Quackademic medicine versus cancer quackery: The central dogma of alternative medicine is questioned by an advocate of "integrative medicine"

Since I seem to be on a roll the last few days discussing cancer quackery, I thought I'd just go with it at least one more day. Frequently, when I get on these rolls laying down the Insolence, both Respectful and not-so-Respectful, over antivaccine quackery I start whining about how I need to change topics, but not this time around, not this topic. It takes a lot more than what I've posted lately to make me feel as though I need a change of pace. Besides, for whatever reason, the blog fodder is flying at me fast and furious, whether it be the dubious testimonial I discussed yesterday, yet another deconstruction of the moral bankruptcy that is Stanislaw Burzynski, or my take on the sheer quackery that is "naturopathic oncology." The first rule of blogging is that you don't talk about blogging. Oh, wait. That's not it. I talk about blogging all the time. The first rule of blogging is: When the world is throwing easy blogging material at you, for cryin' out loud, go for it. Yeah, that's it.

So I'm going for it.

The blog fodder this time around comes in the form of three articles that appeared in ONCOLOGY: Perspectives on Best Practices, an open-access journal about...well, oncology. All three of them are about cancer quackery. Shockingly, in the first article, by Barrie Cassileth, director of all woo integrative oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and IIan R. Yarett, actually uses the word "quackery" in its title: Cancer Quackery: The Persistent Popularity of Useless, Irrational 'Alternative' Treatments. In it, Cassileth provides a rather standard discussion of bogus cancer treatments that almost could have been written by Orac, were it not for the complete and utter lack of snark, even the subtle snark that academics sneak into papers. She does, however, complain that quacks have appropriated the term "complementary" in order to "use it incorrectly." This complaint derives from how many of these cancer quacks don't actually advocate using their nostrums in addition to conventional therapy but rather in lieu of science-based medicine. Personally, I find this amusing, given that quackademics have no one to blame but themselves for this, given the specific modalities they have tried to "integrate" with science-based medicine. It rather reminds me of the "intelligent design" creationists, craving respectability and crowing to high heaven that they aren't pseudoscientists but real "scientists," taking umbrage at being lumped together with fundamentalist creationists who believe that the earth was created 6,000 years ago with all animals in their current forms. No, Cassileth seems to be saying, we don't associate with that riff-raff. They're fundamentalist loons. We're scientists!

I'll give her some credit for this article, though, and why not? Cassileth lists a fairly standard bunch of quack treatments, the majority of which have been covered on this blog at one time or another, and rips into them. The litany should be familiar: laetrile, shark cartilage, Entelev/Cantron (which I recently discussed, with the comment thread afterward having swollen as of this writing to nearly 1,100 entries), various oxygen therapies (such as hyperbaric oxygen or various means of administering hydrogen peroxide, "energy therapies," which Cassileth admits have no evidence to support them. Given that admission, one wonders why reiki, which is a form of "energy therapy," is offered at MSKCC. Come to think of it, acupuncture is also a form of "energy healing" as well, given its claim to be able to manipulate the flow of qi through the body to healing intent, and MSKCC offers acupuncture as well. That doesn't stop Cassileth from making the dubious claim that acupuncture and other woo have "been shown to be safe and effective as adjunctive treatments for managing pain, nausea, stress, and many other symptoms, and for supporting patient well-being in general," whatever "supporting patient well-being in general" means.

There are other weaknesses. For instance, no mention is made of Gerson therapy, and it is that particular form of quackery, as well as its many variants (such as the Gonzalez protocol and other treatments that loosely fall under the rubric of "metabolic therapies" and often include such lovely interventions as coffee enemas), that is arguably the cancer quackery most heavily promoted right now; that is, unless high dose vitamin C, which never seems to stay dead no matter how many scientific stakes are driven into its heart, isn't the most common quackery. One could only wish that, like the vampires on True Blood, such quackeries would explode into a disgusting blob of blood and tissue when the stake of science is driven through their hearts, but sadly this never seems to happen. Her omissions aside, I can't be too hard on Cassileth. Her article is actually pretty good, by and large, if you can ignore that she is in charge of bringing quackademic medicine into one of the greatest cancer centers in the world. She also makes this statement:

Many alternative approaches to healing are premised on the concept of the mind/body connection, and specifically on the theory that patients can harness the power of their mind to heal their physical ills.[4] Many mind/body techniques, such as meditation and biofeedback, have been shown to reduce stress and promote relaxation, and are effectively and appropriately used as complementary therapies today. However, some proponents of these techniques overpromise, suggesting that emotional stress or other emotional issues can cause diseases like cancer and that correction of these deficiencies through mind-body therapies can effectively treat major illnesses. Such claims are unsupported.

Many of these ideas were promoted by a former Yale surgeon, a popular author who advocated special cancer patient support groups in his books. The importance of a positive attitude was stressed, as was the idea that disease could spring from unmet emotional needs. This belief anguished many cancer patients, who assumed responsibility for getting cancer because of an imperfect emotional status. Among alternative modalities, the mind/body approach has been especially persistent over time, possibly in part because it resonates with the American notion of rugged individualism.[4]

Of course, none of this stops MSKCC from offering "mind-body" services. I guess it's OK to Cassileth because she doesn't promise that such woo will cure the cancer. OK, I'll stop with the snark (at least the snark directed at Cassileth). She's basically correct that there is no evidence that these therapies can impact the natural history of cancer and produce a survival benefit, and I give her props for carpet-bombing the quackery that is the German New Medicine.

Cassileth's article was accompanied by not one, but two, additional commentaries, both of which didn't take issue with the criticism of specific cancer quackeries, such as Entelev, but rather with her statement above about mind-body "healing." Neither of the commentators were happy that Cassileth had questioned the central dogma of alternative medicine, which is what I've been discussing the last couple of days. That central dogma is that if you wish for it hard enough your mind can heal you of anything. The corollary of this central dogma is that if you are ill it is your fault for not having the right "intent," attitude, and thoughts and therefore not doing the right things and/or not believing hard enough. It's not for nothing that I have likened alternative medicine to religion or the New Age woo that is The Secret, and these authors simply reinforce that view. First up is radiation oncologist and practitioner of "integrative oncology" Brian D. Lawenda, MD, who pens Quackery, Placebos, and Other Thoughts: An Integrative Oncologist’s Perspective.

In the first part of his article, Lawenda protests loudly, arguing that "not all therapies categorized as 'alternative,' 'nonconventional,' or 'unconventional' are completely ineffective." I suppose it depends on what you mean by "completely ineffective." Personally, when I say "completely ineffective," I mean "indistinguishable from placebo." That's the usual definition of "ineffective" in medical circles, and it is a description that applies to the vast majority of "integrative oncology," including acupuncture, therapeutic touch, reiki, and the like. In the case of acupuncture, for instance, it doesn't matter where you stick the needles or even if you stick the needles in at all (a toothpick twirled against the skin will do as well or better). In other words, in the case of acupuncture, the effects are entirely nonspecific. Indeed, Lawenda's claim that these therapies are being used in an "evidence-based" manner is almost as overblown as the claims that quacks make; real "evidence-based" use of the vast majority of these modalities would be not to use them at all. They don't work. That doesn't stop Lawenda from advocating placebo medicine. But first he has to remonstrate with Cassileth over her characterization of "mind-body" medicine:

One area of controversy that comes up often in integrative oncology circles is whether or not there is an association between chronic stress and cancer-specific outcomes. Dr. Cassileth asserts that the association between chronic stress and cancer development, progression, and recurrence has not been definitively established. Those who support this view might categorize as quackery the claim that stress reduction (eg, through lifestyle changes, mind-body therapies, etc) can improve cancer-specific outcomes.

Those who believe that chronic stress and cancer are linked cite data that support this claim. In particular, there are clinical studies[7] that report improvements in cancer-specific outcomes in patients who are taught stress management techniques. Furthermore, researchers continue to identify chronic stress as a causative factor in numerous pathophysiologic processes that are known to be associated with the development, progression, and recurrence of various cancers (eg, stimulation of systemic inflammation and oxidation, impairment of immune function, increases in insulin resistance and weight gain, etc).[8]

Lawenda overstates his case massively. The evidence that improving "attitude" improves cancer-specific survival is of shockingly low quality. There's just no "there" there. As I've said before, that's not to say that psychotherapy and other modalities designed to improve a patient's mood and mental state might not be useful. Certainly, they can improve quality of life, used in the proper situation. However, there just isn't any evidence that is even mildly convincing that such modalities can improve a patient's chances of surviving his cancer.

I also know that Lawenda is laying down pure, grade-A woo when I see him retreating into the favorite alt-med trope, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" and claiming that "many alternative therapies, once believed by conventional medical practitioners to be merely placebos, have now been shown to have proven therapeutic value (eg, acupuncture, numerous botanical extracts, meditation)." Well, no. Acupuncture has not been convincingly shown to have therapeutic value for any condition, and it's no surprise that botanical extracts might be effective for some things; they are, after all, drugs. Adulterated drugs with lots of impurities whose potency can vary widely from lot to lot, but drugs nonetheless. He even attacks antidepressants based on more recent evidence suggesting that they might not be as effective as previously thought and in some cases might not be better than placebo, an idea ably countered by James Coyne.

Lawenda's rebuke, however, is nothing compared to what comes next. Remember Cassileth's dismissal of the findings of a "Yale surgeon" who claimed that support groups improved cancer survival? Here comes that Yale surgeon! Yes, indeed. It's Bernie Siegel, and he's pissed, proclaiming that The Key to Reducing Quackery Lies in Healing Patients and Treating Their Experience. Of course, his carefully cultivated image of being the ultimate nice guy and caring physician can't be endangered; I only infer his annoyance from the tone of his response. I also infer a lot from the fact that, unlike Lawenda and Cassileth, who at least include some references taken from the peer-reviewed scientific literature to support their points, Siegel cites exactly one reference, and one reference only, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward. Lawenda cites mostly poor quality studies, but at least he tries by citing studies. Siegel, on the other hand, seems to think he is the Great and Powerful Oz (Dr. Oz or the Wizard of Oz, take your pick) and that you should just take his pronouncements on faith because he is so awesome. I will admit that Siegel probably has a point when he says that better communication could potentially reduce the incidence of cancer patients turning to quackery, but even making this reasonable point he overstates his case when he says that quackery would "diminish greatly" if doctors would just learn to communicate better. There's a lot more to the appeal of quackery than having a doctor who can't communicate, much of which wouldn't even come close to disappearing, even if every doctor turned into a Bernie Siegel clone with respect to showing incredible empathy to patients.

Siegel then dives right in, relying on the sheer force of that awesome empathy of his to rip Cassileth a new one for daring to criticize his work:

Our emotions govern our internal chemistry, and hope is therapeutic. We know that laughter enhances survival time in cancer patients, while loneliness has a negative effect. When a Yale graduate student did a study on our support group members and it showed increased survival time for the group’s members, his professor told him that couldn’t be true and made him change the control group so that everything came out equal. Doctors don’t study survival and the power of the mind.

Which is, of course, utter nonsense, leavened with more than a little conspiracy mongering. Doctors have been studying the "power of the mind" and survival for a very long time. What Siegel doesn't like is that they haven't found that the mind is nearly as powerful as Siegel would like to believe. It's a topic I've been writing about since the very beginning. There's a reason for the central dogma of alternative medicine; it's very appealing to believe that sheer force of will or thinking happy thoughts can heal us of serious diseases. Talk about the ultimate form of "empowerment"!

Siegel then goes completely off the deep end:

The mind and energy will be therapies of the future. I know of patients who were not irradiated because the therapy machine was being repaired and no radioactive material was reinserted. The radiation therapist told me about it because he was feeling terrible. I told him he didn’t know what he was saying to me. “You’d have to be an idiot to not know you weren’t treating people for a month—so obviously they had side effects and shrinking tumors, which was why you assumed they were being treated.” He said, “Oh my God, you’re right.” I couldn’t get him to write an article about it. I also have patients who have no side effects because they get out of the way and let the radiation go to their tumor.

Yes, an unsubstantiated anecdote about an apparently incompetent radiation oncology tech who didn't notice that his radiation machine wasn't actually delivering radiation trumps evidence, apparently. (One wonders how the machine still functioned if its source wasn't re-inserted. Most such machines have a warning light or won't turn on if the source isn't properly in place.) Siegel's article is so full of alt-med tropes and a heaping' helpin' of what can best be described as pure woo. Besides recommending his own books (one of which I actually have on my shelf but have not gotten around to reading), Siegel recommends The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-On Healing by William Bengston, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles by Bruce Lipton, and The Psychobiology of Gene Expression by Ernest Rossi. Lipton, as you recall, is a cell biologist who abandoned “conventional” biology after having some sort of mystical revelation about cells that led him to conclude that God must exist and that “holistic” therapies work. I hadn't heard of the other two, but Siegel describes Bengston thusly:

Bengston cured mice of cancer in a controlled study with the energy conducted through his hands. I was healed of an injury in the same way by healer Olga Worral many years ago. We definitely need to test potential therapies to verify whether or not they are useful, but we also have to keep an open mind to what might be possible, and we must understand that we are treating a patient’s experience and not just a disease.

It turns out that Bengston preaches exactly the sort of quackery that Cassileth quite correctly castigated, namely that energy healing can cure cancer! From his own website:

Can energy healing really cure cancer? Is it possible for you to heal someone's terminal illness with your bare hands? Is the Western medical community ready for a fundamental change in its approach to treatment?...Dr. William Bengston invites you to decide by taking a journey with him into the mystery and power of hands-on healing. Drawing on his 30 years of rigorous research, unbelievable results, and mind-bending questions, Bengston challenges us to totally rethink what we believe about our ability to heal.

As there so frequently is after a book advertisement, there are blurbs with people saying how great Bengston's book is. Guess who gave Bengston a plug. Yes, Bernie Siegel. I must say, I had no idea that Siegel was so deep into woo. Elsewhere in his article he says he had chronic Lyme disease and was helped by homeopathic remedies. He even says that he "knows they work" because of his "experience of having the symptoms of the disease alleviated." It doesn't get much quackier than energy healing and homeopathy. They are the two most ridiculous quackeries out there, and Bernie Siegel is promoting them both.

Siegel concludes:

I was a pediatric surgeon and a general surgeon, and I know how powerful my words were to the children—and adults—who believed in me. I had no problem deceiving children into health by labeling vitamin pills as medications to prevent nausea and hair loss, or telling them the alcohol (Drug information on alcohol) sponge would numb their skin (and of course, sharing this with their parents, who helped empower their child’s belief). The mind and attitude are powerful healing forces. The mind and body do communicate, so I work with patients’ dreams and drawings and have diagnosed illnesses from them. I have yet to meet a physician who was told in medical school that Carl Jung correctly diagnosed a brain tumor by interpreting a patient’s dream.

This may not seem related to the subject of quackery, but it is—because it is about how to train doctors so that they know how to provide hope and potential to patients and how to use the mind and placebo effects. Doctors’ “wordswordswords” can become “swordswordswords” and kill or cure patients. I know a man who had cancer and needed cataract surgery so he could enjoy the life that remained to him with restored vision. His health plan denied the surgery because they expected him to die within 6 months and didn’t want to spend the money. He died in a week. The Lockerbie Bomber was released by the Scottish authorities because he was dying of cancer. He went back home to the Middle East and survived for over 3 years— and that is no coincidence.

Note the mind-body dualism ("the mind and body do communicate"). Of course they do, because the mind is the brain, and the brain is in constant communication with the body! That doesn't mean you can think yourself healthy. Remember how I discussed some time ago the way that this increasing emphasis on placebo medicine among promoters of "integrative medicine." As I've said so many times before, the reason IM fans have taken this position is because they're finally being forced to accept that high quality evidence shows that most alt-med nostrums rebranded as "CAM" or "integrative medicine" produce nonspecific effects no better than placebo. So these nonspecific effects get relabeled as the "powerful placebo," as proponents of "integrating" quackery into real medicine pivot on the proverbial dime and say that's how their favored therapies worked all along, by firing up placebo effects! It's pure paternalism, as well, as I have discussed multiple times.

Siegel claims he's "unleashing the healing power" in each of us, but what he is really doing is advocating a return to the paternalistic, unquestioned, shaman-healer so common in so many societies in pre-scientific times. In ancient Egypt, physicians were also priests; both functions were one, which made sense given how little effective medicine there was. Praying to the gods for patients to get better was in most cases as good as anything those ancient physicians could do. Also notice how, to Siegel, apparently the end justifies the means. Siegel can deceive patients about vitamins and alcohol sponges because he thinks it's all for a greater good, really believing that he is so all-powerful a shaman-healer that his words alone can have a huge effect in curing or killing patients. That's how he appears to be justifying the deception. He needs to get a clue (and some humility) and realize that, although placebo effects are important confounders in clinical trials, it's a huge stretch to ascribe such awesome power to their effects. What Siegel is describing is magic, not science; religion, not medicine. Thinking does not make it so.

Unfortunately, Cassileth doesn't seem to realize that, at their core, the "unconventional" aspects of the "integrative medicine" that she is promoting are little or no different than what Siegel promotes. In essence, "integrative medicine" is all about "integrating" magical thinking into scientific medicine. Acupuncture, "mind-body" interventions, reiki, and all the various quackademic medicine that has infiltrated medical academia relies on the same ideas, the same magical thinking, that we see on display from Bernie Siegel. Cassileth might think herself so much more rational and "evidence-based" by attacking the most egregrious cancer quackery, but she's only fooling herself.

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@al kimmea

That's because each individual is their own special little snowflake.

You should all be reading Rupert Sheldrake's new book, Science Set Free, in which he turns the dogmas of science into questions. http://www.dailygrail.com/Fresh-Science/2012/8/Biologist-Rupert-Sheldra…

Here are the 10 dogmas:
1 That nature is mechanical, machine-like.
2 That matter is unconscious.
3 The laws of nature are fixed.
4 The total amount of matter and energy is always the same.
5 That nature is purposeless.
6 Biological inheritance is material.
7 That memories are stored as material traces.
8 The mind is in the brain.
9 Telepathy and other psychic phenomena are illusory.
10 Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.

Marg, without evidence, your claims are meaningless. It's as simple as that. If you're willing to demand we hold other people to high standards, why should we not expect the same from you?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

Here are the 10 dogmas

Marg, we've been through this crap already. With the exception of No. 4, which I think is actually the payload despite its position, this is nothing but whining about monist materialism. Monist materialism is not necessary for the scientific enterprise. You can't reiki-wash the goddamned dishes. It's just straight-up occultist compensative personal-power fantasy.

In many cases results cannot be replicated, but scientists insist that this not be revealed. This is bullshit.

Yes, Marg your claim that scientists insist that "this not be revealed" is indeed bullshite. It is scientists who are blowing the whistle on this. I find it hilarious that you keep quoting Ben Goldacre - we are very familiar with Ben Goldacre, in fact he is held in regard by us. He is most definitely not on your side.

Marg you are like someone who has discovered that the internal combustion engine in their car only delivers about a third of energy from the combustion of fuel to the drive train and then proposes to replace it with a wood stove which will deliver none of the energy from combustion to the the drive train.

I forgot to mention in my comment regarding EFT that EFT founder Gary Craig believes Uri Geller was actually bending spoons with his mind. What a gullible idiot.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

@marg

Answer Gray Falcon's question within 3 replies or you tacitly admit that you do not believe that you hold yourself and your "energy healing" to the same standards as scientific review and peer review.

Sheldrake again? I have waded my way through quite enough of his wild speculations and poor science over the years, thanks Marg. In my opinion he's a religious fanatic who had some sort of vision of 'the true nature of the universe' while meditating and/or under the influence of psychedelic drugs, and has wasted the rest of his life trying to prove that this vision is real in an objective sense. That's the antithesis of the scientific method. He's a classic example of getting the inner and the outer hopelessly mixed up.
I still like Shermer on Sheldrake, by the way.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 28 Sep 2012 #permalink

Sheldrake appears to be the reincarnation of Charles Hoy Fort - the father of the paranormal

Why this everlasting attempt to solve something? Whereas it is our acceptance that all problems are soluble-insoluble. Or that most of the problems we have were at one time conceived of as solutions of preceding problems. That every Moses leads his people out of Egypt into perhaps a damn sight worse: Promised Lands of watered milk and much adulterated honey.

So why these attempts to solve something? - C H Fort

By al kimeea (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Marg - Sheldrake, Fort - this is all a variation on the 'god of the gaps' with the gaps filled not by deities, but by their own BS

1. it is a metaphor, but a very apt one

2. so the fecal matter left behind by my wee pup knows it has been dumped?

3. I would hope so, or this universe would be even more random and chaotic than it is, perhaps to the point where complexity is untenable - according to Kaku

4. this has been shown repeatedly

5. what was the purpose of 200 million years of dinosaurs or billions of years of microbial life?

6. so my P&M didn't make the beast and their DNA material didn't combine and squirt me out 9 months later?

7 & 8. What and where are they then?

9. yeah OK, dogs too - I have a dog, very clever, but doesn't get and apply the peanut butter simply because I think it

10. anything shown to work - like anesthetics which we're not sure how, but very obviously do work - is medicine

none of this is evidence that what you sell isn't snake oil any more than quoting Hamlet bolsters Sheldrake's 'science' - which by the way the lawyer also trotted out as evidence for psychics and Fort's 'science'

By al kimeea (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

10 Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.

How cute. Marg thinks she's got non-mechanistic medicine. If energy healing worked, that would mean there's a mechanism for it to work through.

It doesn't even matter if it's boring old matter and energy or chi and reishi spiritual particles. You can't escape science by positing exotic entities and treating them as if they were magically immune to inquiry. Science isn't some Star Trek tricorder that doesn't pick up magic, it's a method of asking good questions and finding clever ways (experiments) to answer those questions.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

Interestingly, the criticisms appear to emanate from someone 'on the outside looking in' or else firmly esconced in the era of Wilhelm Wundt.

By their language choices, ye shall know them- and this reeks of an era - perhaps late 1960's- mid 1970s- when it was fashionable to reject whatever was generally 'accepted' by 'authorities' and replace it with floatier notions of reality, infused with a healthy dose of rebel universal deism.

I have often listened to a pretender speak about psychology and methods of counselling people: he talks about "conditioned responses" and "self-actualisation": your words betray your level of understanding of a topic- like it or not- as well as the era from which your perseverations spring.

It seems whenever I encounter new age-ish, altie psychology (and we have Jung to 'thank' for much of this), it portrays the state of the art that it rails against as either as watered-down psychoanalysis or tarted-up Watsonian or Skinnerian stimulus-response-ism. No one has throught this way for 40 years. It has very little to do with my own concerns.

