

America, the Beautiful (And Nutty): A Skeptic’s Lament - bootload
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/opinion-randi-maya-skeptic/?intcid=story_ribbon

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twiceaday
The problem is that people are very good at avoiding sources of contrasting
opinion. What we need to do is force people outside of their comfort zone.
Imagine if somebody rich paid for 24/7 ads on popular networks that do nothing
but teach science and demystify common beliefs.

~~~
rbanffy
> Imagine if somebody rich paid for 24/7 ads on popular networks that do
> nothing but teach science and demystify common beliefs.

That's one more reason to get rich - to save mankind from itself.

Yet, I think that, even in our skepticism, we must keep our minds open and
don't forget that we must impose high standards on ourselves too. It's not
enough to say homeopathy is a farce and faith cures are a joke when the more
accurate statement would be that both illustrate how placebos work. Our brains
are not capable of producing perfect reasoning all the time: reasoning evolved
to help us elude predators. We could have ended up very inconspicuous, with
better muscles, claws and teeth or being extremely allergenic - all popular
ways to deal with other animals.

And, for the record, I'm all in for homeopathy and faith cures - they may help
remove some undesirable genetic traits from the gene pool. OTOH, the
populations presenting such traits can evolve to have better immune systems.
Life has a way to perpetuate itself.

~~~
substack

        > And, for the record, I'm all in for homeopathy and faith
        > cures - they may help remove some undesirable genetic
        > traits from the gene pool. OTOH, the populations presenting
        > such traits can evolve to have better immune systems. Life
        > has a way to perpetuate itself.
    

Susceptibility to harmful ideologies really doesn't work like that. Being
raised within a religion or cultural practice is an amazingly better predictor
for continuing that belief in the next generation than what genes were passed
along. Faith cures and placebos operate at the level of belief and culture,
not the gene level.

Further, look no further than the anti-vaccination movement to see how harmful
medical ideas can put the general population at a greater risk for entirely
preventable diseases.

~~~
rbanffy
Sorry. I was half joking. I'd much rather educate people than negligently
allow them to self-select themselves out of the gene pool.

~~~
substack
Part of my point was that "self-selecting out the gene pool" does nothing to
dispel harmful beliefs. That is a culture and education problem.

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dasil003
There will always be metaphysical questions. As much as it's worth fighting
against people who have their head in the sand about basic scientific
evidence, I don't think it's a requirement that we give up all spirituality
and resign ourselves to only caring what science can prove. Human experience
is after all entirely subjective, and there's no _logical_ reason why the
pursuit of objective truth should be the meaning of life for everyone.

~~~
Karellen
What do you mean by "spirituality" which you think we should not give up?

~~~
dasil003
The idea that there may be greater purpose in the universe.

~~~
Karellen
Greater than what?

And, if you don't want to investigate that "greater purpose" with evidence,
logic and rationality, how do you propose for "spirituality" to tackle the
problem?

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Derbasti
The point of homeopathy practiced today, by licensed doctors, is to administer
placebo in cases where it is likely to help. Placebo is amazingly powerful--in
particular when prescribed by a doctor. Funny enough, one of the most helpful
medicines is seeing a doctor. Seeing a doctor has been proven to correlate
very well with curing many diseases--independant of whether medication was
prescribed.

Keep that in mind when spreading FUD about homeopathy. Yeah, it has no
medicinal effect. But that does not make it worthless, if handled properly by
a trained doctor. There aren't too many ways for a doctor to prescribe
placebo...

~~~
YmMot
This is just wrong on so many levels...

That is absolutely __not __the "point" of modern homeopathy... The point of
modern homeopathy is to spread a lot of nonsense about water with memory and
other such bunk.

Secondly, you seem to have some funny ideas about the placebo effect. Placebos
are used to try and measure peripheral factors. It could be that just going
outside is what is curing the patient, and not the new drug you are giving
them.... Or maybe spraying __anything __up the nose will help some symptoms,
not the new nose spray you are testing. That's the whole point of a
placebo...if your medicine is only working as well as the placebo, it's not
working at all.

It so happens that additionally, __sometimes __you can get what is called "the
placebo effect" where just the idea of being treated can help somewhat...but
generally only in certain cases and for __subjective __things, like pain. It
makes sense that people feel a little better subjectively when they are
treated.

However, not all placebos cause the placebo effect and if a placebo helps it
is not necessarily because of the placebo effect. Using placebos in the way
you suggest is not good medicine, they are not reliable enough and require
some dishonesty with the patient, a serious ethical concern. Furthermore, you
should be able to get similar or better results from a variety of real
treatments!

Outside of research, there may be occasionally a reason for a doctor to
dispense a placebo...but overall they are not good medicine and neither is
homeopathy.

> Yeah, it has no medicinal effect. But that does not make it worthless,

Actually, yes...that's exactly what it does. That's the whole point. If
something only works as well as a placebo, it's literally worthless.

~~~
Derbasti
Sorry, you are wrong. Placebo is astonishingly powerful. Read up about it.
Clinical trials usually test three cases: No medication, placebo and actual
medication. Placebo usually works really well compared to no treatment. Not
for a broken bone, of course, but for a huge range of illnesses, including
cancer. Of course it is especially potent for illnesses with a psychosomatic
angle, which is just about anything except flesh wounds.

A healthy, optimistic mindset is tremendously efficient medicine. Feeling like
you are being helped is, therefore, very important.

Don't get me wrong: I am not proposing to actively try to cure stuff using
placebo. But judicious use of placebo, particularly in cases where tradinional
medication has been proven to be ineffective or has too many unwanted side
effects, is a valid course of action, if done professionally.

~~~
YmMot
I think perhaps you are the one who needs to read up about it more.

> Placebo is astonishingly powerful

I would agree that placebo is "powerful", in that it can provide surprisingly
powerful __subjective __effects...however it's mechanism is fairly well
understood and it's nothing special.

Placebo is not an effective treatment __overall __, and the places where it is
effective are things like say pain... in those cases it works by releasing
endogenous pain relievers. Ditto for things like relaxation etc...

> Placebo usually works really well compared to no treatment

Well of course it works "really well" compared to no treatment...

Positive thinking, receiving attention from people around you, etc are all
things that can have a positive impact on your health but these are not part
and parcel with "the placebo effect".

Even so, I find the claim that "placebo works really well" dubious, and I'd
ask you to provide a basis for support if you wish to make it again.

The fact is in the end, the placebo effect is small, unreliable, requires you
to lie to your patient....and you could achieve as good or better results with
real medicine.

It's just not a good practice...placebos belong in research as a control, and
very rarely in certain situations yes it can be useful to dispense them...but
not in an effort to "treat" people with the placebo effect.

------
zotz
There are two kinds of hucksters. One suckers the rubes. The other suckers
those that believe themselves to be smarter than the rubes. Randi is the
second kind.

~~~
pohl
Would you say Randall Monroe is the second kind?

<http://xkcd.com/765/>

~~~
zotz
I'd never call Randall a huckster. Trickster, yes.

------
timdefrag
[http://dailygrail.com/features/the-myth-of-james-randis-
mill...](http://dailygrail.com/features/the-myth-of-james-randis-million-
dollar-challenge)

