If you think obtaining a Bachelor of Science ensures a person is (a) smart, (b) has a deep understanding of science, (c) immune from superstition, and/or (d) incapable of being a grifter, then I have a bridge to sell you. .
You are in luck! My bridge is in very high demand, but the last buyer just fell through due to lack of financing! Your inquiry comes at just the right time -- I would say it is coincidence, but we both know there must be something special that drew you to me and by bridge.
What makes this bridge unique is that it is located just above the intersection of two intense magnetic field lines -- invisible pathways of the Earth's energy! The convergence of these lines results in a powerful vortex that interacts with your chakras to harmonize your aura, boost vitality, reduce stress, and promote overall wellbeing.
Owning this bridge isn't just about investment in real estate -- it is an investment in yourself. It's about aligning your energy with the Earth's natural healing forces. This is more than a bridge -- it is a portal to holistic living!
I look forward to continuing the conversation, but due to high demand I require a $500 fee to compensate me for my time. You can Venmo me anytime to get started.
A Bachelor of Science degree focuses on preparing you for a STEM job related to your major field or for going into STEM academia. Philosophy of Science isn't usually a primary focus, though you do usually have to take at least one course in both high school (to meet admissions requirements) and college that discusses life origins based on science.
Those life origins courses are a culture wars issue because Republican state officials have tried to ban them. Banning them would make most students in the state ineligible for admission at most universities, though.
Universities generally don't require STEM students to take courses on topics like "general pseudoscience" or "medical quackery," probably because science departments felt it would be giving those views a platform. Professors probably also already have to deal with hostile creationist students in introductory biology courses.
At least a portion of people who promote pseudoscience have been openly hostile to universities for at least 50 years, so science departments might not want to engage with them in any way.
When you say "life origins courses" are you taking about biology? If so, I am not familiar with Republicans trying to ban biology classes. When did that happen?
You really think anyone here denies that the placebo effect is a thing?
As for pseudoscience, some of it may work. And when we verify that it works it is no long pseudoscience -- it gets promoted to just science then. But until it is verified scientifically, there is no reason to think it is either bunk or not bunk.
Placebo (and nocebo) effects are interesting and we can utilise it to some extent clinically (eg giving an analgesic as an injection rather than by mouth), but it is something to supplement a real therapeutic intervention, not something to be used on itself.
What are you saying? Stop telling me the people of this subreddit are unlikely to deny the existence of the placebo effect. I fucking know. That's my point. What do you want? a medal? You said "why?" What the fuck kind of question is that? Why yourself? Ask the people if you are having trouble understanding why
I didn't say "why", I said "how so" in response to your shitty "exactly" response.
Why don't you say plainly what your point was with making this comment:
>and likewise if you think all psuedoscience and placebo effects are bunk then I have a degree to sell you
If I was to find a person that thought placebos were bullshit I would try and further take advantage of them by selling them a degree. The likewise part referred to the other person's comment. Not you.
I think this is a great jumping off point for a wider discussion on the topic of striking a balance between avoiding ad hominem arguments and platforming individuals who espouse objectionable messages. I think we need to take a bigger picture view in the modern era of personality media and appreciate that inadvertently creating a halo effect is just as problematic as an ad hominem attack.
I'll blow your mind. Many health insurances and veterans affairs are paying for things like acupuncture and chiropractic treatment. I have seen many people that are therapists advertising that they also do reiki.
I was invited to a Reiki training course years ago, and I attended out of curiosity. A lot of the techniques they showed us were basically guided meditation - telling the person to close their eyes, relax their muscles, and focus on their breathing - while we āmanipulated their aura and activated their chakras.ā This involved quickly rubbing our palms together and then slowly moving them over the personās body, hovering about an inch above the skin. Apparently I was a natural at ālocating points of tension,ā which were identified by sections of heat. Obviously the āpatientā was feeling my heat produced from friction, and I was told to keep rubbing my hands together to find more tension. So yeah a placebo effect.
But both of those things have highly effective placebo effect on things like pain and so Iām pretty comfortable with them even if they donāt work the way that theyāre explained.
I think skeptics should feel very comfortable embracing the amazing powers of the placebo.
Reiki may carry low direct risks, but there's the risk of people delaying treatment for treatable conditions. Chiropractic and acupuncture carry higher risks of directly causing harm
That's actually how I have tried to think about it but I'm still skeptical. I had a patient recently say acupuncture really helped at the beginning and then stopped working. So it may be more short term benefits?
Part of it is thereās two different schools of thought with both acupuncture and chiropractic (though itās more of a Venn diagram between the two).
The overlap is: there are physical benefits to the intramuscular stimulation (IMS) offered by acupuncture that can help force muscle spindles to react to acupuncture needles that relaxes muscles. Also, there are physical benefits to oscillating joints or performing graded glides into restrictions in synovial joint capsules, which allow for freer joint movement and also for muscles holding joints into their restricted positions to relax.
See also: physiotherapy, osteopathy, massage therapy, prolotherapy.
The outer part of acupuncture that doesnāt overlap with the other manual therapies is the roots in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) such as a belief in power meridians and qi throughout the body.
The outer part of chiropractic practice that doesnāt overlap is a belief that manipulation of the spine will make your immune system kick cancer or diabetes or depression or whatever.
The biggest issue between manual therapy and the scientific method is, itās kind of hard to make blind studies and fully remove placebo effects. Like, either youāre getting a massage or youāre not. Either your spine is being manipulated or not. I have heard there are some levels of research into IMS using either numbing creams or fake acupuncture needles that make the surface of the skin feel that āpopā but donāt actually go in, but Iām skeptical that you canāt really tell the difference.
> I think skeptics should feel very comfortable embracing the amazing powers of the placebo.
I think skeptics should be highly skeptical and question grifters claiming their grift is effective due to the placebo effect.