I like that Sheldrake's criticism characterises medicine as being "materialistic" and "mechanical"- as if it were a set of tinker toys- it may *look* that way to him because he doesn't know enough about what scientists study in any detail. For example, Orac has shown a chart that illustrates why cancer is so hard to treat: it pictorially represents the pathways of wrong-ness that must occur in order for the process of malignancy to begin and why it is so terribly difficult to stop. It is a symphony rather than a few single notes glued together *en pastiche*.

This sounds like a variant of the common altie illness that despises experts and wishes to supplant them: probably involves jealousy and inability to acurately assess their own personal incapacity to judge what is going on in a field. It has more to do with grandiose visions of the author than any grand vision of science or of the universe.

The statement about memory is just precious.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

On the topic of the universe being mechanical, isn't that essentially how every human views it?

Input (Cause) -> Processing mechanisms (natural forces) and varying conditions/circumstances in the system -> Output (Effect)

Oh, wait, that's right, we aren't talking in useful metaphors, we're talking in emotional language. Marg doesn't like the fact that human beings have peeked inside a lot of the black boxes of nature and demystified them. I never understand how some people recoil in horror the moment you tell them that rainbows are caused by light refraction of water droplets, like somehow knowing that makes it less beautiful. They must live in a truly dreary world.

Kind of reminds me of a game concept I was working on years ago. The main character was essentially an IT guy for one of his world's magically-powered transit systems. "This isn't something mystical or mysterious, this is magic! It's a well-understood force operating on known physical laws! If something goes wrong, there's a traceable cause for it!"

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 29 Sep 2012 #permalink

I wonder if Marg just stumbled onto Goldacre's piece, or if she was already familiar with his work...

@DW

Re: meds for kids... I'm not sure how I feel about them, but then I haven't really looked at the literature on it. Naturally one can't equate vaccines with SSRIs, etc.

@Edith

I am similar in that adding numerous stressors all at once has taken a big toll.

And I love how the one-size-fits-all woo “prescriptions” don’t acknowledge the fact that most depressed people can barely summon the energy to get out of bed, much less embark on ambitious diet and exercise programs. I imagine that would be a challenge for those with other types of mental illness as well. .

Totally agree. Plus, it assumes that one has access to good food as well.

@Shorter version of Marg =

Here's some unrelated stuff that shows that science is really all religion and materialism; therefore energy healing works. Cause, that's why.

Please, don't look behind the curtain... I don't want people to notice there's nothing there. I don't have rebuttals or evidence or answers to questions. I just have my special snowflake gut feeling.

<i.Here are the 10 dogmas:
Hey, those dogmata aren't 'science', they're Theravada Buddhism.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Sheldrake appears to be the reincarnation of Charles Hoy Fort – the father of the paranormal

Not a fair comparison. Fort had a better sense of humour, while his work has inspired far more science-fiction novels than Sheldrake's.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Herr doktor bimler, mein freund

I tend to agree with this:

"Fort doubted everything—including his own speculations. When his more astute admirers insist that he was not the arch-enemy of science he was reputed to be, but only the enemy of scientists who forget the ephemeral character of all knowledge, they are emphasizing the sound and healthy aspect of Forteanism.

It is true that no scientific theory is above doubt. It is true that all scientific “facts” are subject to endless revision as new “data” are uncovered. No scientist worthy of the name thinks otherwise.

But it is also true that scientific theories can be given high or low degrees of confirmation. Fort was blind to this elementary fact—or pretended to be blind to it—and it is this blindness which is the spurious and unhealthy side of Forteanism. If a Baker Street Irregular began to think Sherlock Holmes actually did exist, all the good clean fun would vanish.

Similarly, when a Fortean seriously believes that all scientific theories are equally absurd, all the rich humor of the Society gives way to an ignorant sneer." - Martin Gardner

It is as BronzeDog said, knowing something takes the fun and beauty out of it for most people (Is this down to the apple & snake?) it would seem, including Fort and Rupert. To this they add 'we don't know everything, therefore we don't know anything' as justification for wu.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

I would venture that Sheldrake likely is far better educated in science and the history of science than most of you. I would challenge you to hold on to all your beliefs after you have read the book. He makes a most persuasive case.

Having met more than my fair share of Forteans, I would tend to agree with Gardner's assessment. Fort did seem to enjoy baiting scientists just for the fun of it, which isn't really very helpful, though at times it is quite funny.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

@Herr Doktor Bimmler
Don't let @Narad hear you say that...

Don’t let @Narad hear you say that…

Why? It doesn't get filed under Hinayana for nothing.

I would venture that Sheldrake likely is far better educated in science and the history of science than most of you.

If so, he has squandered that education in pursuit of blinkered religious dogma. His is a hypothesis in search of evidence, and that's not how science works. There's a good critique of Sheldrake here which Sheldrake, to his credit, hosts on his website.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Marg, with regards to dogmas 7&8, why is it then that those suffering physical damage to the gloop in our noggins also suffer mind/memory damage? This correlation is inarguable, but you say Sheldrake has a persuasive case otherwise, care to share?

By al kimeea (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

why is it then that those suffering physical damage to the gloop in our noggins also suffer mind/memory damage?

You're confusing "mind" and "Mind," silly.

@Krebiozen

If so, he has squandered that education in pursuit of blinkered religious dogma.

Funny you should say that, because that's exactly what he says about scientists who subscribe to the materialist dogma.

What our friend Marg ( Rupert also) is addressing is real and exists HOWEVER it is not verifiable within the physical plane of reality with which science is concerned.
That's why they both get so huffy about 'materialism' in science and our own peculiar bent in that particular direction. So, if they aren't overly enamoured of the material world it's because they are interested in something else: the immaterial spirit or soul which they sometimes call Mind.

SB psychology does indeed study the mind, brain and ideas - thoughts, memories, attitudes, beliefs- that come from it but does not divorce them from the base material from which they emerge or consider it likely that they exist without it.

If you want to do that you have to call yourself something other than science or you will appear to be a hybrid like 'Christian Science' or "Scientology' which also aren't based in physical reality or science themselves. Similarly, fiction doesn't rely upon physical existence nor does art, especially design, you can create new worlds or plans for cities that have nothing in common with the reality we all trudge around in daily. You don't even need to draw anything or write it down, you can just talk about it or think about it.
HOWEVER, you tend to need a brain fuelled by a body to do that. Although religionists might think otherwise.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

@DW
I think Sheldrake's point is that if you put together said body and brain from its raw materials and fuelled it, it still wouldn't be able to think.

I'm curious:

How can one say that energy healing has something to do with electromagnetic fields, but also hold to the idea that science is nothing but materialism? Especially when one holds up scientific experiments by Bengstrom as backing for one's arguments?

Someone's cognitive dissonance is showing.

@Marg

I think Sheldrake’s point is that if you put together said body and brain from its raw materials and fuelled it, it still wouldn’t be able to think.

Ah, the irreducible complexity gambit. How creationist of you.

@Flip
It's true. Show me where scientists have been able to create a complex life form from its constituent parts. Or, heck, even something as "simple" as a carrot. Should be a piece of cake, eh, given everything we know?

And it's not necessarily a creationist point of view. In fact Sheldrake points out that the people who created materialist science, such as Newton and Descartes, all believed in a creator who set the "clockwork universe" in motion. Materialism requires an outside agency. What Sheldrake advocates is not creationism but organic self-development.

I don't think any of you have thought through your position in any kind of systematic philosophical way, whereas he has.

@All
Just curious, how do you think the universe came into being?

I think Sheldrake’s point is that if you put together said body and brain from its raw materials and fuelled it, it still wouldn’t be able to think.

Your preferred occultist alternative, oddly enough, doesn't appear to be faring too well on this front either.

I don’t think any of you have thought through your position in any kind of systematic philosophical way, whereas he has.

I think you're wrong, and that you would benefit from studying a bit of the history of philosophy yourself. I spent three years studying social anthropology which involved very little but thinking about these kinds of philosophical issues. I don't think Sheldrake's position comes from any sort of thought at all. He is trying to rationalize a mystical, religious vision.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Just curious, how do you think the universe came into being?

Perhaps you could cut to the chase and let everyone know where you were before you were born.

Oh, and I'd also like to know where the True Meanings of songs reside. Please also address the phenomenon of "thinking" that a song is "better" when one actually has the lyrics wrong. Are there Mind versions of Gödel numbers?

Just curious, how do you think the universe came into being?

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait...
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!

"Since the dawn of man" is really not that long,
As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song.
A fraction of a second and the elements were made.
The bipeds stood up straight,
The dinosaurs all met their fate,
They tried to leap but they were late
And they all died (they froze their asses off)
The oceans and Pangea
See ya wouldn't wanna be ya
Set in motion by the same big bang!

It all started with the big BANG!

It's expanding ever outward but one day
It will pause and start to go the other way,
Collapsing ever inward, we won't be here, it won't be heard
Our best and brightest figure that it'll make an even bigger bang!

Australopithecus would really have been sick of us
Debating how we're here, they're catching deer (we're catching viruses)
Religion or astronomy (Descartes or Deuteronomy)
It all started with the big bang!

Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology
It all started with the big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!

Believe it or not, when I was but an apprenticed, teenaged materialist, I was forced to study modern philosophers in order to get degree credits ( I wasn't forced actuallly). Later on, I had more with Pre-scientific Psychology. Also studied related topics like Frazer and Campbell...cross-cultural studies.

On the beginnings of the universe, I think I would hold more with Mr Hawking and his colleagues than I would with Bronze Age speculations.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Marg,
Just curious, who do you think created the creator? Or is it turtles all the way down?

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Marg, you still haven't answered my question: "If you’re willing to demand we hold other people to high standards, why should we not expect the same from you?" Since you refuse to answer it, I'll assume you don't hold "energy healing" to any standards.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

@Marg

how do you think the universe came into being?

Doesn't matter what I think - it matters what can be proven. Once again, you continue to insist that if science doesn't know X, that means Y is true. Honey, first you must prove Y is true.

And it’s not necessarily a creationist point of view.

Er, yes it is.

I agree with Narad, re: Perhaps you could cut to the chase and let everyone know where you were before you were born.

(By the way, Descartes never had neuroscience. Perhaps if he had, he wouldn't have gone on about mind/body stuff. The point you keep missing is that you're stuck in old ideas, whereas science has moved on)

I repeat:
@Shorter version of Marg =

Here’s some unrelated stuff that shows that science is really all religion and materialism; therefore energy healing works. Cause, that’s why.

Please, don’t look behind the curtain… I don’t want people to notice there’s nothing there. I don’t have rebuttals or evidence or answers to questions. I just have my special snowflake gut feeling. And I won't bother to actually state what I think and why: it's too much fun being vague and hand-wavey and then complain afterwards that everyone else is just too materialistic and detail-oriented.

This Gish gallop is fun and all, but I spent a lot of time in postmodernist world of literature and philosophy, especially reading existentialism. It's nice and all, but it has nothing to do with actual science.

It's pretty much all a "what if" scenario. Science is a "what is" scenario.

The only people who go on and on about 'materialism' are the people who want you to think "what if" and take it as seriously as everything else. What if my flying invisible pink unicorn is sitting on your shoulder? Oh, you can't see it? Well, just trust me, it's there. You won't trust my word? You want proof? Why? Why isn't my word good enough? All you have to do is BELIEVE/OPEN YOUR MIND/IMAGINE and it's there....

Basically calling 'materialism' is just a way of getting around the fact that you have no evidence and a sincere desire to convince people anyway. It's a way of pretending that the world acts the way you want it to.

TL;DR... Marg is the religious one. Faith in all things invisible, so long as you're open minded enough to think "what if" and ignore "what is".

@GF

Well, that would make it three things that marg has refused to answer, in all her cowardice.

@Johnny
Thank you for the lyrics -- but where did the Big Bang come from? Conservation of matter and energy and all that -- but then suddenly there it all was -- out of nothing?

@Krebiozen
If you believe Gandhi, it's big white elephants all the way down.

And I sincerely don't believe any one of you is in a better position to know what really happened than Sheldrake or myself.

... and vice versa.

Puny, arrogant humans.

@Flip
Good luck proving how the universe came into being :)

Conservation of matter and energy and all that — but then suddenly there it all was — out of nothing?

Matter plus antimatter equals nothing, so conservation of energy and matter isn't a problem.

And I sincerely don’t believe any one of you is in a better position to know what really happened than Sheldrake or myself.

I would expect an astrophysicist to have a better idea of what happened than a religious mystic/biochemist (or an energy healer). At least scientists try to make their hypotheses consistent with the available evidence, which you and Sheldrake don't seem concerned with in the slightest.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Maybe it wasn't *nothing* but a balance of matter and anti-matter with all-ness emerging when there was more matter accumulated... read that earlier..physics

Be that as it may, but today I was looking at a something and its shade as labelled - storm- led me to synopise this thread with Marg as a RL enactment of Tim Minchin's piece:
she is Storm
we are Tim.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Puny, arrogant humans.

Among which you number. Marg, there's a core issue that has been repeated to you but which you don't seem to have energy-wrapped your head around: You are trying to elevate yourself to and above the clergy within something. Your putative lever arm, however, is a crude, magical construct that inexorably leads you to know less rather than "extra."

@Denice Walter
Pure conjecture, all of it.

@marg

What about Denice's comment is conjecture?

You have 3 comments to answer my question, otherwise, we must assume that you are deliberately lying or are pushing a falsehood.

We already know that you do not apply the same scientific standards to "energy healing" and that you do not apply the same standards to yourself as you do to other posters here.

What the heck, let's see if marg can make it a superfecta.

Our local community college catalog arrived yesterday and is offering a Reiki certification course. I am so tempted (purely in the interests of science).

On the other hand, there's a digital photography class that looks much more useful.

@Novalox
Everything we know about the Big Bang is conjecture.
Conjecture (from Wikipedia)
A conjecture is a proposition that is unproven. Karl Popper pioneered the use of the term "conjecture" in scientific philosophy.[1] Conjecture is contrasted by hypothesis (hence theory, axiom, principle), which is a testable statement based on accepted grounds. In mathematics, a conjecture is an unproven proposition that appears correct.[2]

Puny, arrogant humans.

And "Marg" unintentionally shows her true colors. What are you, Marg? A reptilian under Lord Draconis? A red Lectroid from planet 10, who reached Earth through the 8th Dimension? Or perhaps you were irradiated with gamma rays and. like the Incredible Hulk, will smash puny humans? Are you a follower of Magneto and a member of homo superior?

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Marg - you should really talk to a physicist about the big bang. While there is, admittedly, quite a lot of conjecture there, there is an awful lot that is backed up by evidence.

You might want to check out http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/. The author, Ethan, is a very nice guy and explains advanced concepts in astrophysics and cosmology pretty well.

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

Everything we know about the Big Bang is conjecture.

Why, no, it's not. Cosmology bridges the largest and smallest scales. Big bang cosmology rests upon everything from the Standard Model to WMAP and further. That you would parade around babbling about "subtle energy" and quantum-entangled mice and so forth merely betrays the fact that you are trying to bring that which you aspire to down to your own level. In other words, a Sad Sack.

@Marg

Good luck proving how the universe came into being

What a pathetic and inept rebuttal to the many, many points made. And also proving my point about it being philosophy and not science. What makes you think it's impossible to prove? Arrogance is saying "we'll never know" or saying "I know better despite not having a shred of evidence to back me up".

Oh yes, the creationist tactic: nobody knows what happened, therefore godidit. You really are a god of the gaps lover.

Marg, you're utterly banal and more arrogant than all of us. We say "we don't know YET", and you say "..."

Actually, we don't know what you say, because yet again YOU FAIL TO OFFER ANY EVIDENCE FOR ANYTHING. Including your own opinions on anything. You Gish gallop all over the place and leave out your own opinions and then expect *us* to tell you what we think. You're a hypocrite, as has been pointed out many, many times already.

Everything we know about the Big Bang is conjecture.

*cough*Bullshite*cough*

I wonder how many times I need to say it before you clue in.

@Shorter version of Marg =

Here’s some unrelated stuff that shows that science is really all religion and materialism; therefore energy healing works. Cause, that’s why.

Please, don’t look behind the curtain… I don’t want people to notice there’s nothing there. I don’t have rebuttals or evidence or answers to questions. I just have my special snowflake gut feeling. And I won’t bother to actually state what I think and why: it’s too much fun being vague and hand-wavey and then complain afterwards that everyone else is just too materialistic and detail-oriented and arrogant.

For the others: yeah, I've moved *way* past giving Marg chances. As far as I'm concerned, this last de-flounce is nothing but troll.

@Mephistopheles O'Brien
Thank you for the link. While physicists are pretty much in agreement about what happened AFTER the big bang, they are less so about what happened BEFORE that led up to it. That's where the conjecture comes in. I just read a book by Dan Falk about time, and he talked about the various theories in one of his chapters, in which he discussed whether "time" came into being with the big bang.

@Flip
You show woeful ignorance about the meaning of the word "conjecture" and prove my point to a T about arrogance.

While physicists are pretty much in agreement about what happened AFTER the big bang, they are less so about what happened BEFORE that led up to it.

Wrong. Getting to a theory of the shortest timescales will require new physics, which is not code for "making a jackass of oneself by pretending to have magic vibration powers." There is no issue of "t < 0."

@Narad
My bad about being inexact in my phrasing. @DW was talking up what led up to the big bang. I should have said everything we know about what led up to the big bang is pure conjecture.

I should have said everything we know about what led up to the big bang is pure conjecture.

Do you really fail to understand why this statement doesn't mean anything? Time is not "stuff." Energy is not "stuff." Time t is just a coordinate. That's not what you perceive. The constancy of the personality is an illusion. Send Time to the corner with its pal Space, and you get "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard."

@Marg

You show woeful ignorance about the meaning of the word “conjecture” and prove my point to a T about arrogance.

Nah, just some respectful insolence thrown your way. Of course, if you'd care to have me be a little more polite, you might want to try answering people's questions and providing evidence for your statements.

I won't hold my breath, considering this is the billionth time I've suggested it.

Thank you for the link. While physicists are pretty much in agreement about what happened AFTER the big bang, they are less so about what happened BEFORE that led up to it.

This is like creationists complaining evolution doesn't deal with abiogenesis. The BB theory deals with the BB - it answers *that specific* question. What comes after or before has nothing to do with the BB.

But I'll note you Gish gallop around the fact that you continue to use a god of the gaps fallacy.

I'll be 'less arrogant' as soon as you stop talking in circles.

While physicists are pretty much in agreement about what happened AFTER the big bang, they are less so about what happened BEFORE that led up to it.

Untrue. Only someone who has never spoken with a physicist could make such a sweeping and completely false generalisation about the views of physicists.

Actual non-fictitious physicists agree that there IS NO SUCH CONCEPT as "before" the big bang. That is how "big bang" is DEFINED -- the time dimension is only defined (and definable) afterwards. It's all in the coordinate frame. So questions about "Before the big bang" are vapid, meaningless, internally contradictory... akin to asking "What is North of the North Pole?" (as John Wheeler was fond of saying).

This is elementary stuff.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Sep 2012 #permalink

@marg

Strike 1, strike 2, and strike 3, yer out again.

If this was baseball, marg would have been sent to pee-wee league a long time ago. And that would be an insult to the 5-6 year olds.

So you cannot answer Denice's question nor can you say anything that is wrong about it.

You really are proving yourself to be an ignorant coward.

@Narad - i should mind what I say

By al kimeea (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

@All
I have a friend who keeps taking me to physics lectures. One of them was entitled "It's about time", and it was a debate between physicists and philosophers about the nature of time. As I said, I also just read Falk's book about it. Trust me, there is debate out there. Just because you are ignorant of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. To wit:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/02/qa_turok?currentP…
Essentially none of you seems to know enough either about physics or science to make the sweeping statements you are making.

Marg, let's keep our focus on "energy healing". The experiment you brought up gave inconclusive results, how would you change it to remove the bias that you claim caused both sets to survive?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Gray Falcon
Which particular experiment are you referring to?

@Gray Falcon
If you are referring to Bengston's, there wasn't one, there were 12. Compute for me please the statistical possibility of 12 experiments over 30+ years all being somehow screwed up by inadequate mice or inadequate handling of mice.

@Marg: The statistical possibility? Near 100%. I work in engineering. I know that incompetence has no limits.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Gray Falcon
That is just a flip and meaningless answer.

@Gray Falcon
It also doesn't say much for the state of engineering as a field of endeavor. If it were true, all our bridges and buildings would fall down.

@Marg: Bengston ran one experiment, got inconclusive answers. He ran the exact same experiment, got the same inconclusive answers. He does this twelve times. Does that sound like the work of a competent man?
In engineering, Murphy's law is: "If there are more than one ways of performing an action, and one of them leads to disaster, then someone will perform it in that way." This is what I meant.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Gray Falcon
The experiment Bengston ran was a standard model. After the controls survived in the first experiment he theorized that there was a field effect. He then set up a second batch of controls in an outside location that was unknown to him. Those controls died as expected. In a later experiment he set up geomagnetic probes around the cages of both the experimental and nearby control mice, as well as other random places, to test for the existence of this "field effect". The probes showed an anomalous effect around the experimental mice and the control mice, but not at the other random locations. This does not sound like incompetence to me.

I'll need a citation. There's still an issue with the control mice from the second experiment: Were they set up and handled in the exact same way as all the other mice, save for the energy healing? The issue was simply that Bengston didn't properly induce cancer in the first place.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

the idea Turok proposes is not new, big bang-big crunch etc

the evidence dinna support this

By al kimmea (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Gray Falcon
Bengston did not induce the cancer. The experiments were created and conducted by "disinterested biologists" at two separate institutions, one of them the head of the biology department at the Brooklyn Campus of St. Joseph's College. Outside controls were set up in experiment 3 and 4 (not 2 as I previously said). In both cases the outside controls died.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/gtpp/Documents/jse_14_3_bengston.pdf

If one can get beyond the immediate knee jerk reaction of "this is not possible", I think there is an interesting phenomenon here worthy of further exploration. In his talks Bengston says that after his first experiment succeeded in any one location, the biologists on site took it as a challenge and were extremely rigorous in the second experiment. He himself never touched the mice.

@Al KImmea
What evidence?

Finally, some documentation. I'll have to read it later, though, I've got other things to do.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Gray Falcon
If you are referring to Bengston’s, there wasn’t one, there were 12. Compute for me please the statistical possibility of 12 experiments over 30+ years all being somehow screwed up by inadequate mice or inadequate handling of mice.

12 experiments where the control group was supposed to have all died but instead they overwhelmingly survived? No one has to compute a statistical probability that the experiments all got screwed up; the proof that they were is right there.

By Antaeus Feldspar (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

Actually,theories about the beginning of the universe are not purely conjectural but were based upon certain observations made when technology allowed researchers to look at the movement of distant galaxies and closely at sub-atomic particles: theories were built to explain certain data that they *already* had.

