Any value in acupuncture?

[yrreg]

Missing frame of reference, bad analogies, overly emotional language

Yrreg:
1. Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints, if you don't have enough money for treatment and medication in conventional scientific medicine, or if conventional scientific medicine has given up on you.​

-----------------

How does an unacceptable option suddenly transform intpo an acceptable one, just because you run out of other options? If an option is not at all acceptable to begin with, then it will remain so unless something about the option itself changes.

Hitting my thump with a hammer is not a good way to treat a blister. It will not turn into a good way of treating a blister just because I run out of plasters, ointments or hot needles.

[etc. etc. etc. etc.]

Author Rasmus misses the frame of reference, engages in wrong and bad analogies, like this one repeated in the post:

Hitting my thump with a hammer is not a good way to treat a blister. It will not turn into a good way of treating a blister just because I run out of plasters, ointments or hot needles.​

Rest of the post cannot be taken seriously for being emotionally overloaded as can be seen in the language used, which certainly is not worthy of scholarly attention, much less publication in any serious academic journal.

---------------

Do the exercise again: watch out for frame of reference, bad analogies, and overcome language that is emotionally overloaded.

Thanks for the reply just the same.


[This is an experiment.]


Yrreg

 

[yrreg]

Missing frame of reference, unwarranted exaggerations

Isn’t this the same post, word for word, only with some nice numbered bullet points and bold text?

The formatting of the text has very little to do with the validity of the message. What is important is the idea the text conveys, not how it looks.

I’m afraid you’ll need to address some of the counter arguments if you want any of us to take this seriously.


Also, I’d like to reinforce an argument expressed by both Brodski and Rasmus.

I’m rather appalled that you keep suggesting that people who cannot afford “conventional scientific medical treatments” try one that is unproven on the chance that it may help. This could be very dangerous for those that blindly take such advice.

If you have a problem that cannot be helped by standard OTC medications, then it is in your best interest to see a real doctor. People don’t just wake up one day, realize they have cancer, and then decide to go see a doctor. The symptoms start out mild usually. That headache you get that aspirin can’t help could be a warning for a whole list of potentially life threatening problems; a brain tumor, a blood clot that could become an aneurysm or a stroke, meningitis, to name a few.

It is important to get a proper diagnosis as early as possible, and pointing people off to acupuncture or other unproven alt-med could end up costing them their life. I doubt an acupuncturist would recognize something uncommon like meningitis, let alone have any way of curing the infection.

There are programs available to help people that cannot afford healthcare. If someone has a potentially dangerous medical condition, his or her time and money are best spent securing proper medial treatment. Not being wasted on unproven alt-med with false hope and the rationale of; “It might help, what harm can it do?”

Language is not emotionally overloaded, but author I < 3 logic misses frame of reference and falls on unwarranted exaggerations.

Thanks for the reply just the same.

You are invited to do the exercise again, item by item.


[This is an experiment.]


Yrreg

 

[TV's Frank]

...Rest of the post cannot be taken seriously for being emotionally overloaded as can be seen in the language used, which certainly is not worthy of scholarly attention, much less publication in any serious academic journal....

To be honest, I've seen poorer language in "serious academic journals". And, to be even more honest, I found Rasmus's post to be well-written, well-organized, and well-executed. He made his points very clearly, and managed to address all the points in your post.

Do I even need to point out that this is an internet forum, and your refusal to respond to his posts because they are not up to some imaginary level of acceptability is...well....stupid?

We eagerly anticipate an actual response to the criticisms of your original post.

 

[RationalVetMed]

Author Rasmus misses the frame of reference, engages in wrong and bad analogies... Rest of the post cannot be taken seriously for being emotionally overloaded as can be seen in the language used, which certainly is not worthy of scholarly attention, much less publication in any serious academic journal.

Speaking for myself I felt the post was well reasoned and delivered in a calm manner. Surely if yrreg feels strongly enough about the points he's making he could read past perceived errors in delivery & continue to make the argument.

Yuri

 

[I less than three logic]

Thanks for the reply just the same.

You are invited to do the exercise again, item by item.

I have no intention of trying your “exercise” again.

