Is Alchemy Consider To Be Scientific?

[Bartmanhomer]

I actually watch an episode of the Cartoon Network The Fantastic Four of an evil alchemist named Diablo used the four elements of fire, water, air, and earth. Mr. Fantastic say that alchemy isn't science, it's just made-up magic. Which makes me wonder is alchemy consider to be scientific? :confused:

[Fyraltari]

Scientific alchemy is called chemistry.

The rest, like the classical four elements has been scientifically debunked.

[Bartmanhomer]

Scientific alchemy is called chemistry.

The rest, like the classical four elements, has been scientifically debunked.

Ok. Thank you for explaining that to me. :smile:

[HandofShadows]

I actually watch an episode of the Cartoon Network The Fantastic Four of an evil alchemist named Diablo used the four elements of fire, water, air, and earth. Mr. Fantastic say that alchemy isn't science, it's just made-up magic. Which makes me wonder is alchemy consider to be scientific? :confused:

Needs a mechanism to work. Effects that can be repeated and tested. The anime series Full Metal Alchemist treats alchemy as a science. And oddly so does the SCP Foundation (http://www.scpwiki.com/the-alchemy-department-hub). :smallbiggrin:

[Eldan]

European alchemy is mostly a philosophy that did some chemistry on the sides. But they were far more concerned with enlightenment and the human soul than any materials.

[Bartmanhomer]

Needs a mechanism to work. Effects that can be repeated and tested. The anime series Full Metal Alchemist treats alchemy as a science. And oddly so does the SCP Foundation (http://www.scpwiki.com/the-alchemy-department-hub). :smallbiggrin:

Is the SCP Foundation even real? :smile:

[Fyraltari]

Is the SCP Foundation even real? :smile:

No, it’s a huge creepypasta. It’s a whole lotta fun but it is not real. Take their word for it. (http://www.scpwiki.com/faq)

[Yora]

The key aspect of science is that you try things out by doing experiment, make observations and take measurements, analyse your data to draw conclusion and make predictions, and then do further experiments to see if your predicted results actually happen.
To my knowledge, alchemists did not really do that.

I've seen the claim that metalworkers actually did a lot more to further the knowledge of chemistry by trying to create better alloys and smelting processes than alchemists ever did, though I don't know the basis for that claim.
But unlike alchemists, metalworkers actually got real results and produced useful substances.

[Bartmanhomer]

No, it’s a huge creepypasta. It’s a whole lotta fun but it is not real. Take their word for it. (http://www.scpwiki.com/faq)

Oh ok. Also thank you for telling me it's fake. :smile:

[Xyril]

The key aspect of science is that you try things out by doing experiment, make observations and take measurements, analyse your data to draw conclusion and make predictions, and then do further experiments to see if your predicted results actually happen.
To my knowledge, alchemists did not really do that.


There might have been a point where alchemists were starting off from accepted knowledge and not-yet-disproved assumptions and testing them in a scientific way. However, alchemy as a field persisted well after chemistry became understood well enough to force them to reevaluate their conclusions, which to my knowledge they never did.

[warmachine]

To me, Rutherford would be justified in calling alchemy 'stamp collecting' but not chemistry. Alchemy strikes me as random tinkering and unsupported natural philosophy slapped onto it, making it unscientific. Whereas chemistry attempts to create wacky models then see if the experiments debunk them, making it scientific.

[jayem]

It's 400 year old plus chemistry. As such the disciplines have changed a lot
(even just in the last century (or maybe 2) biology, chemistry and physics have completely changed how they play together)

Hence...

European alchemy is mostly a philosophy that did some chemistry on the sides. But they were far more concerned with enlightenment and the human soul than any materials.

Modern chemistry is written to take into account the results of experiments they did.
So while in a sense it is 'scientific', the predictions and theories are very incorrect by even early modern standards.
From the point of view of curiosity it's well worth a historian, philosopher and chemist working together to work out what they actually did in any given writing and translate it into modern terms (and then use it as evidence for a 'history of chemistry'). Even compared to starting from scratch or guessing at random you'd be in a lot better position, though if you had the option of asking a modern inattentive 13 year old, I'd consider betting on the 13 year old.

__
Now to change tack and look at the actual example.

If Diablo is actually somehow using the elements Fire/water/Air/Earth to create a "magical" shield successfully, then, in film, modern chemistry has somehow made a massive blunder and Captain Fantastic is being rather stupid (assuming this isn't the first time it's happened).
If Diablo is using alchemical sources to do a normal chemical reaction (say to make Aqua Regia), then in that sense it's scientific but he'd be so much better off just looking up how to make (or buy) Nitric Acid. Both people are equally right and wrong.
If Diablo is somehow mistaken/tricked into thinking he is doing something beyond chemistry via alchemy, then Captain Fantastic is quite right.

[Drakeburn]

:redcloak: "I mean, fire shouldn't even count. It's a chemical reaction."

[Traab]

:redcloak: "I mean, fire shouldn't even count. It's a chemical reaction."

*cough* (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-O5dZ9BLLc)

Yeah, alchemy was a mixture of science and magic. It was early attempts to understand how the world and its components worked and how to manipulate it. But they were basically starting from "God did it" levels of knowledge so a lot was observation and mysticism. Hence the conclusions reached in the video I linked. These are, by any reasonable observation, NOT terrible conclusions. They are wrong yes, but made logical sense based on observations made.

[jayem]

*cough* (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-O5dZ9BLLc)

Yeah, alchemy was a mixture of science and magic. It was early attempts to understand how the world and its components worked and how to manipulate it. But they were basically starting from "God did it" levels of knowledge so a lot was observation and mysticism. Hence the conclusions reached in the video I linked. These are, by any reasonable observation, NOT terrible conclusions. They are wrong yes, but made logical sense based on observations made.
Listening to the lesson, I came away with the strong impression that they would make a bit more sense we consider Fire to be more associated with available Energy, Earth with Mass, Air with Volume (rather than solely trying to match them with specific atoms), I'm not sure what Water would be.

[Traab]

Listening to the lesson, I came away with the strong impression that they would make a bit more sense we consider Fire to be more associated with available Energy, Earth with Mass, Air with Volume (rather than solely trying to match them with specific atoms), I'm not sure what Water would be.

Exactly. They dont have those terms or the understanding of the subtle difference between them. They can only compare it to what they already know about. Fire earth water and sky. They know that rocks/the ground are solid and heavy, therefore everything has a bit of earth in it to account for its heft instead of mass. They know its possible to burn most things or "release the fire within" So they describe it as containing fire instead of potential energy. Their answers arent that far off from reality, they just lack the frame of reference and the extra centuries of study to hone the elemental makeup of everything into a more accurate form. They are wrong, but they are logical about it. And until it can be proven wrong and an alternate theory that better fits the scenario is created, thats what they stuck with. Obviously the link isnt describing alchemy, but its describing things in a similar fashion if what I remember is true.

