If I may also add the following: As a practitioner and supporter of complementary medicine (not as much “alternative”. I think what I have to offer as an adjunct to most western medicine) I am consistently chagrined by what seem to me to be extreme points of view. There are the “Quackwatch” crowd, which call everything other than the strictest, most-mainstream healing practices rubbish. My crowd finds it easy to bitch about them.
But just as (if not more) annoying to me are the “I believe every wacky healing idea that comes down the pike” crowd. The ones who question NOTHING.
Example: I am a Nationally Board-Certified Reflexologist. Reflexology hasn’t been terribly well explained, yet, but there is some really interesting research being done (mostly in Asia) that is showing some definitely physical explanations for how it works. (Though I’m not one to knock the placebo effect. If you think it works and I think it works and I’m not claiming to cure anything then we’re both happy.)
But I digress …
So, reflexology, right? Interesting practice. Working on becoming more mainstream. Some cool scientific-based research starting to hint at physiological explanation …
I go to a meeting of my state reflexology chapter … and it’s all about those goddamn detox foot baths. And the entire room, including the board members of this organization, are all pulling their feet out of the rusted water and crying Hosanna about how they’ve been “detoxed”.
I wanted to punch every last one of them right in the face. They are the kooks and quacks that get the attention and reinforce the other side’s “this is all bullshit” stance.
If chiropractic has any benefits beyond massage/physical therapy and placebo, then I would need to see concrete evidence for those benefits.
Maybe not, but chiropractic itself has been pretty thoroughly tested, and nothing much found. As Jackmanii mentions, there is no such thing as a “subluxation” as chiropractors use the term. And the claim that forms the basis of this thread - that leaning forward can cause your spine to fuse - has not been established either. And it sounds a lot like my mother telling me not to cross my eyes because they would stick that way.
If we have established that the dangers of “forward head posture” are more or less BS, well and good.
I think we’d be wise to draw a distinction between BS dangers and real dangers. I’ll buy that spinal fusing just doesn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean that “forward head posture” is completely healthy. I can attest from personal experience that it can become painful, and not just in my neck.
The truth is probably not all-or-nothing, but somewhere in the middle.
Let’s call “Forward Neck Posture Causes Vertebral Fusion” the bathwater.
You haven’t. I’ve provided many different sources proving otherwise. But how interesting that you consider it important to do so. Just enjoying clinging to ignorance or did a chiropractor kill your dog?
How do you mean? Massage research has reported decreases in stress levels, increased immune response, pain reduction, and more. Reflexology produces similar results, but we’re not doing the same thing as massage. Hence the “how is this working” research.
This is a marvelously distracting conversation, but I’ve got a strong feeling (hmm, not sure how to measure it … perhaps it’s not real) that there’s not a lot I can say here that will cause you to change your mind. Scientismsists (ha! tdn, you see what i did there?) are very much like other fundamentalists in that ultimately it boils down to “because the Bible says so”. Only in this case, your bible is the double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Like other bibles I’ve read, it’s really great and has a lot to offer, but it doesn’t cover all possibilities.
I respectfully bow out of this opportunity to continue to smash my head against the wall.
Not really. It could be the placebo effect or paid shills masquerading as customers. The trouble is, it’s not really possible to do a double-blind study for chiropractic “adjustments.” Because you can’t touch somebody without them knowing about it.
I recently had an artificial cervical disc implanted, and my neurosurgeon warned me not to spend too much time with my head forward or looking down (eg: don’t stare at my navel) as this could over-stress the still-healing endplates of the vertebrae where the disc was installed.
The physical therapist said much the same, except his focus was on relieving the strain on my scalenes and traps.
So, anecdotally, I’ve got two medical professionals telling me that FHP is bad for me and my particular situation and that’s good enough for me.
Also anecdotally, if you’re worried about fusion, take an Aleve tablet every day. Apparently, NSAIDs interfere with bone growth to the extent that people who have had spinal fusions are directed not to take them. For me, just the opposite - we want to discourage the vertebrae from trying to self-fuse around the implant, so I’m on one a day, probably eternally.
[QUOTE=tdn]
If someone worships the Sierra, are they Sierramists? What do they drink?
[/QUOTE]
This is a tactic that is commonly used to disparage evidence-based medicine - claiming that it is a “religion” or that adherents are “cultists” etc.