So far you’ve offered a single post that looks like a marketing pamphlet for acupuncture as your only argument. It makes claims such as “Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints”, but you’ve offered no collaborating evidence to support such claims.

Others have already addressed each point you’ve made, and you seem intent on debating the semantics instead of the topic. As far as I’m concerned, until you properly address the counter arguments already posed and provide supporting evidence for the claims you’ve made, your point is moot.

 

[yrreg]

Precision in language wanting

I have no intention of trying your “exercise” again.

So far you’ve offered a single post that looks like a marketing pamphlet for acupuncture as your only argument. It makes claims such as “Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints”, but you’ve offered no collaborating evidence to support such claims.

Others have already addressed each point you’ve made, and you seem intent on debating the semantics instead of the topic. As far as I’m concerned, until you properly address the counter arguments already posed and provide supporting evidence for the claims you’ve made, your point is moot.

... provide supporting evidence for the claims you’ve made... -- I<3logic​

Request author I<3logic to make a precise itemized list of claims I make in the post referred to, #18 reproduced from #9.


Thank you for your interest.


Yrreg

 

[yrreg]

List of claims alleged to have been made...

For the rest of posters here interested in interacting with me on my posts #9, reproduced in post #18:

Please make an itemized list of claims I am supposed to have made in the said posts, like this:

1. That...

2. That...

3. That...​

In precise language and with supporting texts from my said posts.

If you prefer but it is optional, you may also put forward the counter-claims or rebuttals from posters here, who had replied to me earlier and from yourselves.


Thanks for your continued interest in my said posts.


Yrreg

 

[TV's Frank]

I have to wonder: are we even reading the same thread as Yrreg?

 

[yrreg]

Please watch your emotional proclivity.

To be honest, I've seen poorer language in "serious academic journals". And, to be even more honest, I found Rasmus's post to be well-written, well-organized, and well-executed. He made his points very clearly, and managed to address all the points in your post.

Do I even need to point out that this is an internet forum, and your refusal to respond to his posts because they are not up to some imaginary level of acceptability is...well....stupid?

We eagerly anticipate an actual response to the criticisms of your original post.

And, to be even more honest, I found Rasmus's post to be well-written, well-organized, and well-executed. He made his points very clearly, and managed to address all the points in your post. -- TV's Frank​

Yrreg:
Please reproduce the points made by Rasmus very clearly, to address all the points in my post.
-----------------

Do I even need to point out that this is an internet forum, and your refusal to respond to his posts because they are not up to some imaginary level of acceptability is...well....stupid? -- TV's Frank​

[Don't read this, it's for comic relief only.]
Yrreg:
Do I even need to point out that this is an internet forum, and your refusal to accommodate me in my request from you, TV's Frank, should you indeed refuse to, is...well....stupid on your part?


[Hahahaha softly.]


This is an experiment.


Yrreg

 

[I less than three logic]

... provide supporting evidence for the claims you’ve made... -- I<3logic​

Request author I<3logic to make a precise itemized list of claims I make in the post referred to, #18 reproduced from #9.


Thank you for your interest.


Yrreg

This is becoming tiresome, but if you need an itemized list I’ll put one together. I’ll be using your post #18 since you’ve conveniently numbered it for us.

1. Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints, if you don't have enough money for treatment and medication in conventional scientific medicine, or if conventional scientific medicine has given up on you.

Acupuncture is acceptable to whom and by what standards? The National Council Against Health Fraud does not consider acupuncture an acceptable option.
http://www.ncahf.org/pp/acu.html

2. I might be wrong with this suspicion, but if you make a survey of medical complaints treated by acupuncture and treated by conventional scientific medicine, you might just find that the number of successful cases and lasting duration of the successful treatments are quantitatively the same.

This is an opinion, and we are each entitled to one. We are not required to have a rational reason behind our opinions, but it is preferred.

3. This rough study means you get people who are treated with acupuncture and people treated with conventional scientific medicine, on the same diseases or medical complaints.
Is this a valid approach for a study? Never tried that; as I said, it is just my almost arbitrary suspicion.

I don’t think this would constitute a valid study. I'm not sure you’ve taken proper consideration to control for placebo effects.