Be that as it may, something I've observed myself about those who support alt med: while they may cast aspersion upon standard work in general ( consensus), they sure cling to their own so-called data. They also retreat into material that is not amenable to research- like life energy, soul or other quasi-religious notions like chakras or qi.

In addition, alt med frequently relies upon the personae of its chief investigators/ expounders. These often acquire a status that *assumes* trustworthiness and correctness, even if that is based on emotional factors rather than *data*, i.e. a string of excellent studies ( see AJW, Burzynski,
Duesberg et al as well as promoters like Adams, Null, Mercola et al).

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

What? M. cites a wired.com interview with a cheerful physics don speculator to spout nonsense about who knows science or physics? And I'm taking the bait? A slow day - and Bengston remains nonsensical & now I'm wondering if there's just nothing more than lying. That or willful delusion. "Experiments" that show nothing, if they were done at all. If there is no difference than an experimental treatment and the control group, the conclusion is that the treatment has no effect. If the control group has a condition other than what would be normally predicted, the experiment is a failure. And DW continues to accurately summarize the frame of mind of the perps.

@Johnny
Thank you for the lyrics — but where did the Big Bang come from? Conservation of matter and energy and all that — but then suddenly there it all was — out of nothing?

I tried to keep it simple so you'd understand. You ask how the universe began, and when that's answered, you ask what happened prior to the beginning. Allow me to introduce you to MC Hawking.

*Not safe for work or children*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20LWam5KMQg
*Not safe for work or children*

*rapping*
In there beginning there was nothing
not even time--
no planets, no stars, no hip-hop, no rhyme.
But then there was a bang like the sound of my GAT:
the universe began and the s*** was phat

The universe began as a singularity.
Nobody knows what went on then, G.
For ten million trillion trillion trillionths of a second,
the state of the universe cannot be reckoned.

The fundamental forces were unified--
we've no theory to describe that,
though I've tried. Then the forces
split and the universe was born--
it was hotter then a priest watching
kiddie porn.

Protons, neutrons, and electrons came to pass
as photons collided, changing energy to mass.
Three minutes go by, temps to cool one billion
down from one hundred million trillion trillion.
This reduced heat allowed a new event:
the formation of heavier elements,
still it was millions of years 'fore the first star glowed.

IF YOUR DOWN WITH THE BANG SING ALONG HERE WE GO!

It was the big pow piz-ow bang a dang diggy diggy boom diggy boom pow boom the Big BIZANG.
the big pow piz-ow bang a dang diggy diggy boom diggy boom pow boom the Big BIZANG.

Hold on now, what about inflation?
That's a little tricky and could use some explanation.
Inflation, one could barely state,
was the time when the universe expanded at a rate
that was faster then the speed of light, but that over-simplifies and it ain't quite right. Still the for purposes here, it will have to do, 'cuz I ain't got the time to explain it to you

ROCK

DAMN

It was the big pow piz-ow bang a dang diggy diggy boom diggy boom pow boom the Big BIZANG.
the big pow piz-ow bang a dang diggy diggy boom diggy boom pow boom the Big BIZANG.

The beginning of time, and the birth of all matter
Say it took seven days, you're as mad as a hatter.

It was millions of years 'fore the first star glowed, if your down with the bang sing along, here we go

It was the big pow piz-ow bang a dang diggy diggy boom diggy boom pow boom the Big BIZANG.
The big pow piz-ow bang a dang diggy diggy boom diggy boom pow boom the Big BIZANG.

the big bizang...

The big bizang...

BOOOOOM....

the big bizang.

*/rapping*

As al kimmea points out, Turok's ideas are not really new - see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce

Note the paragraph

Recent experimental evidence (namely the observation of distant supernova as standard candles, and the well-resolved mapping of the cosmic microwave background) has led to speculation that the expansion of the universe is not being slowed down by gravity but rather accelerating. However, since the nature of the dark energy that is postulated to drive the acceleration is unknown, it is still possible (though not observationally supported as of today) that it might eventually reverse sign and cause a collapse.

Trust me, there is debate out there. Just because you are ignorant of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Well, one can clearly see how Marg would immediately be drawn to something styled as "ekpyrotic cosmology." I don't think that you understand what's being gotten at: For one thing, the anthropic landscape is tossed right under the bus, which is going to be uncomfortable for the concept of "healing energy." It's also going to fall right back into the stringy pit of untestability that it crawled out of unless it's actually falsified by future CMB B-mode polarization findings.

(And, Marg, again, "geomagnetic probe" doesn't mean anything; it's just sciency blab that basically nobody but Bengston uses. Until the instrumentation is actually described in detail, you get to make no claims about what popped out of the "probes.")

I am sorry but I have come to the conclusion that you all simply don't know enough about science for any kind of meaningful discussion.

After the controls survived [the first experiment was failure, generating no useful data].

Fixed that for you.

After the controls survived [the first experiment was failure, generating no useful data].

Fixed that for you.

As for the citation, you're just messing with us now, right?After reading the journal's guidelines for authors description of their review process and mission statement I'm afraid I can place no confidence in the accuracy of the claims made in Bengston's publication.

Do you have anything from a credible journal, one whose reason for existence isn't promoting pseudoscience, reporting 'apparent anamolies' or popularizing 'paradoxical phenomena belonging to no extablished discipline"?

That is, do you have any actual, credible, scientific evidence to support your claims?

I think we have discussed the paper Marg has lined to before. See, for example, my comments above on September 5, 2:28 pm .

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

I have a friend who keeps taking me to physics lectures.

In that case you should be able to find quite a number of problems with Sheldrake and Bengston's views.

it was a debate between physicists and philosophers about the nature of time

Which reminds me, according to Hawking, in the link I posted above, "philosophy is dead".

Essentially none of you seems to know enough either about physics or science to make the sweeping statements you are making.

I think the issue is that you believe Sheldrake, who appears to know less than nothing on the subject, instead of physicists who know a great deal about it.

I am sorry but I have come to the conclusion that you all simply don’t know enough about science for any kind of meaningful discussion.

Now I've hurt myself laughing and I may need some energy healing.

However I'm very upset that I wasted all those years of study, and all those qualifications and decades of experience are worth nothing. I'm sure many other commenters are equally shocked to discover they are scientific ignoramuses.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Krebiozen: Thanks for reminding me, I haven't been able to look through this thread in detail.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

Essentially none of you seems to know enough either about physics or science to make the sweeping statements you are making.

And thus Marg reinvents the halting problem. You may not be able to project "healing energy," but you sure can project.

@ THS:

I again thank you for your kind words- unlike RL, it's lovely to be appreciated for what I say rather than for other factors. Might be my twisty hair, for all I know.

@ Krebiozen:

One of my courses nearly 30 years ago, creatively referred to certains topics in philosophy as "pre-scientific psychology". I'm sure that that may get a few people upset.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

Why? It doesn’t get filed under Hinayana for nothing.

I find myself imagining a special episode of "Top Gear" in which the resident car enthusiasts discuss the merits of the Mahayana and the Hinayana, before taking each vehicle for a spin.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Marg - everything is accelerating away from everything else and it doesn't look like it will stop, eventually the only galaxy we'll see is our own - see what Johnny said

By al kimeea (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

These experiments of Bengston's can't be pricey, they're just mice and cages and waving hands

won't NCCAM touch him?

By al kimeea (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

Johnny: Tell me that's not the ICP? Please?

Marg: I have to salute such dedication to ignorance. I'm actually surprised you can breathe on your own.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

No, not the ICP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MC_Hawking

Stephen Hawking has said that he is "flattered, as it's a modern-day equivalent to Spitting Image". [2] On the inside cover of A Brief History of Rhyme, Lawrence thanks Stephen Hawking "for taking this joke in the spirit that it was intended."

The sad thing is that either of the songs I referenced have more science content than anything Marge has posted.

Marg@10;34

Summary of the 4 experiments Bengston describes in the paper you link to earlier today:

First experiment—both control and experimental group mice survived. No significant difference between no treatment control group and "healing energy" treatment group observed

Second experiment-- both control and experimental group mice survived. . No significant difference between no treatment control group and "healing energy" treatment group observed

Third experiment: Mice treated at home lived, mice treated in the laboratory died. Control mice in the lab survived. Control mice sent to another city died. Control and experimental groups kept on site again display no significant difference in survival.

Fourth experiment—despite having demonstrated the complete inability to accurately predict which mice will survive and which will die following injection, Bengston asserts he can accurately predict which mice will achieve complete cures and which mice will not prior to death, electing to abandon measuring survival times and instead sacrifice all mice from all groups 38 days after injection, then going fishing for a different parameter that can somehow, some way be interpreted to suggest efficacy. WTF?

This is really what you consider the best evidence supporting the effectiveness of energy healing?

And we've come full circle again. Bengston pops up once more, Marg suggests she'll flounce off, and we'll be back here in a week's time to argue over more of her vague concerns about X.

I am sorry but I have come to the conclusion that you all simply don’t know enough about science for any kind of meaningful discussion.

Or the problem is that you simply refuse to engage properly. Care to actually respond to my questions and criticisms? Or anyone's? No, you'll just continue to act like jello in a dodgeball game.

I find myself imagining a special episode of “Top Gear” in which the resident car enthusiasts discuss the merits of the Mahayana and the Hinayana, before taking each vehicle for a spin.

You're going to get lousy pickup without a subilytic converter.

Avatar in a reasonably priced Bodhisattvayāna?

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

There's no point in continuing to engage with Marg.
I suspect that she posts here largely because of a need to feel like she's 'winning' in some great battle between paradigms or whatever.
Her self-image as a disciple in a 'new wave of thinking' or 'new era of discovery' or whatever is a necessary construction of her own cognitive dissonance.
The price of realizing that she's cheated innocent people out of their hard-earned money is too great for her to bear.

Avatar in a reasonably priced Bodhisattvayāna?

It'll outrun a Therabant any day, and the doors will stay on without siddhis.

I used to practice Lada Samara, but it broke down so I replaced it with a Ford Granada.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

I used to practice Lada Samara, but it broke down so I replaced it with a Ford Granada.

Stealth lepidoptery duly noted. The rotor returns; the plugs are gapped.

The Top Gear team discuss Tantra practice

None cares to realize his own transmission.

Did not King Milinda debate the composition of Chariots with the Venerable Nagasena?

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 01 Oct 2012 #permalink

Better to drive a silver ghost than to be a hungry ghost.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

Took a while to catch up. Was fun to see how out of touch Marg was with cosmology. It's sad to look back at all the discoveries made over the course of my life and woos as a culture haven't paid any attention beyond picking up buzzwords.

One thing that really sticks out is the ignorance about neurology and what we know so far. Dualists keep speaking about consciousness as if no one has ever studied the human brain. It's like they're trapped in the era when Greek philosophers could prove things by thought experiments alone.

Of course, there are still plenty of mysteries out there, but our ignorance isn't evidence that anything supernatural is real. Not knowing what, if anything, caused the Big Bang is not evidence that magic works.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Bronze Dog
Out of touch my tushie. Given that I've been attending NASA lectures for years and also reading the stuff, either my "informatnts" our out of touch or you are. The problem with the lot of you is that you suffer from "intellectual phase locking" and are relying on your outmoded education.

@Marg: Funny you never give any more detail than "NASA lectures and reading the stuff". What do you hope to gain from being so vague?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Gray Falcon
Do you expect me to remember the title of every lecture I attended over the past five years? One book I quoted earlier: Falk's _In Search of Time_. The message of most of the speakers at the lectures was fluidity -- i.e., that because dark matter and dark energy comprise about 96% of the universe and we know nothing about them, and because the expansion of the universe, believed to be caused by dark energy, confounded earlier expectations, the future of the universe, and its past prior to the big bang, are up for debate and conjecture. Physicists seem to be quite excited about this state of affairs.

@Bronze Dog
Funny that you should bring up dualists and consciousness, as I am just reading that chapter in Sheldrake. He offers a "panpsychist" alternative to materialism and dualism.

@Marg: Absolutely none of which does anything to prove "energy healing". Here's some advice: If you're having trouble with people not believing you, perhaps the issue is on your side.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

The message of most of the speakers at the lectures was fluidity

Rolling out some Richard Chambers Prescott, Marg?

Marg, this thread:

Given that I’ve been attending NASA lectures for years and also reading the stuff, either my “informatnts” our out of touch or you are.

The message of most of the speakers at the lectures was fluidity — i.e., that because dark matter and dark energy comprise about 96% of the universe and we know nothing about them[...]

Marg, reiki thread:

BTW did you know that with all our advanced knowledge we cannot account for 96% of the matter and energy in the universe? We know what 4% of the universe is made of, and the rest is mystery.

I am not revealing my own ignorance but that of the NASA scientist from whom I gleaned this particular piece of information, who is infinitely less arrogant than you.

It sounds to me, Marg, that you've been to exactly one lecture. And it doesn't seem like you really took that much actual knowledge away from it.

@AdamG
Please enlighten me on your level of knowledge on the subject, giving full quotations, of course, if you know more than I do. My only point is that there is debate and not a single set of accepted events and parameters, as some people here seem to believe. I have, in fact, attended several lectures and on the reiki thread was referring to the most recent one. But of course as you and your colleagues here are all the most knowledgeable people on the planet on all subjects scientific including cosmology, everyone must defer to your superiority. I think I have bandied about the word "arrogant" a number of times here. It fits. Wear it.

I slogged through "A Brief History of Time" and read "Hyperspace". Einstein is still relevant. I've been following science and its ch-ch-ch-changes since the mid 60s.

Bang-Crunch was the prevalent idea back then.

How cum, Madame Au Courant, u ain't aware that it's all flying apart? At least for now and perhaps even after we've been recycled and until it gets very dark and cold?

None of which explains what was wrong with Emily and her protocol and why it shows I too can heal like a Reiki Master?

By al kimeea (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

Since Falk is from Toronto, here's my Grade 13 sched - Calculus, Algebra, Functions, Biology and Chemistry

No Physics 'cause teach was a penis with ears

Falk is an interesting distraction, nuthin more

By al kimeea (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

I think I have bandied about the word “arrogant” a number of times here. It fits. Wear it.

OK, Marg, time to play a game. Imagine that you have two iron bars that are identical in appearance. One is magnetized and the other is not. Tell me how you can tell which is which without the use of any instrumentation.

My only point is that there is debate and not a single set of accepted events and parameters, as some people here seem to believe.

ya mean like I=V/R or V/n=k or E=mc2 or a myriad of other reality describing things like z(n+1)=zn2+c?

By al kimeea (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

sup and sub no workie

By al kimeea (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg,
You claimed that Sheldrake, a failed biochemist and religious fanatic, knows more about the origins of the universe than physicists. Does your NASA physicist buddy agree with Sheldrake, since he is infinitely less arrogant than we are?

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

The message of most of the speakers at the lectures was fluidity — i.e., that because dark matter and dark energy comprise about 96% of the universe and we know nothing about them[...]

I am reminded of the Far Side cartoon about what we say to dogs versus what dogs hear. The dog owner is telling Ginger about how many times he told Ginger to stay out of the garbage and how upset he is, What Ginger hears is "bla bla bla bla Ginger bla bla bla bla Ginger bla bla"

I suspect what Marg hears is bla bla bal bla fluidity bla bla bla 95% bla bla we dont know bla bla.

As far as I know, the discovery of dark energy and dark matter has not changed the models of the past and the Big Bang very much - any astrophysicists care to enlighten me.

All I know is what I read on Ethan's Starts With a Bang blog.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Marg

My only point is that there is debate and not a single set of accepted events and parameters, as some people here seem to believe.

Let's say you're right. That science is tentative and that what we know currently needs some adjustment due to new discoveries.

How and why does that prove that you're right about energy healing (or anything else)?

(My guess is you're just using yet another standard tactic of saying "science was wrong before, so it's wrong now, and therefore my pet theory must be right")

I think I have bandied about the word “arrogant” a number of times here.

Why is it that the only people allowed to be wrong in this conversation is us?

@Militant Agnostic

the discovery of dark energy and dark matter has not changed the models of the past and the Big Bang very much – any astrophysicists care to enlighten me.

From what I've read, the only thing it does is require some tweaking of what we know. Ie. Dark matter just means there's something else out there; dark energy means that expansion of the universe isn't quite as well understood as previously thought. Neither of these things contradict the BB.

There's probably some good stuff on it at Bad Astronomy or Astronomycast or Universe Today.

al kimeea October 2, 7:01 pm

My only point is that there is debate and not a single set of accepted events and parameters, as some people here seem to believe.

ya mean like I=V/R or V/n=k or E=mc2 or a myriad of other reality describing things like z(n+1)=zn2+c?

al kimeea October 2, 7:02 pm

sup and sub no workie

True, but there are are some entiities that might help.
&sup1;, &sup2; and &sup3; give &sup1;, &sup2; and &sup3;, depending on my finger obesity. That should be superscript 1, 2 and 3, respectively. These are the easy ones, enouihgh for your examples: E=mc&sup2;. and z(n+1)=zn&sup2;+c, unless I've got the wrong z recurrence.
The decimal entities ⁰ through &#8334 (aka &#2070 through &208E;) include the other digits, +, - , =, ( and ) in superscript and subscript, and super i and n. I find no subscript i or n.
An easy way to find these is at http://www.danshort.com/HTMLentities/index.php and other similar sites, which I dare not give URLs for.
The page says it's UTF-8, so the characters should come through raw, as the actual characters without needing the entities. You might try your neighborhood character map program to either pick a raw character to try, or to determine its hex entity value.
Ain't it a pain that a science blog would use software that doesn't allow scientific math usage?
By Bill Price (not verified) on 02 Oct 2012 #permalink

al kimeea
I slogged through “A Brief History of Time” and read “Hyperspace”. Einstein is still relevant. I’ve been following science and its ch-ch-ch-changes since the mid 60s.

Allow me to recommend Misner, Thorne & Wheeler's "Gravitation" if you ever have a chance to acquire a copy. If nothing else, holding the damn thing is good exercise for the arm muscles.
It is completely untrue that Steve Jobs was inspired to invent the Apple after a copy of 'Gravitation' fell on his head.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

Duh.
Again, I misplaced a slash. It should be obvious what is blockquote and what isn't. What's not obvious is the random handling of HTML entities. I can see no pattern to it. the ampersand entity seems to usually work, but not always; the superscript 1, 2, and 3 show up as the entity code, not the character. The x seems to get dropped on hex-coded entities; but the superscript 0 was a decimal example coded with the ampersand entity, so it showed have shown as the entity, not the character.
In other words, the "science" blog software is even less science friendly than I realized.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

thanks Bill Price, I had hoped it would work without resorting to your suggestion. the last equation is a Mandelbrot set for those unfamiliar.

Thanks Herr Doktor, I will look for the gravity well. 1279 pages will twist the fabric of space. Although it looks a good read, I'm skeptical as I have it on good authority there is no evidence for relativity, none, from a place called 'axis of logic'. With a name like that it must be so.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Al Kimea
Not Reiki master. Therapeutic Touch. Emily didn't go anywhere near a Reiki master.

@Krebiozen
I claimed nothing of the sort.

@All
There is scientific agreement on there having been a big bang. There is mostly agreement on there having a singularity, except e.g. the M-theory people who say it was 'branes colliding. The million dollar question is where the singularity came from. I was amused to read in Sheldrake that the Vatican was thrilled with the big bang because it supported the biblical description of creation, as in "and God said, let there be light" and there was a big flash and the universe came into being.

Marg, every time we ask for evidence supporting your claims, you change the subject. Is this honest?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg, every time someone points out that you change the subject, you change the subject. Is that honest?

If you survey creation myths, there is usually an outside force (g-d) initiating the universe rather than it emerging on its own. The view of history preponderant amongst diverse believers maintains a natural order simultanous to a supernatural one and (sometimes) supernatural interventions to explain phenomena in the natural one ( the holy spirit visits the blessed; Krshna dances with gopis et al)

People understand nature anthropomorphically if they are left to themselves: making things as a human occupation is tranlated to a cosmological scale. In everyday life, we see faces in appliances and films of random dots' movements are interpretted as one chasing the other and other human/ animal-like activities. We're perhaps built that way.

I would guess that beliefs about healing and life energies/ essences are a reflection of the very human tendency to 'put a face' on the processes of nature and the universe itself that needed a little outside help to get going.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg, do you know why "peer review" exists?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

yadda yadda yadda energy yadda different energy yadda

By al kimmea (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg was a quack here at R.I.
on a thread that just wouldn't die.
She loves mystical forces
but won't cite any sources
for her claims which no one can falsify.

'Healing' is her occupation
But oh no, she won't ask for compensation
but if you feel grand
after she waves her hand
she'll be happy to 'accept your donation!'

Still, it’s strange that the singularity that became the big bang just came out of nowhere.

It would be stranger still if time had endpoints but not a starting point. Now, Marg, given that you have repeatedly insulted your audience's knowledge of physics, please get on to the magnet question. It's about at the level of a Car Talk Puzzler segment.

So, according to the link you've provided above, you seem to be arguing

1)We can detect electrical activity associated with biological processes, and generate electrocardiograms and electroencephalograms, and

2)The application of alternating magnetic fields for 8 to 10 hours a day has been seen to help heal broken bones, therefore

3)Waving your hands at cages of mice not only can magically heal their cancers, but also the cancers of other mice you didn't wave your hands at.

Is that about right, Marg?

I wrote to Marg:

You claimed that Sheldrake, a failed biochemist and religious fanatic, knows more about the origins of the universe than physicists.

Marg replied:

I claimed nothing of the sort.

Apologies if I misunderstood the following exchange.
Marg asked:

Just curious, how do you think the universe came into being?

I replied:

Stephen Hawking has some interesting ideas on the subject, probably not too far removed from the views of most commenters here.

Marg replied:

And I sincerely don’t believe any one of you is in a better position to know what really happened than Sheldrake or myself.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

A long time ago, someone proposed that there are two ways of looking at the cosmos - a daylight and a nightime view,IIRC. The first infuses it with purpose and rationality, striving towards goals like a businessperson with a deadline or an artist contemplating an internal visual image of the final product. The other sees it as cold and unfeeling materia and forces that we happened to have been thrown into, much to our own consternation. I would call these views maybe 'warm' and 'cool' myself. The latter might also be called "soul-less" by some of the opposing camp.

I would however find it to be a highly emotional place if you are a person understanding his or her own limited place within the huge, cold and dumb, unthinking vastnesses of time and space, buffeted to and fro by unseeing forces. Think about that! Isn't it more exciting than the other way?

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Krebiozen

Ya consistency is not Marg's strong suit, earlier she said energy healing has a "common provenance", but they are NOT the same

By al kimmea (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Marg

Avoiding my questions again I see. I must be on your 'avoid' list or something...