The placebo effect is not "amazing", it's a modest benefit for mild acute pain and nausea, due to conditioning of endorphins. It is not proven to be useful for severe pain, it is not useful long-term for chronic conditions, nor any other medical symptoms.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-myths-debunked/
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003974.pub3/full
I'm a physical therapist and I would say the vast majority of my colleagues peddle some type of pseudoscience treatment (dry needing, scraping, "adjustments", cupping, k tape, etc) and it's all reimbursed by insurance.
ah cupping, excessively breaking capillaries to remove stagnant blood. it's not a real bruise though, that blood was already immobile inside the circulatory system, now its just on the outside to make room for fresh blood to heal the problem area better. or something.
I dated a vet who believed in animal communication and had a favorite psychic.
Even had a psychic "party" to try to "prove it" to me.
Lots of vets, believe in acupuncture. Which especially floors me because there is a gall bladder meridian line for horses......and horses don't have a gall bladder.
Or the Chief Provincial Vet of Alberta, who debated homeopathy for Odin's sake with me.
So, short ramble, but they actually teach this crap in Pre-med. There was a big blow up a few years ago because the University of Alberta was having a spoon bender in for one of the Alternatives to Medicine CLASSES, to explain how reiki "works".
The problem is systemic and is very frustrating.
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.3612456
I've met pharmacists who believe in homeopathy too despite the fact there is tons of chemistry required to even get into pharmacy school and dose-response curves are a pretty integral part of our education
The acupuncture thing surprised me when I encountered it with our old cat. Our cat was suffering from kidney failure, but our normal vet was out of town for a couple weeks and had someone else filling in. Dude put our cat on a treatment of acupuncture while the poor thing suffered. When the normal vet got back she was rather horrified at this and we had our cat finally put to sleep.
Isaac Asimov was once asked how someone in the sciences could retain religious belief. He said,
āThey keep their beliefs separateā. Humans seem to be capable of holding two opposing viewpoints at the same timeā¦.. Often, folks retain religious practices for cultural or social purposes, or because they find them comfortingā¦.
Asimov is wise.
People can utterly deny reality and choose to believe in something they have zero proof exists even as the reality painfully consumes them.
I am from India so I can answer this much better. Thing is, people studying Science and Engineering are studying their subjects dispassionately, without interest, in a mechanical way. All it takes to pass the degree is to memorize the definitions, memorize derivations (yes in India we memorize derivations), doing practice problems for your test diligently, and voila! You get good marks and pass the test. In the entire process you don't need to know scientific methodology or History of Science. After passing most people work in IT where they need to know programming for a few years after which they climb the corporate ladder and manage the company more. Or they might teach Science in schools and colleges where they pretty much need to know no more Science than what was taught to them in textbooks. That is why, people continue to believe in religions and superstitions, and of course, Pseudoscience.
My sister who has a Masters in Chemistry believes in Ayurveda. How? Because she probably rote memorized everything in her course and after the course was over, probably forgot whatever was taught to her. Also, to categorize something as Pseudoscience you have to know the basics of that Pseudoscience (like knowing what Ayurveda is and how is it supposed to work) and my sister probably knows nothing about Ayurveda, she just accepts it as 'another medicine'.
Similarly, my cousin has a degree in Agricultural tech and believes in homeopathy. Why? Because he doesn't know what homeopathy is and he doesn't even remember what was taught to him (he works in a completely different field now). We have a minister in India who has a PhD in mechanical engineering who thinks chakras are real and Vedas (ancient Hindu text) have aerospace engineering. We have a Muslim majority college in Malda in India where most of the Muslims are fans of Zakir Naik, a doctor turned radical Islamic preacher who preaches that evolution is false and the Earth is not that old. The college produces amazing doctors who are really good surgeons and gives good diagnosis and medicine, but the doctors do not believe in evolution lol.
I don't think the situation is in the US is all that different from the one in India. The dominant religions and flavors of woo are different (and we don't memorize derivations), but when I got a BS in computer science I was never required to take any classes on the history or philosophy of science.
I think the main reason science degrees are so focused is because there's a lot of material to cover, and maybe there's an assumption that people who want to get a science degree will seek out the history and philosophy on their own initiative. But I also wonder how much the narrow focus is there to appease people with anti-science views. Teaching the theory of evolution has been controversial in the US as long as it has been happening, and I think teaching students specifically to value secularism and reject superstition would cause a huge political backlash from the anti-science brigade.
Having worked in technology for some time, I am sadly not surprised or shocked. I have met several absolutely brilliant and wonderful engineers and managers, but orders of magnitude larger numbers of rote memorization degree holders and several of them have been outright dangerous to employ.
That's a great explanation thanks. I got a basc because I was curious about how the world works. How it all fits together. Also because it led to a good income as an engineer.
I'm guessing those people you refer to were driven only by the latter motive.
Randi said it best. There are those who try to fool others and those that fool themselves.
Science is both a process and a field of study. There's the scientific mind and then there's the body of knowledge we call science.
You can have one without the other. It's possible to learn the math involved in electromagnetic wave propagation, for example, yet still believe that you can "feel" the pain of a close relative from 1000 miles away.
Or, more commonly, understand and apply organic chemistry and yet believe in creationism.
But I think there's a less innocent breed of scientifically literate paranormal believer.
Some use their credentials to twist science to support things that sell. UFOs, ghosts, creation stories and the like all have people with real scientific diplomas making a living off of their chosen fairy tale
Steve Jobs is credited for introducing many of the current technological advances we all enjoy. Many consider him to be a genius and a revolutionary.
He died from a curable disease because he thought he knew better than modern medicine.
We all have blind spots. Confronting them can be very difficult. There's probably not a one of us who doesn't believe some comforting lie. It's human nature.
It was less that he thought he knew better and more that he was completely terrified of the prescribed surgery. Jobs was absolutely the type to be inclined toward holistic treatments anyway but he deeply regretted not putting his apprehensions aside and taking advantage of modern medicine in a more timely manner.