4. Actually I have seen Chinese doctors using their Chinese medical procedures, with herbs or concoctions made directly from herbs, heal patients in cases where conventional scientific medicine has given up.

This is a nice anecdote. However, anecdotes do not constitute evidence. Please provide a properly controlled study that shows that acupuncture or other alt-med has cured anyone of a non-subjective condition. I.E. a serious infection, heart condition, ruptured organs, crushed vertebra. Not most pains or mental conditions that are entirely dependent on how the subject perceives it, and can vary widely between people with similar conditions. The latter are every susceptible to placebo effects, please refer to Rolfe’s post #13.

5. And they cost in most instances less than 20% or even less of what scientific medical practitioners will cost you, with all kinds of drugs, procedures, and equipment expenses and hospitalization. (Addendum: the sky is the limit in professional fees, unless you enjoy socialized medicine.)

Cost should not prohibit someone from proper medical treatment. There are programs available for those that cannot afford it. However, it may take some effort to join the programs.

6. I said that if you don't have enough money for conventional scientific medicine or this kind of medicine has given up on you, you can and might profitably try acupuncture, and I will add also Chinese medical practitioners working with herbs and drugs directly sourced from herbs, including natural components from organic and mineral origins.

Again, cost shouldn’t be controlling your decision. Also, most conventional medicines are derived from plants and other organic sources. It has been discovered that is its best to isolate the active compound from the rest of the plant before administering, so you can precisely control the amount that is given. This is one of the things that raise the cost of medicine, along with research for new medications, and studies to prove their effectiveness.

7. I will also add that if you want to experiment because you are not in an urgent medical situation, try the Chinese medical practitioners, you might just save a bundle of money and get the successful lasting treatment for your medical problem.

If they have no urgent medical problems and wish to experiment with acupuncture, then that is their decision to make. I would, however, caution that delaying treatment for many medical conditions is the number 1 factor contributing to unsuccessful recovery.

8. I would like to ask people here whether there are scientific studies of successful treatments done by Chinese doctors in patients given up by conventional scientific medicine.

I would guess there are such studies somewhere. However, they would not be valid. You are not allowed to study just the successful treatments; you have to include the unsuccessful ones as well.

9. I think that is a good approach for a study: round up people who had been treated successfully by Chinese doctors, who had been earlier given up by medical practitioners of conventional scientific medicine, and find out why the Chinese doctors succeeded where conventional scientific doctors had given up. In this manner conventional scientific medicine stands to gain new knowledge in medicine.

This is a classic example of confirmation bias or observational selection, and is why the studies proposed in #8 are flawed. You’ll be studying only the successful cases and omitting the unsuccessful ones.

10. Allow me to point out that Chinese medicine is not to be equated with what people might think to consist in gestures and in orations executed by religious medicine men, maybe called tribal healers, who would treat sick people by appeals to invisible agents called spirits.

Descriptions telling us what something “is not” are not very useful. In fact, there are an infinite number of things that “Chinese medicine” is not. We would find it much more helpful if you told us what it is.

 

[yrreg]

Fraud? as in The National Council against Health Fraud?

This is becoming tiresome, but if you need an itemized list I’ll put one together. I’ll be using your post #18 since you’ve conveniently numbered it for us.

1. Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints, if you don't have enough money for treatment and medication in conventional scientific medicine, or if conventional scientific medicine has given up on you.

Acupuncture is acceptable to whom and by what standards? The National Council Against Health Fraud does not consider acupuncture an acceptable option.
http://www.ncahf.org/pp/acu.html

I am not an American citizen and not residing in the US.

There are many countries and many peoples other than the US and Americans.

You mention The National Council Against Health Fraud. Since you are from the description after your forum name here, an American living in the US, I assume The National Council Against Health Fraud is a collectivity of people operating in the US.

Does the word National in the name of this presumably collectivity of people in the US, indicate and is intended to indicate that this collectivity of people is an official agency of the US federal government or some local state governments?

Are you, if I may, of the mind or even conviction that medical practitioners, American citizens and residents in the US who deliver health and medical service by performing acupuncture on patients coming to them, are all into health fraud?

And also non-Americans and non-residents of the US practicing acupuncture in their own lands, and among their own peoples are also into health fraud?