[Twodoku]

Listening to the lesson, I came away with the strong impression that they would make a bit more sense we consider Fire to be more associated with available Energy, Earth with Mass, Air with Volume (rather than solely trying to match them with specific atoms), I'm not sure what Water would be.
Can water be lifeforce in this? Seems to work- the wood is dead so doesn't have water yet humans are 80% water.

[Tvtyrant]

Listening to the lesson, I came away with the strong impression that they would make a bit more sense we consider Fire to be more associated with available Energy, Earth with Mass, Air with Volume (rather than solely trying to match them with specific atoms), I'm not sure what Water would be.

I always thought they were just ye olde ways of saying Liquid, Solid, Gaseous and Plasma.

[Peelee]

I always thought they were just ye olde ways of saying Liquid, Solid, Gaseous and Plasma.

Liquid, Solid, Gaseous, and Chemical Reaction may be more accurate. It's not like they had any idea what plasma was; it wasn't even really described until a hundred years ago.

[Fyraltari]

Can water be lifeforce in this? Seems to work- the wood is dead so doesn't have water yet humans are 80% water.

Lifeforce isn't a real thing.

[Eldan]

Yes, but it was considered one in chemistry too, for far too long. It even lives on in the distinction of organic and anorganic chemistry: originally, the two were considered completely different, because one dealt with substances that have vis vitalis, life force. There were serious defenders of vitalism until the 19th century (the synthesis of urea from anorganic substances kind of put an end to it for serious chemists) and some have been arguing it at least the 1950s.

[jayem]

Liquid, Solid, Gaseous, and Chemical Reaction may be more accurate. It's not like they had any idea what plasma was; it wasn't even really described until a hundred years ago.
That seems fairly obviously relation, although (going back to the Star Trek example) the air in the wood wasn't (yet) obviously gaseous.

The boundary between elements, molecular-subgroups and states of matter was probably hard to distinguish. The correlation is strong enough for the exceptions to be mistakes or special cases (wood clearly contains the 'gassy compound'*, and could contain it in the gassy state).

I suspect in any case, it's not going to map neatly. Trying to think/describe something that is 'fire' in the wood but that doesn't provide it's 'fireness' probably wouldn't get you very far (oh you're clearly talking about it's 'water').


* Hypothesis, therefore it needs the gassy compound to grow, Prediction, therefore if you deprive it of air it will die, Experiment... Conclusion/Excuse.
___
Some kind of 'lifeforce' could work. It is incorrect science after all.
Although air (breath) &fire also have the claims to that, and it doesn't work too well for the sea.
(also I partially proposed this based on an episode of star-trek)

[snowblizz]

Which makes me wonder is alchemy consider to be scientific? :confused:

No. Not even a little bit.

I will now read rest of thread see what other's have said.

I think you all are giving alchemy way too much credit here. Also, it really does feel like trying to map our world onto theirs. I.e. it's not just that they just didn't have the words to describe doing modern chemistry? Psh. They were not doing anything that would map onto our modern world. The mystical aspects were fundamental and it wasn't about trying to figure out what elements did or did not do. Alchemy is interested in the conditions of human nature. It's applied philosophy one could say.

Alchemy fundamentally has a philosophical and mystical bent to it that precludes it from being science.

That said, it should be noted alchemy is a veeeery broad spectrum of things. It includes the idealistic, the greedy and the charlatan trying to make gold, those who were mostly into the philosophical and mystical thinking, and tinkerers doing actual real world chemistry for fun or profit. And all kinds of others, so basically almost anything can be said about alchemy.

I wouldn't say the path from alchemy to chemistry is exactly linear either, frankly I don't think there's any case of an alchemist that actually becomes a chemist per se. That alchemy strongly influenced chemistry by discovering things that chemistry later explained is one thing. But just as traditional Chinese medicine sometimes stumbled on things that worked it wasn't a precursor to medicine either. Somewhere in the break between 1700-1800s we get the beginnings of modern chemistry and I'm kinda sure they didn't get started by reading old alchemical books. The concept that reactions happen and basically all the tools come from alchemy though. Just as it's difficult to do modern medicine if you believe in Galen it's hard to do chemistry if you cling to alchemy.

[jayem]

I think you all are giving alchemy way too much credit here. Also, it really does feel like trying to map our world onto theirs. I.e. it's not just that they just didn't have the words to describe doing modern chemistry? Psh. They were not doing anything that would map onto our modern world.

That's kind of where I'm going with thinking it's a mistake to think that the ancient elements should be looked at purely as being a failed attempt to list the modern elements. It's partially true, but it's also mixed in with failed attempt to do other things which they wouldn't have recognised as being separate.



Alchemy fundamentally has a philosophical and mystical bent to it.

Including, to a very large extent, of course this. If your experiment shows something that goes up to the heaven's, of course you're going to use look to implications and explainations to philospophy.
There's no doubt that we'd look at their reasons for trying something, look at what they did and look at their conclusions with horror. But at the same time they are clearly hypotheses, experimented on and concluded on, and eventually leading to recognition that "Sulpher" couldn't fit.

Note Laviouser, still has Light, Heat and Clay as modern day elements, and apart from having the right names for the compounds, we get Carbonic Gas and Alcohol from it, so therefore grape juice must be Carbonic and Alcohol isn't that disimilar from the teachers lesson in Star-Trek

But at the same time three of Razi's book's have "Experiment" in the title, and on what we'd now call chemicals. And similarly the medievel ones trying to find how to transmute metals did try stuff,
Sendivogius didn't discover the "life giving substance contained in air" by chance (and if you want to count him on the chemists side, he also promoted Dee&Kelly on the very charlatan side of things)




That said, it should be noted alchemy is a veeeery broad spectrum of things. It includes the idealistic, the greedy and the charlatan trying to make gold, those who were mostly into the philosophical and mystical thinking, and tinkerers doing actual real world chemistry for fun or profit. And all kinds of others, so basically almost anything can be said about alchemy.

I think that's part of it, there are dodgy charlatan's piggy-backing off the radium craze, and all the modern day equivalents of the elixir of eternal youth. But we either don't accept their word to be 'chemists', or we haven't caught them out yet. For that matter we give a pass to Boyle's attempts to make gold (to the point of getting the law changed to make it legal), because he also did good chemistry.
Whereas because the 13th century good experimenter was wrong (/out of date) enough to be effectively useless, he gets lumped with the charlatan from the start.
Part of that of course was also a deliberate, worthy and successful effort to make a break between the modern chemist and the charlatan.





