Scientists don’t have a monopoly on empiricism. Philosophers can practice it, fuck, everyone practices it daily. What is empiricism? It’s a way of arriving at knowledge, an epistemic criterion. It’s looking for patterns in sensory perception, then coming to expect certain things about the world, like y always follows x, or x and y always come together, or y usually follows x, or x and y usually come together. It’s a method for discovering and uncovering causalities, using reason, experimentation and observation in conjunction. It also excludes other epistemic criteria, like conservatism, emotion, intuition, fideism, popularism, traditionalism, etcetera. So it includes some and excludes others. Empiricism can be documented, and it can be applied and employed consciously, consistently, rigorously and systematically, or it can be applied and employed haphazardly, recklessly. We tend to apply it haphazardly in our day to day lives, where as specialists tend to apply it rigorously, or at least, that’s the idea.
So you see, scientists don’t have a monopoly on empiricism, even though scientific institutions probably practice it more exclusively than any other institutions. It’s just a refinement, a sophistication of what all sentient species do, especially crows, the most intelligent animal preceding manimals by a narrow margin. Shaman have been practicing empiricism more/less for thousands of years, and although it was a less refined variant of it, mixed in with a little abracadabra and hocus pocus, it’s also older, and in that sense, more reputable, it’s stood the test of time.
Furthermore, shaman have documented their reasons for believing what they do, some of them empirical, some of them not so empirical, and so have acupuncturists, naturopaths, witchdoctors, and various other practitioners of alchemy, astrology and medicine the world over. So we can’t just say, they don’t know what they’re talking about, for they may have valuable truths to share and reasons substantiating them, and just because science has not presently “verified” their claims, so what? Some shamans haven’t verified scientific claims, either. It could take thousands of years before scientists could verify all or nearly all the claims shamans and others are making, plus they’re excessively biased contra their claims, and they won’t even go near them, because they’re cowardly and feeble.
Furthermore, just as shaman can, and have utilized empiricism in the past, even if they’ve done so imperfectly, scientists can practice it imperfectly too, they can be corrupted, by the promise of fame and fortune, wealth and power, and they can make mistakes. So the idea that one institution has consolidated reason is outlandishly preposterous, quite. We need to begin taking shaman seriously, especially when and where western medicine has failed. Some of their alternative remedies could potentially save us.
Furthermore, emotion, intuition and other epistemic criteria may be equally valid, although I prefer rational and empirical methods, because I’m an INTP, or like such as. Why be so biased? Why not encompass the whole of human thinking and feeling, as opposed to compartmentalizing it? Or, if you compartmentalize it, there should be alternative compartments, not only one or two acceptable ones. There should be other available ones out there.
Individuals should be able to pick and choose, make their own experimentations and observations, rather than allowing scientists + governments to do it for them, which is not empirical, but authoritarian and fideistic. Relying on someone else’s empiricism exclusively, never practicing it yourself, is a kind of authoritarian fideism, but that’s what we’re told to do, because science has become corrupted, it no longer lives up to its own ideals.
The idea that naturopathy is absolutely inferior and allopathy is superior is clearly economically and politically motivated, allopathy is good for business. From my EXPERIENCE, naturopathy can cure disease, just as well as allopathy, perhaps better. Poising your body in order to save it is a little ludicrous, on its face, no? One day, shamanism will be revived, and it will become just as prevalent as modern medicine is today, and it will be because of pioneers and trailblazers like me.