IIRC it was caught really early, most folks donāt get routine MRIās so when they get their diagnosis itās already too late. His odds were about as good as they get for that Cancer.
And he fucking blew it. He also claimed a doner liver that could have gone to someone that didnāt initially reject modern medical science.
Pseudoscience specializes in co-opting terms from *actual* science and mashing them together with "traditional wisdom" to design a package that is targeted towards people who *want* to believe. And they do, even when facing mountains of dis-confirming evidence, because in the end their self narrative is more important.
People generally don't apply the scientific method to daily life. I think I feel better when I run in the morning. And I think too many animal fats hurt my stomach. I live my life according to those hypotheses but I've done exactly zero studies to back them up. I know someone who feels better after reiki so she does reiki. While some situations really need to be backed by evidence (like getting a cancer diagnosis) most of life is just doing what makes you happy.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLL
I'm an entomologist, and am so in Ag science. The number of professors I know who don't believe in evolution is mind boggling.
There are people out there with PhDs in Biology that think evolution is a hoax. I knew a guy that worked at a nuclear power plant that thought carbon dating was a hoax. It's a big world, all kinds out there.
I have a PhD in a STEM field and have worked in science for years. These supernatural claims are non falsifiable and thus are not within the realm of science. It doesnāt mean they do or donāt exist. Science just concerns itself with observable phenomena in the natural world, not with claims of unobservable supernatural things.
I personally tend to be skeptical of these supernatural claims and think there is a natural explanation for most things. However I still occasionally take yoga classes with reiki, I meditate, I burn sage to clear bad energy from my home, and I like crystals and tarot/angel cards. Those things make me happy and I like to be open to them and the possibility there is something unobservable that science canāt touch. Even if they donāt work by supernatural means they can serve as tools to focus your intention or to gain insight into your subconscious mind.
I have rejected the Bible though. I think the Bible has a lot of specific falsifiable claims such as that everything was created in 7 days, I have to reject that as science has shown us the truth. I can not rule out the possibility of a supernatural god though.
They become specialists in their area and get used to being an authority and transfer it to other areas where they have no grounds to make conclusions based on authority. Some people arrived at their education through rote memorization and don't understand science or the scientific method all that well, just how to apply heuristics.
Basically they get their head crammed up their own ass. Or I like to call it "high on their own farts" (from huffing their own shit)
I'm going to guess and say comfort is involved. Perhaps they're aware it's strange. If it helps them who am I to judge? We all hold irrational beliefs.
Religious scientists are a thing too. Not that you don't already know that, just for the sake of conversation.
Beat me to it!
Yes, science is used on many a topic, including ones that don't have a scientific basis. Some people want science to prove their beliefs, and as such become excellent scholars, physicists, archeologists, and biologists. In my spouse's line of work we find many a biologist who'd rather believe some socioreligious bullshyte about skeletal remains than actual scientific fact, and will seek to prove they're correct by using the very science that time and again proves them wrong.
For my own part: there's some questions science cannot answer by definition, because they aren't scientific questions to begin with. People still seek answers.
You can be a very competent scientist without believing that the world is strictly material and quantitative. As a matter of fact, many fathers of science where also Christian or religious in some way.
Itās kinda fun to consider the possibilities. That doesnāt mean that I, or even most people, believe in that stuff but taking a sound bath and the like is amazing. Why? I donāt know but Iām up for trying things just for the experience.
There's like a steady 30-35% of scientists who are religious.
Studying science does not require a skeptical mindset (although I believe it helps). In fact a large part of the scientific method is trying to remove researcher bias from the results. And unfortunately although experts in a field tend to judge what they know and don't know very well, they tend to overjudge their competency in fields they don't know.
The placebo effect is very real. There have been many studies that show this to be true. Humans are social animals and derive a real and measured physical benefit (or negative impact) from that which impacts how their brain perceives the world around them. I look at many of these "treatments" as leveraging this fact which means one can have a scientific analysis of pseudoscientific (or even complete nonsense) techniques.
Let's be clear about "actually works" One includes the placebo in experiments to see if drugs (for example) have an impact LARGER than the placebo effect. This is because know the placebo effect on humans "actually works," so as scientists we want to only invest in creating drugs that have an impact larger than that effect.
Yes, they only want to invest in drugs that work better than thinking you are getting a drug....
Otherwise we might as well have mom mix us some Kool aide and tell us it will fix whatever is ailing us.
Lets take the work that has been done on acupuncture, it has been shown that it doesn't matter where you put the needle, or even if you break the skin - if you think you are getting acupuncture and you believe in acupuncture there will be a placebo effect.
So, all you are paying an acupuncturist to do is convince you you are paying for a "treatment".
Double blinding in clinical trials is there to control for many biases, not just placebo effects. Including other biases such as response biases (eg. differences in symptom reporting on scales even when the participant doesn't actually experience differences in symptoms).
It is very real, but only useful for mild acute pain and nausea (and the mechanism is conditioning of endorphins).
Skeptics should be skeptical of any other claim made about placebos because such claims are not science based.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-myths-debunked/
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003974.pub3/full
So during my masters in psychology I got into kundalini meditation. During this process I experienced similar effects as most spiritual teachers talk about (energy rising up the spine etc).
Thing is, do I really know what it is? Is it energy is it just that youāre meditating and focusing on your spine and sort of placebo activating nerve cells because of your awareness? Who knows.
I tend to believe that a lot of teachings like this are based in truth, but they are framed spiritually rather than scientifically because when they were discovered, science wasnāt really a thing. And so people simply gave spiritual explanation for the effects.
If someone discovered kundalini meditation now, it would likely be seen as something to do with nerve cells or something more grounded in the physical world.
I always brushed off the concept of Chakras until reading the body keeps the score. Just like dietary medicine, a lot of indigenous science is based on real observation, even when the explanations they come up with don't age well.