Marg, every time we ask for evidence supporting your claims, you change the subject. Is this honest?
Marg, every time someone points out that you change the subject, you change the subject. Is that honest?

@AdamG

Great poem! :)

Marg October 3, 10:05 am

Still, it’s strange that the singularity that became the big bang just came out of nowhere.

It would have been much stranger if there had been somewhere else for it to come out of, rather than nowhere.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Bill Price
But that's a value judgement rather than a scientific one. In fact it coming out of nowhere violates the laws of thermodynamics.

@Marg

The issue is: do YOU have any evidence to provide that the big bang (or the universe, if you prefer to couch the question that way) came from somewhere in particular?

In fact it coming out of nowhere violates the laws of thermodynamics.

Good G-d. No, Marg, you've got the order wrong. We can do the grand canonical ensemble after you get to bar magnets.

May I point out that you are all taking it on FAITH that the big bang came out of nowhere?

May I point out that you are all taking it on FAITH that the big bang came out of nowhere?

This impending failure on your part was priced into the comments some time ago, Marg.

@Marg

May I point out that you are all taking it on FAITH that the big bang came out of nowhere?

Nice strawman.

Personally, I have no clue as to where the BB came from. Without evidence of anything, I have put it in the "we don't know YET what's going on" file.

You on the other hand seem to be putting it in the "science doesn't know therefore I'm right" file.

The issue is: do YOU have any evidence to provide that the big bang (or the universe, if you prefer to couch the question that way) came from somewhere in particular?

@Marg

In fact it coming out of nowhere violates the laws of thermodynamics.

However, the laws of thermodynamics do not prevent someone from "dissolving" clouds by pointing at them?

BTW Marg, I have a BSc in Mechanical Engineering (amongst the regulars here this means I am a relative dumbass), so I probably know rather more about thermodynamics than you do. I also used to fly sailplanes (Schweitzer 2-33 & 1-26, Blanik L-13, Grob Plastic Pig & Jantar Standard 2) so I have been "up close and personal" with more cumulus clouds than you could wave a hand at in a month of Sundays. They are much larger and much more powerful than you think they are. Stopping a charging elephant or even a fast freight train would require less Ju-Ju than dissolving a cumulus cloud by pointing at it. I suspect Bengston's buddy was relying on the fact that all Cus dissipate after a while plus the fact that people remember the hits and forget the misses. Alternatively Bengston made the whole thing up either deliberately or through the faulty mechanisms of human memory. A couple of the regulars here are psychologists and I think they will back me up on the inaccuracy of human memory.

@Flip - that's what I thought I haven't heard of any drastic revisions about the early days, minutes, seconds etc. of the universe resulting from the discovery of dark energy however I think it has changed expectations about the future.

@DW

A long time ago, someone proposed that there are two ways of looking at the cosmos – a daylight and a nightime view,IIRC. The first infuses it with purpose and rationality, striving towards goals like a businessperson with a deadline or an artist contemplating an internal visual image of the final product.

I read a science fiction story about beings who created universes as an art form. The protagonist screwed up and created one that kept on expanding instead of re-collapsing like a proper universe should. At first he (and the others) considered it a failure, but eventually he became famous due to his unique creation as it formed stars and galaxies and eventually life and even intelligent life appeared. I liked the idea that we were the result of an artists mistake.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

"My only point is that there is debate and not a single set of accepted events and parameters, as some people here seem to believe." - earlier Marg

"In fact it coming out of nowhere violates the laws of thermodynamics." - later Marg

u r cherry picking here. Is Bengston not also in violation?

But back to the magnets:

OK, Marg, time to play a game. Imagine that you have two iron bars that are identical in appearance. One is magnetized and the other is not. Tell me how you can tell which is which without the use of any instrumentation. - Narad

By al kimeea (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

"I liked the idea that we were the result of an artists mistake."

The Missus likes to tell people we are an alien ant farm minded by a brat. The looks of horror are priceless.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 03 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Militant Agnostic

@Flip – that’s what I thought I haven’t heard of any drastic revisions about the early days, minutes, seconds etc. of the universe resulting from the discovery of dark energy however I think it has changed expectations about the future.

I have to admit I need a refresher on the details of it, but that's my understanding. Plus, a lot of the evidence for dark energy/dark matter follows up research on the BB.

And Marg also doesn't seem to consider that the BB theory is the 'winner' amongst a number of competing hypotheses. Why? Because the data showed that the BB was the most likely and the one that best explained the observations.

Marg October 3, 10:45 pm

Bill Price October 3, 10:04 pm

[me quoting Marg October 3, 10:05 am] Still, it’s strange that the singularity that became the big bang just came out of nowhere.

[me]It would have been much stranger if there had been somewhere else for it to come out of, rather than nowhere.

@Bill Price
But that’s a value judgement rather than a scientific one.

My value judgment ("much stranger") is there to mirror your value judgment("strange"), Marg. It is in fact a scientific judgment as well as a value judgment.
The context (if I may use such word for such a difficult concept) in which the Big Bang seems to have arisen is 'nothing', which includes 'nowhere' as a degenerate tautology. It is understood (to the extent that this context is understood) that 'nothing' is an unstable (or at best, metastable) state. Being unstable, it's liable to spontaneously undergo a state change into 'something'. That spontaneous state change is currently called "The Big Bang", although it wasn't very big (to begin with) and it didn't go bang.
Thus, "[coming] out of nowhere" is to be expected; coming out of somewhere would be considered quite bizarre.

In fact it coming out of nowhere violates the laws of thermodynamics.

In fact, according to the thermodynamicists and cosmologists, it doesn't. The physicists tell us that even in our kinda-stable 'somewhere', particle-antiparticle pairs are constantly appearing and vanishing with nobody giving them a citation for thermodynamic violation. That's just the way the universe actually works. contrary to the inadequate imaginings of the creationista and spiritualista.
Indeed, although we sometimes refer to the BB as a 'singularity', it's not clear that it actually is one. For example, an antiparticle, paired with a particle, just appeared beside my head, and was annihilated a few femtoseconds later. I could conjecture that that pair was actually a universe and an anti-universe; at a space-time scale of perhaps 1/googol from our own; that each universe had its own big bang, inflation, etc, and lasted its own (sub-infinite) eternity in its femtosecond life (at our scale). Each universe would see its own BB, at its scale, as a barrier that couldn't be seen through; they might call it a singularity. Each would have its laws of physics, that might differ from those at our scale, and possibly between the two.
It's an interesting conjecture: it doesn't violate any laws of nature that I'm aware of, though a few laws might get bent a tad at the edges where we cannot yet investigate. There is no reason (except possibly arrogance) to assume that the universe we inhabit is privileged, in any way: thus, the conjecture generalizes to our universe being a particle in a larger universe, which operates at a scale maybe googol 'slower' and 'larger' than ours. It would be turtles all the way down, and turtles all the way up as well; but the infinite regress is not problematic, since it's part of the conjecture.
The conjecture is unfalsifiable, since each universe interacts with its 'parent' at an unmeasurable level. This is by my design ;). Sibling universes could only interact via their parent: but such interaction could not be completed during the lifetime of the siblings (being much smaller than Planck scale in the parent).
I maintain that my conjecture is much more plausible than your conjecture of what you call energy healing. My conjecture is unencumbered by evidence: in this respect it is exactly like yours. Your conjecture requires a sibling universe, 'beside' and presumably co-extensive with our own. Your extra universe provides whatever facilities you imagine to support your "energy healing". It interacts with this universe through a mechanism that you imagine to exist, that supports "energy-healing" interaction. Your sibling universe, however, must not interact with this universe in any way, lest it be detectable, measurable (at least in principle), understandable and falsifiable. In particular, this universe must not provide any mechanism to support our end of the "energy healing" interaction, lest even that mechanism be detected, measured, understood and possibly falsified.
Besides the plausibility distinction between my cosmological conjecture and yours, I would not promote mine as having any utility beyond personal amusement. In particular, even if my ethics were to allow it, I find no way to produce income from mine. You seem to have not encountered either difficulty (or you have overcome them both).

By Bill Price (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg,

In fact it coming out of nowhere violates the laws of thermodynamics.

No it doesn't.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

Wait a minute! How did we get from energy healing, cancer-ridden mice and hand waving to the LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS....

Yes, Militant Agnostic, you are entirely correct that memory is not the most reliable cognitive function and not only might we place less emphasis on what we don't like ( misses) and more on our desired outcomes ( hits) BUT we can also be distracted from the ENTIRE focus of our discussion very easily by bright, shiney objects.
For some reason, physics seems to be woo-dom's means of gaining un-earned respectability and impresssing audiences: I have heard this all over the place. It's hinting that because the woo understands this difficult, arcane material therefore they must be right about their woo as well.

However, isn't physics reliant upon mathematics and probability- like all real science? I don't see much of that served up alongside the physics.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Bill Price
Not just one extra universe. Many.

@Al Kimeea
I like your wife.

@Bill Price

I maintain that my conjecture is much more plausible than your conjecture of what you call energy healing. My conjecture is unencumbered by evidence: in this respect it is exactly like yours.

So if yours is exactly as unencumbered by evidence as mine, this makes yours right?

Not just one extra universe. Many.

Sorry, Marg, multiverse mania isn't going to help you in any way.

@Narad I don't see why not.

I don’t see why not.

Perhaps you should consider whether this is for the same reason that you can't answer a simple question involving a static magnetic field.

@marg - why the hell are you still posting?

@Lawrence
Why the hell are you?

@Narad
What is the point of setting silly tests?

The magnetic field is weaker in the middle of the magnetic rod. Touch one to the middle of the other. If it sticks, that's the magnetic one. If it doesn't, it's the non-magnetic one. At least that appears to be the most popular answer on the internet.

I have one for you. Find a person you've been told has an injury. Find the site of the injury just with your hands by feeling his or her energy. That you can't learn from the internet.

The magnetic field is weaker in the middle of the magnetic rod. Touch one to the middle of the other. If it sticks, that’s the magnetic one. If it doesn’t, it’s the non-magnetic one. At least that appears to be the most popular answer on the internet.

So, you had to Google that (I did not to produce it), and you have the unmitigated gall to declaim that "essentially none of you seems to know enough either about physics or science to make the sweeping statements you are making," and you got the explanation wrong?

@ Marg:

Can you be sure that you're feeling 'energy' or possibly swelling, throbbing, heat and/ or the person tensing or flinching in reaction?
Don't vets do this all the time?

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

@DW
The difference is that I don't actually touch. I do it from about 6 inches away. Or more. I did it recently with a neighbor who had broken his leg. I thought it was a more or less vertical spiral fracture of the femur, because that's what the grapevine said. When I hovered my hands over his thigh there was heat at the top end near hip and at the bottom end near the knee. He then explained to me that that's where the breaks were. At that point the injury was a few weeks old.

@Narad
So what's the explanation? BTW just because you know about magnets does not make you an expert on what happened to lead up to the big bang.

I have one for you. Find a person you’ve been told has an injury. Find the site of the injury just with your hands by feeling his or her energy.

And... Marg, given that your self-assigned Healing Powers are well known to be Of A Form That Transcends Time And Space, I'd be happy to tell you that I have an injury, assuming you can define this concept, and allow you to try to find it remotely with your mystical hand-antennas. Surely you've already got a Vibrational Profile.

So what’s the explanation? BTW just because you know about magnets does not make you an expert on what happened to lead up to the big bang.

You seem to be missing the point, which is that if you had to look up the answer but still bungled the reason, you sure as hell don't get to be taken seriously when you start going on about "geomagnetic probes" that you can't even describe, or Schumann resonances, or, heaven help us, speculative theoretical cosmology.

The explanation is simple. I will rephrase the answer that you cribbed as follows: Arrange the two bars in the shape of a letter 'T'. If the upper one is the magnet, symmetry tells you that there will be no net attraction.

In fact, as I definitely seem to have picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue, I will pose another to you, Marg:

Why the hands?

You may recall that you just have been carping about how something could come out of nothing (while simultaneously dismissing the first law of thermodynamics by way of Sheldrake's "dogma 4" yet happily attempting to invoke the second law to "support" your as yet unascertained point). If you would, please also address whether quadrupeds are capable of Wielding the Power and the reasoning that underlies the conclusion.

Marg October 4, 3:54 pm:

@Bill Price
Not just one extra universe. Many.

OK, then, you imagine many universes, none of which having any interaction with the universe we inhabit. That doesn't help your conjecture of some sort 'energy healing' interaction. It also brings up questions — about interactions between and among these extra[neous] universes, about the the number of these extraneous universes that are involved in your 'energy healing' conjectures, about the identities of the involved vs non-involved universes, and so on. These questions are irrelevant to anything, so I chose to describe all your imagined universes as one imagined universe.
If I misrepresented your imaginings in any significant manner, I would apologize and request some clarification from you, including the significance of your corrections.

Marg October 4, 4:01 pm :

@Bill Price

I maintain that my conjecture is much more plausible than your conjecture of what you call energy healing. My conjecture is unencumbered by evidence: in this respect it is exactly like yours.

So if yours is exactly as unencumbered by evidence as mine, this makes yours right?

When I was a child, ca seventy years ago, I learned that the purpose of language is communication of facts and ideas; to make this possible, we use words; that specific words have specific meanings; and that the use of a word calls out its specific meaning. Ever since then, I have made it my practice to use words that best express the meaning I wish to convey. I'm sometimes mistaken in my choice of words: at age 7, I was corrected for using 'deep' when I intended the meaning denoted by the word 'steep', for instance. That mistake, and my friend's correction of it, was a major milestone in my learning.
In this case, I purposely used the word 'plausible' to denote the idea of – hold your hat – plausibility. I did not abuse the word 'plausible' to denote 'correctness' or 'right'.
I specifically chose to use the word 'conjecture' to describe both ideas, because both ideas are purely conjectures — a conjecture is a statement of an idea that does not make a claim as to correctness or of being right. I allow you the grace of ignoring your spurious claims about your conjecture, for the moment, and chose to concentrate on the conjecture itself. Those claims are another matter, distinguishable from the merit (or lack thereof) of the conjecture itself.
In this particular use, as you quoted, I said that my conjecture did not contradict anything I knew (at the time of writing) or understood about how the universe actually works. I specifically contrasted my conjecture with yours, stating that your 'energy healing' conjecture is much less plausible — in other words, your conjecture does indeed contradict what's known and understood about the universe.
In my lifetime, I have observed (and learned about) exactly two ways conjectures and other imaginings are treated. The first is the humility of the scientific community (notwithstanding – and partly because of – the arrogance that some scientists display). The scientific community treats a conjecture by honestly seek evidence (again, the dishonesty of some, like Wakefield, is not a counterexample) to support and contradict the conjecture, if the conjecture has any plausibility to begin with. Should supporting evidence fail to show up, the conjecture is set aside. Should contradicting evidence appear, the conjecture is abandoned as implausible after all, possibly to be replaced by a new or modified one.
The other ways conjectures and other imaginings are treated is the arrogant woo/religions approach: insist that, since the proponent can imagine it, the conjecture must be the Truth™, that plausibility and supporting evidence are not necessary except for whatever can be faked, and that contradictory evidence is false or irrelevant. In your arrogant approach, implausibility with contra-factuality is not a bug, it's a feature.
I constructed my conjecture to compare and contrast with yours (I learned about compare and contrast in grade school). They are comparable in their total lack of supporting evidence, by design in mine, by apparent arrogance in yours. I chose the word 'unencumbered' as a mild snark in both directions. I note that my conjecture is plausible, in that it is neutral with respect to contrary evidence, where yours lies in the face of available evidence.
Thus, your question "this makes yours right" is not even wrong: nobody competent in the English-language communication would make that response unmaliciously. Introducing this false dichotomy as a serious response is most likely a sign of lack of comprehension, of malice in discussion, or both.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Narad
Just for the fun of it -- and I take the risk here to be absolutely wrong since I have no clue who you are or where you are and theoretically one needs a picture and a location to do this -- I get right knee. I do sometimes mix up left and right -- and I am also getting a whisper of a hunch that you are going say "aha! wrong! tennis elbow!" Now please be reminded that this is all in a spirit of fun. I am not actually expecting to be right. BTW I also get something around the thyroid.

You really need to lighten up on the sarcasm.

@Marg

Find a person you’ve been told has an injury. Find the site of the injury just with your hands by feeling his or her energy. That you can’t learn from the internet.

Now do it blindfolded. And without asking the patient any questions, and without receiving any cold reading from them without your/their knowledge. With double-blind controls, randomisation, and proper study. Then show us your data. Not anecdotes.

Oh wait - someone did that... Emily something or other... (slight sarcasm to be read: I mentioned here way way way upthread)

You still refuse to answer my questions and criticisms. Am I just too negative/arrogant to deserve a response? I guess the others are just a little less arrogant than me, since you keep replying to them.

How is it possible this Gish gallop is still running?

@Flip
You need to lighten up on the sarcasm too.

Just for the fun of it — and I take the risk here to be absolutely wrong since I have no clue who you are or where you are and theoretically one needs a picture and a location to do this — I get right knee.

No, I was offering to inflict upon myself an injury, which is why I asked for the definition. Obviously, it would be a minor one, but if you were tuned into the signal, it would represent a spike in the "field." Do you want me to provide the local geomagnetic field strength based on latitude?

@Marg- So, you admit Flip has a valid point? Because you never said he didn't.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Gray Falcon
No. Emily's study was flawed and was only published in whatever journal it was published in because she proved something the powers that be were gleeful about. Had she actually proven with her feeble study that TT had merit, you would have never heard of the study because it would have never been published. And if it saw the light of day, say, on the internet, you would have torn it to shreds for being inadequate and proving nothing.

What a nasty bunch you are (with some exceptions).

What a nasty bunch you are (with some exceptions).

Marg, your tedious, rambling, and occasionally frankly insulting efforts have been the recipient of remarkable patience.

@Narad
And how is your right knee? You never said.

And how is your right knee? You never said.

My right knee is just dandy, thanks.

@Narad
Happy to hear it. But even if it weren't, I doubt that you'd admit it.

But even if it weren’t, I doubt that you’d admit it.

Why do you think I offered to inflict a minor injury? We could escrow it with a third party. Fiirst, you need to define "injury." Is it a quantized object in the healing field?

@Narad
Nope. No self-inflicted injuries. I don't think minor cuts would register.

I don’t think minor cuts would register.

Oh, great, we have a qualifier, but not a definition. Fascinating. So, why did you miss totally? I'm not a spring chicken. Surely, it couldn't be this operating principle.

"What a nasty bunch you are"

Cette animal est bien mechant
Quand on l'attaque, il se defend.

Emily’s study was flawed and was only published in whatever journal it was published in....

JAMA, Marg. The passive-aggressiveness is duly noted. Have you ever considered sending reiki back through time to avert this disaster?

@Marg

I have one for you. Find a person you’ve been told has an injury. Find the site of the injury just with your hands by feeling his or her energy. That you can’t learn from the internet.

You know what else you can’t learn from the internet? How to make an interplanetary spaceship out of used Volvo parts.

Way to miss the point of Narad's question - I solved it in my head without having to Google in a couple of minutes. I suspect most of the commentators and lurkers did the same.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

Bill Price @ 11:04 PM

The other ways conjectures and other imaginings are treated is the arrogant woo/religions approach: insist that, since the proponent can imagine it, the conjecture must be the Truth™, that plausibility and supporting evidence are not necessary except for whatever can be faked, and that contradictory evidence is false or irrelevant. In your arrogant approach, implausibility with contra-factuality is not a bug, it’s a feature.

Bolding mine (if it works)

Marg @11:34 PM

No. Emily’s study was flawed and was only published in whatever journal it was published in because she proved something the powers that be were gleeful about. Had she actually proven with her feeble study that TT had merit, you would have never heard of the study because it would have never been published. And if it saw the light of day, say, on the internet, you would have torn it to shreds for being inadequate and proving nothing.

Bill Price - perhaps you should apply for the JREF million dollar prize. ;)

Marg - would you care to enlighten us as to why Emily Rosa's study was flawed? I can think of one minor objection, however, this objection does not "invalidate" the results.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

Geomagnetic probes
If the term 'geomagnetic probe' (GP) has any meaning, it refers to a magnetometer, probably portable, that measures at least one vector of the ambient magnetic field, and is optimized around the range of interesting values of the geomagnetic field (25,000 to 65,000 nanoteslas (0.25 to 0.65 gauss), per Wikipedia). A less meaningful variant would measure only the magnitude of the field, with some arbitrary built-in coefficients for the three vectors required. A really useful one would read and display all three vectors. Of course, a simple magnetic compass could be characterized as a GP for some trivial and parochial purposes since it roughly measures and indicates a rotational dimension of the field direction (but not magnitude): some can even be used to indicate the 'dip' of the field, but these tend to be more expensive.
By being optimized for the nominal geomagnetic field-strength range, a real GP will be sensitive to small variations: if it's not sensitive, it's not very useful as a geomagnetic probe. Because of its sensitivity, care must be taken to recognize and account for magnetic noise in its readings: keep in mind that the geomagnetic field component cannot be distinguished from any other magnetic field component. If the geomagnetic field is the actual object of measurement, an extreme low-pass filter (milliHertz or lower) can help by reducing noise above its cutoff. In a compass, whether terrestrial, aeronautical, or marine, liquid damping is useful, but only when longer-term observation is added to the filtering. If the object of measurement is the non-geomagnetic contribution to the ambient field, the geomagnetic component can probably be treated as a constant.
Even with extreme filtering, care must be taken: single readings are useless, as are real-time displays. A recorded time series, sampled often enough, can be processed heavily, thereby reducing or amplifying transient effects to get 'good' measurements.
Any civilized portion of the earth (such as a laboratory containing mice) is rife with non-stationary magnetic and electromagnetic fields. Even such 'minor' artifacts as an electric watch or a cell-phone with a vibration feature may have enough remanent magnetic field to disturb a measurement, if they close enough and the GP is sensitive enough. Obviously, a refrigerator in the same or nearby room, an elevator in an adjacent shaft, or a truck in a nearby driveway can cause time-varying magnetic effects: these must all be accounted for.
In any case, care is required to calibrate and control a GP in situ, before and after any measurements of interest. The required control is lost if the GP is moved.
In order to be considered meaningful in any way, GP measurements must take all these factors into account, along with some that I may not have considered. Any experimental results generated using GP measurements must report on all these elements, and then some.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The above is a non-expert analysis, based on trivial consideration of known properties of magnetic fields, known requirements for any valid measurements, and other facts of life in the real world. It is subject to correction and refinement by anyone with appropriate expertise.
Marg's reports of Bengston's adventures with GPs fail to have any meaning, because of lack of data on the characteristics of the GPs used, their deployment, their calibration, the control measurements, as well as numbers for the times and vectors of the "geomagnetic disturbances" being bruited about. These fatal defects can, naturally, be eliminated by proper protocol and reporting on Bengston's and Marg's behalf.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 04 Oct 2012 #permalink

"Oh, great, we have a qualifier, but not a definition. Fascinating."