Data: None the less, I am sure fire is not an element
... (after class is dismissed
Teacher: Could it be that you were the student of a disciple of Thales?
Data: I do not know
Teacher: He taught that all things were made of water.
Teacher: So is fire made of water?
Data: I do not think fire is made of water
Teacher: So air then
Data: I do not think fire is made of anything else
Teacher: But then surely, you do think fire is an element?
Data: I do not think fire is an element
Teacher: But I do not understand. If fire is not an element, then it must be made of something?
Data: I do not think fire is made of anything
Teacher: But then it would be an element?
Data: I think it's a chemical reaction
Teacher: But it is clearly something, most of the fire is now gone, but I touch it and there is clearly something there, is that not fire?
Data:
Teacher: So is this chemical reaction made of something or something in it's own right?
Data: It's it's own kind of thing
Teacher: Ah, so it is an element after all?
Data: ouch, my palm hit my face at greater than expected velocity.




*cough* (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-O5dZ9BLLc)
Double cough with Data on the other side and learning that ...
Fire is (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OfIsNPZm8w)

[Rogar Demonblud]

Alchemy is kind of a broad term, since it changed meanings repeatedly over the centuries. Part of what they did was trying to establish the active principles in medicinal herbs, which eventually led much later to pharmacology, for example. The primary influence from alchemy is that it eventually rejected the phenomenal approach to the natural world in favor of there being an underlying system, which Linnaeus used to create the taxon system for biological classification of species. They also accidentally created a model of sub-atomic particles (quicksilver, white sulphur, yellow sulphur) that is at least analogous to electrons, neutrons and protons.

So it's probably best to say generally wrong, but right in details often enough to give one pause.

[Peelee]

Alchemy is kind of a broad term, since it changed meanings repeatedly over the centuries. Part of what they did was trying to establish the active principles in medicinal herbs, which eventually led much later to pharmacology, for example. The primary influence from alchemy is that it eventually rejected the phenomenal approach to the natural world in favor of there being an underlying system, which Linnaeus used to create the taxon system for biological classification of species. They also accidentally created a model of sub-atomic particles (quicksilver, white sulphur, yellow sulphur) that is at least analogous to electrons, neutrons and protons.

So it's probably best to say generally wrong, but right in details often enough to give one pause.

Also, they were totally right in that you can turn lead into gold. They just grossly underestimated how hard it is to rip three protons off each atom.

[Rogar Demonblud]

And three electrons, and probably a few neutrons as well.

I've often wondered if the Trek writers had alchemical transformation in mind when they created replicators. Breaking something down into subatomic particles and then reassembling in a new pattern.

[Peelee]

And three electrons, and probably a few neutrons as well.

I've often wondered if the Trek writers had alchemical transformation in mind when they created replicators. Breaking something down into subatomic particles and then reassembling in a new pattern.

Eh, the electrons are easy and the neutrons don't matter.

[Bartmanhomer]

That's kind of where I'm going with thinking it's a mistake to think that the ancient elements should be looked at purely as being a failed attempt to list the modern elements. It's partially true, but it's also mixed in with failed attempt to do other things which they wouldn't have recognised as being separate.


Including, to a very large extent, of course this. If your experiment shows something that goes up to the heaven's, of course you're going to use look to implications and explainations to philospophy.
There's no doubt that we'd look at their reasons for trying something, look at what they did and look at their conclusions with horror. But at the same time they are clearly hypotheses, experimented on and concluded on, and eventually leading to recognition that "Sulpher" couldn't fit.

Note Laviouser, still has Light, Heat and Clay as modern day elements, and apart from having the right names for the compounds, we get Carbonic Gas and Alcohol from it, so therefore grape juice must be Carbonic and Alcohol isn't that disimilar from the teachers lesson in Star-Trek

But at the same time three of Razi's book's have "Experiment" in the title, and on what we'd now call chemicals. And similarly the medievel ones trying to find how to transmute metals did try stuff,
Sendivogius didn't discover the "life giving substance contained in air" by chance (and if you want to count him on the chemists side, he also promoted Dee&Kelly on the very charlatan side of things)



I think that's part of it, there are dodgy charlatan's piggy-backing off the radium craze, and all the modern day equivalents of the elixir of eternal youth. But we either don't accept their word to be 'chemists', or we haven't caught them out yet. For that matter we give a pass to Boyle's attempts to make gold (to the point of getting the law changed to make it legal), because he also did good chemistry.
Whereas because the 13th century good experimenter was wrong (/out of date) enough to be effectively useless, he gets lumped with the charlatan from the start.
Part of that of course was also a deliberate, worthy and successful effort to make a break between the modern chemist and the charlatan.





Data: None the less, I am sure fire is not an element
... (after class is dismissed
Teacher: Could it be that you were the student of a disciple of Thales?
Data: I do not know
Teacher: He taught that all things were made of water.
Teacher: So is fire made of water?
Data: I do not think fire is made of water
Teacher: So air then
Data: I do not think fire is made of anything else
Teacher: But then surely, you do think fire is an element?
Data: I do not think fire is an element
Teacher: But I do not understand. If fire is not an element, then it must be made of something?
Data: I do not think fire is made of anything
Teacher: But then it would be an element?
Data: I think it's a chemical reaction
Teacher: But it is clearly something, most of the fire is now gone, but I touch it and there is clearly something there, is that not fire?
Data:
Teacher: So is this chemical reaction made of something or something in it's own right?
Data: It's it's own kind of thing
Teacher: Ah, so it is an element after all?
Data: ouch, my palm hit my face at greater than expected velocity.




Double cough with Data on the other side and learning that ...
Fire is (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OfIsNPZm8w)

What would make a good Star Trek episode? :smile:

[Rogar Demonblud]

For my money? Actually using the technology intelligently. Half of which are transporter tricks. If you can restore somebody to a previously scanned state, you no longer need medical (put everyone together without injuries, diseases, etc). Oh, and everyone is 21 forever.

[georgie_leech]

Eh, the electrons are easy and the neutrons don't matter.

I mean, the neutrons might matter. Carbon 12 is stable for pretty much forever, while Carbon 15 has a half-life measured in seconds. Isotopes can have different nuclear properties despite having the same chemical interactions.

[Peelee]

I mean, the neutrons might matter. Carbon 12 is stable for pretty much forever, while Carbon 15 has a half-life measured in seconds. Isotopes can have different nuclear properties despite having the same chemical interactions.