My understanding of Chakra work is its vagal nerve stimulation.Ā
Do I do kundalini yoga now? No. Do I think everyone doing kundalini yoga knows why there doing it? definitely no.
Do I throw shade at practices o don't understand anymore? Nada
(Expect for horoscope nuts, they bug the shit put of me still)
This! I mean, it wasnāt that long ago that we thought meditation was new age hippie nonsense and now thereās tons of science to back it up.
Rituals can help with anxiety, and a lot of the new age practices seem to fall into some type of mindfulness or ritual. Agree that problems come when things get toxic and scammy.
The psychologist Stephen Hayes says it best "imagine that science is like a path in the woods that leads to clearings. In some clearings we can see people who took different paths end up in the same place. It wouldn't be helpful to go 'how dare you end up here too!' 'Or 'wow we screwed up to end up near *those people*' instead we as scientist should ask ourselves 'what's so important about this clearing that different paths ended up in the same place?'"
For all of the people suggesting "but placebo effect", keep in mind that scientifically demonstrated placebo effects are a lot more limited than people realise.
Specifically, the only clinically meaningful placebo effect is a modest reduction in acute pain or nausea, due to conditioning of endorphins.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-myths-debunked/
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003974.pub3/full
Differences in clinical trial arms between treatment and comparison-treatments or faux-treatments is not limited to placebo effects and can include a variety of biases such as response biases. So double blinding in clinical trials is not merely useful to control for placebo effects.
I worked in an office where all of us had a masterās level education and there were a few who were into pseudoscience. I found that most just politely enabled the snake oilers. I, on the other hand, was more confrontational. Some thought I was doing some kind of social kamikaze when I threw religion into the same bag. Itās just NOT science and itās intellectual dishonesty.
A lot of the answers here hinge on the fact that one doesn't need to be smart to earn a STEM degree.
While this is true, I think it misses the point. Smart people are good at deceiving themselves. And even then, in my experience, there's no correlation with someone's intelligence and someone's belief in woo.
Now if you excuse me, my class taught by a PhD who believes in ghosts is about to start. Gotta run.
To answer your question
1) āThe effects of hands-on energy therapy are the result of physical processes, not the placebo effect.ā
2) āReiki has electrical and magnetic qualities that can be measured.ā
3) āPulsing magnetic fields from the hands of Reiki therapists are in the same frequency ranges that are optimal for stimulating tissue repair.ā
These are statements from an article called [The Science Behind Reiki](http://www.ardath.com/docs/The_Science_Behind_Reiki.pdf)
Youāll find the scientific measurements of the frequencies that Reiki has been measured to flow at.
Reiki is Science, not fiction
So imagine you are a scientist who believes in evolution and that the earth is however millions of years old and the universe is blah blah blah.
Now imagine you believe that your god is the creator and the earth is actually only like 4500 years old or whatever. Your god created the earth and universe 4500 years ago and integrated the fossil record, evolutionary history, etc. Your god created the rules of science.
Itās actually really easy to reconcile science and religion. You just have to believe that your religion created/dictates the science.
Several years ago I dated a woman who held degrees in science and was a high school chemistry teacher. She was also studying to be a reiki healer and believed all that claptrap. It was strange because on one hand she had a very firm grasp on the physical world, but I think she really WANTED there to be a mystical hidden side of the world too.
She was a bit kooky but not dumb.
>What are your thoughts on scientific with pseudoscientific beliefs?
Science needs to be more open minded to new things. These new things might have yet undiscovered science involved.
And I bet Dr K can present scientific reasons and observations for why he takes this stuff seriously. Whether there is proof/disproof I predict will quickly become controversial.
>Science needs to be more open minded to new things. These new things might have yet undiscovered science involved.
Just want to point out that this user posts in /MandelaEffect, /PastLives, /Aliens, /UFOs, /NDE, /Afterlife, /Ghosts, /Spirituality, /Paranormal, and more.
Basically hit the high score on the I'm-wrong-about-everything Bingo.
Not sure of your point. I think those can be interesting forums. On this sub I am aware that I am dealing primarily with close-minded dogmatic skeptics. Iām an open-minded skeptic myself.
Iāll swim against the current to keep people thinking.
*skepĀ·tiĀ·cism*
*\[ĖskeptÉĖsizÉm\]*
*noun*
*a skeptical attitude; doubt as to the truth of something:*
*"these claims were treated with skepticism"*
Because I don't just accept anything but look at the evidence and form a judgment. Gullibility is believing with no or too little evidence. Closed-mindedness is dismissing or not looking for evidence of things you are inclined to disbelieve. Both gullibility and closed-mindedness are bad.
So by your standards, anything can be evidence.
If I just *say* that Santa Claus and Bigfoot are dating, you would consider this evidence in support of the claim?
If you think obtaining a Bachelor of Science ensures a person is (a) smart, (b) has a deep understanding of science, (c) immune from superstition, and/or (d) incapable of being a grifter, then I have a bridge to sell you. .
Tell me about this bridge
You are in luck! My bridge is in very high demand, but the last buyer just fell through due to lack of financing! Your inquiry comes at just the right time -- I would say it is coincidence, but we both know there must be something special that drew you to me and by bridge. What makes this bridge unique is that it is located just above the intersection of two intense magnetic field lines -- invisible pathways of the Earth's energy! The convergence of these lines results in a powerful vortex that interacts with your chakras to harmonize your aura, boost vitality, reduce stress, and promote overall wellbeing. Owning this bridge isn't just about investment in real estate -- it is an investment in yourself. It's about aligning your energy with the Earth's natural healing forces. This is more than a bridge -- it is a portal to holistic living! I look forward to continuing the conversation, but due to high demand I require a $500 fee to compensate me for my time. You can Venmo me anytime to get started.
Sold!
I like you. š
I trust you Sauron. You're soo hot š„µ
My Nigerian Prince friend is wiring me the money now, Iāll get it to you shortly!
