very well-respected group of MDs. They get referrals from around the world.

    Anyway, before deciding on surgery, they wanted me to do physical therapy to see if the herniation would reduce. They gave me a handout that not only had a list of their recommended physical therapists but a list of recommended chiropracters as well. Apparently, they recommend chiropractic under certain conditions and provide this handout to those patients also.

    This group of doctors, at least, seems to view chiropractic as contributory to their work, rather than as competition.

    On the other hand, I read a news story years ago about a firm in Florida that was charging a huge fee ($45,000, I think) to hold a workshop to teach chiropractors how to market themselves as treatments for diabetes, skin diseases, and other non-musculoskeletal ailments.

    What's a consumer to think?

    :p

    marilynd
     
  12. Carlos Gomez

    Carlos Gomez New Member

  13. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Personally, I don't believe in the truth of astrology. But the fact remains that millions of people have believed in it.What's more, I think that the complex of ideas of which astrology was a part probably had a bigger role in renaissance and early modern history than is commonly recognized.

    In those times the medieval worldview was still very much alive. The universe was only a few thousand years old, and many people believed that it was in its last days. The whole thing was centered upon the earth and upon mankind, and was created as the stage for God's redemptive drama.

    In other words, a significant segment of the population, particularly in renaissance northern Europe, expected that the day of judgement with its rewards and punishments, was imminent.

    Add to that Christianity's long interest in prophecy. The ability to understand the religious purpose of events and to predict future events of religious significance was taken as a sign of genuine inspiration and the means for distinguishing true and false revelation.

    So a large part of Europe was gripped by a search for signs and portents. Those of a humanist bent pored through ancient texts (including the resently published corpus Hermeticum). Biblical scripture was scoured for hidden clues. And astrology played a leading role.

    In February 1524 all the planets formed a conjunction in the sign of Pisces, and no less than 133 tracts were published on what it meant. Part of what it meant was a warning of a new flood. The established ecclesiastical authorities were widely equated with the antichrist, and the urgent need to immediately reform religious life was stressed. This provided crucial propaganda for the peasant's revolt and for the radical reformation.

    Perhaps even more exciting was the appearance in the sky of a great comet, in August 1531. This was Halley's comet, and Europe was gripped by conflict between anabaptists, Zwinglians, Catholics and Lutherans. Paracelsus spoke for everyone when he wrote 'Each destruction of a monarch, and when each one is raised at God's behest, is announced by indications and signs'. The comet appears prominently in Durer's 'Melencolia I'.

    Melchior Hoffman predicted the end of the world in 1533. He arrived in Strasbourg and was declared the new Elijah and Strasbourg the New Jerusalem.

    Interest in Johannes Lichtenberger's 'Pronosticatio' of 1488 revived, the book going through 13 editions in five years during the peasant's revolt. Luther himself issued an edition, intended in part to prevent use of the prophecies by the Catholic faction against him, and in part to identify the "devil with horns" as Thomas Muntzer.

    Today Andreas Osiander is famous for his philosophically interesting introduction to Copernicus' 'De revolutionibus orbium coelestum' (1543). But Osiander was best known in his lifetime for his 'Conjectures on the End of the World', published in Latin in 1544, German in 1545 and English in 1548.

    Tycho Brahe published a tract on the new star of 1572, concluding that this event presaged disturbances in Europe that would bring about a new secular and religious order. To his knowledge, this was the first new star since Bethlehem. He noted of the predicted conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Aries in 1602 that it occured every 800 years, so it had occured only seven times since the creation of the world. He concluded that 'the eternal Sabbath of all Creation is at hand in this seventh maximum conjunction'.

    Kepler published his ideas on the reform of astrology in 1601 in his 'De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus'. He gave astrology an animistic neopythagorean spin emphasizing celestial harmonies. Kepler wrote that besides regulating the normal course of events, God intervened with signs that included new stars and comets, and that these had the same meaning today as they had in the scriptures and for the ancients.

    But by the 17'th century the tide was turning. Henry Briggs, the first Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford was a critic of astrology and that skepticism remained strong at Oxford and later in the Royal Society. John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, wrote that it was astrology that had awakened his interest in astronomy, but that he had abandoned it. In France Mersenne and Gassendi were critics and Descartes' new philosophy left little room for astrological influences.

    Bottom line: Even if we reject the truth of astrology today, I question whether we can reach a full understanding of the northern renaissance, the protestant reformation or the scientific revolution without giving at least some thought to the complex of thought of which astrology was a part.
     
  14. Tom57

    Tom57 Member

    There are valid studies that show chiropractic is effective in treating low back pain. It's the wild claims of some chiropractic practitioners that cause the profession to leak credibility.
     
  15. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    I have two comments (that are off the main topic):

    In my area of So CA, many of the medical centers now employ Physician Assistants to do a lot of minor medical work. I had minor surgery done by one. A PA can earn an AA, BS or MS degree from several California schools.
    http://www.capanet.org/paprograms.cfm

    I have a MD friend who is losing business because the hospital where he works sends radiographs overseas for diagnosis (to UK and India).
     
  16. Jack Tracey

    Jack Tracey New Member

    I believe this practice is now widespread. Most people do not realize that their x-rays are currently being read by MDs in other countries (Oh, those fiberoptics.)
    Jack
     
  17. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    In the church of chiropractic there are many mansions. I don't recall the name of it, but there is an organization of choir-o-pacters (as it is spoke around here) seeking to determine just what scientific validity there is in chiropractic and what the limits of that validity may be. May their tribe increase. I have never known an adherent of choir-o-pactic who didn't get quasi-cultic about it. So, I don't think state schools should have schools of religion--this one included.
     
  18. marilynd

    marilynd New Member

    Well said. But this assumes the OSU course placed the subject in this historical context.

    If the course was simply a "how-to-do" astrology course, students would not likely gain much historical understanding.

    Modern astrology is an amalgam of ideas, much of it constructed after the 19th-century resurgence in interest in occultism after Eliphas Levi. Indeed, students following the path of modern astrology might be led astray, so to speak, since many of the "historical" claims in the field are distinctly unhistorical. Likewise the Rosicrucians and Wiccans.

    Regards,

    marilynd
     
  19. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    My understanding was that astrology origins has its roots in the early fertile crescent civilizations. The couple books I read on Mesopotamia said, IIRC, that what was used back in those days was very similar to modern astrology.
     
  20. marilynd

    marilynd New Member

    Chinese astrology is similar to western astrology. That does not make them the same, or interchangeable in historical analysis. If you want to teach students the importance of astrology in Babylonian life, you teach Babylonian astrology. If you want to teach about conjuring demons in the English Renaissance, you teach John Dee, not Anton LeVey (actually, I'm not sure how much conjuring LeVey does, but you get the idea.)

    My point, I guess, was intended to be a simple one. One poster denounced OSU's course. Another wrote a lengthy rebuttal seeming the justify it. My point was that you can't make a judgment either way concerning the academic substance of the course until you've seen the syllabus, so to speak; until you see what is actually being taught.

    There are many examples in which teaching astrology in a college course would be academically justified, although, IMHO, a how-to-do-it course in contemporary astrology wouldn't be one of them.

    ;)

    marilynd
     

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