Woah, no need to spill so much ink! I’m afraid you’ve willfully misconstrued most of my points, and are really reaching to find any faults in what I’ve said. In fact, I stand by all of it. I’m on your side, and generally agree with much you’ve said– you really don’t contradict me, and there’s no extra points won for being ‘most right.’
But… Ben Goldacre has some of this stuff really wrong. I like his work overall, but many of the studies he cites are poorly conducted or just mis-represented. I really encourage you to listen to the Skeptics with a K podcasts from the last few months– they specifically break down a lot of the Goldacre stuff– even that pacemaker study. Lots of the studies in “Bad Science” are poorly controlled, fail to be replicated, are based on self-reported measures, and use small sample sizes.
This is very declarative, where I think there is room for nuance. The placebo effect is many things. It does encompass phycological effects on the body, but when so many studies have poor blinding and are based on self-reporting, it is difficult to separate those effects from other factors. Regression to the mean mixed with expectation bias and clinician bias can skew results pretty well. This isn’t my own pet theory, check out Science-Based Medicine on the topic.
Lastly, you are not an authority on this, and neither am I. I respect that you have science training and are proud of that, but even people trained in science can be wrong about areas outside their expertise. I trust you know what you’re talking about in general, but I don’t consider a credential as sacrosanct and I doubt you do either. It is always better to treat the people you are trying to convince of something with a modicum of respect; I really think you need to re-read your own posts in this thread and reconsider the tone you’ve taken with me and others. Besides the content, the way you’ve gone about sharing your opinions does nothing to make me want to change any of my positions and I think others would feel the same.
