Just because something has been done for hundreds of years does not mean it has been scientifically shown to actually do more than placebo. A lot of people do a lot of stuff that has been proven to do nothing detectable, and they still swear by it.

"It has been done for hundreds of years" isn't a good argument. There is a reason "Appeal to tradition" is one of the more famous logical fallacies.

Also: The radiation doses used in this trial are very likely much, much higher than what you would get from such a bath in radioactive water (otherwise the water would be so radioactive that staying in there or even drinking it would kill you very quickly), so this doesn't really tell us anything about whether the traditional modalities do anything or not. And yes, stuff like that also exists in Austria with Radon caves, and many other places.

Well, the title says "offers relief", not "provides a cure".

(Though the article says it's a placebo controlled study)

Good point! Interestingly there is evidence that at least some life forms appear to benefit from 'highly radioactive' water.

https://hal.science/hal-03025146v1/file/Petit%20et%20al%2020...

"Direct Meta-Analyses Reveal Unexpected Microbial Life in the Highly Radioactive Water of an Operating Nuclear Reactor Core"

https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/spectrum.01995-22

"Culturomics of Bacteria from Radon-Saturated Water of the World’s Oldest Radium Mine"

Considering how wrong and not actually scientific a lot of “science” is and has been shown, it seems that appeal to science should also be a logical fallacy, especially for the cult of Scienceology or whatever you want to call that complex that seems centered on Reddit.

Just recently more “science” was shown irreproducible in a meta study, a clear and fundamental violation of the most basic scientific principle. So even science isn’t science. Not even to mention all the PhD theses that have been shown to be plagiarisms.

So maybe try not to fixate so much on nothing being real unless “science” tells you it is real. It gives off an air of “trust the science” fundamental contradiction!

Science is a process, and from what you described above it is working.

Everyone in science knows that all knowledge is provisional, and that goes 100-fold for things which haven't been replicated. Science is an algorithm for ratcheting understanding despite the fact that humans are fallible and some humans are outright frauds.

When we say "everyone in science", I think the part that people find scary is that it's hard to tell who is in science versus who is in 'science'.

Or in other words, it's hard to tell from the outside who really believes what you're stating and who believes it until it's inconvenient, or until it clashes with their personal ideology.

When what you're referring to is "science" in quotes, you seem to already have admitted what these people are appealing to is "science" in name only.

People acting in bad faith will appeal to whatever authority they think will achieve their goals. It says nothing of the legitimacy of Science, and if you let the actions of bad actors take actual Science off the table, you've only empowered bad actors to make things far worse for yourself.

Modern medicine is hardly logical where therapies are concerned. There is often not any coherent theory of why a therapy works and yet it may be commonly used in treatments. If you examine the literature supplied with your drugs, it often states "exact mechanism of action is unknown but yada yada". This is why there are double blind studies in medicine. Absent a theory, this is the only way to gauge the effectiveness of a therapy. Hence, if bathing in slightly radioactive waters has provided beneficial to people over a long period of time, you can't dismiss it as "appealing to tradition". It may need validation with a study but can't be ignored as just tradition.

The fact that it's been done over a long period of time does not prove that it's beneficial. As you say, that's why there are double-blind studies. If the only evidence of benefit is that it's been done for a long time, that literally is just tradition. It's worth looking into it to see if it works, but there are plenty of traditional remedies with long histories that don't.

perhaps an experiment has verbally controlled its inputs and outputs in analyzing the effect of an independant variable upon a dependant variable. this does not imply that that those inputs and outputs were actually controlled for , nor does it imply that any found correlations are inherently causative. between folk wisdom that kinda works vs. corporate advice that also kinda works but happens to make someone a huge profit ....... ill take the thermal baths first

Similar treatments exist without the radioactive water.

There are also old radon baths in Jachymov in Czech republic working on same principle. Exactly for same primary purpose - problems with joints and bones.

Then communists made local uranium mines/gulags for 'enemies of the state' which was basically a prolonged death sentence, many were just beaten to death or died from cold/starvation.

I'm not clear on what the second paragraph is adding to your example in the first.

It's a related and important historical fact that is not well known outside of Czechia. Why not share it with wider audience when given a chance.

Off topic: I just learned a couple weeks ago that Czechia and Czech Republic are both acceptable names for the country.

> The mineral water in Pavel Banya is rich in the chemical element radon

> The mineral takes care of having radiant and beautiful skin, healthy bones and, of course, excellent brain functions.

Ah, yes, radiant skin.

I heard some Amish talking about their parents taking a trip to Montana to visit the radon mines for arthritis.

An example here: https://www.radonmine.com/facility/

There's quite a few out that way.