Fake acupuncture still works better than a placebo, though.
Which means that the Pins In Magic Points Adjusts Your Chi part is bullshit, since you don't have to use the magic points to get an effect and using the pins in the magic points doesn't improve things, but it does NOT disprove Pins Can Do Some Weird Shit.
It means, basically, that acupuncture is the equivalent of blessing the willow bark tea in the name of the moon goddess and drinking it from a rosewood cup: there's religious trappings wrapped around a warm drink with acetylsalicylic acid in, and they're just mistakenly ascribing the cure to the religion.
I'm of the opinion that getting poked with tiny needles most likely causes the brain to release dopamine. You'd do just as well getting a workout, or fucking, or playing a video game.
probably true. But it doesn't make acupuncture useless. Part of siding with the science is accepting the results. And if someone wants to get stuck with needles and not go to the gym, I'm cool with that. Honestly, if I were in lots of pain, I'd probably prefer the needles to the stair master, too.
And if someone wants to get stuck with needles and not go to the gym, I'm cool with that.
As long as someone isn't charging for it under the pretense that it is medicine, fine. As soon as people start charging for it, they deserve to be nailed to the wall.
on one hand: true. On the other hand, they're not selling a fake bill of goods. they're saying that acupuncture will help you feel better and it does. To an extent they need to make sure they're not misleading people, but I'd rather people look it up for themselves. ten minutes an a computer will get you a surprising amount of information about anything you might want to do.
Nearly all of the pro-acupuncture people claim that it is in fact medicine, and the idea that it's not routinely marketed as an alternative to Western medicine is ridiculous.
It certainly means that there's nothing mystical about it, and that people who sell books and videos making claims about how to do it ought to be prosecuted, fined heavily, and jailed for a long time.
Except that none of those are useful for pain prevention during localized surgery when the patient is allergic to major anaesthetic drugs, which is why acupuncture is taken seriously. Even if your theory is correct, acupuncture is still useful.
that doesn't mean it doesn't work. it just means that it doesn't matter where you stick someone. The surest sign of a placebo is when it works just as well as nothing at all. I'd hardly call fake acupuncture nothing at all.
The surest sign of a placebo is when it works just as well as nothing at all.
Uh, no, the surest sign of a placebo is when it works as well as a placebo: A fake medicine that does nothing, but that the recipient believes is real.
"Working as well as no treatment at all" means it's WORSE than placebo.
I get that, but what I mean is that actually inserting needles into someone is not exactly the same as sugar pills. It's not just you thinking they're doing something, they're actually doing something. It may not be surgery or chemistry, but a needle in my skin is certainly something, IMO.
But acupuncturists claim that there are particular points where you have to insert the needles, or particular patterns or whatever. If you can just put them in whereever, why, anyone could do it!
And acupunture works better than placebo. So there's obviously something more than placebo going on, even if the religious claptrap is proven to not be the cause.
I'm not arguing that. I'm just saying you misdefined "placebo"
Actually, the placebo effect is remarkable. People have not only reported that their symptoms are alleviated when on a sugar pill, they have actually at times been cured of their illness while on it. Our bodies, they are strange things. That, or sucrose has curative properties nobody is aware of.
I'm right there with you on "homeopathy", which strikes me as the most stupid made-up word ever. St. John's Wort was the first one to annoy me, but the current raging over "Massively overdose yourself with Vitamin C" drives me up the wall. Unless you are actually going for renal failure, Vitamin C is a water soluable vitamin; your body takes what it needs and tries to flush out the rest. And yet my father regularly tries to force Emergen-C down my throat when I visit him. Or make me eat a raw clove of garlic a day, like him.
I'm angry in some ways at modern medicine; we play a lot with peoples' bodies without really caring about what happens to them, medically. But moving backwards to the land of hedge wizards and witch doctors strikes me as suboptimal too.
Yeah, funny how the basic principal works, the hidebound traditional methods are unimportant and rather than 'well the basic idea works but it's much simpler than the ancient traditional teachings suggest' people who really want it not to work come away with 'well we've proved ancient methods are wrong about the details, so the fact that carefully putting needles in the vague area still helps is meaningless'.
Bad science conclusion, because they're coming at it from just as inflexible a position as the traditionalists. If you want an experiment that vague to fail, you can report anything but unqualified success as total failure.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:33 pm (UTC)Which means that the Pins In Magic Points Adjusts Your Chi part is bullshit, since you don't have to use the magic points to get an effect and using the pins in the magic points doesn't improve things, but it does NOT disprove Pins Can Do Some Weird Shit.
It means, basically, that acupuncture is the equivalent of blessing the willow bark tea in the name of the moon goddess and drinking it from a rosewood cup: there's religious trappings wrapped around a warm drink with acetylsalicylic acid in, and they're just mistakenly ascribing the cure to the religion.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:39 pm (UTC)As long as someone isn't charging for it under the pretense that it is medicine, fine. As soon as people start charging for it, they deserve to be nailed to the wall.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:44 pm (UTC)But that doesn't mean it doesn't work.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 07:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-05 08:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:38 pm (UTC)Uh, no, that's not what a placebo is. Placebos work better than doing nothing whatsoever, not the same as nothing whatsoever.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:45 pm (UTC)Uh, no, the surest sign of a placebo is when it works as well as a placebo: A fake medicine that does nothing, but that the recipient believes is real.
"Working as well as no treatment at all" means it's WORSE than placebo.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:58 pm (UTC)And I'd be willing to pay for that!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:59 pm (UTC)I'm not arguing that. I'm just saying you misdefined "placebo"
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 08:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-05 02:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-05 02:46 pm (UTC)"Works as well as nothing at all" is WORSE THAN PLACEBO.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-05 02:52 pm (UTC)I'm right there with you on "homeopathy", which strikes me as the most stupid made-up word ever. St. John's Wort was the first one to annoy me, but the current raging over "Massively overdose yourself with Vitamin C" drives me up the wall. Unless you are actually going for renal failure, Vitamin C is a water soluable vitamin; your body takes what it needs and tries to flush out the rest. And yet my father regularly tries to force Emergen-C down my throat when I visit him. Or make me eat a raw clove of garlic a day, like him.
I'm angry in some ways at modern medicine; we play a lot with peoples' bodies without really caring about what happens to them, medically. But moving backwards to the land of hedge wizards and witch doctors strikes me as suboptimal too.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:35 pm (UTC)Bad science conclusion, because they're coming at it from just as inflexible a position as the traditionalists. If you want an experiment that vague to fail, you can report anything but unqualified success as total failure.