This is like that kid from BC I refuse to name who claims a similar remote healing ability but only if u send a colour photo - no B&W - wrapped in money so that he can see u down to the molecular level and heal u.

Except when he doesn't.

These healing claims are not very holistic are they? They don't play very well with what we do know about big and small things. And they don't fare very well when subject to scrutiny using methods that help define these things either.

So there's another set of rules for these healing things we are completely unable to figure out but Marg et al have the ability to feel and manipulate even at a distance.

Just not under scrutiny.

That's why Emily Rosa's experiment is flawed.

It's funny how all these different healing methods aren't always different, just when they need to be.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 05 Oct 2012 #permalink

You have to admire Marg. Her tenacity is entertaining. Few trolls hang around this long. She has yet to state her evidence in any kind of way. I understand. She is too invested in her beliefs to hear otherwise and thus can't really defend her corner. I can tell you that as a health care professional of over 20 years I have changed many things over the years in the way I interact with patients. Marg continues to wave her hands. What would it take for her to change?

Perhaps Marge can try waving her feet? :D

@Marg

You need to lighten up on the sarcasm too.

Tone trolling now?

I see the best you can do to reply to my questions and criticisms is to ... continue ignoring them.

No. Emily’s study was flawed and was only published in whatever journal it was published in because she proved something the powers that be were gleeful about. Had she actually proven with her feeble study that TT had merit, you would have never heard of the study because it would have never been published. And if it saw the light of day, say, on the internet, you would have torn it to shreds for being inadequate and proving nothing.

I see... nothing to do with it being repeatable data that was backed up by actual scientists doing other experiments, or the fact that plenty of people seem to publish outside of scientific journals anyway. Or not winning the Million Dollar Challenge. But yes, call conspiracy. That's convincing. (Ooops, my bad, sarcasm again!)

But thanks for sidestepping the point, which is that if you actually study the issue using proper protocols, you might actually prove something. Instead you offer anecdotes which, from your limited description, I could easily see a number of reasons why you might think you're getting a hit, without actually having any energy healing involved.

Care to respond properly now I've painted my point in neon colours?

Nope. No self-inflicted injuries. I don’t think minor cuts would register.

So this subtle energy thing works for cancer but doesn't work on minor cuts? Why not?

Does negative thinking affect one's ability to self heal Marg?

@Narad

Marg, your tedious, rambling, and occasionally frankly insulting efforts have been the recipient of remarkable patience.

I'll say. The only reason I'm getting more sarcastic in these posts is because I'm losing my patience.

@Al Kimeea

Except when he doesn’t.

Marg did the same thing above with the knee injury. She said that she might be wrong - using the old standard of making it vague enough that you can count a hit even when it's a miss.

Marg, let's assume that you could actually wave your hands over someone and detect a site of injury. You do understand that, while interesting, it isn't evidence that waving your hands can also cure cancer in mice (or anything else in any other species, for that matter)?

As for the Emily Rosa article in JAMA you're so dismissive of, how was her experimental design flawed?

Be specific: tell us exactly what needed to be done differently for you to accept the finding that Therapeutic Touch practioners ability to detect 'Human Energy Fields' is no better than chance?

Surely you don't consider it's flawed simply because you it doesn't support your preferred and predetermined belief in energy healing--right?

( @ Agashem: this thread reminds me of a cafe where you drop in and converse as you drink your chai latte)

At any rate, my familarity with energy healing derives from many tales I've heard told by a woo-meister who calls himself a sensitive- an ability he inherited from his mother.
It seems that he can sense disturbances and blockages in the life force that circulates within each of us which leads to his pre-cognition of health outcomes based on what will come to pass if the sufferer continues on his or her path of un-righteousness. He adjusts the un-ruly energies via laying-on-of-hands, bringing them into synch with his own superlative patterns. In addition, he prescribes diet, exercise, meditation and supplements which will keep the energy upon the right path. It seems that particular foods and constituent parts of foods ( phyto-nutrients) work to balance energies while other foods and drink produce unhealthy vibrations and health consequences.

All of this ties in with Rife who 'discovered' specific frequencies wherein disease or health transpired. Each condition has its own healing frequency which can cure it. Needless to say, his activities were abruptly curtailed by the rivalling parties of orthodox medicine and the government.

The aforementioned woo-meister was privy to Rife's notes which were hidden in an old farmhouse, watched over by his keeper-of-the-flame, an elderly woman who allowed the woo to read them in the 1970s.

He went on to try various methods of healing rats burned by radiation or which had cancer via nutrition or prayer- and healing by well-known religious healers of all faiths. Needless to say, the results were spectacular but NO ONE would publish his work.

Alas the prophet is not recognised in his own place or times.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 05 Oct 2012 #permalink

It seems that he can sense disturbances and blockages in the life force that circulates within each of us which leads to his pre-cognition of health outcomes based on what will come to pass if the sufferer continues on his or her path of un-righteousness.

Hey, I know a cardiologist who can do the same thing.

@ Narad:

But aren't we all doing this in some manner always? We assess others' relative health, abilities and emotional states and speculate about their future by using everyday perception and imagination. I can't see how we can avoid doing it.

The doctor uses instruments as well.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 05 Oct 2012 #permalink

Here is an interesting discussion on the Emily Rosa experiment:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=18852

Flaw number one was that Emily herself was the subject whose energy field the TT practitioners had to feel. People critique Bengston for participating in his own experiment, so that should apply to Rosa as well. Emily should have used another subject and acted as observer.

Flaw number two: experiment size. A small sample of 21 nurses was used.

Flaw number three: where is your control group?

Also, where is your replication by reputable scientists?

I think the best test of the validity of this experiment is to ask what the reaction to it would have been if the TT practitioners could feel the energy field.

As one poster said:

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
Come on Claus! Let's turn this around. If I did an experiment in my basement that had strong evidence of TT, published it, you really think you'd say 'Mm, T'ai Chi isn't a scientist, but man, his evidence sure it good! Therefore, TT is real.', no, you'd say 'what a bunch of unscientific claptrap, this guy isn't even a real scientist', and etc.

To which I will add that there is no way on this God's earth that Tai Chi's successful experiment would have turned up in the JAMA

Aside from all that, using the hand only as a target was an inadequate way to test TT. It should have been a whole person. I.e., someone standing on the other side of the blind or no one there at all.

Here is another critique

http://www.academia.edu/1329833/Transgressing_the_boundaries_of_science…

"The last serious error occurred when the authors calculated the power for Emily’s experiment, leadingto a misstatement of the likelihood that skilled TTPswould pass Emily’s experiment. Power refers to theprobability that a TTP skilled at a prespecified level,at tasks identical to those tested, will pass the test. Infact, TTPs make no claims about their ability to detecthands so, appealing as it may be, the test may notapply to routine TT practice at all. The JAMA authors failed to adjust their power calculations for the two phases required, resulting in a clear bias against TTPs in Emily’s experiment compared to generally accepted biomedical research standards which call for a power of at least 0.80. The authors suggested that TTPs with moderate skills such as two out of three (three out of four) correct answers should pass Emily’s experiment. However, the true power of Emily’s experiment, at the authors’ specified skill levels, is less than 0.10 (0.28). This bears repeating: at the authors’ specified skill levels there is a 90% (72%) chance that TTPs will fail the test. There is simply no justification for these values or their incorrect calculation in an article published in a journal of the status and regard of the JAMA."

@Marg

Those are fair points, and my only comment would be that practicality might have something to do with the study not being perfect. (All except the one about replication, I'll get to that in a second)

However, my problem is:

Even if this DOESN'T prove anything about energy/faith healing, where's your evidence that energy/faith healing DOES WORK?

See, it's the consensus and total of the data that matters. We talk about Emily's experiment because it's one of MANY studies and sometimes it's easy to pick one to talk about.

You use Bengston, we counter with Emily's study. One cancels out the other. Now let's look at the whole: the majority of studies show no effect whatsoever, let alone a mechanism. There's a whole lot of evidence to say energy/faith healing DOESN'T WORK, and very few (good) studies that show any effect at all. (I'm trying to find a meta-analysis, but darn if Pubmed chooses this moment to stop working for me...)

... I'll note that what you complain about isn't the stuff that I suggested you try: blindfolds, getting rid of cold reading cues, no conversation, etc. At least Emily used some controls, whereas all you have to offer is an anecdote.

Where are your double-blind randomised trials with several hundred participants and control groups?

ONCE MORE: JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IN SCIENCE CAN BE PROVEN WRONG DOES not MEAN THAT YOUR FLAVOUR OF WHATEVER HAS BEEN PROVEN RIGHT.

As for your linking to the Randi forum, I wonder if you just go looking for 'evidence' after the fact to suit your points. I see nothing in that thread that proves that energy healing works or that Emily's study is so flawed as to be useless. Basically you've pointed to an argument - that you clearly agree with - that she tested something other people don't claim to be able to do. In which case, I say: woomeisters have billions of different ideas of how it should or does work, and to test them all would be impossible. Study it yourself for ** sake.

To which I will add that there is no way on this God’s earth that Tai Chi’s successful experiment would have turned up in the JAMA

If it was well-designed and stood up to replication, sure it would.

PS. Does negative thinking affect one's ability to self heal?

I believe in Emily's experiment the nurses themselves said they could detect the hand with no problem. That afterwards the criticism that detecting hands is not part of TT (why is it called touch when there is nothing touched I wonder?) is lame to say the least, especially given these nurses were confident they could do so with their super sensitive healing hands.

As I'm sure I have mentioned before, but can't locate in this thread, in my experiments with 'energy healing' I found that I could often tell where a painful area was by holding my hands a few inches away from a person's body and scanning. Since painful areas are usually inflamed, and thus giving off more heat than non-painful areas, and since my hands are equipped with exquisitely sensitive infrared detectors, applying Occam's parsimonious razor I tend to assume that was the energy I was detecting, not some energy unknown to science. Add a little cold reading, and attribute any false positives as picking up an energy blockage the patient is unaware of, and there is nothing mysterious left to explain.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg,
I disagree that the 'flaws' you point out in Emily Rosa's study are flaws:

Flaw number one was that Emily herself was the subject whose energy field the TT practitioners had to feel.

I don't see why that is a flaw. Emily is a human being with, allegedly, an energy field that the nurses claimed they could detect. In fact they specifically claimed that they could reliably detect the energy field of her hand that gave off the most energy. Are you are suggesting that she can deliberately turn her energy field off to confuse TT practitioners?

People critique Bengston for participating in his own experiment, so that should apply to Rosa as well. Emily should have used another subject and acted as observer.

It's easy to see how Bengston's participation could have resulted in bias, but much more difficult to see how Emily's could. Do you have some suggestions as to how that might have happened?

Flaw number two: experiment size. A small sample of 21 nurses was used.

Sample size is important when you are trying to distinguish a small signal from noise. In this case the TT practitioners claimed that they could reliably detect a human energy field. You don't need a large sample size to investigate this. Either the nurses could detect the energy field as they claimed or they couldn't. If they had claimed they could detect it 5% more often than you would expect from chance, a larger sample size would be required, but they didn't and it wasn't.

Flaw number three: where is your control group?

The controls were the occasions when Emily didn't hold her hand over the nurses' hands. What other kind of control group do you think you would require to test the null hypothesis, which is that the nurses were unable to detect an energy field?

Also, where is your replication by reputable scientists?

Why do you need to replicate such a clear-cut negative study like this? Studies quite often give false positive results, for various reasons, which is why they need to be replicated. Or something entirely unexpected that does not fit with our current understanding, like cold fusion for example, requires replication. These results are not unexpected, they are exactly what current scientific understanding would predict, they are not equivocal, there is no fuzzy gray area as there are in ESP studies, for example, where you can claim that there is a small effect over chance. In fact the nurses did slightly worse than you would expect by chance, though within the statistically expected variance. If there is something wrong with the study, where are the studies by TT practitioners that replicably show that they can detect the human energy field? Randi's million dollars are waiting for anyone who can pass a test like this.

there is no way on this God’s earth that Tai Chi’s successful experiment would have turned up in the JAMA

It's not true that experiments with unexpected results never turn up in reputable scientific journals as I pointed out above on September 9, at 7:30 pm.

Aside from all that, using the hand only as a target was an inadequate way to test TT. It should have been a whole person. I.e., someone standing on the other side of the blind or no one there at all.

Special pleading and goalpost moving. The nurses were quite confident they were able to do this, and clearly couldn't. If you believe you can reliably detect a whole person on the other side of a blind, I suggest you go for Randi's million dollars.

BTW, my statistics are a little rusty, but the second critique you linked to doesn't seem to make much sense. I will take a closer look later.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

Argh. Krebiozen's reply is so much better than mine. Darn you for being right.

My major gripe with energy healing is that its supporters postulate that 'energy' passes between a healer and a subject yet:
no one tells us *exactly* what kind of energy it is and
no one has attempted to measure it.

We live in an era in which astronomers measure what is occuring in distant galaxies, physicists peer inside the atom AND ITS PARTICLES and measure the un-imaginably small and physiology has taken us inside single neurons and measured minute charges; even human vision can detect light at the level of photons ( in darkness).

SO why haven't energy healers attempted to measure that which they believe to be veridically present? If they claim that:
the energy caused an instrument to go absolutely wild and
healing led to marked changes in the brain ( MRI?) and
some healers claim that they feel heat or electricity-like sensations in their hands,
why doesn't anyone try to measure this or record this?
Instead all 'results' are filtred through people who report what they experience.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

Wow, hey, we're still at it? A humbug remains a humbug no matter what the special pleading may be. And as for "Transgressing the boundaries..." - didn't A. Sokal dispose of that quite neatly? And as long as we're still at it, I continue to enjoy flip, DW, K, at al.

@Krebiozen
Experiments with negative results may turn up but more often than not don't (see Goldacre).

I have said time and again that it HAS been measured. See Oschman, Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis.

Herewith a summary from http://www.reiki.org/reikinews/sciencemeasures.htm

Projection of energy from the hands of healers.

In the early 1980’s, Dr. John Zimmerman began a series of important studies on therapeutic touch, using a SQUID magnetometer at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. Zimmerman discovered that a huge pulsating biomagnetic field emanated from the hands of a TT practitioner. The frequency of the pulsations is not steady, but "sweeps" up and down, from 0.3 to 30 Hz (cycles per second), with most of the activity in the range of 7-8 Hz (Figure 2). The biomagnetic pulsations from the hands are in the same frequency range as brain waves and scientific studies of the frequencies necessary for healing indicate that they naturally sweep back and forth through the full range of therapeutic frequencies, thus being able to stimulate healing in any part of the body.

Confirmation of Zimmerman’s findings came in 1992, when Seto and colleagues, in Japan, studied practitioners of various martial arts and other healing methods. The "Qi emission" from the hands is so strong that they can be detected with a simple magnetometer consisting of two coils, of 80,000 turns of wire. Since then, a number of studies of QiGong practitioners have extended these investigations to the sound, light, and thermal fields emitted by healers. What is particularly interesting is that the pulsation frequency varies from moment to moment. Moreover, medical researchers developing pulsating magnetic field therapies are finding that these same frequencies are effective for ‘ jump starting’ healing in a variety of soft and hard tissues, even in patients unhealed for as long as 40 years. Specific frequencies stimulate the growth of nerves, bones, skin, capillaries, and ligaments."

@Flip, re: "negative thoughts"

There are three elements to "energy healing". One is the person in need of healing, the second is the "healer" or "facilitator" and the third is "the energy source". The job of the so-called healer is to hook up the "healee" to the "energy source". (God knows why the "healee" cannot do this for him or herself; if we could figure that out we would not need either healers or doctors.) At any rate, Bengston theorizes that the healing impulse does not come from the so-called healer, who is in fact the middle-man. Nor does it come from the energy source. It comes from the person in need of healing. So yes, negative thoughts can interfere. You can jump on me all you want about "blaming the patient", but my experience has been that I can successfully treat people who are skeptical but open-minded, but people who cross their arms and say this stuff is bullshit will get very little from it, if anything at all. And, BTW, that's why animals are easy to treat, because they don't have any preconceptions (or little arms to cross).

Darn you for being right.

Sorry!

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

Experiments with negative results may turn up but more often than not don’t (see Goldacre).

Are you referring to publication bias? I don't really follow what relevance that has to Emily Rosa's experiment.

I have said time and again that it HAS been measured. See Oschman, Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis.

Time and time again we have disagreed. See Harriet Hall's review of Oschman's book which mentions Zimmerman and the "huge pulsating biomagnetic field emanated from the hands of a TT practitioner" he claimed to have detected. How do biomagnetic fields differ from regular electromagnetic fields, by the way? Is it really so remarkable that human bodies, which are electrochemical in nature, have electromagetic fields around them? Do you have any citations for the following claim?

Moreover, medical researchers developing pulsating magnetic field therapies are finding that these same frequencies are effective for ‘ jump starting’ healing in a variety of soft and hard tissues, even in patients unhealed for as long as 40 years. Specific frequencies stimulate the growth of nerves, bones, skin, capillaries, and ligaments.”

As Dr. Hall puts it, of Oschman's book:

He claims that there is a growing body of evidence for energy healing, but that even carefully controlled studies have been dismissed, simply because science does not recognize their rationale. This is not true; the positive evidence is of poor quality and is outweighed by the negative evidence that this book consistently refuses to acknowledge.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Krebiozen
And then, I presume, Dr. Hall goes on to list all the studies showing negative evidence.

I am with Oschman. I believe studies have been dismissed simply because "science" does not recognize their rationale. What's more, "science", or rather scientists, are totally disinterested in the topic, so studies are few and in between.

And I fail to understand how publication bias does not apply to Emily's study. How gleeful do you think the folks at the JAMA were about it? How likely would it have been to see the light of day, seriously, if the results had been the opposite? Nil.

The fields Oschman speaks of were detected with trained practitioners but not untrained controls.

This really comes down to a question of whom you believe. I choose to believe Oschman because my observations support what he says. You can choose to believe whomever you want.

As much as I'd like to continue along the natural vs supernatural path, I have just gotten myself appropriately dressed to the proverbial nines for my soiree and gotta go.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

"few and far in between"

Really, Marg, you are a practitioner of this baloney. Come up with your own studies and publish them. And tell me, oh enlightened one, what have you changed in your practice since you started raindancing around people? What has changed in this supposedly ancient practice? Nothing? And yet you claim it is somehow scientific. As I stated earlier, in just the 20 or so years that I have been practicing, things have changed. What would you change to improve what you are doing or are you going to try and convince us that you have 100% success? And how do you measure your success?

Marg,

I believe studies have been dismissed simply because “science” does not recognize their rationale.

Why do you believe this? Which specific studies have been dismissed for this reason?

What’s more, “science”, or rather scientists, are totally disinterested in the topic, so studies are few and in between.

I really don't think that's true. If someone could reliably and replicably demonstrate an effect like this I think it would generate a lot of interest. The scientists I have known have been an open-minded, curious and intelligent bunch. I don't recognize these blinkered, dogmatic scientists you and Bengston describe. I think that the cynicism you may have encountered comes from looking at the evidence that overwhelmingly doesn't support your claims. Cherry-picking a few studies from true believers that do appear to support them just doesn't cut it.

And I fail to understand how publication bias does not apply to Emily’s study.

Where are all the studies showing that TT practitioners can detect the human energy field that have not been published? There must be a very large number of them to balance Emily Rosa's unequivocally negative study. I'm not aware of a single positive study like this. Are you?

How gleeful do you think the folks at the JAMA were about it?

Gleeful? I honestly don't think that's the reaction it got at all. I think the main interest was that a none-year-old girl could do such good science.

How likely would it have been to see the light of day, seriously, if the results had been the opposite? Nil.

I disagree. If the experiment was well-controlled and replicable, I think it could be published in a reputable journal like JAMA. Remember that TT is used in many hospitals as part of complementary care. It's not as if it is completely scorned by the medical establishment, and I'm sure there is no shortage of people who would like to find some scientific justification for this.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

Sorry about the blockquote fail.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

It sounds like this Bengston needs lessons.

Marge said -

August 29, 11:58 pm
The probes were never directly affected. There had to be a cage of sick mice nearby for the effect to occur. Therefore, wherever Dr. Bengston moved the mice, the effect would have followed also.

But today at 11:43 she says -

In the early 1980’s, Dr. John Zimmerman began a series of important studies on therapeutic touch, using a Iat the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. Zimmerman discovered that a huge pulsating biomagnetic field emanated from the hands of a TT practitioner.

Maybe needs to give up on his 'geomagnetic probes' (whatever they are, I sure can't find a description of them), and use a SQUID magnetometer , which does in fact exist. See -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQUID

A SQUID (for superconducting quantum interference device) is a very sensitive magnetometer used to measure extremely subtle magnetic fields, based on superconducting loops containing Josephson junctions.

How sensitive, you ask?

SQUIDs are sensitive enough to measure fields as low as 5 aT (5×10−18 T) within a few days of averaged measurements.[1] Their noise levels are as low as 3 fT·Hz-½.[2] For comparison, a typical refrigerator magnet produces 0.01 tesla (10−2 T), and some processes in animals produce very small magnetic fields between 10−9 T and 10−6 T.

Hoo, boy , howdy, that's sensitive. I'll bet if Bengston had a SQUID, he could just fart in the general direction and make it flutter, without the use of a mouse to rebroadcast the magical healing energy waves.

But then, I'd bet the flight of a bumblebee could be detected with a SQUID, too.

I am still waiting to hear what Marg has learned and therefore changed in all her years of "practice".

D'oh.

Not only did I mess up the blockquote, I somehow messed up the second of Marge's quotes (don't ask me how).

Scroll up to read at 11:43 that Zimmerman used a SQUID.

@Agashem
I got better :)

Marg Oct 6 1:33 pm – my emphasis

This really comes down to a question of whom you believe. I choose to believe Oschman because my observations support what he says.

This is why you are unscientific. You’re basing everything on your own beliefs. I note you didn’t support Oschman with any other studies (and no, the “ahead of his time” Yale guy from the 1920-30’s Oschman mentions doesn’t count, nor does the review of Oschman by Maret you linked) – but just your beliefs.

If you are going to continue to complain about the lack of studies I will suggest (again) that you write a grant and run some of your own.

I said this months ago, but apparently it bears repeating: Believe what you want to believe. Just don’t try to dress up your beliefs in what you are mistaking for science, because it isn’t. The bottom line is that your beliefs remain your beliefs.

And yes experience teaches one a lot but how can YOU measure how much better you have gotten? I know how I can measure - validated tests that have been replicated and have been shown to have good inter and intra tester reliability, so what is your proof of better???

