Natural Medicine vs. Western Scie...

Natural Medicine vs. Western Science — Or Is That the Wrong Question?

The Plasticity Podcast por Santina Duarte
E21
2 mar 2026
01:00:23

Notas del episodio

Hi, it's me, that girl that you met at a bar, hoping to learn about natural health and ended up being held hostage by her after as she went on and on about her own research, Santina. After attending an event that was openly critical of alternative and traditional medicine, I’m diving into the bigger question: who gets to decide what counts as “real” medicine? In this episode, I explore the tension between Western science and natural health, the plant origins of modern pharmaceuticals, Indigenous knowledge systems, the neuroscience of placebo, and why culture and context matter more than we think. This isn’t anti-science — it’s a conversation about humility, integration, and building a future of medicine that’s both evidence-based and culturally intelligent.

As per usual, I release a new episode every Monday at 7:00 am EST. You can find me on all podcast platforms and on Instagram at @theplasticitypodcast. Thank you so much for another week of listening, and I like everyone else, am really hoping that punch the monkey gets the love he deserves (im releasing this a week late so this statement may be dated, hopefully for the better).

Palabras clave

Neuroscience
Academic Journey
Neural Networks
Graduate School
University
Science communication
science and tech
knowing your audience
dissemination
women in science
cognition
dark science
pseudoscience
experimentation
neurochemistry
neural encoding
mental health
in vivo
in vitro
animal models
genetics
research
clinical trials
human research
computational neuroscience
health
womens health
womens research
underdiagnosed
publishing
peer review
academia
healthcare
traditional medicine
natural health
shamanism
religion
culture
indigenous science
non-western
colonial
holistic health
health trends
medicine