The existence of God and the efficacy of prayer

[Aepervius]

A drug? And another couple of years? What! An ah ha experience works to bring the body to spontaneous remission AND it is FREE! And that is not all. The person not only has a spontaneous remission, they can avoid developing cancer ever again. AND live out their lives as normal.

But of course the person has to be humane/ non-toxic. The reason is that they must have autonomy, to be able to make their own independent choices. Inhumane people all belong to networks (gangs), which means they are bound by mob rule. If others in their "circle of friends" was them gone, then there is nothing they can do to avoid it.

I think i will ignore this thread. my blood boiling right now would bring me to reply to this creature's post in a quite unfriendly manner.

In the name of all those who have cancer and/or lost people to cancer : ** **** ********.

 

[Aepervius]

Citation please.

here is one specifically for genes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

And there are many many more.

it should go educated itself.

 

[Pup]

The step before clinical trials is usually animal testing. Going back to the limb regeneration discussed earlier, I could see that working really well. We tried it on starfish and it worked. We tried it on lizards and it worked. Now we're ready to try it on humans.

 

[Pixel42]

Citation please.

This article gives several links to papers which study the placebo effect scientifically:

https://jdc325.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/the-powerful-placebo/

Anecdotal evidence is usually what triggers a scientific investigation, yes, but until that investigation is done it is impossible for the investigator to know whether the pattern/correlation they think they have seen is really there. The paranormal field is rife with examples of people being convinced of the reality of phenomena based solely on anecdotal evidence which turn out, upon proper scientific investigation, to be nonexistent (belief in dowsing, astrology, telepathy, homeopathy etc).

Your experiences are interesting enough to warrant a proper scientific investigation, but until that has been done no conclusion can be drawn. I would not rule out the possibility that you have come up with some kind of meditation technique that can improve someone's chances of recovery, but you are certainly not justified in claiming that - or anything else - based solely on your anecdotal evidence.

 

[Pup]

I think i will ignore this thread. my blood boiling right now would bring me to reply to this creature's post in a quite unfriendly manner.

In the name of all those who have cancer and/or lost people to cancer : ** **** ********.

I know your pain. There are, unfortunately, cruel people who want to prey on desperate cancer patients and their families, manipulating their emotions with false hopes and empty promises. I only wish they could learn about and emulate real cancer researchers, like Dr. Alice Shaw in Boston who specializes in developing drugs for ALK+ cancer but also still sees patients.

She's too far away for me to see, but I read her articles and know several people who see her, and the worst complaint I've heard is that she's incredibly busy. But she's the face of Big Pharma for me, and it's not an evil empire full of greedy people. It's full of people who desperately want to cure whatever cancer they're working on.

I know you know that, but unfortunately not everyone does.

There are unfortunately way too many people who deliberately seek out emotionally fragile people to exploit, but this goes way beyond Kangen water or Rick Simpson oil, with the inclusion of a bizarre emotional attack.

But thank you for posting when you can.

 

[Pup]

Anecdotal evidence is usually what triggers a scientific investigation, yes, but until that investigation is done it is impossible for the investigator to know whether the pattern/correlation they think they have seen is really there. The paranormal field is rife with examples... [snip for brevity]

An excellent post. I ought to quote the whole thing because it's all good and deserves to be said twice.

 

[kyrani99]

Your depreciation of evidence is summed in those words.

Evidence that speaks to you alone is not evidence; it certainly is Faith. You should have the smallest self respect and strictly distinguish.

If one person gathers evidence and postulates an hypothesis — it is not victory for their postulate. It's a start. From there it goes under trial to subtract all folly. If it still stands, it gets stronger. If it falls, it has the honour of being wrong.

You are not even wrong.

What you are saying between the lines is that materialism is all that there is and the only evidence is scientific evidence.

Evidence is information indicating whether an idea or proposition is true or false. You no doubt have evidence of your subjective experience but there is NO scientific experiment that can be done by science that can verify the quality and content of your subjective experience.

So what do you do? Do you say you have no evidence for your subjective experience and thus discard it as trash? There is not even a hypothesis that can be made as to yours or anyone's subjective experience. So in your opinion all subjective experience is what an illusion, it fails and should have the honor of being wrong.

What your remark shows is prejudice.

 

[kyrani99]

The step before clinical trials is usually animal testing. Going back to the limb regeneration discussed earlier, I could see that working really well. We tried it on starfish and it worked. We tried it on lizards and it worked. Now we're ready to try it on humans.

