I just talked to someone and she praised her doctor, because she complained from chest (armpit) pain, and the doctor, untraditinally, cured her with accupuncture on the spot. I asked her and she said the pain was going on for a few weeks (and was quite intense), and it disappeared on the next day. Some bias IS expected of her (more so than from the average person).
Maybe it’s just random chance plus unconscious exaggeration, but I doubt it could have been so strong. After I started writing this, I looked up on Wikipedia to confirm that there are no working forms of accupuncture, and this gave me the idea that it might have been placebo. Any other explanations I couldn’t think of? I find some similar cases to be quite surrealistic, given the premise that the treatments used were proven to be ineffective. My own grandmother was supposedly sick of cancer and the doctors told her she had no more tnah a month of life, then some alternative medicine practicioner told her to drink turtle blood and she did so and she’s alive now, more than 10 years later. It’s extremely unlikely that my father lied about this, but I thought it was incompetent doctors—incompetency amongst physicians is quite common, according to my personal anecdotes and the theory I use to support it.
After I started writing this, I looked up on Wikipedia to confirm that there are no working forms of accupuncture, and this gave me the idea that it might have been placebo. Any other explanations I couldn’t think of?
Do you need a different explanation? The super-surprising effectiveness of placebo feels a bit offensive to us truth-seekers; but the universe and our brain-architecture isn’t required to play fair with us, alas. In certain occasions, the deluded and deceived may have an advantage.
I find some similar cases to be quite surrealistic, given the premise that the treatments used were proven to be ineffective.
? Am a bit confused because when I read the Wikipedia article, it says that accupuncture (both “real” and “sham”) was seen to be effective in combatting pain. So where did you read that it was ineffective?
it says that accupuncture (both “real” and “sham”) was seen to be effective in combatting pain
Oh damn I missed that. I got too distracted by the Effectiveness research section. So there you go, I found a reasonable explanation, although I was more looking forward to some sort of fundamental bias that effects everyone, which I must have somehow missed. Would have been a good explanation to some things.
Still, I’m waiting for someone to appear with a very good hypothesis of the cancer case. I’m not saying there has to necessarily be one, but there might be. Placebo was in fact a very good hypothesis, but I’m not sure if you can cure cancer with placebo (“Yes, you can” would close the case).
Edit: I looked it up, apparently placebo doesn’t affect cancer. Surprising.
I need help in explaining this case to myself.
I just talked to someone and she praised her doctor, because she complained from chest (armpit) pain, and the doctor, untraditinally, cured her with accupuncture on the spot. I asked her and she said the pain was going on for a few weeks (and was quite intense), and it disappeared on the next day. Some bias IS expected of her (more so than from the average person).
Maybe it’s just random chance plus unconscious exaggeration, but I doubt it could have been so strong. After I started writing this, I looked up on Wikipedia to confirm that there are no working forms of accupuncture, and this gave me the idea that it might have been placebo. Any other explanations I couldn’t think of? I find some similar cases to be quite surrealistic, given the premise that the treatments used were proven to be ineffective. My own grandmother was supposedly sick of cancer and the doctors told her she had no more tnah a month of life, then some alternative medicine practicioner told her to drink turtle blood and she did so and she’s alive now, more than 10 years later. It’s extremely unlikely that my father lied about this, but I thought it was incompetent doctors—incompetency amongst physicians is quite common, according to my personal anecdotes and the theory I use to support it.
Do you need a different explanation? The super-surprising effectiveness of placebo feels a bit offensive to us truth-seekers; but the universe and our brain-architecture isn’t required to play fair with us, alas. In certain occasions, the deluded and deceived may have an advantage.
? Am a bit confused because when I read the Wikipedia article, it says that accupuncture (both “real” and “sham”) was seen to be effective in combatting pain. So where did you read that it was ineffective?
Oh damn I missed that. I got too distracted by the Effectiveness research section. So there you go, I found a reasonable explanation, although I was more looking forward to some sort of fundamental bias that effects everyone, which I must have somehow missed. Would have been a good explanation to some things.
Still, I’m waiting for someone to appear with a very good hypothesis of the cancer case. I’m not saying there has to necessarily be one, but there might be. Placebo was in fact a very good hypothesis, but I’m not sure if you can cure cancer with placebo (“Yes, you can” would close the case).
Edit: I looked it up, apparently placebo doesn’t affect cancer. Surprising.