Editor, the Gauntlet,
I recently attended the Faculty of Kinesiology’s Active Living Series’ presentation "Holistic Approaches to Renewing Mind, Body and Soul" at the University Theatre. The presenter was advertised as an important player in bridging "the gap between conventional and alternative medicine." This was not at all the case.
In fact, the presenter slammed alternative health in the worst possible manner by employing the methods of her peer Dr. Stephen Barrett of www.quackwatch.com notoriety.
The Faculty of Kinesiology should not abet the mission of a standard paradigm monger to suppress and usurp the emergent alternative health paradigm.
The faculty should have known that there was nothing "holistic" at all about the speaker and that respecting "alternative medicine" was the last thing the speaker was willing to do. Why did the faculty allow this speaker to draw in members of the public with "complementary care" and "holistic approaches" bait? The faculty should know that a person with nary an alternative health accreditation has no business presenting as a holistic or a complementary practitioner. The faculty should make it clear that this presenter usurps accepted alternative health paradigm language in an Orwellian manner to promote standard paradigm exclusivity.
The faculty should have noted the speaker’s clear bias on its advertising to the public. Non-standard or atypical medicine does not qualify as complementary or holistic health. At best it is simply "non-standard" medicine struggling for recognition within the standard medical community. The alternative health paradigm has humanistic, moral and nature-respecting assumptions integrated tightly within its thinking. The nihilistic way of allopathic, evidence-based medicine in no way reflects this.
My evening was wasted because the Faculty of Kinesiology presumably believes that there must be one system of health thinking.