I’m talking more about ‘producing repeatable results’ than academic politicking. Of course there are problems, egos, and idiots. It’s done by humans, who are problematic, egotistical idiots. And you can level all the same claims at woo peddlers and pseudoscience only, you know, their results aren’t repeatable. What’s your point?
5 Likes
Maybe, maybe not. I don’t consider this statement to be truthful or neutral:
“placebo pills made of an inert substance, like sugar pills, that have
been shown in clinical studies to produce significant improvement in IBS
symptoms through mind-body self-healing processes”
Since there is not reliable evidence that suggest there is a “mind-body self-healing process” that has demonstrated physiological effects beyond time and the natural healing process.
There is evidence that there really is no such thing as a placebo effect since all measurements of the so called effect are self-reported, subjective assessment of symptoms and there is no way to control for self-deception or desire to please those administering a trial by reporting improvement.
Even the study in the article you cite, references for its support that there is a placebo effect a study has demonstrated says:
Recent research shows that placebo effects are genuine psychobiological events attributable to the overall therapeutic context … There is also evidence that placebo effects can exist in clinical practice, even if no placebo is given. [emphasis added]
Which really supports the idea that increased therapeutic interaction with any sort of “health care provider” woo or otherwise, can reduce stress and anxiety which also can contribute to a perceived reduction of symptoms and at best a reduction in stress related chemicals in the body. All of which could be achieved through better access to established medical practices, even if it just to discuss symptoms and progress with no treatment whatsoever.
There is, however a problem here. By training, I’m a geologist. There was a time when Continental Drift Theory, aka Plate Tectonics, was considered crackpot pseudo-science. Today, it’s accepted as (pardon the term) gospel in Geology.
The solution, of course, is the use of these techniques in an objective, blind test, to see if any differences can be detected.
Every once in a while, there’s a nugget of truth wrapped in layers of crack-pottery. It may be worth looking at it, on the chance that this may be the case. . .
4 Likes
Keep in mind that the comment you replied to was the statement:
“We need systems of communication that support a distinction between pseudoscience and critical thinking”
On this …
Actually, there has been a lot of research to suggest that a substantial percentage of published papers are just outright inaccurate. People who are commenting about pseudoscience online should be paying close attention to this …
From Cameron Neylon at Science in the Open …
what evidence we do have shows almost universally that peer review is a waste of time and resources and that it really doesn’t achieve very much at all. It doesn’t effectively guarantee accuracy, it fails dismally at predicting importance, and its not really supporting any effective filtering. If I appeal to authority I’ll go for one with some domain credibility, lets say the Cochrane Reviews which conclude the summary of a study of peer review with “At present, little empirical evidence is available to support the use of editorial peer review as a mechanism to ensure quality of biomedical research.” Or perhaps Richard Smith, a previous editor of the British Medical Journal, who describes the quite terrifying ineffectiveness of referees in finding errors deliberately inserted into a paper. Smith’s article is a good entry into to the relevant literature as is a Research Information Network study that notably doesn’t address the issue of whether peer review of papers helps to maintain accuracy despite being broadly supportive of the use of peer review to award grants.
Its hard to remove the woo on such a granular level, especially the way Wikipedia has been set up to work, its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness.
I do think there’s value in having an ideal to live up to, and that Mr Wales is willing to be upfront with the ideal that Wikipedia should live up to.
That is exactly what Wales was saying: Use the scientific method to prove the basis and effect of a treatment. But in many cases, like acupuncture and homeopathy, there have been hundreds of trials for over 100 years and no well done study shows any benefit over doing nothing or placebo (for lack of a better term). When is enough enough? When do we move on and stop wasting money that could really be used to save lives instead of line charlatans pockets.
I do not remember which podcast it was, I think quackcast, where the host read a letter from an MD practicing in Africa (Uganda I think) where he recounts that his clinic can literally save lives of people with basic, very well proven, inexpensive medication for on the order of $2 or $3 per life saved and he struggles to get the funding to provide the medication to the area he works in, and yet there are literally millions of dollars being spent on woo “medicine” “trials” in the same country because people are so desperate for any sort of treatment and there are much fewer restrictions and oversight of “trials.” It is awful.