This is the mentality of big pharma. You only have to look at the horrendous damage done by drugs that were on the market and withdrawn that should NEVER have been on the market to begin with. Talk to someone whose mother had been prescribed thalidomide by a doctor as a mild sleeping pill safe even for pregnant women. Around 10 thousands babies worldwide were born with malformed limbs, some were born with no arms or legs or no functional limbs.

The drug was approved and marketed in 1956 and the damage seen within a year but it was not removed from the market until 1962, i.e., another 6 YEARS! But hey gee, they had to test it to make sure that the deformities they saw were caused by the drug. Otherwise they might be accused of confirmation bias, not to mention lost sales while they could get them.

I am not advocating that anyone who is scheduled for treatment should stop their treatment. It is not necessary. If the person sees their disease vanish then there is no need for any further treatment.

But there is also those with stage 4 cancer, for whom often there is no viable treatment. These people constitute a large number. When these people's cancer vanished, it shows up the results.

 

[kyrani99]

This article gives several links to papers which study the placebo effect scientifically:

https://jdc325.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/the-powerful-placebo/

Anecdotal evidence is usually what triggers a scientific investigation, yes, but until that investigation is done it is impossible for the investigator to know whether the pattern/correlation they think they have seen is really there. The paranormal field is rife with examples of people being convinced of the reality of phenomena based solely on anecdotal evidence which turn out, upon proper scientific investigation, to be nonexistent (belief in dowsing, astrology, telepathy, homeopathy etc).

Your experiences are interesting enough to warrant a proper scientific investigation, but until that has been done no conclusion can be drawn. I would not rule out the possibility that you have come up with some kind of meditation technique that can improve someone's chances of recovery, but you are certainly not justified in claiming that - or anything else - based solely on your anecdotal evidence.

This is hardly a citation. This is a personal blog of someone, who on his about page says nothing of himself, he obviously has no scientific training and he admits to working in some undisclosed capacity in alternative medicine.

The paranormal field is firstly hard to research precisely because a person can be influence through thought and not even realize it.

Secondly the great bulk of the studies that are done are double blinded. When the effect is most prominent and most people (99.99%) only through relationship, then the very condition that is required, is removed from the experimental procedure. That is like doing a drug trial without the drug!

But even with all this there is enough evidence that the paranormal is real.

My findings will be confirmed by ordinary people looking for answer after having been failed by modern medicine, like I was. People with terminal cancer hearing what I have to say and coming to an understanding of the reality that they face, will get well, given of course that they have autonomy, that they are non-toxic.

There is no meditation techniques that would be of benefit. I used meditation as an observational tool in the main. A person with advanced training, who has mastered some very specialized techniques can use them for other conditions but these would be rare individuals.

Thus I strongly advise against using meditation as a treatment. It is okay only as a relaxation and restoring resting metabolism for the short periods of time while the person is meditating. Meditation is not a treatment nor a cure.

 

[Resume]

Meditation is not a treatment nor a cure.

Correct.

 

[Pixel42]

This is hardly a citation. This is a personal blog of someone, who on his about page says nothing of himself, he obviously has no scientific training and he admits to working in some undisclosed capacity in alternative medicine.

As I said, references are included in the article. References to scientific papers. Some are embedded in the original text, many more are included in the ETAs at the bottom. It was the most citations to the scientific literature on placebo in a single place that I could find with a simple google search.

The paranormal field is firstly hard to research precisely because a person can be influence through thought and not even realize it.

That is no more true for the paranormal than it is for anything else, if by "influenced through thought" you mean influenced by the human brain's built in cognitive biases. That's why the scientific method was invented: to carefully and methodically eliminate the effect of those biases. When that is done for supposedly paranormal phenomena they disappear, proving that the perception that they exist is an artefact of those biases.

Secondly the great bulk of the studies that are done are double blinded. When the effect is most prominent and most people (99.99%) only through relationship, then the very condition that is required, is removed from the experimental procedure. That is like doing a drug trial without the drug!

The studies are double blinded to remove all known sources of error. If the result is negative then one of those sources of error was the cause of the perception that there was some pattern or correlation worthy of investigation, ie that pattern or correlation does not, after all, exist.

But even with all this there is enough evidence that the paranormal is real.

I have yet to see any that stands up to scrutiny.

My findings will be confirmed by ordinary people looking for answer after having been failed by modern medicine, like I was.

Your hypothesis can only be confirmed by a scientific investigation which eliminates known sources of error. No amount of additional anecdotal evidence will do it.