Fair, I was just thinking about how reactive they'd be. Shame Mendeleev isn't here, he could probably just tell us what the properties'd be.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Also note that fictional alchemy, especially as it would occur in something like a cartoon, is usually almost nothing like real alchemy. Fictional alchemy is typically any magic system in which you create magical effects by mixing precise amounts of specific pure compounds and applying relatively well defined natural forces. Combining phoenix feathers with a wave of the arm and a spell is magic, combining mercury with uranium and a dash of electricity is alchemy. Anything up to a clear Dr. Frankenstein ripoff could be considered an alchemist in fiction. In reality alchemy is of course not magical. You can't make a potion of flight. Nobody ever did, and as far as I know nobody of any renown ever even set out to try it. Alchemy is also tied to a metric ton of very specific spiritualist beliefs. The substances, metals and elements alchemists use are in their system not just substances, they're representations of heavenly bodies (planets and such) and all sorts of mystical forces and philosophical concepts. And then again for every very specific thing you can find about alchemy (dolphins represent the moon!) you can usually find several alternatives (scorpions represent the moon, or maybe it's wolves, or bats, or all of them, or none of them). I'm not an expert on alchemy, but I get a pretty "new age" like feel from it. It was a movement with several influential figures, but few connecting elements to tie everything together. {scrubbed}. As diverse as {scrubbed} are today, there is some sort of basis they can agree on. The experimental, scientific looking flavor of alchemy gives much more room for everyone to just declare their own truth while still falling under the same umbrella. Isaac Newton for instance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_studies), known best for his work on gravity and the laws of motion, was an avid alchemist who was in fact looking for the philosopher's stone and who was convinced that metals contained a form of life. He also considered himself somewhat of a chosen one, part of a select group of people who should {scrubbed}, and he predicted the end of the world for 2060. It's a complete hodgepodge of beliefs where some very specific elements are shared with others and other elements are unique to himself, and he freely mixes spiritual and religious ideas from different movements where he sees fit. As such, I think alchemy is best seen as a thing of it's own time, or several things of their own time, where for instance the classical Greek movement differs substantially from the early modern face of alchemy. Today there pretty much is no living alchemical tradition, and due to the nature of the thing if you wanted to restart it you'd have to start by sifting through a mountain of stuff and decide for yourself what you're using and what not, because much of it is incompatible with other parts or just made completely superfluous by them. It's a big old complicated mess. While alchemists like Newton did make valuable contributions to science as we know it, alchemy itself can not really be classed as such. It can mostly be classed as alchemy.

[Traab]

For my money? Actually using the technology intelligently. Half of which are transporter tricks. If you can restore somebody to a previously scanned state, you no longer need medical (put everyone together without injuries, diseases, etc). Oh, and everyone is 21 forever.

I think thats covered by the time limit on rematerializing someone. Im not certain as im not a super fan, but I think there are hard limits on how long they can keep a full scan of a person on file due to a variety of factors. It may be a combination of sheer size of the information needed to scan someone down to the quantum level and create them from blurry particles or one of those chaos theory issues where they literally cant recreate you because we are slightly more complicated than a block of wood. A human body isnt the challenge, its a specific human body with memories, emotions, etc etc etc all intact. Also, it would probably be even MORE complicated if they did that 21 forever thing but had to do constant scans of your CURRENT mind so you didnt mentally reset as well.

[Radar]

I think thats covered by the time limit on rematerializing someone. Im not certain as im not a super fan, but I think there are hard limits on how long they can keep a full scan of a person on file due to a variety of factors. It may be a combination of sheer size of the information needed to scan someone down to the quantum level and create them from blurry particles or one of those chaos theory issues where they literally cant recreate you because we are slightly more complicated than a block of wood. A human body isnt the challenge, its a specific human body with memories, emotions, etc etc etc all intact. Also, it would probably be even MORE complicated if they did that 21 forever thing but had to do constant scans of your CURRENT mind so you didnt mentally reset as well.
And to be frank, nowhere was it mentioned that the technology is advanced enough to mix and match the scans - it seems like all or nothing and to be honest I am not even sure they have the ability to store the scans.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yeah, they do. The episode where Pulaski was infected with the aging virus. They went looking through her last several years of postings, but she'd never used the transporter with any of them. So apparently transporter records/patterns are kept indefinitely. And they established in a couple different episodes (notably one in DS9 where people got dumped into one of Bashir's holonovels) that bodies and minds are scanned separately.

[Traab]

I mean, we have seen various episodes that involve transporter shenanigans, tuvix from voyager for example, so we do know that there are all sorts of things that can be done with transporters, but they have always been treated as highly complicated, dangerous, and unique events so there must be a reason for it aside from, despite thinking of it several times, they never think of it otherwise.

[Radar]

Yeah, they do. The episode where Pulaski was infected with the aging virus. They went looking through her last several years of postings, but she'd never used the transporter with any of them. So apparently transporter records/patterns are kept indefinitely. And they established in a couple different episodes (notably one in DS9 where people got dumped into one of Bashir's holonovels) that bodies and minds are scanned separately.
This has so many implications that were never addressed. If they considered this route for curing some aging virus, why is anyone dying from old age in Star Trek? Why would no one ever consider rapid cloning of expert soldiers, commanders or scientists from a transporter template? I know that Federation at least officially is taking the moral high ground but there are quite enough other organisations who are far less bothered by conscience. Even better: if you could steal transporter patterns of high profile politicians or admirals, you could get the intel far more easily then from trying to kidnap the real person. In fact, such officials should avoid transporters if possible in order to maintain basic security.

I remember only one instance, where the problem of identity due to cloning by transporter was ever explored in TNG, when they found out Riker's clone on some remote planet.

[Rogar Demonblud]

And the follow up when said clone showed up on DS9 and hijacked the Defiant to go start a war with Cardassia.

Trek as a whole is pretty lousy with follow through.

[Traab]

obrien was cloned once in ds9. Some alien group snagged him, created a brainwashed clone to kill someone, etc etc etc. Cloning totally exists in trek.

[Aedilred]

Alchemy is basically to chemistry as astrology is to astronomy.

Each is superficially similar to its counterpart, covers the same subject matter, has been around for at least as long, and may have a surprising amount of methodological rigour behind it.

But ultimately, it's bunk. It's entertaining and often very compelling bunk, but bunk nevertheless.

[Lord Torath]

The Terrible Truth About Star Trek's Transporters (https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/star-treks-transporter-terrible-truth-science-behind-the-fiction)
Courtesy of Cassdiy Ward at Syfy.com

[Fyraltari]

It doesn’t really matter. (http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1)

[Radar]

It doesn’t really matter. (http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1)
Until we know what is consciousness, it is still an open question. :smalltongue: I approve of the source choice though.

[Fyraltari]

Until we know what is consciousness, it is still an open question. :smalltongue: I approve of the source choice though.