Another biggie is claiming that a particular health issue cannot be resolved by listening to either “extreme”, that the truth “lies somewhere in the middle”. Example: those who claim to dismiss both extreme anti-vaccination positions and evidence-backed pro-vaccination studies in favor of an illusory “middle ground” (in which vaccines are presumed risky, but perhaps less so than the most fervent antivaxers claim).
This is no way to arrive at the truth.
By the way, some chiropractors themselves claim they can do randomized double-blind clinical trials using “real” and “simulated” manipulation (though it’s a bit difficult to conceptualize that they don’t know which type of manipulation they’re employing). Single-blind trials, fine (the patient doesn’t know what he’s getting). There is such a thing as “sham acupuncture” using a device that doesn’t penetrate the skin - which should allow for true double-blind trials (which are not favorable to acupuncture as being more than placebo). The bottom line is that rigorous scientific research techniques can be applied to alternative medicine, despite its frequent protestations that “your science can’t measure my woo”. In the case of chiropractic, I’d be happy if they could at least demonstrate through imaging studies the lesions that they claim to detect and treat.
I respect that Girl Next Door looks askance at people in her field that are deep in the woo, but I hope she takes a harder look at the principles underlying reflexology.
But she’s right. If the only way you will accept something is if you have a double blind study proving it, you are leaving out a large amount of human knowledge. A lot of what we know cannot be tested in such a way. When someone says that is all they will accept, they are taking the same position of the fundamentalist who claims that if it’s not in the Bible it’s not true.
It’s not as if she was talking to you. She’s talking to someone who was quite clearly taking a disparaging tone towards her. He was clearly more interested in calling her an idiot rather than the science. Why shouldn’t she point out that the guy’s insistence that everything must be proven in a certain way is actually a form of religious thinking?
One of the biggest hurdles science has these days is not scientific at all. It is getting people to believe what you say is true. Unless you do all the experiments yourself, you are necessarily taking someone’s word for what happened, and if that someone’s attitude is unsavory, people are going to assume the claims are false.
In short, Shodan was clearly provoking Girl Next Door, so she took the position that what he’s saying is false. This is quite typical, even if you can’t create a double blind study that proves it.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if that sort of reaction wasn’t what Shodan wanted, so he could then dismiss her claims. As you say, it’s typical woo rhetoric, so obviously it can never be true.
I’ve never had acupuncture done (and probably never will). But, even knowing that the benefits of acupuncture (or fake-upuncture) are due to the placebo effect, that doesn’t mean the procedure should be barred from modern medicine. The personal attention and the sensation of being touched are what causes pain relief, I suppose. Patients may also gain a sense of empowerment from addressing the issue, as opposed to suffering passively. If that experience really helps somebody, who am I to judge? Placebo shouldn’t automatically equal worthless.
I do wonder, though, can acupuncture still help someone who knows it’s a placebo?
For the past 5 months I’ve been taking a class that has made me noticiably happier. It is, essentially, a class on how to be happier. Can I prove that I’ve been happier? No. Is there a double blind study that proves that it works? No. Is there a white paper on it? Probably not. Can my increased happiness be measured with a machine? No.
This is great fodder for scientismists. They can point and laugh and call me a fool, because I can’t prove a thing. My only response is to smile and continue doing what I’m doing. Maybe pat them on the head and think that they are so adorable when they are in scientism mode.
If someone claims that acupuncture or subluxations or massage therapy or whatever is working for them, then who are scientismists to argue with that? I take them about as seriously as I take fundies who tell me that I’m going to hell.
You are quite correct that some areas of human knowledge can’t be examined with the scientific method. Other areas can. Medicine is one of the areas that can be tested with double-blind experimentation, and that includes chiropractic and reflexology.
Several things -
[ul][li]Lots of those who claim acupuncture, etc. is “working for them” are being exploited by cheats and frauds who are lying to them and charging money for it. Cheating sick people out of their money is a bad thing, in my opinion. [/li][li]Attributing an outcome to a false theory tends to cause people to use that false theory for their other health problems as well. You go to the chiropractor, he cracks your spine, you recover from whatever it was spontaneously, then he tells you that you need to come in twice a month for adjustments at fifty bucks a pop. Then your child develops asthma and you bring him in for adjustments. [/li][li]“I took Laetrile for my cancer, and I am still alive. Therefore, Laetrile worked for me.” Do you believe that is a valid syllogism?[/ul][/li]
Regards,
Shodan