The “Qi emission” from the hands is so strong that they can be detected with a simple magnetometer consisting of two coils, of 80,000 turns of wire.

Marg, I have previously asked you this question: why the hands? Please answer it. Remember, you are positing that "sensitives" can access an "energy source" via "the multiverse." The level of anthropocentrism is breathtaking. I would also like to know where the field lines close back and why they get to defy the inverse square law.

Since then, a number of studies of QiGong practitioners have extended these investigations to the sound, light, and thermal fields emitted by healers.

Why would there be sound in addition to electromagnetism? Is it just that any periodic phenomenon will do? Where are the sensitives that can emit in the visual range?

Scroll up to read at 11:43 that Zimmerman used a SQUID.

Yah, to "detect" an effect the frequency of which could be measured just fine, even though its amplitude was "outside the calibrated range." By contrast, Seto et al. got their ~3 mG result with two solenoids on a stick.

Here is an MD in the other camp, which takes energy medicine seriously.

He's most definitely on the other camp, and set up residence there several years ago. Karl Maret, M.D., M.Eng. is the President of 'The Dove Health Alliance' which states as its mission, "to discover, validate, and disseminate the principles and practices of energy medicine on personal, societal and environmental levels". It also has Dana Ullman on its "outstanding advisory board ". Nuff said.

Mae-Wan Ho is director of the 'The Institute of Science in Society', which is apparently a UK society (I live in the UK), though I had never heard if it before wading through gallons of CAM nonsense, perhaps 'Improbable Science' says it best.

[...] they completely ruin their case by including quite barmy homilies about homeopathy, water structure and traditional chinese medicine. There is also an amazing piece of sheer pseudo-scientific nonsense, “Homeopathic Medicine is Nanopharmacology” by Dana Ullman (though elsewhere on the site, nanotechnology gets a bad press). Most of the nutty content seems to be written by the director of the Institute herself. Dr Mae-Wan Ho [...]

The kindest thing I can say about Ullman is that he isn't as barking mad as that other proponent of homeopathy John Benneth. Posting references to these people is not helping your case at all Marg.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg, Seto et al. didn't use a precession setup, did they? The abstract doesn't say.

@Krebiozen
Open minded, are we?

You don't get it Marg. You're a standard-issue cosmic-mind occultist. You are at the center of the universe by decree, and there's nothing but evasion and fog when things come down to brass tacks. Science, as it were, is merely a prop in the I'm Special Show, and therefore you feel entitled to condescend despite being a demonstrable ignoramus: it's there to do what you say, not start asking impertinent questions. This observation requires nothing more than the ability to recognize the same old crap that has been recycling through these circles for ages.

@Narad
You don't get that it's all illusion anyway and we are all each of us at the centre of the universe, not by decree, but by the way things are. Science is merely prop in the "my, aren't we humans special" show and in universal terms we are all demonstrable ignoramuses, yourself included.

You don’t get that it’s all illusion anyway and we are all each of us at the centre of the universe, not by decree, but by the way things are.

Colossal fail, Marg. It's perfectly reasonable to assert that one is "the system." Only low-rent occultists assert that they are the the center of the universe, and the notion that "we are all each of us at the centre" is even a step more miserable than that, on the grounds of once again not even meaning anything.

@Narad
No, not colossal fail. Merely a difference of opinion from yours. Last time I looked you were not yet the supreme deity elected as arbiter of all things in the universe and of the opinions mere mortals were allowed to hold. Get over yourself.

Marg @October 6, 11:34 pm

Last time I looked you were not yet the supreme deity elected as arbiter of all things in the universe and of the opinions mere mortals were allowed to hold. Get over yourself.

Back at you.

Marg, you do know you espousing a system one can refute with a tire-iron to your leg?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

Ah, Marg is abusing the word "opinion" to mean "any belief about any matter whatsoever." The wise old saying is "you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts"; Marg wants to put all the claims that are necessary for her sense of self-importance in the "opinion" category, so that she can wheeze and whine and play the martyr if anyone contradicts the things she wants to believe.

By Antaeus Feldspar (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

In case anyone's wondering, I was not intending to make a threat with my last comment. Perhaps I should rephrase: If Marg's philosophy were accurate, couldn't we cure cancer by deciding it didn't exist?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Gray Falcon
We probably could, if enough of us decided to do it.

@Marg

Seto and colleagues, in Japan, studied practitioners of various martial arts and other healing methods.

Uh Marg - the function of martial arts is rather the opposite of healing. Could you explain what went wrong with this guy's amazingly powerful chi energy field?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEDaCIDvj6I

Karl Maret, M.D., M.Eng.

The M. Eng is red flag for crackpottery right there. I am wondering if I can make an arrangement with the University of Calgary Physics department whereby if I ever send them a refutation of relativity or my evidence that the sun is made of Iron, they will send a Grad student to shoot me.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Marg

There are three elements to “energy healing”. One is the person in need of healing, the second is the “healer” or “facilitator” and the third is “the energy source”.

Get your story straight. Further upthread you said people could self-heal if taught the technique. Now my question was specifically a repeat of an earlier post of mine in reference to that.

I was SPECIFICALLY asking about a situation where say, you Marg, try to self heal a wound or any other kind of illness/whatever.

But thanks for confirming my suspicions about what you think of negative thinking. Yeah, you're right: it's bulldust. You have a perfect excuse when it doesn't work, and a perfect excuse when it 'does'.

As for the rest: You know what Marg? I'm done talking to you until you learn the difference between posting links to peer-reviewed studies, and links to everything else. Or at least, learn the difference between a proper study and vague philosophising. Or you know, publish your own darn studies - at least if you do it, you can be assured that you won't fall under the evil spell of those conspiring publications. (What I wouldn't give for my high school psych books right now - I realise that they had excellent explanations of good methodology, etc.)

You pick and choose where and when you want to answer a question and never actually respond to criticisms of how you approach energy healing (ie. proving it yourself, instead of complaining, god of the gaps style, that it just hasn't been disproven yet), and you have not done anything to convince me you have more than logical fallacies, conspiracies, and wishful thinking up your sleeve.

As Narad says:

You don’t get it Marg. You’re a standard-issue cosmic-mind occultist. [etc]

I'm done, I'm bored, let's stick a fork in it, she's overcooked now.

@THS

Thanks.

@Krebiozen

Feel free to do it again. Every time you folks post something better than I could put it, I learn something.

Plus much of what you said I probably would have said had I thought through my reply better.

couldn't we cure cancer by deciding it didn't exist?

we probably could, if enough of us decided to do it

Yes, that worked so well for AIDS.

@Shay

Maybe it will work for global warming.

If not, then all these energy healers who can evaporate a cumulus cloud by pointing to it could be put to work generating electricity. It shouldn't take many of them to replace a coal fired power plant. Even burning the methane Marg is producing would be a step in the right direction.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 06 Oct 2012 #permalink

Ain't it fun, fisking Marg? She's just so easy.
Marg, October 6, 11:43 am

@Krebiozen
Experiments with negative results may turn up but more often than not don’t (see Goldacre).
I have said time and again that it HAS been measured. See Oschman, Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis.
Herewith a summary from http://www.reiki.org/reikinews/sciencemeasures.htm

I observe that this screed has no references . Thus, it gives no way to evaluate the conclusary statements that it's full of. Therefor. we know not whether any of the stuff it's summarizing is related to his summary.
The summary is unattributed, but here is the blurb from the bottom, which may, or may not, be related to the source of the summary:

Jim and Nora Oschman are directors of Nature’s Own Research Association in Dover, New Hampshire. Jim is one of the few academic scientists who has focused on the scientific basis for various complementary or alternative medicines. Jim and Nora have written dozens of articles describing the physiological and biophysical mechanisms involved in a wide variety of therapeutic approaches. [Emphasis added]

Should he be, indeed, an 'academic scientist', then he knows, and ignores, science. The third endnote to the summary offers a list of their articles, but none of the actual sources, if they even truly exist.
Back to Marg's quote from the summary:

Projection of energy from the hands of healers.
In the early 1980’s, Dr. John Zimmerman began a series of important studies on therapeutic touch, using a SQUID magnetometer at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver.

Dr James Zimmerman should not be conflated with Dr James E. Zimmerman, the developer of SQUID magnetometry, but it's likely that the reiki audience would conflate them, if given half a chance.
I must presume that the Colorado magnetometer is not at all similar to the SQUID magnetometer diagrammed in the summary. The diagrammed one shows a magnetoencephalograph sensor, not well suited to measuring hands. It's said to have been in Helsinki, not Denver, so it's not likely related. Since MEGs are no longer rare, there may well be one there, too. (Even though I live in a country town, miles from anywhere, I suspect that there are between one and three MEGs within fifty miles of where I sit.)
UC's medical school is now in Aurora, BTW

Zimmerman discovered that a huge pulsating biomagnetic field emanated from the hands of a TT practitioner.

Without references, it's impossible to determine how, and whether, Zimmerman separated any 'biomagnetic field' from the ambient magnetic field. (In my essay of geomagnetic probes, above, I mentioned the principle of superposition, without naming it – that's just the observation that a magnetic field is a magnetic field, regardless of the sources of its components. The Wikipedia article on Magnetoencephalography q.v. discusses some to the issues, better than I did.)
The illustration that Marg omitted from her quotation shows variations in some measurement, but no pulsations. One must presume that the 'pulsations' mentioned are just the variations shown.

The frequency of the pulsations is not steady, but “sweeps” up and down, from 0.3 to 30 Hz (cycles per second), with most of the activity in the range of 7-8 Hz (Figure 2). The biomagnetic pulsations from the hands are in the same frequency range as brain waves and scientific studies of the frequencies necessary for healing indicate that they naturally sweep back and forth through the full range of therapeutic frequencies, thus being able to stimulate healing in any part of the body.

What studies? As to be expected from woo-peddlers, no references are given. The recognized RRG/MEG ranges extend above the ELF range (3 through 30 Hz), by the way: I find no lower bound on the Delta range, usually defined as "up to 4 Hz."

Confirmation of Zimmerman’s findings came in 1992, when Seto and colleagues, in Japan, studied practitioners of various martial arts and other healing methods. The “Qi emission”

I thought we we reading about 'biomagnetism'. How is "Qi emission" related?

from the hands is so strong that they can be detected with a simple magnetometer consisting of two coils, of 80,000 turns of wire.

This sounds impressive (woo peddlers like to use impressive-sounding numbers and terms – impressing the rube is easier than meaningfulness is). But let's take a look. There's not much we can do with the number, except speculate, but our speculation might be interesting (or not. Skip to the second blockquote down, under the lines of ===, if it's not interesting).
Let's assume that it's 80,000 turns in each coil, rather than in toto. Let's further assume that the coils are solenoidal (toroidal, doughnut-shaped) and have a square cross-section across the dough of the doughnut. That would be 283 rows of 283 turns each. Let's further assume that it's tightly wound, in orderly fashion (random or scramble wound might help the task, but it hurts this back-of-the-envelope analysis) and that it doesn't have a ferromagnetic core that it's wound on.
I dust off my 12th printing, second edition "Allied Electronics Data Handbook", Allied Radio Corp, Chicago, 1960, and turn to the section on Coil Winding Data. p 26. There it gives me a formula for a ±1% approximation. It tells us that the inductance of such a coil, in µH approximates

.8× 80000×80000 ×r&sup2; / (6r + 18l) ,

where r is the mean radius of the dough, and l is its height. (I've lost my ARRL handbook, long ago.) The numerator evaluates to 2 × 10↑10; changing the unit of inductance from µH to H, the numerator becomes 2000.
The inductance depends on the wire size and the radius of the doughnut. A reasonable size range would be 30 awg to 40 awg, using enamel-insulated wire. At 30 awg, the height and width of the dough would be (using the wire-gauge tables on the same page – this only goes to 40awg, which is why I don't analyze 42 awg) about 3-1/8 inches; for 36 awg, about 1.6 inches; for 40 awg, really close to 1 inch. Let's assume 40 awg, for a 1-inch thick coil. Then l, in the above approximation, becomes 1.
Now to work on the doughnut hole. We have no idea how big the hole is, but the bigger the hole the smaller the inductance and thus, the sensitivity. A good guess would be 1/4 inch diameter (larger if it actually has a core). Thus, the inner radius is 1/8 inch; the outer radius is 9/8 inch; the mean radius is 5/8 inch. This gives us an bogey inductance of 2000/(6×5/8 + 18) or 2000/21.75 or 92 H. Hefty.
This bogey uses about 2π&times 5/8 × 80000 inches of wire, call it 314159 inches or 26000 feet. The next page of my magic handbook tells me that 40awg wire runs about 1 ohm per foot at 68°F, so we've got about 26 kΩ in each coil. Assuming a bigger coil, of course, increases the resistance. Adding a ferromagnetic core increases the inductance but doesn't bother the resistance (except for how making the thing bigger increases the resistance). Magic Handbook tells me that 40awg weighs about .03 pounds per 1000 feet, so it's about 9 oz of wire per coil.
I have no idea how to analyze the distributed capacitance of the thing, so I won't. But with that much inductance, any interesting capacitance could have quite an effect on frequency response. Throw in the required amplification, and you'd better be careful about oscillation and damping.
A solenoid-wound coil is kinda directional: it would be most sensitive along the axis of the doughnut hole. If it has a ferromagnetic core, the directionality would be increased. If we assume that the two coils are oriented at right angles to each other, and to the direction of the prevailing magnetic field, they might be measuring other than tectonic effects on the geomagnetism.
On the other hand, they might be measuring vibrational effects. After all, moving a wire within a magnetic field is the way nearly all our electricity is generated, and all the coil can measure is motion between the coil itself and the magnetic field it's in.
==================================================

Since then, a number of studies of QiGong practitioners have extended these investigations to the sound, light, and thermal fields emitted by healers.

[citations missing]
QiGong practitioners are noisy ("sound ... fields"), glow in the dark ("light ... fields"), and hot ("thermal fields")?

What is particularly interesting is that the pulsation frequency varies from moment to moment.

[citations missing]

Moreover, medical researchers developing pulsating magnetic field therapies are finding that these same frequencies are effective for ‘ jump starting’ healing in a variety of soft and hard tissues, even in patients unhealed for as long as 40 years.

[citations missing]
My wife's neurosurgeon ordered a pulsating-magnetic-field stimulator to help her heal following her spinal fusion. That surgery still qualifies as 'failed'. Yes, that's anecdotal – YMMV.

Specific frequencies stimulate the growth of nerves, bones, skin, capillaries, and ligaments.”

[citations missing]

By Bill Price (not verified) on 07 Oct 2012 #permalink

This time, my HTML mostly worked, but my typing had a problem.
RRG/MEG should have been typed EEG/MEG.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 07 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg,

Open minded, are we?

So much so I have been accused of naive gullibility by skeptics, as a matter of fact. I'm willing to entertain ideas that are scientifically implausible, play with them and experiment with them to some extent. I do eventually get bored when nothing remarkable or unexplainable occurs, and I'm not open-minded enough to ignore overwhelming evidence. That's personality disorder and mental health problem territory IMO.

You aren't really defending homeopathy, Ullman and Benneth are you? You should really read some of their writings on homeopathy, and perhaps you will understand why I am no longer as open-minded as I used to be in that area. You do understand what homeopathy actually is don't you?

You don’t get that it’s all illusion anyway and we are all each of us at the centre of the universe, not by decree, but by the way things are

Yet:

Last time I looked you were not yet the supreme deity elected as arbiter of all things in the universe and of the opinions mere mortals were allowed to hold.

So the universe's all an illusion and doesn't exist, and you are at the center of your non-existent universe, but Narad isn't allowed to be at the center of his? If you create your own universe, are the center of it, but are not the arbiter of all in things in it, and you are the equal of the other illusory humans in it who have different ontologies, how does that work exactly?

Here is an honest oncologist:

[Trans: Hmm, these people don't seem to be buying this "the universe is an illusion" BS my clients lap up, time for a distraction. Ooh look! A squirrel!]
Is the universe not illusory and energy healing not effective in the UK, where I live (and I suspect you do too), and where few if any of Dr. Peter Eisenberg's complaints are relevant? How does this complaint about the way the US insurance and reimbursement system is set up have anything whatsoever to do we have been discussing here? Even if it was relevant, why link to a "Buy my book and DVD" website instead of some real evidence?

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 07 Oct 2012 #permalink

Bill,

my typing had a problem.

No, there's definitely a gremlin in the system that steals characters and replaces them with randomly selected wrong ones when you hit 'Submit Comment'. It stole "with what" out of my penultimate sentence in my last comment.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 07 Oct 2012 #permalink

I met a teaching assistant once, who told me she had been working with some sort of researcher. She claimed he had discovered an injectable substance that magically healed broken bones (I can't tell you exactly how quickly this healing apparently occured but it was supposed eliminate the need for casts, etc). I was dumbfounded that if this teaching assistant really believed this injectable existed that it wouldn't be heralded from the rooftops. Especially in this country with government funded health care. Trust me, they are looking to cut costs at every turn. Now here is Marg asserting that waving hands cures cancer and what? All of the countries whose governments spend billions of dollars a year aren't screaming for this to become standard treatment? Seriously, it beggars belief.

Since then, a number of studies of QiGong practitioners have extended these investigations to the sound, light, and thermal fields emitted by healers.

[citations missing]
QiGong practitioners are noisy (“sound … fields”), glow in the dark (“light … fields”), and hot (“thermal fields”)?

I thought that meant they sparkled. We're talking about vampires, right?

(I hope I got the html right. This was easier when we had preview.)

I have taken a closer look at Thomas Cox's critique of Emily Rosa's TT study that Marg referred to above.

His main complaint is that the nurses chose the correct hand fewer times than expected by chance. If the hands were chosen randomly you would expect "between 124 and 156 correct answers in 280 trials, in about 95% of such experiments", yet the nurses got 123 correct answers. An anomaly with a 1 in 20 chance of happening by chance or something more significant? Perhaps Emily's negative energies made the TTPs worse than chance at getting it right. How can I restrain my sarcasm when presented with something like this?

Using an analogy from an area I am familiar with, if a patient's blood rhubarb test result was 123 µmol/L when the reference range for serum rhubarb was 124-156 µmol/L and the patient had no clinical symptoms consistent with a low rhubarb result (analogous to there being no good reason to think this putative ability actually exists) I would have no hesitation in declaring that rhubarb result as very probably normal.

Cox also complains that the JAMA paper says that there were 123 correct answers yet Quackwatch says there were 122. Were the nurses even worse than chance at guessing (I do think that's the appropriate word here) if there was a hand over theirs than the paper stated? Has Dr. Barrett made a mistake or is something more sinister going on? I think Cox should stick to critiquing the study itself, and not what has been written about it elsewhere.

Another complaint is that, "The data presented by the authors suggest that when tested for a hand effect the TTPs answered correctly 27 out of 72 times with right hands and 43 out of 78 times with left hands." Is the fact that there is a barely statistically significant difference between the hands of any interest or significance, when the guesses themselves appeared to be right or wrong purely randomly? Were the TTPs really worse than chance at guessing when Emily's hand was over their right hands and better than chance when it was over their left hands? I very much doubt it.

I don't buy Cox's criticisms at all. This isn't a study that is looking for a tiny effect against background of noise, it's a study that test a very specific claim made by TTPs. The ability to detect the human energy field is described by TTPs (here for example 30s onwards) as a diagnostic tool they use to tell where energies are imbalanced and where they need to concentrate their healing energy. A diagnostic test that gives results that are no better than chance is useless.

The diagnostic blood tests with the worst specificity and sensitivity I have ever used all give far more reliable results than the TTPs demonstrate in Emily Rosa's study. Those blood tests are used as screening tests to decide which patients get a more invasive but far more sensitive and specific test. For example PSA can be used to help decide which patients require prostatic biopsy, and prenatal maternal screening for Down Syndrome which is used to decide whether the mother requires amniocentesis and a diagnostic cytogenetics test.

The TTPs diagnostic handwaving test is used to decide which area of the patient is worked on, so even if energy healing worked, most of the time the TTPs must surely be working on the wrong area.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 07 Oct 2012 #permalink

Personally, I don't give a rap for the documents for the truth in my eyes is not in them but in the mind. And into their minds I can they say to me of themselves.

... Not quoting anyone here, Marg just reminded me of this particular sentence from postmodernist literature.

Suppose we were to believe that EVERYTHING were an illusion then why should we then accept ANYONE'S system of explanations about how it functions? Aren't these illusory as well? If we cannot trust our senses, reasoning processes or authorities in diverse fields, why should we trust someone just because they SAY so?

Here is a parallel situation: I listen to and read alt med partisans eternally informing me that what I know/ studied is without value.. I am just a poor little sheep wot has gone astray...The educated elites (*comme moi*) are indoctrinated into a dogmatic, illusory system of knowledge that is created by the powers-that-be to benefit a select group of corporatists and governmental officials who also control information and decide who is an expert.

If an inspired researcher manages to reveal how skewed the "Official Truth" is, he or she becomes a pariah and is publicly disgraced and cast out from the society of acceptable authorities, like Mr Wakefield. Indeed those who tell me these tales, continue on about how they themselves are persecuted, rejected and ridiculed by the elites. Just like I'm doing now. Usually a diatribe follows about how corrupt and dissembling we , as a group are, because if you want to be considered an expert you have to do what you're told and believe as you are instructed to believe. In an ILLUSION.

Thus I am to toss out whatever I believe in and accept instead the word - and ideas- of someone who benefits from the public's acceptance both financially and through increased personal prestige. Who's to say I can't set up my own little system that declares the woo-meister's totally invalid and illusory as well? -btw- it is.

I have often invited my critics to read what I write and compare it to what well-received woo-meisters write and judge honestly- and to themselves- no need to tell me- who has a firmer grasp on reality and is more likely to be addressing you in a way that will ultimately be to your benefit not our own.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 07 Oct 2012 #permalink

Let’s further assume that the coils are solenoidal (toroidal, doughnut-shaped)

Given that Seto et al. describe the apparatus as a gradiometer, I'm pretty sure that the two coils are axial solenoids mounted on on their mutual axis, with opposite heliticties, and connected at their near ends, with the idea being to achive some rejection of fields external to the measurement area between the coils. Now, since 80,000 turns of such a coil are the same as 80,000 single loops stacked on top of each other with a factor for the inclination of the winding, it could probably just be modeled as two single loops titled away from each other on their mutual symmetry axis. I'm rusty enough that this would be a tedious and error-prone exercise.

Now, if instead one winds the coils on a water-filled cylinder, one has two proton-precession magnetometers, in which case one is presumably going to have to further pulse the curves in order to decent relaxation times nd the details of the signal processing become essential. Absolutely nothing useful is describe in the abstract, just "80,000 turns" that are "carefully wound." It's certainly an ESL case, but without the actual text, which I haven't turned up, nothing is revealed.