------------------------

About the intrinsic efficacy of acupuncture, you believe that it has no intrinsic efficacy?

But you have to admit that the intrinsic factors you have in mind to form a basis for judging, whether acupuncture could be or could not be efficacious, might just possibly be limited as to exclude factors which if included might show, that acupuncture is not exactly intrinsically bereft of efficacy or any influence whatsoever.

That is why I am trying to bring people's attention here to study the question from the outside than from the inside concentrating on factors, they choose to include but being unmindful or choosing to exclude factors, which they do exclude either from not being mindful or from presumptive exclusivistic premises.

------------------

There are people I presume in the US and also certainly people outside in the wide wide world, who have experienced healing efficacy from acupuncture; they definitely should be studied more extensively from a parte post, rather than from a parte ante, in order to pinpoint exactly what role if indeed any, directly or indirectly, or just by catalystic influence, or by some imaginable clearing action contributed by acupuncture.

Yrreg

 

[Glite]

this is where i usually go for info on such things, http://www.skepdic.com/acupunc.html , there are further links at the bottom of the article.

 

[brodski]

I have to wonder: are we even reading the same thread as Yrreg?

Yes we are, however some of us are trying to engage in constructive debates, Yrreg is just trolling.

It’s quite pathetic really, his "arguments" are systematically destroyed by reason, and all he can do in whine that he doesn’t like the way other posts are phrased.

He seems to think he has some kind of moral high ground from which to preach, in other threads he even claims to be able to tell who is and is not a "true skeptic", (here http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1423137#post1423137 )

which is especially ironic given that I have seldom come across any one who seems to take so much pride in insulating themselves from reality, I mean, even Iamme at least tries to respond to the evidence and arguments that are offered to him. But at least Yrreg's childish behavior on this tread has given me an incentive to try out this forums "ignore" feature for the first time.
Because, to use the old cliché, I am not prepared to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

Maybe there is someone out there with enough patience to disabuse Yrreg of his foolish and morally bankrupt ideas on health, and hopefully they will do this before he suffers the terrible consequences that these beliefs can have, but I really doubt anyone would be prepared to wade through his logical fallacies and put up with his condescending attitude and immunity to reason or evidence for long enough to penetrate the aura of ignorance he so proudly wears.

 

[I less than three logic]

I am not an American citizen and not residing in the US.

There are many countries and many peoples other than the US and Americans.

You mention The National Council Against Health Fraud. Since you are from the description after your forum name here, an American living in the US, I assume The National Council Against Health Fraud is a collectivity of people operating in the US.

Does the word National in the name of this presumably collectivity of people in the US, indicate and is intended to indicate that this collectivity of people is an official agency of the US federal government or some local state governments?

I was unaware that the validity of a scientific study was limited to its nation of origin. Please provide a properly controlled study from any country you wish that showed acupuncture does anything but provide placebo effects.

Are you, if I may, of the mind or even conviction that medical practitioners, American citizens and residents in the US who deliver health and medical service by performing acupuncture on patients coming to them, are all into health fraud?

And also non-Americans and non-residents of the US practicing acupuncture in their own lands, and among their own peoples are also into health fraud?

If the practitioners of acupuncture were claiming to be able to cure conditions for which there is no evidence so support such claims, and are distracting people with such conditions from treatments proven to be effective; then yes I would consider this fraud.

About the intrinsic efficacy of acupuncture, you believe that it has no intrinsic efficacy?

But you have to admit that the intrinsic factors you have in mind to form a basis for judging, whether acupuncture could be or could not be efficacious, might just possibly be limited as to exclude factors which if included might show, that acupuncture is not exactly intrinsically bereft of efficacy or any influence whatsoever.

That is why I am trying to bring people's attention here to study the question from the outside than from the inside concentrating on factors, they choose to include but being unmindful or choosing to exclude factors, which they do exclude either from not being mindful or from presumptive exclusivistic premises.

I believe that the power of suggestion has plenty of intrinsic efficacies when it comes to subjective conditions. I also believe that acupuncture can be a powerful form of suggestion. Acupuncture may make people think they are better, but there is no reliable evidence that acupuncture has done anything to help the underlying problem. Providing a placebo effect is not medicine, and certainly doesn’t validate acupuncture as acceptable treatment.