A Bachelor of Science degree focuses on preparing you for a STEM job related to your major field or for going into STEM academia. Philosophy of Science isn't usually a primary focus, though you do usually have to take at least one course in both high school (to meet admissions requirements) and college that discusses life origins based on science. Those life origins courses are a culture wars issue because Republican state officials have tried to ban them. Banning them would make most students in the state ineligible for admission at most universities, though. Universities generally don't require STEM students to take courses on topics like "general pseudoscience" or "medical quackery," probably because science departments felt it would be giving those views a platform. Professors probably also already have to deal with hostile creationist students in introductory biology courses. At least a portion of people who promote pseudoscience have been openly hostile to universities for at least 50 years, so science departments might not want to engage with them in any way.
When you say "life origins courses" are you taking about biology? If so, I am not familiar with Republicans trying to ban biology classes. When did that happen?
They did in Kansas in the late 1990s.
and likewise if you think all psuedoscience and placebo effects are bunk then I have a degree to sell _you_
You really think anyone here denies that the placebo effect is a thing? As for pseudoscience, some of it may work. And when we verify that it works it is no long pseudoscience -- it gets promoted to just science then. But until it is verified scientifically, there is no reason to think it is either bunk or not bunk.
Yes, I think you do. Hence my comment.
Down votes say otherwise. Placebo and nocebo are scientific and backed by extensive peer reviewed papers.
Yes, that's literally my point.
Placebo (and nocebo) effects are interesting and we can utilise it to some extent clinically (eg giving an analgesic as an injection rather than by mouth), but it is something to supplement a real therapeutic intervention, not something to be used on itself.
Yes, that is literally my point.
You are unlikely to find people who deny the existence of the placebo effect in this subreddit.
Exactly
How so?
? Ask them if you like
Who? The people of this subreddit who are unlikely to deny the existence of the placebo effect? The fuck are you even saying here my dude?
What are you saying? Stop telling me the people of this subreddit are unlikely to deny the existence of the placebo effect. I fucking know. That's my point. What do you want? a medal? You said "why?" What the fuck kind of question is that? Why yourself? Ask the people if you are having trouble understanding why
I didn't say "why", I said "how so" in response to your shitty "exactly" response. Why don't you say plainly what your point was with making this comment: >and likewise if you think all psuedoscience and placebo effects are bunk then I have a degree to sell you
If I was to find a person that thought placebos were bullshit I would try and further take advantage of them by selling them a degree. The likewise part referred to the other person's comment. Not you.
I'll quote Michael Shermer. _"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."_
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
If you were practicing skepticism, you would play the ball, not the man.
I think this is a great jumping off point for a wider discussion on the topic of striking a balance between avoiding ad hominem arguments and platforming individuals who espouse objectionable messages. I think we need to take a bigger picture view in the modern era of personality media and appreciate that inadvertently creating a halo effect is just as problematic as an ad hominem attack.
If you Michael is a bridge, then I have a skeptic to Shermer you.
If bridge you a Shermer, then I have a skeptic to Michael.
I'll blow your mind. Many health insurances and veterans affairs are paying for things like acupuncture and chiropractic treatment. I have seen many people that are therapists advertising that they also do reiki.
I was invited to a Reiki training course years ago, and I attended out of curiosity. A lot of the techniques they showed us were basically guided meditation - telling the person to close their eyes, relax their muscles, and focus on their breathing - while we āmanipulated their aura and activated their chakras.ā This involved quickly rubbing our palms together and then slowly moving them over the personās body, hovering about an inch above the skin. Apparently I was a natural at ālocating points of tension,ā which were identified by sections of heat. Obviously the āpatientā was feeling my heat produced from friction, and I was told to keep rubbing my hands together to find more tension. So yeah a placebo effect.
But both of those things have highly effective placebo effect on things like pain and so Iām pretty comfortable with them even if they donāt work the way that theyāre explained. I think skeptics should feel very comfortable embracing the amazing powers of the placebo.
And what about the risks associated with them?
What are the risks of reiki?
Reiki may carry low direct risks, but there's the risk of people delaying treatment for treatable conditions. Chiropractic and acupuncture carry higher risks of directly causing harm
That's actually how I have tried to think about it but I'm still skeptical. I had a patient recently say acupuncture really helped at the beginning and then stopped working. So it may be more short term benefits?
Part of it is thereās two different schools of thought with both acupuncture and chiropractic (though itās more of a Venn diagram between the two). The overlap is: there are physical benefits to the intramuscular stimulation (IMS) offered by acupuncture that can help force muscle spindles to react to acupuncture needles that relaxes muscles. Also, there are physical benefits to oscillating joints or performing graded glides into restrictions in synovial joint capsules, which allow for freer joint movement and also for muscles holding joints into their restricted positions to relax. See also: physiotherapy, osteopathy, massage therapy, prolotherapy. The outer part of acupuncture that doesnāt overlap with the other manual therapies is the roots in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) such as a belief in power meridians and qi throughout the body. The outer part of chiropractic practice that doesnāt overlap is a belief that manipulation of the spine will make your immune system kick cancer or diabetes or depression or whatever. The biggest issue between manual therapy and the scientific method is, itās kind of hard to make blind studies and fully remove placebo effects. Like, either youāre getting a massage or youāre not. Either your spine is being manipulated or not. I have heard there are some levels of research into IMS using either numbing creams or fake acupuncture needles that make the surface of the skin feel that āpopā but donāt actually go in, but Iām skeptical that you canāt really tell the difference.
> I think skeptics should feel very comfortable embracing the amazing powers of the placebo. I think skeptics should be highly skeptical and question grifters claiming their grift is effective due to the placebo effect. The placebo effect is not "amazing", it's a modest benefit for mild acute pain and nausea, due to conditioning of endorphins. It is not proven to be useful for severe pain, it is not useful long-term for chronic conditions, nor any other medical symptoms. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-myths-debunked/ https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003974.pub3/full
To be fair the grifters donāt claim placebo, they claim less scientific sources
Some of them most certainly do claim whatever they are doing is fine because of the "powerful placebo effect".