All your anecdotal evidence is of the form "I had problem A, I did B, problem A went away, therefore doing B makes problem A go away". This is a form of faulty reasoning so common it has a name: the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. My "I had a headache, I whistled for a while, my headache went away, therefore whistling makes headaches goes away" example is another example of this logical fallacy. Note that so is "I had a headache, I took an aspirin, my headache went away, therefore taking aspirin makes headaches goes away". The only way we know that the latter is actually correct is that we did double blind clinical trials which were positive. Until then there was no more justification for making such a statement than there is for my whistling claim, or for your claims.

 

[kyrani99]

Originally Posted by kyrani99
"Meditation is not a treatment nor a cure."

Correct.

Meditation will not lead the body to make changes in bodily reactivity as lead to disease.

The only way one can lead their body to make changes is either:-
a. get rid of the false belief or
b. get out of the adverse circumstances.

The first one is the powerful cure because it requires a recognition of the situation to which one was reacting. Once that happens the person will be able to see the false ideas and be able to discharge them from mind, replacing them with beneficial ideas. Their body returns to resting metabolism. That is the bad reactivity stops and the body restores health.

The second condition is temporary. If the person again experiences adverse conditions the body will return to the same disease reactivity .

There is one other situation and that is when the people have stopped the foul play. They may have achieved the power and influence they want or some condition they want so they stop what they are doing. This is a bad situation because even though the person gets well again they are beholden to people who have betrayed them. These person have done them harm and who would again do harm and from a more powerful position, should they want to, because now the person is under their influence and, more often than not, trusts them.

 

[Resume]

. . . get rid of the false belief

Yes.

 

[kyrani99]

The studies are double blinded to remove all known sources of error. If the result is negative then one of those sources of error was the cause of the perception that there was some pattern or correlation worthy of investigation, ie that pattern or correlation does not, after all, exist.

This is plain ignorance. Scientific experiments need to be done ON THE TEST CONDITIONS. If you remove the test conditions you have destroyed the scientific experiment you want to do. Science only stipulates that a control is run along side of the experiment to rule out an effect arising from another spurious source.

Double blinding was only introduced to try to eliminate placebo but instead it made thing worse. And it is really only relevant to drug trials. It is no some standard to be used in all experiments.

Your hypothesis can only be confirmed by a scientific investigation which eliminates known sources of error. No amount of additional anecdotal evidence will do it.

All your anecdotal evidence is of the form "I had problem A, I did B, problem A went away, therefore doing B makes problem A go away". This is a form of faulty reasoning so common it has a name: the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. My "I had a headache, I whistled for a while, my headache went away, therefore whistling makes headaches goes away" example is another example of this logical fallacy. Note that so is "I had a headache, I took an aspirin, my headache went away, therefore taking aspirin makes headaches goes away". The only way we know that the latter is actually correct is that we did double blind clinical trials which were positive. Until then there was no more justification for making such a statement than there is for my whistling claim, or for your claims.

This only shows that either you don't understand what I have or you don't want to understand and want to reject it for the sake of rejecting it.

If I had said I ate almond kernels and that made me well and I then sell this to the public then that is definitely only anecdotal and of no value.

I did not apply some treatment in the blind.
I investigated what was going on in my body at the cellular level.
I also had information from what I had seen as in "if this then that happens".
I was able to understand what was happening on the cellular level with the knowledge of what issues I was facing. These have lead to a theory.

And yes it can be tested by ordinary people no matter how much anecdotal is being cried out. If the bulk of the cancer industry collapses and 80% of people are able to get healthy and remain healthy then it is mission accomplished. The scientific community, those who are not beholden to big pharma, will have to take notice.

My theory when I have set it out in scientific terms, will crush the current rubbish of "immuno-editing" and that "the immune system is co-opted by cancer cells" and that "cancer has evolved to evade the immune system" and that "the immune system normally kills cancer cells". All of it stands on shaky grounds and all is aimed to justify immuno-therapy drug development and use.

In fact my theory challenges Darwinian Evolutionary Theory. And it provides evidence that changes in the body are brought about through intelligent and conscious means.

 

[Resume]

In fact my theory challenges Darwinian Evolutionary Theory. And it provides evidence that changes in the body are brought about through intelligent and conscious means.

Wow, your hypothesis challenges the Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection? In what journal might I read of this world-altering breakthrough?

 

[Pixel42]

This is plain ignorance. Scientific experiments need to be done ON THE TEST CONDITIONS. If you remove the test conditions you have destroyed the scientific experiment you want to do. Science only stipulates that a control is run along side of the experiment to rule out an effect arising from another spurious source.

Double blinding was only introduced to try to eliminate placebo but instead it made thing worse. And it is really only relevant to drug trials. It is no some standard to be used in all experiments.

I'm sorry, but it is you that is ignorant. Double blinding removes the effect of cognitive biases, and is applicable to many types of investigation.