There are people I presume in the US and also certainly people outside in the wide wide world, who have experienced healing efficacy from acupuncture; they definitely should be studied more extensively from a parte post, rather than from a parte ante, in order to pinpoint exactly what role if indeed any, directly or indirectly, or just by catalystic influence, or by some imaginable clearing action contributed by acupuncture.

There are also people that have experienced the healing power of magnets, of drinking their own urine, of health tips from Kevin Trudeau. Why should acupuncture be any different? People can experience a list of things that probably didn’t happen or that took place differently then remembered. May I suggest Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World; he does a fine job of explaining this. The point is that anecdotes are not evidence.

Also you’re only interested in studying the successful treatments, this is not how a proper study is done. Lets say you have 50 patients that have a terminal illness that conventional medicine cannot help. They each go to an acupuncturist and receive identical treatments. 5 of them survives the other 45 do not. Your study will only look at the 5 that survive and determine that acupuncture was the reason for it, but you’ve ignored the other 45 that had identical treatments that acupuncture failed to help.

 

[yrreg]

'National' in The National Council Against Health Fraud

Originally Posted by Yrreg #18:
1. Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints, if you don't have enough money for treatment and medication in conventional scientific medicine, or if conventional scientific medicine has given up on you.

3 logic:
Acupuncture is acceptable to whom and by what standards? The National Council Against Health Fraud does not consider acupuncture an acceptable option.
http://www.ncahf.org/pp/acu.html

[From Yrreg]

I am not an American citizen and not residing in the US.

There are many countries and many peoples other than the US and Americans.

You mention The National Council Against Health Fraud. Since you are from the description after your forum name here, an American living in the US, I assume The National Council Against Health Fraud is a collectivity of people operating in the US.

Does the word National in the name of this presumably collectivity of people in the US, indicate and is intended to indicate that this collectivity of people is an official agency of the US federal government or some local state governments?

I would like to hear from you, 3 logic, about whether the National Council Against Health Fraud, is an official agency of the US; because you bring it in as your authority.


Yrreg

 

[bjb]

Here in the US, we have a lot of organizations using the word "National" in their title, but it doesn't mean they are part of the US government. In the case of the NCAHF is a private organization that informs the public about health care fraud. Yrreg, you may wish to visit their website and read about their history:

http://www.ncahf.org/about/history.html

I should add that acupuncture is not actually fraud, it is quackery. Fraud implies that the practictioner knows the treatment has no effect. Acupuncturists believe their treatment is effective, but they are still quacks because their treatment does not work. In either case, the success rates are the same because both quacks and fraud rely on the placebo effect to keep them in business.

 

[yrreg]

Please avoid emotive language here.

Here in the US, we have a lot of organizations using the word "National" in their title, but it doesn't mean they are part of the US government. In the case of the NCAHF is a private organization that informs the public about health care fraud. Yrreg, you may wish to visit their website and read about their history:

http://www.ncahf.org/about/history.html

I should add that acupuncture is not actually fraud, it is quackery. Fraud implies that the practictioner knows the treatment has no effect. Acupuncturists believe their treatment is effective, but they are still quacks because their treatment does not work. In either case, the success rates are the same because both quacks and fraud rely on the placebo effect to keep them in business.

Fraud is a legal term. Quackery and quacks are emotive terms.

Allow me to request that your post be rewritten to abstain from using the words, and still say what you want to in an academically rational non-emotive manner.


Yrreg

 

[I less than three logic]

I would like to hear from you, 3 logic, about whether the National Council Against Health Fraud, is an official agency of the US; because you bring it in as your authority.


Yrreg

No, it is not an official US government agency. Yes, it primarily concerned with claims within the US. Please explain how this has any impact on the validity of the studies.

Maybe there is someone out there with enough patience to disabuse Yrreg of his foolish and morally bankrupt ideas on health, and hopefully they will do this before he suffers the terrible consequences that these beliefs can have, but I really doubt anyone would be prepared to wade through his logical fallacies and put up with his condescending attitude and immunity to reason or evidence for long enough to penetrate the aura of ignorance he so proudly wears.