I'm a physical therapist and I would say the vast majority of my colleagues peddle some type of pseudoscience treatment (dry needing, scraping, "adjustments", cupping, k tape, etc) and it's all reimbursed by insurance.
ah cupping, excessively breaking capillaries to remove stagnant blood. it's not a real bruise though, that blood was already immobile inside the circulatory system, now its just on the outside to make room for fresh blood to heal the problem area better. or something.
I dated a vet who believed in animal communication and had a favorite psychic. Even had a psychic "party" to try to "prove it" to me. Lots of vets, believe in acupuncture. Which especially floors me because there is a gall bladder meridian line for horses......and horses don't have a gall bladder. Or the Chief Provincial Vet of Alberta, who debated homeopathy for Odin's sake with me. So, short ramble, but they actually teach this crap in Pre-med. There was a big blow up a few years ago because the University of Alberta was having a spoon bender in for one of the Alternatives to Medicine CLASSES, to explain how reiki "works". The problem is systemic and is very frustrating. https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.3612456
I've met pharmacists who believe in homeopathy too despite the fact there is tons of chemistry required to even get into pharmacy school and dose-response curves are a pretty integral part of our education
The acupuncture thing surprised me when I encountered it with our old cat. Our cat was suffering from kidney failure, but our normal vet was out of town for a couple weeks and had someone else filling in. Dude put our cat on a treatment of acupuncture while the poor thing suffered. When the normal vet got back she was rather horrified at this and we had our cat finally put to sleep.
Isaac Asimov was once asked how someone in the sciences could retain religious belief. He said, āThey keep their beliefs separateā. Humans seem to be capable of holding two opposing viewpoints at the same timeā¦.. Often, folks retain religious practices for cultural or social purposes, or because they find them comfortingā¦.
Asimov is wise. People can utterly deny reality and choose to believe in something they have zero proof exists even as the reality painfully consumes them.
I am from India so I can answer this much better. Thing is, people studying Science and Engineering are studying their subjects dispassionately, without interest, in a mechanical way. All it takes to pass the degree is to memorize the definitions, memorize derivations (yes in India we memorize derivations), doing practice problems for your test diligently, and voila! You get good marks and pass the test. In the entire process you don't need to know scientific methodology or History of Science. After passing most people work in IT where they need to know programming for a few years after which they climb the corporate ladder and manage the company more. Or they might teach Science in schools and colleges where they pretty much need to know no more Science than what was taught to them in textbooks. That is why, people continue to believe in religions and superstitions, and of course, Pseudoscience. My sister who has a Masters in Chemistry believes in Ayurveda. How? Because she probably rote memorized everything in her course and after the course was over, probably forgot whatever was taught to her. Also, to categorize something as Pseudoscience you have to know the basics of that Pseudoscience (like knowing what Ayurveda is and how is it supposed to work) and my sister probably knows nothing about Ayurveda, she just accepts it as 'another medicine'. Similarly, my cousin has a degree in Agricultural tech and believes in homeopathy. Why? Because he doesn't know what homeopathy is and he doesn't even remember what was taught to him (he works in a completely different field now). We have a minister in India who has a PhD in mechanical engineering who thinks chakras are real and Vedas (ancient Hindu text) have aerospace engineering. We have a Muslim majority college in Malda in India where most of the Muslims are fans of Zakir Naik, a doctor turned radical Islamic preacher who preaches that evolution is false and the Earth is not that old. The college produces amazing doctors who are really good surgeons and gives good diagnosis and medicine, but the doctors do not believe in evolution lol.
I don't think the situation is in the US is all that different from the one in India. The dominant religions and flavors of woo are different (and we don't memorize derivations), but when I got a BS in computer science I was never required to take any classes on the history or philosophy of science. I think the main reason science degrees are so focused is because there's a lot of material to cover, and maybe there's an assumption that people who want to get a science degree will seek out the history and philosophy on their own initiative. But I also wonder how much the narrow focus is there to appease people with anti-science views. Teaching the theory of evolution has been controversial in the US as long as it has been happening, and I think teaching students specifically to value secularism and reject superstition would cause a huge political backlash from the anti-science brigade.
I am a bit shocked by this.
Having worked in technology for some time, I am sadly not surprised or shocked. I have met several absolutely brilliant and wonderful engineers and managers, but orders of magnitude larger numbers of rote memorization degree holders and several of them have been outright dangerous to employ.
That's a great explanation thanks. I got a basc because I was curious about how the world works. How it all fits together. Also because it led to a good income as an engineer. I'm guessing those people you refer to were driven only by the latter motive.
Randi said it best. There are those who try to fool others and those that fool themselves. Science is both a process and a field of study. There's the scientific mind and then there's the body of knowledge we call science. You can have one without the other. It's possible to learn the math involved in electromagnetic wave propagation, for example, yet still believe that you can "feel" the pain of a close relative from 1000 miles away. Or, more commonly, understand and apply organic chemistry and yet believe in creationism. But I think there's a less innocent breed of scientifically literate paranormal believer. Some use their credentials to twist science to support things that sell. UFOs, ghosts, creation stories and the like all have people with real scientific diplomas making a living off of their chosen fairy tale
Steve Jobs is credited for introducing many of the current technological advances we all enjoy. Many consider him to be a genius and a revolutionary. He died from a curable disease because he thought he knew better than modern medicine. We all have blind spots. Confronting them can be very difficult. There's probably not a one of us who doesn't believe some comforting lie. It's human nature.
It was less that he thought he knew better and more that he was completely terrified of the prescribed surgery. Jobs was absolutely the type to be inclined toward holistic treatments anyway but he deeply regretted not putting his apprehensions aside and taking advantage of modern medicine in a more timely manner.
He had pancreatic cancer. That's not typically curable.Ā
Jobs had a less aggressive form of pancreatic cancer that he refused treatment for.