^ Ah, the switch from half- to all-decaf is not having a happy effect on my typing. The worst is "in order to get decent relaxation times and."

@DW and others
No one is asking you to toss out what you know. Just to entertain the merest possibility that you don't know everything and that there may be things out there that do not conform to your knowledge base or your philosophy.

@ Marg ( excuse my brevity... I have a guest arriving)

In order for me to accept the basics of energy healing I would HAVE to toss large swaths of what I DO believe to be accurate reflections of 'reality' ( as defined in common parlance).

This has nothing to do with the sum total of my knowledge or anyone else's. I don't know everything and there are secrets of tfhe universe which remain hidden to ALL of us- I doubt that energy healing is one of them. I am not an expert in everything - only one or two tiny little areas of one field- I DO have a good basic grasp of general science, even better in social science. I bow to others' expertise often.

What I do ascertain is that many of those in alt med who scoff at SBM and SB psychology often have poor knowledge of general science, as well as those disciplines- scattershot and patchy- although they would speak to their enraptured audiences as though *ex cathedra*.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 07 Oct 2012 #permalink

Just to entertain the merest possibility that you don’t know everything and that there may be things out there that do not conform to your knowledge base or your philosophy.

What you stubbornly fail to grasp is that everything you are trotting out, yourself included, conforms perfectly well with my "knowledge base and philosophy." It's just not in the way that you want, which is to be really impressed.

Freaking blockquote.

Freaking blockquote.

And a cackling virtual gremlin adds another clawful of characters to its cyberspace cache.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 07 Oct 2012 #permalink

For aficionados of woo, I have been meaning to mention here my favorite manifestation of energy healing BS, 'Matrix Energetics'. ME appears to be a New Age form of charismatic Christian faith healing, complete with marks, I mean patients, falling to the ground in rapture. As the website puts it: "the person being worked on experiences a smooth wave of transformation and the body seems to drop in a completely relaxed wave instantly". Do watch the 'Exclusive 2-Point Video' available on the 'Watch Videos' page, where the practitioner pointedly says that what he is doing, "at the quantum level collapses the pattern of what you're measuring", just as the mark collapses. Meaningless drivel with a hypnotic command embedded in it. Clever and despicable in equal measure.

A typical quote:

Matrix Energetics sometimes appears magical in its expression but is based on the laws and expression of subtle energy physics and the concepts and laws of quantum physics, superstring theory and Sheldrake's Morphic Resonance.

Just your cup of tea Marg, I imagine.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 07 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg @ 2:17 pm

No one is asking you to toss out what you know. Just to entertain the merest possibility that you don’t know everything and that there may be things out there that do not conform to your knowledge base or your philosophy.

Marg, I don’t have a problem with acknowledging I don’t know everything. Here’s what I do have a problem with: your smug suggestions that you do know better than everyone here.
Your comment is particularly offensive given the fact that for months now you have demonstrated over and over again that you do not really have a basic grasp of scientific method, or what should constitute convincing evidence. You ignore criticism. Instead of thinking about the questions posed to you, you toss out reading suggestions that are books, or random websites which “ conform to your knowledge base or your philosophy.” Hmmm. Can you see where I’m going with this?

Please, Marg: take your own advice.

No one is asking you to toss out what you know. Just to entertain the merest possibility that you don’t know everything and that there may be things out there that do not conform to your knowledge base or your philosophy.

Yet another tour of distractions away from the fact that MARG HAS NO EVIDENCE THAT ENERGY HEALING WORKS.

Or, what Chemmomo said.

@Chemomo

Here’s what I do have a problem with: your smug suggestions that you do know better than everyone here.

Especially her smug suggestions that she knows far more about physics than we do. I find this assertion is common among woos whose knowledge of physics is at the "What the Bleep do we Know" level. These people do not even know what the "quantum" in quantum physics refers to. I also find it both hilarious and annoying when she invokes the second law of thermodynamics (a favourite of anti-science types like creationists and AGW denialists) as an objection to the Big Bang while happily believing someone could evaporate all the water in cumulus cloud by pointing at it and projecting "energy". Apparently she believes she has more knowledge of thermodynamics than an astrophysicist.

Instead of thinking about the questions posed to you, you toss out reading suggestions that are books, or random websites which “ conform to your knowledge base or your philosophy.”

When posed with the "which bar is the magnet" problem, she immediately resorted to Google instead of trying to solve the problem by thinking about it. And she accuses us of blindly following authority.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 07 Oct 2012 #permalink

It still beggars belief that she continues to post random thoughts without thinking about what is being said. I continue to be stunned that she carries on blithely waving her hands over all and sundry without acknowledging that things in the medical world have changed and evolved since she started the charade of her 'energy healing' practice. I am getting more than frustrated with her and on a level that the Thing dong troll used to make me feel.....

@DW
In order for me to accept the basics of energy healing I would HAVE to toss large swaths of what I DO believe to be accurate reflections of ‘reality’ ( as defined in common parlance).

What better illustration that is all predicated on belief, as Sheldrake suggests.

ARRRGGHHHHH!!!!!!

Any actual evidence Sheldrake's right, to counter the near infinite body of evidence there's a real world out there that doesn't give a damn about who beleives what?

I'm sure that lurkers ( if any are still around) are asking themselves, " Where is this thread going?" besides than tying itself into Celtic knots or wrapping itself into a Mobius strip?

If you were to read alt med lit or listen to a profound lecture on the nature of the soul or reality, you would encounter similar material and your own bias of belief would be questioned while the presenter would bury you in tons of soft material that *proves* the altie point.

I have some pretty strong beliefs: when I look around the room, I assume that what I perceive has a bit of congruence to physical reality; if I take a plane, I assume that a certain amount of lift is required to get the thing off the ground; should I have a conversation, I rely on the rules of etiquette and formation of complex verbs somehow holding up; the rules of matrix algebra or the market won't suddenly collapse into a heap .... I hope you get my point.

But the alternate vision isn't concerned with these facets of practical reality but immerses itself into a flight of stylistic ideas that have absolutely no grounding in the muck and gravelly sand of everyday living and grappling with its vicissitudes.

An example: last night's PRN Talkback ( archived) included a woo-meister's advice to an older guy who suffered from a history of panic attacks- the woo-meister suggested Chi Gung, "tapping" (EFT), juicing, supplements, meditation, spirituality et al.

People who experience panic attacks have a different physiological make-up from others who do not experience this symptom. It's just how it is.

The guy is suffering and is led down the garden path of altie distraction and high sounding invocations about his 'spirit'. A 'little yellow pill' would help him almost immediately and calm the other physiological symptoms ( CV especially) that could harm him in *other* ways. He would be told ( by alties) that the pharmacological solution would be at risk to his health, perhaps even to his soul.

I find advice like this to be a public dis-service because it mis-leads trusting people who suffer and provides no real relief for them. Only talk and mis-direction.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 08 Oct 2012 #permalink

In order for me to accept the basics of energy healing I would HAVE to toss large swaths of what I DO believe to be accurate reflections of ‘reality’ ( as defined in common parlance).

This seems pretty much analogous to my perspective on Creationism. To accept Creationism and reject evolution, we would have to give up all our understanding of life on Earth, dismiss all the accurate predictions we made as coincidence, and replace the understandable connections with chaos and abject ignorance. Evolution is what makes all the scattered facts of life fit together so well, and they haven't provided a decent alternative.

To accept energy healing would be quite similar. We have a pretty reliable understanding of how the human body works. We use that knowledge to devise and test new treatments, which expands out understanding in consistent ways. To accept energy healing and reject the "reductionist" material model of medicine, we'd have to believe that the underlying mechanisms behind those reliable, working treatments is wrong and that all our collective successes are the illusion of dumb luck on an unbelievable scale.

That's the problem with a lot of woo. They want us to dismiss humanity's successes as epic coincidence and accept their old alternatives based on much flimsier ground than well-evidenced, continually updated and corrected scientific theories. They don't seem interested in the scale of what they're asking, treating our position like irrational brand loyalty or a youthful rebellion.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 08 Oct 2012 #permalink

DW - good first sentence that gave structure to my own thoughts when the recent entries in "Recent insolence returned" showed that this thread is still marg-mired. The purpose now seems to be nothing more than the determination that m. will not have the last word no matter how repetitive - not a new argument from (her) since the first round. A humbug remains a humbug no matter how much "soft material" (good phase, DW) is piled, higher or deeper.

Hi Marg (and hello to the rest of you too). Seeing as the dialogue has devolved into snide one-liner remarks and occasional links to random/marginally related pages on one side, and frustrated repetitive answers on the other, would you care to answer a few questions?

You don't need to answer all at once, as there are quite a few questions below, but I (and others I'm sure) would surely be interested in your answers.

I
What's the limit of your healing ability (to the best of your knowledge)? Are there any wounds/injuries/diseases/ailments you cannot heal, and what's your theory as to why?
I'm not asking about specific patients who failed to be treated, due to scepticism, negative thoughts or sun spots, buy rather the generic scope of your talent.
I think you mentioned that small wounds wouldn't register, but could you still heal them if you could inspect them? If not, what constitutes a small wound? Would an infected wound register better than a non-infected wound?
You tried diagnosing Narad over the internet, although admittedly, the connection was less than ideal. What is the minimum connection needed to heal a injury/ailment?
What is your success or failure percentage?

II
Are there any frauds in the healing business?
Have you ever heard about or met anybody who claimed they could heal via magic or vibrations or whatever but was just faking it? If yes, how was he/she exposed? If not, why do you think that is? Is healing so easy, is self-regulation so successful/non-existent or is it not in your interests to keep track of other healers?

III
Can you rate different healing techniques (Qi Gong, Therapeutic touch, faith healing, reiki, etc. and so on) for their healing ability and potency, or are they more or less of equal efficacy? If yes, which ones do you feel are inferior in quality to your practice?

IV
Does geographical range diminish the effect/does it stay the same/improve? Why do you think the answer is what it is? Is there a perceptible time delay in healing over great distances? Is healing several patients at once more or less effective than healing a single one? Does it matter if they are not in close vicinity of each other (like in a cage?) Is it possible to accidentally heal someone you had no contact with, but who had the same ailment as the real target? Is it possible to heal the stranger instead of the real target (meaning, how accurate is distant healing?)

V
Is the ability to dissolve clouds part of the ability to heal, or is it a separate skill? Are there other abilities/talents the gifted healer can do, separate from sensing injuries and facilitating healing.

How about it Marg? A great chance to disprove all the remarks about soft material and abrupt subject changes.

Looking forward to learning new things.
Thank you in advance.

-gaist

@ THS:

I thank you again for your kindness. I try to create succinct phrases of my own so that I am not tempted to steal from other writers.

As you may know, there's a great deal of soft material in alt med and I have waded through most of it : it seems as if the public eats it up like custard- I think that its popularity illustrates a public desire to learn more about the world, people and how everything works ; pseudo-science sells and internet media- like the steaming swamps of irrationality I traverse-is becoming wildly successful because people are searching for solutions : woo-meisters blithely promise but can't deliver anything... except soft answers to hard questions.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 08 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Agashem
Loved the response.

@Gaist
All very reasonable questions.

I
I never make any assumptions ahead of time that what I do is going to work. There are variables out of my control, many of them to do with the person I am working with. I can tell you for certain that there is not much I can do about the common cold or even its attendant misery. Since the misery is caused by the immune response, that's probably just as well. So viruses are out of bounds. I can tell you anecdotally that soft tissue injuries respond well. I can tell you that because I've had many instances where I've seen a positive response. The reason I told Narad a small self-inflicted cut might not register was that we were discussing distance diagnoses, and I thought a small cut was too minor an issue for that. I cannot tell you my rate of success at distance diagnoses because it's not something I do all that often. I do know that in person I can more often than not pick the spot that's in need of treatment. Usually what registers is heat or a general feeling of congestion. I don't put my hands on the person so the heat I am feeling is either radiated or energetic. What I am most often "called to" is inflammation.

II
There must be frauds in the energy healing business just as there are in other fields of human endeavor. I would say it would be difficult to expose them. A large number of patients would have to come forward to say that this person had lied to them or took advantage of them. But this is true of medicine as well, as in the case of a gynecologist who was so supremely incompetent that he maimed dozens of women and kept moving (from province to province in Canada and then to the UK) to avoid his accusers. Then there was the Canadian pathologist whose false testimony wrongfully sent many parents whose children died to jail.

On the whole I am mistrustful of people who create "empires" or large businesses out their healing ability. For instance, I liked Dr. Bengston better before he had a CD to sell. I still believe him on the subject of the mice, but I would like to be shown that he can also cure people, and that he can teach people to heal to the same degree he can.

I think I mentioned before that the big problem with energy healing is that the ability varies greatly from practitioner to practitioner. I think Bengston says that it's like musical ability, ranging from a few Mozarts to people who can manage to play Chopsticks on the piano. I have no idea how regulation will be managed, but the first step to regulation is to recognize it as something viable. And the second step after that is some kind of measurement.

III
My answer to III is a corollary to my answer to II: it's in part dependent on the practitioner. I wouldn't rate any particular method as lesser or greater on its own merits, although I would not rate prayer per se as a "healing technique". I would also admit to a certain prejudice against "faith healing" of the televangelist variety. I don't "faith healing" and "energy healing" as synonyms.

IV
I wouldn't impute a range. Accuracy is an interesting question: Claude Swanson cites a qigong master who could kill cancer in a petri dish from thousands of miles away and deliberately leave another petri dish on the next shelf untouched. Based on Dr. Bengston's performance with the mice, I would say he is not very accurate. And again based on Bengston's experience I would say it might be possible to affect the wrong person, or an adjacent person, unintentionally -- but then how would we know?

V
Cloud busting may or may not be a correlate to healing ability. That's something else that hasn't been tested. Individuals might have other correlated abilities, but that would be individually determined.

One of the reasons I would like scientists to take energy healing seriously is that I do believe their input to be valuable. If we could go beyond studies trying to debunk energy healing (such as Emily Rosa's) to studies that tried to figure out what it was and how it worked we could understand it better. If we understood it better we could make it more reliably effective and perhaps figure out a means of delivery that did not require the waving of hands. A partnership of scientists and healers instead of the current state of discordance could lead to something truly revolutionary.

A large number of patients would have to come forward to say that this person had lied to them or took advantage of them

A small number will do, with appropriate word of mouth.

If we could go beyond studies trying to debunk energy healing the Tooth Fairy (such as Emily Rosa’s) to studies that tried to figure out what it who she was and how it she worked we could understand it her better.

We could cure cancer if you would just believe hard enough'd.

@Narad
The internet would be a great venue for word to get around about such people. I occasionally google names of healers with the word "fraud" or "exposed". I don't find much. Usually it's skeptical websites such as this one accusing them of being fraudulent without any evidence. But you would think that unhappy customers who feel they have been fleeced would make lots of noise.

@Narad
Mind like a steel trap. Tell me, where is it? Is your mind in your brain? In your head? Outside? How big is it? Does it encompass the universe?

A large number of patients would have to come forward to say that this person had lied to them or took advantage of them...

That's a rather naive point of view. There are a lot of social factors that discourage people from doing that.

1. Altie culture strongly discourages criticism of one of their gurus. Some people risk becoming a pariah among their social group. Same thing happens among religious communities.

2. Altie culture indoctrinates people into the idea that if a quack treatment doesn't work, it's always the patient's fault. They were thinking negative thoughts. Their faith wasn't strong enough. The didn't want it bad enough. They cheated on their ultra-strict diet by splurging just once, ruining the entire thing. If the patient believes the excuses and blames himself, he's not going to blame the guru. Again, same thing with religious groups.

3. People don't want to admit they were fooled or that they were wrong. Some people puff their egos up so much they don't dare suffer embarrassment for being foolish, so they avoid drawing attention when wronged.

4. If a treatment doesn't work, altie culture has stressed "what works for you" in the vaguest sense, to encourage patients to keep trying more altie treatments until they find one that seems to work. The key is that there's seldom any rhyme or reason behind why one quackery would work for one person but not another. It's usually nothing but ad hoc hypotheses. Quite often, if someone keeps trying ineffective treatments, they'll be fooled by the regressive fallacy into thinking one worked.

Of course, there are exceptions, as Narad links to, but from what I've seen, they're a minority.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 08 Oct 2012 #permalink

Tell me, where is it?

Right in front of my nose.

Is your mind in your brain? In your head?

That would make for a very small mind.

Outside?

That's your trip, Marg.

How big is it?

Size 9-1/2.

Does it encompass the universe?

Ask the cat; it knows the answer.

OK, now I have one for you, only a two-parter: (1) Where does thinking come from? (2) Where does it go?

@Narad
If it's in front of your nose, how do you perceive it?

If it's not inside your head, because it's too small, how can it not be outside? Also, if it's in front of your nose, how can it not be outside?

Thinking doesn't come and it doesn't go. It is.

Why should we be obligated to prove that they're fraudulent when they've failed to provide good evidence that their treatments work? Do you think we should just believe in everyone's accuracy and honesty by default? Is trust supposed to be given away blindly?

Here's another hint, Marg: We don't claim they're all conscious, knowing frauds. A lot of them are sincere but deluded. It's hard to tell the difference much of the time, so I prefer to judge by the plausibility of their claims and evaluate the evidence, rather than play psychic.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 08 Oct 2012 #permalink

We believe in the accuracy and honesty of doctors, scientists and pharmaceutical companies. And how sometimes we are deceived. I have to keep coming back to this: many more people have died unnecessarily in the hands of doctors and after taking prescriptions drugs than at the hands of alternative practitioners.

"prescription drugs"

Thinking doesn’t come and it doesn’t go. It is.

You give me this answer, and I drop an anvil on your head. Where is your thinking now?

@Narad
You don't know. I don't know. I could still be somewhere thinking, "crap, I don't believe he just dropped an anvil on my head." And you be going to jail, bro.

You don't know.

I'm not the spiritual four-flusher here.

I don’t know.

Good start. Now, reconcile this with your statement, "Thinking doesn't come and go. It just is."

You are unconscious. Where is it?

You are saying thinking and consciousness are the same?

@Narad
In the NDE literature people are quite happily thinking while unconscious, in a coma, under anaesthetic, or to all intents and purposes dead. So that would suggest to me that consciousness and thinking are not inextricably linked. Or even that consciousness and being physically conscious are.

You are saying thinking and consciousness are the same?

I am asking you a question, Marg.

And here is my response:
@Narad
In the NDE literature people are quite happily thinking while unconscious, in a coma, under anaesthetic, or to all intents and purposes dead. So that would suggest to me that consciousness and thinking are not inextricably linked. Or even that consciousness and being physically conscious are.

In the NDE literature people are quite happily thinking while unconscious, in a coma, under anaesthetic, or to all intents and purposes dead. So that would suggest to me that consciousness and thinking are not inextricably linked. Or even that consciousness and being physically conscious are.

You are attached to name and form, Marg. Small mind.

How do you know those experiences happened while they were under, rather than, say, while they were drifting off or while 'rebooting'? Our memories don't have timestamps and we don't have precision clocks. I also doubt there's a genuine brain state that is completely "off." Consciousness has a spectrum, not a binary on/off thing.

Oh, and Qualia Soup conveniently released a couple videos on some of the topic recently:
Substance Dualism part 1 and part 2.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 08 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ Marg:

There is a huge difference between the groups you mention and alt med practitioners:

professionals are made to jump through a series of HOOPS, each held a bit higher than the last, from approximately the age of 12 at least until they retire- you need to fulfill admissions requirements, interviews, studies, exams and other qualifications that increase in difficulty as you ascend.
You are monitored if you are entrusted with care of patients ( or subjects) by your fellows and the government.
Similarly, pharmaceutical companies are regulated and must fulfill rules, being subject to sanction/ fines by overseers in the government's agencies.
Science is an adverserial system: if your research appears to be suspicious, you can be assured that another scientist will be eager to show you the error of your ways PUBLICLY , guaranteeing eventual recognition of his or her OWN work.

Alt med practitioners often answer to NO ONE:
their schooling may be neglible, spurious or entirely absent. Their trade is not really monitored - either by professional organisations or by the government - UNLESS someone dies directly under their physical care.

Of course, they ARE being watched by concerned people who observe too many charlatans getting away with too much prevarication becoming wealthy at the expense of gullible followers. Some surveyors even enjoy their work.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 08 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Denice Walter
And that is why pharmaceutical companies keep killing people and find themselves at the receiving of class action suits and multi-billion dollar fines?

"receiving end"

@Narad
And you keep moving the goal posts.

And you keep moving the goal posts.

Go drink tea.

@Narad
Excellent idea.

@Marg

I never make any assumptions ahead of time that what I do is going to work. There are variables out of my control, many of them to do with the person I am working with.

Blah blah blah no guarantees, get out clause, no evidence, just assertions, blah blah

If we could go beyond studies trying to debunk energy healing (such as Emily Rosa’s) to studies that tried to figure out what it was and how it worked we could understand it better.

As Brian Dunning is want to say: first we work it IF there is an effect to study. Then we worry about what it is and how it works.

Right there is your problem Marg. You've focused so completely on the latter you've forgotten you first need to prove the former. Which by the way, is exactly what Emily was trying to do.

If it’s in front of your nose, how do you perceive it?

If it’s not inside your head, because it’s too small, how can it not be outside? Also, if it’s in front of your nose, how can it not be outside?

Thinking doesn’t come and it doesn’t go. It is.

Blah blah philosophy, blah, postmodernism, blah more assertions, blah

Is it me, or has Marg's arguments become "I know you are, but what am I?" sort of style?

Nice to know she's not even bothering anymore.

I have to keep coming back to this: many more people have died unnecessarily in the hands of doctors and after taking prescriptions drugs than at the hands of alternative practitioners.

Here's a funny idea: let's find out HOW these people were discovered. Did someone wave a hand over their body and realise that they'd done something wrong? Or perhaps, was the scientific method used to discover fraud?

As for the rest, I see a pattern. Marg will respond in detail to any person who isn't on her naughty list, until she realises that they won't change their mind, and then, on the list they go.

Marg,

But you would think that unhappy customers who feel they have been fleeced would make lots of noise.

I strongly suspect that's because energy healers, like other CAM practitioners, do nothing but exploit suggestion, expectation, confirmation bias and regression to the mean in conditions that have a large psychological component, are self-limiting and/or have a variable course.

The rest is unfalsifiable stuff about balancing energies, chakras etc.. I'm surprised you don't claim to be able to affect colds, as even homeopathy can reduce the duration of a cold from a whole week to only 7 days.

I have to keep coming back to this: many more people have died unnecessarily in the hands of doctors and after taking prescriptions drugs than at the hands of alternative practitioners.