Look either consciousness is tied to an unindetified immaterial thing, in which case the machine might as well transport it along with information because why not or it’s not and in that case (since atoms aren’t identifiable) only the pattern matters.

In either case, since the person who steps out feels like the person who stepped in and the person who stepped in has no experience that the person who stepped out doesn’t share, then the question of wether they are the same « self » is needless hair splitting.

[Lord Torath]

It doesn’t really matter. (http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1)Well, yes, there's the "are you killing yourself and making a copy?" argument, sure. But there's also the fact that it takes about 3 gigajoules to disintegrate a single person with a laser (which is more than double what it took to send Marty McFly back to 1955).

The memory required to save the location, momentum, orientation, etc. of all your component atoms would be approximately 2.6 tredecillion bits. Million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, decillion, undecillion, duodecillion, and finally tredicillion. So that's 2.6x1042 bits. Gonna need a lot of RAM. And that's only to capture one copy of your DNA and your current brain state, not your whole body.

Sending that info to the far side of the galaxy (or even just the solar system) is going to take a long time. At 30 GHz (current satellite communication rate), it will take about 350,000 times the current age of the universe to send that data to the receiving end. Solid-fuel rocket is faster, even to cross the galaxy.

[Fyraltari]

Well, yes, there's the "are you killing yourself and making a copy argument", sure. But there's also the fact that it takes about 3 gigajoules to disintegrate a single person with a laser (which is more than double what it took to send Marty McFly back to 1955).

The memory required to save the location, momentum, orientation, etc. of all your component atoms would be approximately 2.6 tredecillion bits. Million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, decillion, undecillion, duodecillion, and finally tredicillion. So that's 2.6x1042 bits. Gonna need a lot of RAM. And that's only to capture one copy of your DNA and your current brain state, not your whole body.

Sending that info to the far side of the galaxy (or even just the solar system) is going to take a long time. At 30 GHz (current satellite communication rate), it will take about 350,000 times the current age of the universe to send that data to the receiving end. Solid-fuel rocket is faster, even to cross the galaxy.

Excuse me, I must have missed the memo about Star Trek being hard sci-fi.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Hard sci-fi? It borders on space fantasy.

[Eldan]

Borders? It's full of energy beings, telepaths and unexplained space wibblies. It's only marginally harder than most Doctor Who.

[Tvtyrant]

Borders? It's full of energy beings, telepaths and unexplained space wibblies. It's only marginally harder than most Doctor Who.

Better then Doctor Who? The Q Collective are Time Lords that are fused to their Tardises and have reality warping powers to boot.

[veti]

Alchemy was practised by lots of different people over several centuries. Some of those people would have been interested in what we would recognise as rudimentary chemistry, but others - not so much.

In particular, when the story got around that it might be possible to turn one material into something else, the whole "lead into gold" idea took hold of way too many people's imagination, and lots of people who would never otherwise have thought much about chemistry - suddenly started taking interest. But with a monomaniacal focus that basically guaranteed they couldn't learn anything anyway.

The mystical elements would have been incorporated by others. I would be willing to bet that most of those who thought it was all about "as above so below" - looked on the "lead into gold" merchants as fools or charlatans. I don't know when the idea of a "philosopher's stone" was invented, but my guess is, it would have been quite a late invention, trying to fuse several disparate traditions into a coherent whole - although by this point, whatever connection there may have been to modern science well and truly severed.

[UtopiaNext]

That depends on what you consider science. If science is a method of testing reality to determine what is true and not on an empirical basis, then alchemy could be considered science if you hold that it follows an alternate set of truths; consider that in comics, alchemy seems to WORK, but not via the rules of conventional science. If it works via rules unto its own, then it is a science, but should probably not be CALLED "science" because that would get too confusing... it's something parallel, at best.

[Fyraltari]

That depends on what you consider science. If science is a method of testing reality to determine what is true and not on an empirical basis, then alchemy could be considered science if you hold that it follows an alternate set of truths; consider that in comics, alchemy seems to WORK, but not via the rules of conventional science. If it works via rules unto its own, then it is a science, but should probably not be CALLED "science" because that would get too confusing... it's something parallel, at best.

I’m sorry, what do you mean by « an alternate set of truths »? Something is either is true or it isn’t, you can’t chose a group of truths and ignore the rest.

[snowblizz]

I’m sorry, what do you mean by « an alternate set of truths »? Something is either is true or it isn’t, you can’t chose a group of truths and ignore the rest.

Lol yes! I was thinking the same thing. The alternate to truth is falsehood, and the alternate to fact is fiction.

You don't get to pick the reality you want. No matter what people in politics and online say.



That depends on what you consider science. If science is a method of testing reality to determine what is true and not on an empirical basis, then alchemy could be considered science if you hold that it follows an alternate set of truths; consider that in comics, alchemy seems to WORK, but not via the rules of conventional science. If it works via rules unto its own, then it is a science, but should probably not be CALLED "science" because that would get too confusing... it's something parallel, at best.

I think I get what you are going for, we can postulate a reality where alchemy works. The problem is that means magic is real and that science is magic. Or magic is science. But then effectively we have changed the meaning of the words.

Also you are slightly simplifying science too much IMO. It's not jsut determining whether something is true or not empirically. Sometimes you cannot empirically test something. I can determine empirically that it is true that water flows upwards (the problem comes when the context surrounding this is challenged, I was strapped in upside down in farris wheel).
This is my personal interpretation but science needs to follow the scientific method. There is more to that than doing experiments or describing things. Philosophers and religions also describe things. The scientific method means forming an idea of what will happen, construct a test or observation about it, describing it, getting a result and providing an explanation or interpretation, which you finally disseminate. That last part is one of the key aspects really, and it's somewhere around the Age of Enlightment we get the idea to write about what we have found to spread the ideas. Incidentally it is something alchemists normally did their level best to avoid. It is in the dissemination of the results we sort of get actual science, before that, did it really exist? It is also what leads to contextual and metholodical rigor being part of the process. If no one gets my results no one will try to replicate it and what and how I got my results cease to matter.

[Traab]

I’m sorry, what do you mean by « an alternate set of truths »? Something is either is true or it isn’t, you can’t chose a group of truths and ignore the rest.

Im guessing stuff like the link I posted where a teacher is explaining how everything contains air fire earth and water then proceeds to demonstrate this to the class. Thats not how things actually work, but its a reasonable theory that is backed by plenty of evidence, for a given value of the term.

[Fyraltari]

Im guessing stuff like the link I posted where a teacher is explaining how everything contains air fire earth and water then proceeds to demonstrate this to the class. Thats not how things actually work, but its a reasonable theory that is backed by plenty of evidence, for a given value of the term.