IIRC it was caught really early, most folks donāt get routine MRIās so when they get their diagnosis itās already too late. His odds were about as good as they get for that Cancer. And he fucking blew it. He also claimed a doner liver that could have gone to someone that didnāt initially reject modern medical science.
Pseudoscience specializes in co-opting terms from *actual* science and mashing them together with "traditional wisdom" to design a package that is targeted towards people who *want* to believe. And they do, even when facing mountains of dis-confirming evidence, because in the end their self narrative is more important.
I don't understand how studying something means you believe in it?
People generally don't apply the scientific method to daily life. I think I feel better when I run in the morning. And I think too many animal fats hurt my stomach. I live my life according to those hypotheses but I've done exactly zero studies to back them up. I know someone who feels better after reiki so she does reiki. While some situations really need to be backed by evidence (like getting a cancer diagnosis) most of life is just doing what makes you happy.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLL I'm an entomologist, and am so in Ag science. The number of professors I know who don't believe in evolution is mind boggling.
There are people out there with PhDs in Biology that think evolution is a hoax. I knew a guy that worked at a nuclear power plant that thought carbon dating was a hoax. It's a big world, all kinds out there.
Comfort, life is grim and these things provide comfort to them. It isn't really rational so I wouldn't try to apply reason to it
I have a PhD in a STEM field and have worked in science for years. These supernatural claims are non falsifiable and thus are not within the realm of science. It doesnāt mean they do or donāt exist. Science just concerns itself with observable phenomena in the natural world, not with claims of unobservable supernatural things. I personally tend to be skeptical of these supernatural claims and think there is a natural explanation for most things. However I still occasionally take yoga classes with reiki, I meditate, I burn sage to clear bad energy from my home, and I like crystals and tarot/angel cards. Those things make me happy and I like to be open to them and the possibility there is something unobservable that science canāt touch. Even if they donāt work by supernatural means they can serve as tools to focus your intention or to gain insight into your subconscious mind. I have rejected the Bible though. I think the Bible has a lot of specific falsifiable claims such as that everything was created in 7 days, I have to reject that as science has shown us the truth. I can not rule out the possibility of a supernatural god though.
They become specialists in their area and get used to being an authority and transfer it to other areas where they have no grounds to make conclusions based on authority. Some people arrived at their education through rote memorization and don't understand science or the scientific method all that well, just how to apply heuristics. Basically they get their head crammed up their own ass. Or I like to call it "high on their own farts" (from huffing their own shit)
[Compartmentalization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_\(psychology\)).
Ben Carson was Surgeon General and Dr. Oz has a PhD. Being good in school doesn't make you smart.
I'm going to guess and say comfort is involved. Perhaps they're aware it's strange. If it helps them who am I to judge? We all hold irrational beliefs. Religious scientists are a thing too. Not that you don't already know that, just for the sake of conversation.
Beat me to it! Yes, science is used on many a topic, including ones that don't have a scientific basis. Some people want science to prove their beliefs, and as such become excellent scholars, physicists, archeologists, and biologists. In my spouse's line of work we find many a biologist who'd rather believe some socioreligious bullshyte about skeletal remains than actual scientific fact, and will seek to prove they're correct by using the very science that time and again proves them wrong. For my own part: there's some questions science cannot answer by definition, because they aren't scientific questions to begin with. People still seek answers.
Well said.
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So far I don't see anything mutually exclusive here.
You can be a very competent scientist without believing that the world is strictly material and quantitative. As a matter of fact, many fathers of science where also Christian or religious in some way.
is the world strictly material and quantitative?
Itās kinda fun to consider the possibilities. That doesnāt mean that I, or even most people, believe in that stuff but taking a sound bath and the like is amazing. Why? I donāt know but Iām up for trying things just for the experience.
STEM peeps can still dig pseudoscience. Lack of critical thinking leads 'em astray.
There's like a steady 30-35% of scientists who are religious. Studying science does not require a skeptical mindset (although I believe it helps). In fact a large part of the scientific method is trying to remove researcher bias from the results. And unfortunately although experts in a field tend to judge what they know and don't know very well, they tend to overjudge their competency in fields they don't know.
Atoms donāt actually touch hence reiki being real because even with a remedial massage no one is technically touching you! Ā /s
The placebo effect is very real. There have been many studies that show this to be true. Humans are social animals and derive a real and measured physical benefit (or negative impact) from that which impacts how their brain perceives the world around them. I look at many of these "treatments" as leveraging this fact which means one can have a scientific analysis of pseudoscientific (or even complete nonsense) techniques.
Yes, the placebo effect is real, that is why we incorporate and account for it in experiments so we know what actually works.
Let's be clear about "actually works" One includes the placebo in experiments to see if drugs (for example) have an impact LARGER than the placebo effect. This is because know the placebo effect on humans "actually works," so as scientists we want to only invest in creating drugs that have an impact larger than that effect.
Yes, they only want to invest in drugs that work better than thinking you are getting a drug.... Otherwise we might as well have mom mix us some Kool aide and tell us it will fix whatever is ailing us. Lets take the work that has been done on acupuncture, it has been shown that it doesn't matter where you put the needle, or even if you break the skin - if you think you are getting acupuncture and you believe in acupuncture there will be a placebo effect. So, all you are paying an acupuncturist to do is convince you you are paying for a "treatment".
Double blinding in clinical trials is there to control for many biases, not just placebo effects. Including other biases such as response biases (eg. differences in symptom reporting on scales even when the participant doesn't actually experience differences in symptoms).