I’m afraid this person isn’t me. Yrreg, you seem intent on debating trivial things such as the formatting of text, the connotation associated with a word instead of the denotation, or what country produced a study. You have shown no interest in discussing the actual topic at hand, and have offered nothing to counter the arguments presented against you. It is impossible to make progress with the irrational, and I have wasted enough time trying.

 

[yrreg]

Please probe The National Council Against Health Fraud

No, it is not an official US government agency. Yes, it primarily concerned with claims within the US. Please explain how this has any impact on the validity of the studies.

I’m afraid this person isn’t me. Yrreg, you seem intent on debating trivial things such as the formatting of text, the connotation associated with a word instead of the denotation, or what country produced a study. You have shown no interest in discussing the actual topic at hand, and have offered nothing to counter the arguments presented against you. It is impossible to make progress with the irrational, and I have wasted enough time trying.

3 logic, I thought you could be dispassionate, but you have also succumbed to emotionalism.

This man, brodski, is not susceptible to academic dispassionate thinking and writing.

Originally Posted by brodski :
Maybe there is someone out there with enough patience to disabuse Yrreg of his foolish and morally bankrupt ideas on health, and hopefully they will do this before he suffers the terrible consequences that these beliefs can have, but I really doubt anyone would be prepared to wade through his logical fallacies and put up with his condescending attitude and immunity to reason or evidence for long enough to penetrate the aura of ignorance he so proudly wears.​

----------------

3 logic, you brought up The National Council Against Health Fraud as your authority. Have you examined your authority carefully to see whether it is really national in scope, and genuinely some council. Please examine always any source before accepting it as an authority for you; otherwise you might lapse into authoritarianism instead of doing your own observation, thinking, and conclusion.

As an exercise in skeptical attitude toward peoples and groups displaying themselves as authorities and calling themselves with such description as 'national' and as 'council,' for an exercise namely, please do some serious probing into The National Council Against Health Fraud.

Anyway, tell me which one is to be preferred as an authority which you can cite for support of your opinions or against opinions of other people:

1. The National Institutes of Health or
2. The National Council Against Health Fraud

--------------------


When people who do not carry out their own laboratory studies and field researches and systematic thinking to produce their own findings and conclusions, then it is of the utmost importance that they at least investigate most extensively and with the maximum of meticulously keen critical scrutiny the reliability of the authorities, they would present to support their opinions, and to take exception to the opinions of others.

No, I am not referring to you, but to people who don't do their own laboratory, field, and also well selected literature researches, but must depend on authorities.

What about myself? I do very serious skeptical and investigative criticism of authorities other people bring up to give substance to their opinions.

And you should do likewise -- which as of the present you are resistant to doing in regard to The National Council Against Health Fraud.

----------------

1. Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints, if you don't have enough money for treatment and medication in conventional scientific medicine, or if conventional scientific medicine has given up on you.

[3 logic:]
Acupuncture is acceptable to whom and by what standards? The National Council Against Health Fraud does not consider acupuncture an acceptable option.
http://www.ncahf.org/pp/acu.html

We are still in your reply of my paragraph 1 in my post #18, reproduced from post #9.

As I said, you bring in The National Council Against Health Fraud as your authority; so you have to establish this authority first, before we can continue with my paragraph 1.

I am not delaying anything, just being meticulous and systematic, and actually engaging you from the start in a polite manner, insisting though on language precision -- and please no emotionalism.


Yrreg

 

[brettDbass]

3 logic, you brought up The National Council Against Health Fraud as your authority. Have you examined your authority carefully to see whether it is really national in scope, and genuinely some council. Please examine always any source before accepting it as an authority for you; otherwise you might lapse into authoritarianism instead of doing your own observation, thinking, and conclusion.

yrreg: in a similar line to this request, please provide us with your source for the following claim in an earlier post of yours..

Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints, if you don't have enough money for treatment and medication in conventional scientific medicine, or if conventional scientific medicine has given up on you.

.. and if you are able to do so, please also give us a brief synopsis of your research into the source's impartiality, breadth/scope and their authority to comment on the issue in question.

Many thanks,
Brett.