Having good reason to be wrong doesn’t make you right and the conclusion you draw aren’t « alternate truths » at best they are partial truths. And that lesson doesn’t have any of those.

[Peelee]

Having good reason to be wrong doesn’t make you right and the conclusion you draw aren’t « alternate truths » at best they are partial truths. And that lesson doesn’t have any of those.

Aye. One of my favorite things to say is that Aristotle was probably the smartest person ever who was wrong about absolutely everything

[Rogar Demonblud]

Most of his stuff still holds up. There's a reason literary criticism classes start with the Poetics, after all.

As for his science, well, if you do the experiments with the tools he had available in his time (i.e. the Mark I Mod I human eyeball) most of his conclusions hold up. We've just made much better tools in the last 24 centuries.

[Fyraltari]

Aye. One of my favorite things to say is that Aristotle was probably the smartest person ever who was wrong about absolutely everything

Everything covered so much ground he’d be right on some stuff by the law of great numbers alone. However he was right on a good number of stuff (mostly not physics) and did pioneer what would become modern science. It’s just funnier to accentuate the negative.

[Vahnavoi]

Put shortly, alchemy was a precursor to modern science, but then natural philosophy and chymistry took it to a back alley, beat it up and took all of its best stuff. So everything that was scientific about alchemy has since been supplanted and largely obsoleted by modern medicine, chemistry and physics. All that's left for alchemy to call its own are the esoteric occult bits that are of use only to heavy metal musicians and writers of bad fantasy fiction.

[Vinyadan]

To make an example, Nobel laureate Tu Youyou found through traditional Chinese medicine that a tea made with Artemisia annua can be useful against malaria. This is very old knowledge, dating at least from the IV century AD. However, the ancient method was that of making tea with it, which meant lots of heat, which degraded artemisinin and made it less effective. Youyou devised a method of cold extraction, and artemisinin was found to be a very effective cure, although it is costly and, after decades, malaria strains may be developing resistances against it.

In other words, even where there is something good in ancient science, we can likely develop it way further. We have a completely different method, as well as massive amounts of money, enormous institutions, huge numbers of physicists, biologists, and physicians, easy ways to store and share data and to prevent their destruction, and a culture that doesn't just recognise that progress exists, but considers it fundamental. We can spot where the ancients stopped searching and keep going in that direction, and literally see what they never could have. We have germ theory, we have equipment, we know how atoms and molecules work, we have electricity, we have fridges...

[snowblizz]

To make an example, Nobel laureate Tu Youyou found through traditional Chinese medicine that a tea made with Artemisia annua can be useful against malaria. This is very old knowledge, dating at least from the IV century AD. However, the ancient method was that of making tea with it, which meant lots of heat, which degraded artemisinin and made it less effective. Youyou devised a method of cold extraction, and artemisinin was found to be a very effective cure, although it is costly and, after decades, malaria strains may be developing resistances against it.

In other words, even where there is something good in ancient science, we can likely develop it way further. We have a completely different method, as well as massive amounts of money, enormous institutions, huge numbers of physicists, biologists, and physicians, easy ways to store and share data and to prevent their destruction, and a culture that doesn't just recognise that progress exists, but considers it fundamental. We can spot where the ancients stopped searching and keep going in that direction, and literally see what they never could have. We have germ theory, we have equipment, we know how atoms and molecules work, we have electricity, we have fridges...

This always make me think of Dara O'brian talking about traditional medicine. Paraphrasing: and then we took all the stuff that worked and made into actual medicine.

[Vinyadan]

This always make me think of Dara O'brian talking about traditional medicine. Paraphrasing: and then we took all the stuff that worked and made into actual medicine.
I don't strictly agree with this phrase, because I think that there is still some useful stuff buried in books or oral tradition that hasn't been transmitted to or put to work by modern medicine (Youyou herself made her discoveries in the Sixties, so not that long ago). But it's definitely true that the amount of "it works" in modern medicine is many, many times higher than anything one could find in traditional medicine. Plus, modern medicine doesn't just have potent means, it can also dose them with an ease that I don't think traditional medicines ever had.

[sktarq]

Also, they were totally right in that you can turn lead into gold. They just grossly underestimated how hard it is to rip three protons off each atom.

Well firstly many got it right that you needed to go via mercury

(you just need to induce alpha decay to get to Hg)
(induce another round alpha decay with a proton/neutron balance that leads directly to beta decay)

[Traab]

This always make me think of Dara O'brian talking about traditional medicine. Paraphrasing: and then we took all the stuff that worked and made into actual medicine.

I dont remember where I read or heard this from but I always enjoyed it. "You know what they call alternative medicine that works? *&^%*^&% MEDICINE!" Basically someone so tired of one of his magic water crystal aura lavender huffing friends who insisted the old ways worked they went into a rant about it.

[Radar]

I dont remember where I read or heard this from but I always enjoyed it. "You know what they call alternative medicine that works? *&^%*^&% MEDICINE!" Basically someone so tired of one of his magic water crystal aura lavender huffing friends who insisted the old ways worked they went into a rant about it.
Tim Minchin in his 9 minute beat poem Storm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U) at around the 3rd minute.

[Asmotherion]

Actual Alchemy is more of a phylosophical and essoteric practice. However, it did lead to the development of chemistry and many scientific discoveries, because most of it's practices revolved around observing the natural world to come to essoteric conclusions about the supernatural, the nature of divinity and the cosmos, and ascending the alchemist's soul to a higher state of existance than a mere mortal. One of it's tenets, inspired by the emerald table, was after all "As above, so below", which meant, as things are in the physical world, they reflect the nature of Divinity, that created the world in it's image.

So, Alchemy was as much a science as a phylosophy and theology.

Most Scientists in it's era were also Alchemists, and vice versa, and thus the word was used interchangably. Newton for example, was an Alchemist in that he was a Mathematician and a Physisist, as much as an Astrologer and a Theologist, and used his discoveries in an atempt to understand and explain the Nature of the World Above.

Modern science was based on the premise of distinguishing observable fact from phylosophical speculation that was unable to be proven. Thus, part of what consisted of Alchemy was transmuted (if you pardon the pun) into multiple modern sciences like chemistry, physics, astronomy and biology, wile other parts became more phylosophical in a theoretical backround, rather than pressented as fact. This was an important step to distinguish between a physician who could actually heal you for example, and a charlatan who would sell you some wonder medicine for all you could afford, that included goat piss and snake blood to give a dramatic effect.

Thus alchemy is in it's own way the grandfather of modern science.


:redcloak: "I mean, fire shouldn't even count. It's a chemical reaction."

