Category: EBM and CQI

Words – Part 3 With words, who can link the Buddha to Shakespeare to Keats?  Our Nobel Laureate poet Louise Gluck, that’s who. A tenet of Buddhism is non-self (anatta) – this regrettably is misunderstood as no-self which, of course, is exactly wrong.  Self is the one thing we can be certain of,…..our supreme difficulty is exploring outside-our-self with an…

Words – Part 2 Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.  It is not humanly possible to gather immediately from our words what the logic of our language is. Language disguises thought.  If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.  If a lion…

Words – Part 1 Etymologists note the word pragmatic has a checkered past, and a multiform present.  The Greek root pragma means ‘a thing to be done, a fact, rightly done.’ But pragmatic has veered far and wide over the centuries to mean meddlesome, opiniated, according to common practice,…..and nowadays a fusion of compromise, abandonment of stated goals, opportunistic.  Jacques Barzun reminds us this is…

Know – Part 3 Can a process/event/statement be true and not true? I had a college dormitory roommate who resembled the lead singer of the Rolling Stones.  It was remarkable.  Naturally, he employed his good fortune to amusing effects. For example, if anyone at university would scoff he would casually comment “That’s me helping Carly with ‘You’re…

Know – Part 2 I should have known.  The signs were apparent.  It was the Moirai. Coaching one of my children’s basketball teams in 1994 a certain youngster on our team was obsessed with hoops in manner like no other.  A 12 year-old child who studied Street and Smith’s college basketball scouting reports each month,…..he…

Know – Part 1 No word surpasses know for instigating predicament.  In general, what we think we know is: a) a matter of fact, b) a matter of policy, or c) plans of action.  For ‘a’ we use the verb “is”,…for ‘b’ the verb “should”,…for ‘c’ the verb “will”.  Examples: a) Mexico is south of…

Doubt – Part 4 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Shakespeare (Hamlet) The great experimental principle is doubt, philosophic doubt which leaves to the mind its freedom and initiative, and from which the virtues most valuable to investigators in medicine are derived.  True science teaches us to doubt, and in ignorance, to…

Doubt – Part Three 20 May 1747 – I took twelve scurvey patients aboard the HMS Salisbury at sea, cases similar as I could have them,….gave two a quart of cider,….two 25 gutts of elixir vitriol,….two vinegar,….two sea water,….two orange and lemon,….two nutmeg,……and given each day.  Consequence was the most sudden good perceived from the…

Doubt – Part Two Immersion in water makes the straight seem bent.  Reason confused by false appearances is restored by measurement.  This drives out vague notions of greater or less,….surely the better part of thought relies on measurement. Socrates We travel like Ulysses to learn of the particolored world and its motley ways, but what…

Doubt – Part One A student is someone who thinks otherwise. RL Day You can prove almost anything with the evidence from a small enough segment of time,….the answer of the minute is positive,….the hour qualified,…. the year contradictory. EW Teale The proof that natural philosophy [science] has little truth in it, is that it has only…