Take astrology, for example. Plenty of people are convinced that the individual horoscope their astrologer draws up for them is more accurate than would be expected by chance, and that astrology therefore works. But it can be shown that this perception is due to cognitive biases. Give that same person half a dozen horoscopes drawn up for half a dozen different people, ensure that the astrologer doesn't know which birth dates are for which client and that the client doesn't know which horoscope is theirs, and they will be able to correctly pick out their own horoscope no more often than would be expected by chance. There are many such examples of double blind testing being used to eliminate the effect of cognitive biases.

This only shows that either you don't understand what I have or you don't want to understand and want to reject it for the sake of rejecting it.

I am defending a system for obtaining reliable information by eliminating well known sources of error which has successfully doubled average life expectancy, reduced infant mortality to a tiny fraction of its former frequency, and produced treatments for diseases which have previously been death sentences. I have three close relatives who are only alive today because of that system, which people like you summarily dismiss using stupid terms like big pharma. It certainly isn't perfect, but it is a lot better than anything offered up by big placebo (also a multi billion dollar business, in case you didn't know).

I have made it clear that I am not dismissing your claims out of hand, but that there is a minimum standard of evidence that must be met before they can be seriously considered. It is the same standard that all such claims must meet, whatever their origin. Get back to me when you have met it.

 

[Pup]

Your hypothesis can only be confirmed by a scientific investigation which eliminates known sources of error. No amount of additional anecdotal evidence will do it.

All your anecdotal evidence is of the form "I had problem A, I did B, problem A went away, therefore doing B makes problem A go away". This is a form of faulty reasoning so common it has a name: the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy.

There's also the problem that without an independent review board involved, there's no way for the public to know if the anecdotes only included the positive ones. The goal is not to collect 1 or 10 or 100 positive anecdotes, but to show how many people need treated to reach that, and what happened when treatment didn't work.

Also, I think the weak link is going to be in diagnosis. There needs to be some standard definition of how the cancer is diagnosed and staged, and how remission or cure is defined.

If one complains about a lack of rigor in the scientific community's clinical trials, one must not then make sloppy mistakes.

I just saw the post about challenging the theory of evolution. I expect there's a reason your posts sound like every other fake treatment that combines a little bit of sciency sounding stuff with faith healing. They seem to be aimed at impressing a certain uneducated segment of the population who likes alt med stuff. If you do have some earth shattering insight, it would be a shame to have it be ignored because of that. I thought you were aiming now at impressing a more scientifically minded audience.

 

[Stee]

In fact my theory challenges Darwinian Evolutionary Theory. And it provides evidence that changes in the body are brought about through intelligent and conscious means.

Did I actually just read that?

I mean obviously if this is true you are in for a nobel, but I am guessing it's based on very little and you're going to end up peddling the line 'the scientific community won't listen to me and my ideas!'

There is a reason for this...

 

[Pixel42]

There's also the problem that without an independent review board involved, there's no way for the public to know if the anecdotes only included the positive ones. The goal is not to collect 1 or 10 or 100 positive anecdotes, but to show how many people need treated to reach that, and what happened when treatment didn't work.

Also, I think the weak link is going to be in diagnosis. There needs to be some standard definition of how the cancer is diagnosed and staged, and how remission or cure is defined.

If one complains about a lack of rigor in the scientific community's clinical trials, one must not then make sloppy mistakes.

Given the difficulty I've had communicating the most immediately obvious deficiency in the methodology described there didn't seem much point going into the others, but you're right of course. There are numerous deficiencies which would need to be addressed before the methodology would be acceptable to anyone who understands the care which needs to be taken to avoid fooling oneself.

 

[Pup]

Given the difficulty I've had communicating the most immediately obvious deficiency in the methodology described there didn't seem much point going into the others, but you're right of course. There are numerous deficiencies which would need to be addressed before the methodology would be acceptable to anyone who understands the care which needs to be taken to avoid fooling oneself.

Totally agree. I realized you weren't attempting to cover it all.

It's frustrating because this kind of stuff is really interesting to me, because most of the medicines for my cancer are so new they're still in late stage clinical trials, and I read a lot and try to evaluate what's in the pipeline. Five years from now, people are going to have a lot more choices and be living longer than me. It's just amazing, just as I have more than those five years ago.

But there's not only the methodology, there's a certain professional sounding way that scientists write, not too cocky, positive but always careful to choose their words so they're not promising too much.

Sure, a good protocol and results could be written in street slang and they'd still be good. That's the most important thing. But I think the language comes from being aware of all the pitfalls for fooling oneself or being fooled, and taking care to be precise, rather than just charging ahead with the answers.