Well, technically, if you consider "elements" to mean states of matter, fire can be in the 4th state of matter, namelly plasma, thus giving some credit to that theory. But yeah, your average flame is a chemical reaction.

[snarlynarwhal]

Google defines alchemy as "the medieval forerunner of chemistry, based on the supposed transformation of matter. It was concerned particularly with attempts to convert base metals into gold or to find a universal elixir." So yes-ish. I think the term pseudo-science would be more accurate.

[sktarq]

This always make me think of Dara O'brian talking about traditional medicine. Paraphrasing: and then we took all the stuff that worked and made into actual medicine.

The problem with this thinking is that the stuff that was taken...was working...it was and is medicine. So by thinking of it as "actual" medicine it is dismissing the fact that it was working before. I mean hell Reiki is now offered in some hospital now, covered by insurance. It has been shown to work in randomized controlled studies. There is diddlysquat for a good scientific reason of WHY it works. To a fair extent acupuncture treatment for things like addiction treatment support has also shown to work. Again beats sugar pills.
Now do I think that because these things have been shown to work it means the one-atom-of-lavender-infused-water or placing a specific kind of feldspar on my noggin will do what the somewhat-too-intense person down at my local crystal shop tells me it will? Not in the slightest. But is does mean that respect and an open mind is worth it. Particularly if one thinks there is only a single variable involved when they may be more than that.

in the larger thread question. Eh it varied. "Alchemist" was such a variable term. People could use that label (for themselves or others) for a people performing such a wide array of actions (especially over space and time) that is a very vague term. You mucked about with materials looking for "Truths"? congrats you can join the alchemist guild. Some do nothing more than perform really bad logic and focus on the soul, some try to test herb concoctions, others were basically your local opium dealer with an affectation, some make dyes and mordants....a fair amount of modern scientific thought grew out of alchemical thinking. So while some parts of the alchemical community were all about pouring mouse dung/clove/opium mixtures out the bottom of a sword or linking metals to planetary bodies others were slowly creating a fair amount of the rules and ideas that would lead to science. Oh and many were a total mix of the above. looking for lead-saturn connections on Tuesday and figuring out the ideas of molarity and stoichiometry on Wednesday. So alchemy was a lot of early science and lots of hookum mixed together. Today the stuff we call alchemy is usually the stuff that was not included in "chemistry", "pharmacology", "astronomy", "nutrition", or a fair amount of theology etc that in time were all pulled from the alchemical basket...but at the time they were all basically one thing.
So as a whole was it scientific? Nope.
were parts scientific: at times yes. but we often don't call those part alchemy anymore.
was that mess how a lot of scientific thought and method was created? Yup.

Just like a fair amount of physics and biology came from theological study at times alchemy was a similar mishmash of stuff we would today call not-science and science and there is no clear line.

[Fyraltari]

The problem with this thinking is that the stuff that was taken...was working...it was and is medicine. So by thinking of it as "actual" medicine it is dismissing the fact that it was working before. I mean hell Reiki is now offered in some hospital now, covered by insurance. It has been shown to work in randomized controlled studies. There is diddlysquat for a good scientific reason of WHY it works. To a fair extent acupuncture treatment for things like addiction treatment support has also shown to work. Again beats sugar pills.
Now do I think that because these things have been shown to work it means the one-atom-of-lavender-infused-water or placing a specific kind of feldspar on my noggin will do what the somewhat-too-intense person down at my local crystal shop tells me it will? Not in the slightest. But is does mean that respect and an open mind is worth it. Particularly if one thinks there is only a single variable involved when they may be more than that.

Science is open-minded by principle.The difference between the scientific method and every single other "knoledge tradtion" in the world (like alchemy) is that science admits that it is starting from a position of ignorance. Rather than make a grandstanding declaration of "this is how the world works" and try to retrofit the facts observed into that (like alchemy does with the 4 elements), science starts with the observed facts and try to figure out how the world works form there. It's the most open-mended approach possible.

That there are parts of traditionnal medicine that works is very much the point of the post you quoted. But it doens't mean that the foundations of traditionnal medicine are shaky as all hell. So we're getting rid of the things that don't work. We're getting rid of the nonsense that people came up with to explain the things that work, like acupuncture. And, while we're applying the things that work we try to figure out how they work so we can make more of the same. We've known for the longest time that willow bark helped agaisnt headache but it's only until we discovered it contained aspirin that we made real progress.

[veti]

Again beats sugar pills.

Ironically, sugar pills also "work" to a surprising degree, when compared with "no treatment". Numerous studies have shown that a placebo has a statistically significant beneficial effect on many illnesses, when no better treatment is available.

[Yora]

Though more recently it has been questioned if the placebo effect might only decreases the patient's discomfort, and not actually improve the recovery.

Which would still be very significant as research in managing medical conditions is concerned, as that is usually the primary issue for patients.

[Vinyadan]

Ironically, sugar pills also "work" to a surprising degree, when compared with "no treatment". Numerous studies have shown that a placebo has a statistically significant beneficial effect on many illnesses, when no better treatment is available.
But what if they have diabetes (http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/3p5/)?

[georgie_leech]

But what if they have diabetes (http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/3p5/)?

Unless the pills are at Farnsworth Suppository size, I suspect the amount of sugar in a sugar pill is less than what might be found in most meals.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Many 'sugar pills' are actually bicarbonate of soda.

[Bohandas]

Has anybody brought up that the transmutation of lead into gold has been proven possible. It goes slow, racks up a staggeringly enormous power bill, and requires equipment that takes up more space than a football field, but it CAN be done.


The problem with this thinking is that the stuff that was taken...was working...it was and is medicine. So by thinking of it as "actual" medicine it is dismissing the fact that it was working before.

It's still medicine in the same sense that you can still light your house with rushlights (candles used by medieval peasants). They'll technically light your house up, but they're a lower quality of light, you need a ton of them and they might set your house on fire

[Tarmor]

Has anybody brought up that the transmutation of lead into gold has been proven possible. It goes slow, racks up a staggeringly enormous power bill, and requires equipment that takes up more space than a football field, but it CAN be done.

"I don't mean to be pedantic or anything, but the color of gold... is gold. That's why it's called gold. What YOU have discovered, if it has a name, is some... Green."

(Couldn't resist.)

[Radar]

"I don't mean to be pedantic or anything, but the color of gold... is gold. That's why it's called gold. What YOU have discovered, if it has a name, is some... Green."

(Couldn't resist.)
Never try to resist, if you are to quote one of the finest TV series of all time. :smallsmile:

[sktarq]

Science is open-minded by principle.The difference between the scientific method and every single other "knoledge tradtion" in the world (like alchemy) is that science admits that it is starting from a position of ignorance. Rather than make a grandstanding declaration of "this is how the world works" and try to retrofit the facts observed into that (like alchemy does with the 4 elements), science starts with the observed facts and try to figure out how the world works form there. It's the most open-mended approach possible.

