Barry MacKichan wrote at 04/04/2013 10:29 AM:
> I've heard it is very effective, but only for a time until the
> patient discovers it is a placebo. Call it the Lincoln effect ("You
> can fool all of ….").A friend of mine announced that she's now getting acupuncture for her chronic back and neck pain. There's a zealot in our local CfI (http://www.centerforinquiry.net/) group who continuously and loudly shouts about acupuncture being as quackish as homeopathy. (Seriously... is there anything as quackish as homeopathy?) The tiny amount of time I've spent looking into acupuncture indicates that it's mostly nonsense with some slight possibility of truth in regard to certain _pressure_ points and nerve clusters. But nothing that an evidence-based masseuse couldn't achieve more effectively. But I kept my mouth shut and let her talk about how well it's worked so far. My dad also used acupuncture for a racquetball associated injury. He claimed it worked very well... [ahem] ... even better than his chiropractor. I didn't want to introduce any doubt that might interfere with her placebo effect. Interestingly, I was trying to apply the Golden Rule in a post-hoc analysis of my lack of action. Would I want someone to burst my placebo effect bubble? If so, when? Immediately? Or perhaps after some window of time as the placebo effect decays and it bumps up against the hard biophysical/physiological limits? -- =><= glen e. p. ropella I can't get no peace until I get into motion ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