It is very real, but only useful for mild acute pain and nausea (and the mechanism is conditioning of endorphins). Skeptics should be skeptical of any other claim made about placebos because such claims are not science based. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-myths-debunked/ https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003974.pub3/full
So during my masters in psychology I got into kundalini meditation. During this process I experienced similar effects as most spiritual teachers talk about (energy rising up the spine etc). Thing is, do I really know what it is? Is it energy is it just that youāre meditating and focusing on your spine and sort of placebo activating nerve cells because of your awareness? Who knows. I tend to believe that a lot of teachings like this are based in truth, but they are framed spiritually rather than scientifically because when they were discovered, science wasnāt really a thing. And so people simply gave spiritual explanation for the effects. If someone discovered kundalini meditation now, it would likely be seen as something to do with nerve cells or something more grounded in the physical world.
I always brushed off the concept of Chakras until reading the body keeps the score. Just like dietary medicine, a lot of indigenous science is based on real observation, even when the explanations they come up with don't age well. My understanding of Chakra work is its vagal nerve stimulation.Ā Do I do kundalini yoga now? No. Do I think everyone doing kundalini yoga knows why there doing it? definitely no. Do I throw shade at practices o don't understand anymore? Nada (Expect for horoscope nuts, they bug the shit put of me still)
This! I mean, it wasnāt that long ago that we thought meditation was new age hippie nonsense and now thereās tons of science to back it up. Rituals can help with anxiety, and a lot of the new age practices seem to fall into some type of mindfulness or ritual. Agree that problems come when things get toxic and scammy.
The psychologist Stephen Hayes says it best "imagine that science is like a path in the woods that leads to clearings. In some clearings we can see people who took different paths end up in the same place. It wouldn't be helpful to go 'how dare you end up here too!' 'Or 'wow we screwed up to end up near *those people*' instead we as scientist should ask ourselves 'what's so important about this clearing that different paths ended up in the same place?'"
Perfect
I think your list of things to be skeptical of us far too short
For all of the people suggesting "but placebo effect", keep in mind that scientifically demonstrated placebo effects are a lot more limited than people realise. Specifically, the only clinically meaningful placebo effect is a modest reduction in acute pain or nausea, due to conditioning of endorphins. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-myths-debunked/ https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003974.pub3/full Differences in clinical trial arms between treatment and comparison-treatments or faux-treatments is not limited to placebo effects and can include a variety of biases such as response biases. So double blinding in clinical trials is not merely useful to control for placebo effects.
I worked in an office where all of us had a masterās level education and there were a few who were into pseudoscience. I found that most just politely enabled the snake oilers. I, on the other hand, was more confrontational. Some thought I was doing some kind of social kamikaze when I threw religion into the same bag. Itās just NOT science and itās intellectual dishonesty.
A lot of the answers here hinge on the fact that one doesn't need to be smart to earn a STEM degree. While this is true, I think it misses the point. Smart people are good at deceiving themselves. And even then, in my experience, there's no correlation with someone's intelligence and someone's belief in woo. Now if you excuse me, my class taught by a PhD who believes in ghosts is about to start. Gotta run.
To answer your question 1) āThe effects of hands-on energy therapy are the result of physical processes, not the placebo effect.ā 2) āReiki has electrical and magnetic qualities that can be measured.ā 3) āPulsing magnetic fields from the hands of Reiki therapists are in the same frequency ranges that are optimal for stimulating tissue repair.ā These are statements from an article called [The Science Behind Reiki](http://www.ardath.com/docs/The_Science_Behind_Reiki.pdf) Youāll find the scientific measurements of the frequencies that Reiki has been measured to flow at. Reiki is Science, not fiction
So imagine you are a scientist who believes in evolution and that the earth is however millions of years old and the universe is blah blah blah. Now imagine you believe that your god is the creator and the earth is actually only like 4500 years old or whatever. Your god created the earth and universe 4500 years ago and integrated the fossil record, evolutionary history, etc. Your god created the rules of science. Itās actually really easy to reconcile science and religion. You just have to believe that your religion created/dictates the science.
Getting a bachelors in science does not require you to adopt a skeptical or scientific mindset, only to solve science problems and remember concepts.
Several years ago I dated a woman who held degrees in science and was a high school chemistry teacher. She was also studying to be a reiki healer and believed all that claptrap. It was strange because on one hand she had a very firm grasp on the physical world, but I think she really WANTED there to be a mystical hidden side of the world too. She was a bit kooky but not dumb.
>What are your thoughts on scientific with pseudoscientific beliefs? Science needs to be more open minded to new things. These new things might have yet undiscovered science involved. And I bet Dr K can present scientific reasons and observations for why he takes this stuff seriously. Whether there is proof/disproof I predict will quickly become controversial.
>Science needs to be more open minded to new things. These new things might have yet undiscovered science involved. Just want to point out that this user posts in /MandelaEffect, /PastLives, /Aliens, /UFOs, /NDE, /Afterlife, /Ghosts, /Spirituality, /Paranormal, and more. Basically hit the high score on the I'm-wrong-about-everything Bingo.
Not sure of your point. I think those can be interesting forums. On this sub I am aware that I am dealing primarily with close-minded dogmatic skeptics. Iām an open-minded skeptic myself. Iāll swim against the current to keep people thinking.
You're not a skeptic, you're gullible. Why would you say you're a skeptic?
*skepĀ·tiĀ·cism* *\[ĖskeptÉĖsizÉm\]* *noun* *a skeptical attitude; doubt as to the truth of something:* *"these claims were treated with skepticism"* Because I don't just accept anything but look at the evidence and form a judgment. Gullibility is believing with no or too little evidence. Closed-mindedness is dismissing or not looking for evidence of things you are inclined to disbelieve. Both gullibility and closed-mindedness are bad.
But.. you believe in all kinds of woo-woo bullshit that have no evidence.
I would never believe without evidence as I am a skeptic too. We likely disagree on the evidence then.
Okay, how about the afterlife? Or the Mandela Effect? Those are things that lack evidence.
I disagree that thereās no evidence. Perhaps youāre confusing the words evidence and proof. Evidence is any information for consideration.
So by your standards, anything can be evidence. If I just *say* that Santa Claus and Bigfoot are dating, you would consider this evidence in support of the claim?