That there are parts of traditionnal medicine that works is very much the point of the post you quoted. But it doens't mean that the foundations of traditionnal medicine are shaky as all hell. So we're getting rid of the things that don't work. We're getting rid of the nonsense that people came up with to explain the things that work, like acupuncture. And, while we're applying the things that work we try to figure out how they work so we can make more of the same. We've known for the longest time that willow bark helped agaisnt headache but it's only until we discovered it contained aspirin that we made real progress.

Open minded by principle, yes. By action and attitude? often no.
By issue is not with dismissing the parts of traditional medicine that don't work but that it it is often done so without proper testing and often deeply out of context in ways that will skew results (looking at certain extracts vs whole treatments for example) I basically look at traditional medicine as a bunch of rationalized (but not per se rational) grab bag of ideas based on often long experience of near random testing. It is a very long set of observational trials of low quality but they may well have collected something interesting with all the phooey. So for all the talk of science being open minded and rational many people who claim to espouse it don't live up to anything close to the ideal. Just because some of it...really sunlight and 2 atoms of basil water?? REALLY?....is total male-bovine-post-digestive-matter doesn't mean that the whole can be dismissed. I think one of science's strength is that it can learn from things when it actually applied like it says on the tin.

as for "progress" on the asprin front....eh? I would generally say that if you have the ability to cure a headache that is all the progress most people NEED ... pain to no pain...it is better that we learned the the exact acid that was the active ingredient, the ability to synthesize it, and from there the principles that allowed us to develop new painkiller....yes I do. But I don't think that stops the willow bark from being real medicine. The willow bark is not fake, and that is the point I'm aiming at. Sure the asprin from Bayer is going to be of a more reliable dose, have lower chance on contaminants etc and has other things that make it superior but that just make it better medicine not somehow more real. And that's my point there is a real-vs-traditional dichotomy that is not needed in most cases. There is effective and ineffective medicine. and plenty of "real" medicine is utter quackery (P-hacking, bad sampling, inappropriate comparisons, only publishing favorable results, replication study failure, the entire fields of phrenology, etc) that has been dressed up in the socially appropriate norms and given the blessing of the ideological high priests (peer viewed papers).

and Veti...yes I compared to sugar pills over "no treatment" precisely because I wanted to remove that effect from the statement.

And yup rushlights work. It is not that the light isn't real...we just have BETTER lights now. Kinda like we have better ways of moving goods from one place to another than by domestic animal, most of the time. Sometime, in some often unusual situations the pack mule is still the better option. And we can become blind to best way to handle a problem just because we dismiss things that are low on the progress ladder.

The advantage of science is that is can learn from its mistakes pretty well...and because of that in 50 years we will look back on what we see today as unassailable truths, real science, etc with laughter and derision. Odds are on whole subfields being tossed are quite high. It's the best we've got but it is nowhere near as perfect as many people seem to think it is.

[Vinyadan]

I just wanted to observe that homeopathy (which I assume the two atoms alludes to) isn't traditional medicine. It was created in 1796 by a German physician, Samuel Hahnemann, who tried ingesting cinchona, used to cure malaria, while healthy. He got shivers and fever, both symptoms of malaria, and so assumed that medicines cause an effect similar to that of illnesses they cure. Then he had other people assume medicaments and note all of the side effects. If the side effects were similar to the symptoms of a disease, he recommended that medicament against that disease.
Dilution was added to avoid the harmful effects of the medicines, under the mistaken assumption that the positive effects were of a non-physical nature and could be maintained even if the substance was pretty much not there any more.

[CountDVB]

Alchemy is generally considered to be a "proto-science" in the historical context from what I seen.

From my perspective when it comes to alchemy in fiction, it's somewhere between magic and what we would call modern science. In fact, I'd wage that if one of them was plants, and the other was animals, alchemy would be like fungi, its own seperate thing albeit with elements of both. Granted, given how fungi is a bit clsoer to animals than plants, it's debatable where alchemy is closer to traditional science or magic (I would argue that science is plants and magic is animals here in this metaphor; while alchemy at first glance appears very scientific, the underlying mystical principles and subtleties do lead it closer to magic, though ultimately it is its own thing.)

[Bohandas]

I just wanted to observe that homeopathy (which I assume the two atoms alludes to) isn't traditional medicine. It was created in 1796 by a German physician, Samuel Hahnemann, who tried ingesting cinchona, used to cure malaria, while healthy. He got shivers and fever, both symptoms of malaria, and so assumed that medicines cause an effect similar to that of illnesses they cure. Then he had other people assume medicaments and note all of the side effects. If the side effects were similar to the symptoms of a disease, he recommended that medicament against that disease.
Dilution was added to avoid the harmful effects of the medicines, under the mistaken assumption that the positive effects were of a non-physical nature and could be maintained even if the substance was pretty much not there any more.

All of that kind of makes me wonder what other things he was ingesting while he thought all of this up.

[Florian]

Science is open-minded by principle.The difference between the scientific method and every single other "knoledge tradtion" in the world (like alchemy) is that science admits that it is starting from a position of ignorance. Rather than make a grandstanding declaration of "this is how the world works" and try to retrofit the facts observed into that (like alchemy does with the 4 elements), science starts with the observed facts and try to figure out how the world works form there. It's the most open-mended approach possible.

That there are parts of traditionnal medicine that works is very much the point of the post you quoted. But it doens't mean that the foundations of traditionnal medicine are shaky as all hell. So we're getting rid of the things that don't work. We're getting rid of the nonsense that people came up with to explain the things that work, like acupuncture. And, while we're applying the things that work we try to figure out how they work so we can make more of the same. We've known for the longest time that willow bark helped agaisnt headache but it's only until we discovered it contained aspirin that we made real progress.

I think the topic is a little more complex, especially when also talking about applied science.

The initial stance is often a negative one, "That is not supposed to work" or "I can't imagine why that should work", followed by the stance of "We already have standard procedures in place", leaving no chance for co-existance.

Why co-existance? "Folk Medicine" used herbs as medicine, which is basically why we did research there, see your example with willow bark. Once we got the pharma industry up and running, there was also a huge push against folk medicine. You doc didn't say "ok, prep a willow bark tea. If not available, grab some aspirin". In a sense, that nearly killed the whole field of folk medicine, which is a loss, because I think that we haven't examined everything there is for potential research.

The counter example are yoga, qi gong and zen, all three with a religious background.

Sure, all of this is very different from something like "alchemy", because there're concrete results and not just faulty philosophy at work.