Do you know what a double-blind study is and why it is important? Do you know why peer-reviewing is important?
http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/your.html
Sorry, but it’s been bothering me.
Also, the opposite of “order” is “chaos.” “Kaos” was the evil spy organization in “Get Smart.”
Do those beautiful fairy women wear clothes Naita? Are you sure they are fairies and not some other creature? Have you been smoking anything? Are you just being sarcastic and trying to make a point. One or more of those answers may be right.
When you feel a rumbling of the earth and things start jumping off the shelves in California, is it safe to say it isn’t an earthquake until it is proven? Could just be a big truck but you take precautions anyway if you are smart.
Maybe I watched a little too much of max and agent 99 when I was young. Everything has a reason. I like Kaos better. It wouldn’t be chaotic if I spelled it right would it?
Should you choose to divorce her (or vice verse), tell her I’ll be happy to marry her and support your children, would you? Thanks. 
Probably didn’t want to confuse people by admitting that poking toothpicks randomly against the skin works as well as a trained acupuncturist putting in needles to stimulate “chi points.” Yup, the placebo works too!
What if all reported incidents of things starting to jump off shelves have been shown to be equally well explained by construction errors, nearby tunnel works or unstable ground conditions, except for a very small minority of cases examined only by proponents of the earthquake theory, without checking for other possible causes?
The scientific consensus is against you. The current consensus is based on a lot of research and the larger the study and better the controls the poorer the results of “real” acupuncture. You can cry “the paradigm is against” me all you want, but it only shows you don’t actually understand the research or paradigm theory. (Hint: A paradigm prevails while evidence against it is weak and scattered, but weak and scattered evidence is not proof of a paradigm being in the way of new knowledge.)
You’ve got the analogy backwards. We say someone is innocent until proven guilty because it’s wrong to assume facts that are not in evidence. We cannot assume someone has done something if we don’t have strong evidence (proof) that he or she did.
Likewise, it’s wrong to assume that acupuncture is valid without strong evidence.
So a new theory is “innocent” (not established as fact) until proven “guilty” (established as fact).
Powers &8^]
So you like a burlap sack full of thistles? :dubious: (:D)
The only study so far that I know of that supports any scientific basis whatsoever: Adenosine A1 receptors mediate local anti-nociceptive effects of acupuncture | Nature Neuroscience
Yes, there are problems with the study including a lack of sham acupuncture. But it’s a starting point.
Unfortunately it’s not a clinical trial.
The teeming millions may be unaware that acupuncture works great on cows.
More info here.
I’ve had a recurring problem with bad kinks in my neck for almost my entire life. After numerous trips to the doctor and consumption of various pain medications that often left me drowsy and unable to function properly in everyday life, I tried acupuncture as a last resort. I should have done the acupuncture first! After a couple of treatments the pain in my neck is gone and has not returned. Acupuncture worked for me.
( As for back pain, try sleeping on the floor without a mat for a week. That worked for me also)
Jackman, I followed a research trail behind that article to this study.
Again, there was no sham acupuncture involved and as far as I’m aware, the study conducted was not blind. To adequately control for extraneous variables, there could be multiple experimental groups: moxy + trained sticking, moxy alone, trained sticking alone, moxy and fake sticking, fake sticking alone, fake moxy and trained sticking, fake moxy alone, fake moxy and fake sticking, then finally a control group. An objective standard for determining whether breech birth corrections occurred and someone other than the researcher would carry out the sticking and the moxy burning, yet another person would collect the results based on an objective scale, then the researcher would be left to interpret them.
The original article is correct in saying that the cows could not provide socially desirable results or demand characteristics, but what is possible is that the authors of the study had observer bias: they did not report results that did not fit their conclusions because they considered them anomalous. Even unconsciously, the researcher is applying their schemas to the data. In this case, I think the author probably believes in a chi flow, with the hip bone connected to the udder flow or some such. Otherwise I imagine the theoretical framework would be that imposing pain on a cow and they’d cite instances where giving a cow a kick fixed all sorts of problems.
Great, now I’ve got this song going through my head:
the leg bone connected
to the knee bone
and the knee bone connected
to the thigh bone
and the thigh bone connected
to the hip bone
and the hip bone connected to the udder flow
Oh be moooved by the word of the Lord!
Thanks a lot.
Completely anecdotal evidence and wild theorizing here: I’ve known some acupuncturists and even gotten a treatment or two (mostly to see what it was like), and most treatments involve sticking in a few needles, leaving the patient lying down in a dark room for 20 minutes, then taking the needles out.
My suspicion is that there is indeed a lot of real physical benefit from this, due to relaxation and stress-relief, but that most of this benefit comes from lying down in a dark room for 20 minutes, with the rest coming from being fussed over by someone for a few minutes at the beginning and end of the lie-down and a cup or two of placebo effect.
According to one website I can’t be bothered to advertise, sessions aren’t cheap at £40 a pop. I’m sure there are some other areas where you could pay £40 for a few minutes fuss and 20 minutes of lying down silently in a dark room.
I’ll cut you a SDMB discount; for half of that you can come lay in my closet for 40 minutes! For only 25% more I’ll poke you with a stick for a bit too!
Science Based Medicine just did a post on this topic: Legislative Alchemy III: Acupuncture | Science-Based Medicine
In other words, no, it doesn’t work.