The story of my restored vision was the first thing that came to mind when people found out that my parents are specialists in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and asked me what I thought of the practice. It was a concrete and rather wondrous first-hand experience, and I knew what it meant—to see the world more clearly in the care of my mother and father.
Otherwise, I rarely knew what to say. I remember hearing TCM in the context of “poor evidence” or “poorly designed studies” and feel challenged to defend a line of work seen as illegitimate. I would feel an obligation to defend Chinese medicine to protect my parents, their care and efforts, but also an urge to defy that obligation for the sake of someone else’s passing curiosity and perhaps entertainment.
For myself especially, I wish I had a better understanding of TCM. Now that I’m into machine learning (ML), I’m often struck by the parallels between this cutting-edge technology and the ancient practice of TCM. For one thing, I can’t explain either of them entirely satisfactorily.
It’s not that There are no explanations as to how the field of Chinese medicine works. I and many others simply find the theories dubious. According to both classical and modern theory, blood and qi—pronounced “chi” which is variously interpreted, something like vapor—move around and regulate the body, which itself is not considered separate from the mind.
Qi flows through channels called meridians. The anatomical charts that hang on the walls of my parents’ clinics show meridians tracing the body in clean, straight lines—from the chest to the finger, or from the waist to the inner thigh—overlaid with diagrams of the bones and Organs. Needles can be inserted at various points along these meridians to release blockages and thus improve the flow of qi. All TCM treatments are ultimately about the Qi: Acupuncture expels unhealthy Qi and allows healthy Qi to circulate from the outside; Herbal medicines do this from within.
On my parents’ charts, the meridians and acupuncture points are drawn like a subway map and seem to float slightly upward, only loosely tied to the discernible shapes of the gut and joints below. This lack of visual consistency is reflected in science; Little evidence has been found of the physical existence of meridians or qi. Studies have investigated whether meridians are special conduits for electrical signals, but these experiments were badly designed– or if they are related to fascia, the thin, stretchy tissue that surrounds almost every internal part of the body. All of this work is recent and the results have not been conclusive.
In contrast, the effectiveness of acupuncture, especially for complaints such neck discomfort And Lower back pain, is well supported in modern scientific journals. The insurance companies are convinced; Most of my mother’s patients come to her for acupuncture because it is covered by New Zealand Social Security.