....
I guess what is tripping me up here is that, with the other things I mentioned (fairies, gnomes, ghosts, psychics, etc) the science is about as conclusive as it is going to get. At this point we can assume that any "scientific" study showing positive results are complete snake oil. There are no respectable scientists doing research on gnomes.
Acupuncture on the other hand seems to be a little different (again, looking the subject from the outside). There are some seemingly respectable people working on this subject (seemingly is the problem on my side I suspect).
Snake oil science is like that. We are all lulled into false conclusions based on small pilot studies and/or research results not later found repeatable. You are not the only one. Even people trying to be good critical thinkers (and I include myself) are misled from time to time by valid but inadequate or improperly done scientific research.
....I have no doubt there are people who consider themselves credible who are doing water dosing research but they are risking their scientific career (if they really have one to begin with).
Not sure what you mean by, "consider themselves credible" but there are a lot of well qualified scientists who research less than credible subjects. Some of the work is important, ruling in or out incredible claims. Some is ideology driven and even if it starts out well, can end in an intelligent educated scientist who won't let go of a disproved hypothesis the person has invested a career researching.
Michael Behe and his irreducible complexity hypothesis is one example.
....I did a quick search for "water dosing" on Phys.org (which I feel is a very respectable source for scientific information) and that search didn't turn up a single result on the first 4 pages (I stopped looking after that). On the other hand, a search for "acupuncture" resulted in 100's of hits. To me that seems to imply that science has not YET closed the door on the subject (but it looks to be heading in that direction).
The medical community has most certainly
not closed the door on acupuncture. But some of us, who have looked closer at the clinical trials that include decent placebos and are properly blinded, have come to the conclusion there is no there there, just a lot of snake oil science (which differs slightly from purely bad science).
I know not everyone can go out and read a book. Maybe you could find time for our own Dr Hall's blog entry in "Science Based Medicine" on
Snake Oil Science. I haven't heard her recent talk on the subject, but I see there is a new video on it up on the web site:
Fairy Tale Science and Placebo Medicine.
That gives you two options, reading or viewing. It's well worth your time.
Badly Shaved Monkey has a comment on acupuncture research on the link to Dr Hall's Berlin talk:
1. Asthma/acupuncture study: Dr Hall said we don’t want patients to just feel better, we want them to be better. Actually the situation is even a bit more feeble as a ‘positive’ result. The patients saying they “feel better” are doing so under the pressure of social conventions, which she described at another point in the talk. We don’t really know whether the patients do feel better or are just prepared to say they do regardless of their actual subjective experience.
And here's a NYTs book review of the Snake Oil book.
With equal dexterity Dr. Bausell introduces us to Dr. Smith, a fictional physician who becomes interested in acupuncture and convinced that it helps his patients. Enthusiastically organizing a series of research studies to confirm his conviction, Dr. Smith falls victim to an even more complicated set of scientific, psychological and emotional confounders than did Sarah, all of which invalidate his science and make his treatment appear far more effective than it actually is.
It is, of course, not only research into alternative therapies that is compromised by the pitfalls Dr. Bausell describes. Exactly the same subtle problems bedevil orthodox research, and they are often the source of the contradictory studies and here-today-gone-tomorrow treatment vogues that drive patients crazy.
It doesn't just drive patients crazy, it results in people wrongly dismissing valid research as just "here-today-gone-tomorrow" as well.
The field of scientific esp research went down this road in the past. There are still people today trying to prove there is something to it, including looking at mechanisms that it might work by. There are many snake oil science studies out there with positive esp results.
Ray Hyman has done a lot of work on the snake oil science of the paranormal.
It's tempting to buy the idea there is something turning up in these results.
....One other thing I wanted to ask about. You mentioned the bias coming out of Asia but many of the studies I am finding are coming out of Europe and the U.S.? Are you saying that a lot of these studies are conducted by Asians in these other nations? If that is the case it does really change things.
There are two different things which lead to false conclusions about acupuncture. One is the original promising results out of China. A lot of those studies document supposed people who undergo surgery just using acupuncture anesthesia. Of those studies one or two people actually can control surgical pain with their mind, but it's the individuals not the acupuncture, and the rest, it turns out, aren't really getting drug free surgery. It's just that the drugs are left out of the research write up.
The other problem is the one in the Western research of which the bulk of positive results either have very small sample sizes or very poor control for placebo effect (or both).
....In the end, my take is this. In my completely unprofessional opinion (which means I don't have anything to really base this on
) odds of water dosing, ESP, or gnomes being proven positive by science are .001% (there is always a possibility but the odds are really REALLY low). The odds on acupuncture are also against but we are talking about 25% or so. After this thread I might push that down some, but I still don't believe acupuncture is down at the same level of skepticism as gnomes (YET).
Thanks again for the reply.
Hopefully, and only after reading a lot more about interpreting scientific research results rather than just taking someone's word for it, you will put those acupuncture odds down to .001%, and learn a whole lot about applying critical thinking to accepted science as well as to bad science.
