That’s why I suggested as less controversial strategy to tag with:
healthcare=centre (which by itself only has very vague “healthcare facility with unspecified characteristics” definition) and
enhancing it with healthcare:speciality=* which clearly specifies what is the exact type of medicine they dabble in (and allow the end user to choose which medical practices they choose to believe in, or not)
Thus avoiding that whole “this is alternative medicine / no it is quackery / no it is mainstream / no it is fable tale invented by pharmaceutical lobby to steal money from sheeple” discussions which are bound to be controversial.
I’m glad our wiki isn’t in the business of reinventing the encyclopedia.
I would like to add a summary to the discussion (without closing it, of course). First: thank you all for the lively, diverse, respectful and targeted discussion!
I know that I opened two discussions at the same time, one about our tagging scheme and one about the power of language and power relations through language. I am happy to see that many people in the community are aware of that.
I have decided to add a “questioned” banner to the page linking to this discussion and deferring people to the healthcare:speciality=* schema as proposed by @Matija_Nalis . I’ve also slightly changed the wording but did not address the contested terms. I’m happy for any further enhancements you may come up with.
The discussion on the talk page of the article partly came to a similar conclusion that this tag is hard to define. It is nice to see that the creator of the page is active, even though she did not agree with my comments.
I agree, many of these terms have a bias. Terms such Eastern or Western style often have thier own implied values. Most practices are just lumped togather based on how they are viewed by the dominant society.
These terms generally don’t describe the theories behind the how the medical system diagnose and treat ailments. They tend to be overly broad term and often don’t include any idea of whether practices might be influenced by religious or cultural elements.
We need to use terms that are both objective and clear. Consumers should be able to understand what the specific type of medicine being practiced. End-users such a individuals and researchers should be able to get unbiased data on the medical services offered in an region.
Here is a short list of medical professionals we need to be able to handle. We also need to support the use of the culturally correct terminology.
“Western” Ob/gyn MD
“Engery-based” Rieki practitioner
Christian faith healer
Witch doctor
We really have to work on getting the terminology correct!
Yes. We should be adding the appropriate culture and/or religion that reflects the type of practitioners. If you believed in a spirit world you might care whether the doctor treating your ailments does too.
I’m not really sure if the term “western” on it’s own is problematic or not. I can see where the wording in the Wiki might be culturally ignorant or whatever though. Framing “western” medicine as having a foundation based on anatomy, physiology, and evidence-based science insinuates that “eastern” medicine isn’t based on those things. Which is clearly nonsense. Eastern health practices like Tai Chi, acupuncture, and "traditional eastern medicinal practices were developed over thousands of years with as much systematic study and experimentation as anything in the western world. They also involve anatomy, physiology, and the like more so then western medicine does in some cases. So if it were me I’d at least change the wording of the Wiki article make it purely related to health practices that were invented by European (or western, whatever) cultures instead of making it about it some kind of scientific superiority nonsense.
Although at least IMO the tag could also just as easily be depreciated since other tags already do the same the purpose in a much more specific and less xenophobic way. I don’t really see how the distinction between western and eastern medicine is useful anyway. Nor is “western” a type of medical system to begin with. Maybe a type of medical practice, but even then there’s no reason to not just be more specific about it.
That said, adding the type of religion the healer practices would be cool. I don’t know if I’d go as far as tagging the cultural of the practitioner though. Since again it’s kind of western minded, xenophobic, and there aren’t clear lines when it comes to the health practices of most cultures. Nor are they very well defined to begin with. Especially the cultures of indigenous people. I could probably go on a whole rant about that, but I’ll save it for another time
Yes, I’ve tried to succinctly clarify that in that https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:medical_system:western that both commonly used derogatory as well as laudatory terms for “western medicine” (like e.g. “science-based medicine”) are problematic. Do you think the latest version needs more clarification (the talk page does link to this community forum thread)?
“Traditional Chinese medicine” (or most probably any other too) could be described in the same way, though. I mean, if it didn’t seem to work in most (statistically looking) cases, it would not become a tradition.
On the other hand, things that did work based on statistics (like bloodletting) are no longer [citation needed] considered part of “western medicine”.
I think that “based on experience” is different from “based on statistics.” But the examples are interesting. There is also some ambiguity in the phrase “based on” like a house based on a rock is not itself a rock. This is how one would try to sell a house that is not rock solid.
There is also some ambiguity in the phrase “based on” like a house based on a rock is not itself a rock. This is how one would try to sell a house that is not rock solid.
in this case I would rather say a house founded on rock, and despite the house is not itself a rock this would definitely be better than for example a house founded on sand
A beverage based on water and sugar is probably mostly water and sugar, so these comparisons don’t seem to bring us further, it really depends on the context…
I should have added that the house itself is made from plywood. And many good houses are actually based on sand. In my country there are almost only clay and sand and hardly any rock but many good houses.
I agree. There must be something else that differentiates ‘western’ medicine from other medicines.
edit: But I have to add that if something has been scientifically proven you would name it just like that. That is why the phrase “science based” is meaningless.
They are somewhat different, yet. But so is general “based on statistics” as opposed to “based on scientific method”.
E.g. if you gave a experimental medicine to 1000 people and not give anything to other 1000 people, you could do statistic just fine. But it would fail scientific method, and result would not qualify as “western medicine” at all.
Even if you have given other 1000 people same-looking-and-feeling placebo, unless you took extra steps (e.g. double blind), it would still fail scientific method, while still being statistics. Also, there are many more things than just statistics that are relevant (direction of causality, correct sample selection/diversity/size for a problem, confounding variables, etc)
Anyway, the point is moot - whole of the medical_system:* is ambiguous and problematic for use. Even in (quite rare!) cases when it is not ambiguous (and thus totally useless), its usability is much lower then expected. So even if (IMHO impossible) task of making it unambiguous and having everyone agree on every part of the definition was accomplished, the tag prefix medical_system:* would still be mostly useless (thus, expending such effort would much better be invested elsewhere).
E.g. someone with stiffened back might be just fine with health_specialty:acupuncture=yes to relieve pain (and might even prefer it to medical_system:western=yes chemical drugs) but vehemently object to having parts of dead endangered species or dried human placenta being put on/in them for same purpose - even if both acupuncture and ziheche aremedical_system:chinese=yes).
I’d say, if you want to map about medical facility details, use less problematic tags instead, like health_specialty:* (and others linked there) instead.