As was mentioned above, there is no bias against testing natural substances or therapies for their medicinal effect. Many many of the drugs we have now came from plants identified by non-western peoples as having some effect, aspirin for gods sake, one of the main malaria drugs came from Chinese medicine, there are hundreds of more examples.
3 Likes
Again, what’s your point? Yes, peer review has flaws. However, ‘energy healing’, etc, is bullshit. Manifestly, demonstrably, bullshit. I’d be intrigued to know why you’re diverting the conversation to this. When you say “We need systems of communication that support a distinction between pseudoscience and critical thinking” what do you suggest? Because, at its most basic level, ‘producing testable results’ ought to be the basis of that, surely? You’re deflecting from that with an article about academic politics and shady dealing. Yes, that happens, but magic doesn’t.
Just out of interest, what is your position re: such practices and beliefs? Are you an aficionado of them, or are you merely lamenting science isn’t, like, super-accurate? Because it’s easily accurate enough to knock down most every last pseudoscience claim by going, ‘Okay, let’s set up an experiment and prove it’.
7 Likes
Shockley actually did useful work. I’d put him in a different category than the others.
That is the point, you keep your mind open, but not so open the brain falls out. Closed mindedness and skepticism certainly aren’t the same thing, but it doesn’t follow that just because you sound skeptical that you don t have a closed mind. Using a derogatory, easy term like ‘woo’ mostly signifies to a person like me, that you are jumping on a certain kind of band wagon, Skeptics are subject to all the vices and virtues that so called ‘believers’ are, including group think. I certainly am not claiming that every single claim should be seriously considered either, didn t say it. But there is still no clear definition for this stupid word ‘woo’, no critical understanding or clear definition for it. My point is that that term is bad, and may actually interfere with clear thinking as it seems to operate as a derogatory term more than anything else, a way for smug, close minded skeptics to close ranks and exclude the ‘black tide of Occultism’, as Freud once remarked to Jung. A lot of things are assumed under the rubric of ‘woo’, and aren’t assumptions are precisely what skeptics are supposed to be working on? For example I’ve often seen acupuncture thrown under the ‘woo’ bus in the past, in spite of the fact that studies have been done with acupuncture techniques that showed positive and interesting results.
2 Likes
No it isn’t Evolutionary Psychologists for example frequently make bullshit pseudoscientific claims that are neither provable or disprovable.
People have a lot of beliefs, in fact, that are not easily provable or disprovable via experimentation, many of which are claimed to be scientific by practicing scientists. (Freud’s claims, for example, were prevalent for decades and are not really probable or disprovable)
Or in many cases, the system is too complex for science to set up a study proving or disproving a claim, so “scientists” create models and create a sort of intellectual fiction that they are testing a subject and proving or disproving it when in fact they are doing no such thing. (Again, much psychology and neuroscience, since humans don’t really have the ability to properly dissect and understand the brain, it may require a higher intelligence than we posses, or at least more data than we are able to acquire at this time)
1 Like
See where I said, ‘most every’. And I’m more than happy to put Evo Psych in the ‘Pseudo’ camp, thanks.
6 Likes
fair enough.
My fuller reply to seems to have gone under the wrong post even though I replied to this post. Anyway, here is an even better reply to the study discussed in the article:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-effects-without-deception-well-not-exactly/
I’m willing to keep an open mind for this one. I like tapas.
1 Like
I believe that they must shop for wisdom at the same place that I do…
“Quantum physics differentiates into the mechanics of destiny”
1 Like
I’ll just very roughly paraphrase Mr Tim Minchin from his excellent “storm” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0W7Jbc_Vhw
“By definition, alternative medicine is medicine that has not yet been proven to work or been proven NOT to work.
Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works? Medicine!”
You’ve had your say.
3 Likes
Isn’t there some great genius we could quote on all this? Maybe, y’know, Steve Jobs?
I paraphrase: “I regret not going with conventional treatments and believing this mumbo jumbo. Now I’m going to die soon”.
Just to add weight to the discussion.
4 Likes
You’ve got it backward. The smaller the PPM, the bigger the effect.
1:10^140 steel molecule in water gets you to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
1 Like
Here’s a starting point:
If you are still hungry, then pop an Oscillococcinum for a little duck liver pâté goodness…
1 Like