You still completely miss the point. The important point is that millions of people's lives are saved every year by prescription drugs and millions have their quality of life greatly improved by them. To return to my favorite example, anticoagulant drugs cause more serious adverse events than any other type of drug, thousands die every year, yet hundreds of thousands of lives are saved. Would you have us abandon them, and condemn hundreds of thousands of people to death every year? Can energy healing replace anticoagulant drugs? What about insulin, antibiotics, antiretrovirals, thyroxine and many, many others?

I have yet to see any convincing evidence that alternative practitioners have saved anyone's life ever, except perhaps by noticing a serious health issue and referring them to a real doctor.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

I want to add a little meat to my last comment, since deaths due to adverse drug events comes up with tedious regularity. This study carried out in a Norwegian hospital gives an idea of the circumstances in which fatal adverse drug events usually occur. The average age of these patients was over 70, most had comorbidity with more than 20% having 8 diagnoses or more, and more than a quarter had concomitant heart and obstructive lung disease.

Short version, these patients were elderly and very sick, with multiple serious conditions requiring a variety of drugs. This is an old study, but I doubt much has changed, apart from better safety standards being introduced, as we have aging populations and increasing polycomorbidity.

I get increasingly frustrated with people pointing out the number of people who die from medical interventions when they have absolutely no alternative to offer. What would you do for these patients Marg? Wave your hands over them while they died in agony?

One last thing. I would like to point out that over 30,000 people die in road traffic incidents in the USA, while none died in magic carpet accidents, apart from a few who failed to get to the hospital in time when in need of medical attention. We should surely encourage the use of magic carpets for transportation instead of cars and trucks.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

wow, go to Nippising for a few days and the zombie lives still.

If we could go beyond studies trying to debunk energy healing (such as Emily Rosa’s) to studies that tried to figure out what it was and how it worked we could understand it better. If we understood it better we could make it more reliably effective and perhaps figure out a means of delivery that did not require the waving of hands."

But asking the question Emily asked is out of bounds? It is unreasonable to better understand something by examining the ability of the claimants?

500 consumers, 1/2 healthy the other with various soft tissue issues. Marg gathers herself and those whose incomes fall below her threshold of trust.

We segregate the professional energy healers and double blind it by having someone else - Oprah? - know which consumer has what.

We let them loose on the study group and record the results. But they cant ask where it hurts, just pass the hands over the body to find the afflicted area.

I predict not only will the energy healing pros perform as poorly as under The Rosa Protocol, they will also have a broad range of diagnoses and excuses for their woeful inaccuracy.

Ever know anyone who's had a stroke Marg? Some people can't walk, or their faces droop, or they lose great chunks of memory or develop aphasia. The damaged areas of the brain are evident and known.

God answers all prayers. Sometimes the answer is no.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

Having coffee and getting bored with debating with fundamentalists

@Krebiozen
Many of those people die from the drug cocktails they've been imbibing for decades. They get prescribed one drug, get side effects, get prescribed another drug to deal with the side effects and so on and so forth. If the first condition was properly treated in a non-pharmaceutical way they likely would not need the cocktail.

@Al Kimeea
Just because the radio is broken and cannot pick up signals does not mean that the signals are all inside the radio.

@Al Kimeea

We let them loose on the study group and record the results. But they cant ask where it hurts, just pass the hands over the body to find the afflicted area.

I did suggest to Marg a study where cold reading wasn't allowed and the healer had to be blindfolded. She had no response. And by hers to you, I'd say she's still stumped.

Apparently directing healing at mice in cages from a distance is allowed, but healing close up without using cold reading is just too scary a thought!

@Krebiozen
24 people have recently died in Canada after committing suicide after taking a smoking-cessation aid called Champix.

Some people are now estimating the number of deaths from Vioxx at 500,000, based on a steep declne in mortality rates after Vioxx was pulled from the market:

http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/holmesandco/2012/05/16/the-vioxx-body-coun…

Are you implying that when the elderly die from prescription drugs it doesn't matter because they are elderly and they would have died anyway?

@Flip
I'd take up that challenge, but I can't speak for my fellow practitioners.

Yet another tour of distractions away from the fact that MARG HAS NO EVIDENCE THAT ENERGY HEALING WORKS.

Or knows how to post reliable sources of information. Or knows how to make a comment without resorting to logical fallacies.

I’d take up that challenge, but I can’t speak for my fellow practitioners.

Feel free to post the peer-reviewed study when it's published. Put up or shut up.

@Flip
Don't miss the train.

@flip - we aren't supposed to determine if there's any actual effect, any legitimacy to the claims because Marg

I wonder where the signals in her head come from? Fort thought human affairs were directed from Mars...

By al kimeea (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

Some people are now estimating the number of deaths from Vioxx at 500,000, based on a steep declne in mortality rates after Vioxx was pulled from the market:

Marg, did you read the comments to this article? They blow this premise of 500, 000 deaths right out of the water. With such a sloppy approach to things, it's good that your so-called energy healing doesn't really do a damn thing.

@Flip
You sound like a politician. Repeat a statement in capital letters over and over again doesn't make it true.

The Bengston experiments provide adequate proof if you are willing to think hard enough.

I find it very interesting that all of you seem willing to defend the authority of science to your last drop of blood yet at the same time are quite prepared to believe (and completely unfazed by the notion) that trained scientists at university laboratories would have screwed up 10 or 12 of Bengston's experiments either by providing him with faulty mice or through inadequate handling of the experimental animals.

"repeating"

I think what I find most frustrating about Marg is her limited imagination.

Just because the radio is broken and cannot pick up signals does not mean that the signals are all inside the radio.

This is a tired old trope. Why does a soul need a brain to act as a "radio"? All you're doing to the question of how the mind works is adding a middle man, artificially inflating the complexity without good cause.

Out of curiosity, Marg, do you think that drunk people's souls are floating out in the ether, screaming at their body for doing stupid things, only for it to not respond? From what I've heard, their consciousness only does that after the event, after their livers break down the alcohol content in their bodies. And that's assuming they remember any of it.

Can we build a spiritual Faraday cage around someone's body to block their reception that doesn't involve altering their brain?

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Al Kimeea

Was there an end to your sentence that's gone missing? The gremlin seems to be back.

@Marg

You sound like a politician. Repeat a statement in capital letters over and over again doesn’t make it true.

Honey, I'm just trying to move you off the Gish gallop. If you posted something that wasn't repeated ad naseum already, it might help. If you stopped running all over the place, that'd help too. I'm simply trying to get you to reply to questions that have been asked over the weeks; and to remind regulars and lurkers that you continually avoid doing so.

That it annoys you suggests that perhaps you don't like being called on the fact that you have nothing but 12 studies up your sleeve - bad ones at that.

The Bengston experiments provide adequate proof if you are willing to think hard enough.

Mmm, no they don't. Replication is key. Something you keep ignoring.

Anyway, I'm not defending science. Rather, I'm defending the principle of parsimony and the need for extraordinary evidence. What you don't like is that our level for that evidence is higher than yours, and because we won't accept your assertions without proof, you think that's somehow being dogmatic.

I'd change my mind if you had something more to offer than... wait for it...
Logical fallacies, conspiracies, appeals to philosophy rather than evidence, lack of evidence, contradictions, and anecdotes. Oh, and the Gish gallop.

Now, I think I'll be taking that train. Anyone want to join me on a trip to Piccadilly?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/07/proof-of-heaven-a-doct…

This is from a neurosurgeon, folks. One of your own:

"There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility.

But that dimension—in rough outline, the same one described by countless subjects of near-death experiences and other mystical states—is there. It exists, and what I saw and learned there has placed me quite literally in a new world: a world where we are much more than our brains and bodies, and where death is not the end of consciousness but rather a chapter in a vast, and incalculably positive, journey."
...
"All the chief arguments against near-death experiences suggest that these experiences are the results of minimal, transient, or partial malfunctioning of the cortex. My near-death experience, however, took place not while my cortex was malfunctioning, but while it was simply off. This is clear from the severity and duration of my meningitis, and from the global cortical involvement documented by CT scans and neurological examinations. According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent."
...
"What happened to me demands explanation.

Modern physics tells us that the universe is a unity—that it is undivided. Though we seem to live in a world of separation and difference, physics tells us that beneath the surface, every object and event in the universe is completely woven up with every other object and event. There is no true separation.

Before my experience these ideas were abstractions. Today they are realities. Not only is the universe defined by unity, it is also—I now know—defined by love. The universe as I experienced it in my coma is—I have come to see with both shock and joy—the same one that both Einstein and Jesus were speaking of in their (very) different ways.

I’ve spent decades as a neurosurgeon at some of the most prestigious medical institutions in our country. I know that many of my peers hold—as I myself did—to the theory that the brain, and in particular the cortex, generates consciousness and that we live in a universe devoid of any kind of emotion, much less the unconditional love that I now know God and the universe have toward us. But that belief, that theory, now lies broken at our feet. What happened to me destroyed it, and I intend to spend the rest of my life investigating the true nature of consciousness and making the fact that we are more, much more, than our physical brains as clear as I can, both to my fellow scientists and to people at large.

I don’t expect this to be an easy task, for the reasons I described above. When the castle of an old scientific theory begins to show fault lines, no one wants to pay attention at first. The old castle simply took too much work to build in the first place, and if it falls, an entirely new one will have to be constructed in its place."

This is in response to the discussion about brains and thought. Happy Tuesday.

By the way Marg, I'll note that you have no response to my suggestion that you go and make your own study. If you're perfectly happy to do it, why not shut up, go away, do the study, and come back when it's been published?

Instead you simply remark on trains. Gee, that convinces me that you care about providing scientific evidence, doesn't it?

Science is fine when it provides you studies you like: but a paradigm to be ignored when it doesn't.

This is exactly the reason I'm repeating myself. If you had any sense you'd go away and do the science to lord it over us later.

Marg,

Many of those people die from the drug cocktails they’ve been imbibing for decades. They get prescribed one drug, get side effects, get prescribed another drug to deal with the side effects and so on and so forth. If the first condition was properly treated in a non-pharmaceutical way they likely would not need the cocktail.

Do you actually have any evidence for this claim? I'm sick of people who have never worked in a hospital or otherwise had to deal with really sick patients making these stupid claims about death by medicine that don't stand up to the slightest scrutiny. Do you have any examples of clotting disorders, insulin dependent diabetes, atrial fibrillation, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer or any other serious illness being "properly treated in a non-pharmaceutical way"? This is truly ignorant, arrogant BS.

24 people have recently died in Canada after committing suicide after taking a smoking-cessation aid called Champix.

I might respond by pointing out that half of all smokers will die of a smoking-related illness, so overall the drug probably saves lives, even if it does genuinely lead to suicide, which is far from certain. Nicotine withdrawal can make people pretty miserable too. Yet again you are trying to distract us away from the fact that alternative practitioners save no lives at all.

Some people are now estimating the number of deaths from Vioxx at 500,000, based on a steep declne in mortality rates after Vioxx was pulled from the market:

As TBruce pointed out, that doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny either. Let's look at Vioxx, since it's another favorite target of alternative practitioners - apologies to regulars who have seen this before. Vioxx was associated with a 24% increase in heart attacks in a large Canadian study of elderly patients (PMID:15809459). That equates to 2.2 extra heart attacks in 1000 patients taking a low dose of Vioxx for a year and 7.7 extra heart attacks in those taking a high dose. Vioxx, as we all know, was taken off the market because of this increased risk of cardiovascular events.

Calcium supplementation increased the risk of a heart attack by 86% (HR=1.86; 95% CI 1.17 to 2.96) in another study (PMID: 22626900) of younger people, "aged 35-64 years and free of major CVD events at recruitment", and those who used calcium supplements alone more than doubled their risk of a heart attack (HR=2.39; 95% CI 1.12 to 5.12). If Vioxx has killed half a million, how many millions have died from calcium supplements? Aren't these the same calcium supplements recommended by those alternative practitioners who do no harm?

Are you implying that when the elderly die from prescription drugs it doesn’t matter because they are elderly and they would have died anyway?

Please don't be so obtuse. The point I was making was that the vast majority of people who die from adverse drug events are very sick elderly people with multiple serious, life-threatening conditions who are extremely difficult to manage. With an aging population hospitals see a never-ending stream of patients with diabetes, COPD, congestive cardiac failure, cancer, pneumonia, fractures from a fall and other serious comorbidities. These patients are undoubtedly going to die without treatment, and often the treatment may have serious side effects. We all have to die of something, and often the end of our lives will be in a hospital with a medical team having to decide when to stop aggressive treatment.

What is your alternative? Travel back in time to wave your hands over them to stop them getting sick in the first place? The implication I come across time and time again is that otherwise healthy people are dying in their droves from the effect of drugs prescribed by their family doctor, when this is simply not true. In my experience when a young and relatively healthy patient dies from an adverse drug event or from an error it makes it into the local and regional press. The picture you are painting is both inaccurate and dishonest.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

Argument from authority. Argument from anecdote. Argument from personal incredulity AKA argument from lack of imagination.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

My previous post was in response to the neurosurgeon who jumped to unwarranted conclusions solely from subjective experience and apparent ignorance that some people still have brain activity while in a comatose or coma-like state, as well as have brain activity in the process of going into or coming out of such states.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

Question for the regulars - has Marg achieved the Dochniak level of persistent trolling yet? She's not selling a book, but I'd say she's just as committed to a completely unproven theory as he was.

By Edith Prickly (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Bronze Dog

Yep. She could fill up 20 bingo cards all on her own. In fact, I just went to yourlogicalfallacyis.com and I think I counted all but two she hasn't used (although I don't remember word-for-word this whole thread).

@Marg

I never make any assumptions ahead of time that what I do is going to work. There are variables out of my control, many of them to do with the person I am working with. I can tell you for certain that there is not much I can do about the common cold or even its attendant misery.

Since the misery [from common cold] is caused by the immune response, that’s probably just as well.

Can you reduce fever? If yes, is there a difference between fever caused by a disease or fever caused by inflammation?

I can tell you anecdotally that soft tissue injuries respond well. I can tell you that because I’ve had many instances where I’ve seen a positive response.

How immediate is the pain relief, and how quickly do other symptoms disappear? Do they usually disappear fully or lessen? Are there some ailments that always require several visits, or are they one session treatments? If some require more sessions, do you have a theory as to why?

How well do you follow up on your patients? What kind of instructions do you usually give to your patients as they leave, or is the repair quick enough that there is little need? If you do give such instructions, do you think they differ greatly from instructions a medical doctor would give for a similiar injury? Do you recommend pain medication for inflammation you've treated?

There must be frauds in the energy healing business just as there are in other fields of human endeavor. I would say it would be difficult to expose them.

Do you think there are more fraudulent healers than conventional medical professionals, or less? As these frauds obviously are a health hazard (in as much as they leave ailments untreated), is there a possibility of the frauds and/or incompetents diminishing the whole field (like, it seems, bad drugs do the whole pharma industry)?

A large number of patients would have to come forward to say that this person had lied to them or took advantage of them.But this is true of medicine as well

Do you think healers could benefit from similar regulatory system that is in place in modern medicine? Would licensing, periodical re-examinations, medical boards, malpractice insurances and peer-review improve the standard of your field? If yes, is there any effort into creating one (or is there one in place and I'm just ignorant)? If not, how come?

I don’t “faith healing” and “energy healing” as synonyms.

My apologies.

And again based on Bengston’s experience I would say it might be possible to affect the wrong person, or an adjacent person, unintentionally — but then how would we know?

Do you feel there is a danger of, for example, getting rid of the wrong bacteria inside a body (instead of treating an infection or getting rid of a parasite healer wrecks the gut flora) or damaging the patient otherwise, via inaccuracy (either of position or of force, e.g. trying to treat high blood pressure and either making it drop dangerously low or increase even higher)? Or is there some innate safety mechanism in healing (can a healer for example harm a parasite in order to heal the host)?

Here's an anecdote about the whole separate consciousness deal. Can't remember where I heard this so sorry, no source, just an anecdote. A group of anaesthetists decided to test the out-of-body experience claims made by some people who had undergone major surgery. They wrote a phone number on top of a high shelf, only visible to someone floating in the middle of the room, and wrote "If you saw this in an out-of-body experience, call this number and I'll give you $1000." Nobody ever did.

If we are all projected from somewhere else, are the originals as different as we are, or do our brains just scramble the incoming signal? Do our brains broadcast back to the source, or is our memories only within ourselves?

Shall I catch the train at Mornington Crescent I wonder?

It's best to avoid the Northern Line whenever possible, in my experience.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

I've got a counter-experience to the neurosurgeon's. It's from surgery. I was talking with the anesthesiologist as the IV was flowing into my arm, and all of the sudden, I woke up groggy and in pain several hours later when (I presume) a nurse called my name. I reasoned that a moan was the most succinct way to communicate that I was (partially) conscious and in pain. I didn't spend those missing hours floating in the ether waiting for my body to pick up the phone. I was spending those hours being unconscious, or at the very least, in a minimally conscious state that didn't involve transcribing long term memories I could later refer to.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

Another related thought - if energy healing could have adverse effects, like stimulating an autoimmune response, killing off some essential gut flora or interfering with the 'biomagnetic' activity of the heart by mistake, would we know, even if they were of the same order of magnitude as those associated with Vioxx?

That's a rhetorical question, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "no". Would Marg even notice a 24% increase in heart attacks in people she has treated, over the course of a year? I very much doubt it. Is there really such a thing as a treatment that has effects that are only ever beneficial?

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ Marg:

Why would pharmaceutical companies want to kill PAYING customers? Seriously, life has been extended through the usage of SBM and meds: why do you think that so many LIVE long enough to NEED several rxs for conditions like CV, diabetes?

Here's an anecdote that reflects population data:
part of my family has clear records of members' births/ deaths in TWO countries over the past 125 years or so. Quite a few people died young near the turn of the last century from illnesses that would be either unheard of today or easily treated ( flu, TB, infection et al). All of these folks were white, middle to upper middle class, business-oriented, big city dwellers. In addition, LONGEVITY has increased in my family, just as it has in the general population: no reached the age of 90 until the 1980s and there have been several since then and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them was on heart and/or bp meds- they didn't do it through juicing and supplements!

Marg, your material soungs like Gary Null ( Death By Medicine): I expect better of you - your IQ is most likely a sd higher and you have a much better command of the English language.

Whenever someone complains that people died from a drug, I ask " Why did they take it IN THE FIRST PLACE?"
Why are these patients Krebiozen describes on multiple meds at all? Not because they're healthy.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

@flip - nope

By al kimeea (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

I was knocked unconscious playing football (hand-egg to most of the rest of the world)

when I came to, I thought I was waking up from one of those flying dreams

until I hit the ground, 1-2 seconds after impact

By al kimeea (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

The neurology of near death experiences

Neurologists have since recognized that the temporoparietal region of the brain is responsible for maintaining our body schema representation. When external current is applied to this region, it ceases to function normally and our body schema “floats.” Further evidence that this phenomenon is an illusion comes from experiments in which people who’ve had out-of-body experiences when transitioning from sleep to wakefulness were unable to identify objects placed in the room after they’d fallen asleep, strongly suggesting the picture they viewed of themselves sleeping in their beds was reconstructed from memory. Though no evidence yet exists that low blood oxygen levels cause dysfunction of the temperoparietal region in the same way as does applied current, this remains a testable hypothesis and the most likely explanation.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

Whenever someone complains that people died from a drug, I ask ” Why did they take it IN THE FIRST PLACE?”

Nice distillation of the point.

Once upon a time, health was a luxury you couldn't buy because no one could offer an improved chance at it. Now that science has made some level of health relatively affordable for people in developed nations, alties now assume that health was the natural state all along and that illness is artificial. It's sickening.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

To add to al kimeea's last comment, that neuroscientist's account reminded me of a very vivid and realistic 'out-of-body experience' I had when I was younger, not under the influence of drugs or anything like that, just taking a nap one afternoon, and experimenting with some techniques for inducing 'OOBEs' I had read about.

I saw my own body lying on the bed, passed through walls and ceilings, encountered and even battled with various entities and had a number of adventures in extraordinarily beautiful realms.

However, I also apparently witnessed a couple of things that I was able to check on later - I saw some people in another part of the house I was in, and saw some objects in a part of the room I was in that was out of my sight. Neither of them had any basis in reality - I had imagined them.

As vivid and compelling as that experience was, and it certainly was, the most likely explanation I have to accept is that it was an exceptionally vivid dream or something similar. Of course I wasn't in a coma, but I somehow doubt even the most sensitive neurological tests can detect every flicker of consciousness. That's why deciding on brain death isn't as clear-cut as you might think.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

In the NDE literature people are quite happily thinking while unconscious, in a coma, under anaesthetic, or to all intents and purposes dead.

Actually no, Marg: there isn’t. There are people who, after recovering consciousness, recovering from a coma, or after the anesthesia has worn off, asserted that while unconscious they were actively thinking/observing or famously 'hovering above their bodies " as a spectator, but there's no actual evidence indicating these reports are accurate representations of actual events or experiences.

The Bengston experiments provide adequate proof if you are willing to think hard enough.

The Bengston experiments however found that energy healing treatment is no more effective at treating cancer in mice than no treatment whatsoever: both the treated and untreated mice survived, remember? No amount of wishful thinking, hand-waving or invoking buzz words like "quantum entanglement" can alter that simple fact.

Would you accept a clinical trial which found patients who receive a chemotherapeutic drug had absolutely identical survival times as patients who received absolutely no treatment whatsoever as proof the drug effectively cured cancer?

If not, why do you keep citing Bengston's studies as if they were evidence that energy healing cures cancer?

One thing I've been informed of: This guy's a neurosurgeon. Michael Egnor's also a neurosurgeon, right? One of the sad and disturbing things I've learned from Egnor's example is that being able and licensed to perform precision cuts on a brain does not necessarily involve an understanding of the brain or consciousness, or even being at all aware of the trends or current state of neuroscience. Either that, or it doesn't rule out heavy compartmentalization, able to believe in monism while prepping for surgery but able to believe in dualism while on the internet.

Noteworthy point: This neurosurgeon wrote about these experiences over a period of time after the coma. Human memory isn't an objective recording of events. People can unintentionally invent false memories. We're story-driven creatures, and we feel a need to fill in gaps in our personal narratives.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

JGC:

The Bengston experiments however found that energy healing treatment is no more effective at treating cancer in mice than no treatment whatsoever: both the treated and untreated mice survived, remember? No amount of wishful thinking, hand-waving or invoking buzz words like “quantum entanglement” can alter that simple fact.

Would you accept a clinical trial which found patients who receive a chemotherapeutic drug had absolutely identical survival times as patients who received absolutely no treatment whatsoever as proof the drug effectively cured cancer?

If not, why do you keep citing Bengston’s studies as if they were evidence that energy healing cures cancer?

I just thought this bit of JGC's comment was worth repeating.

On a political topic on another blog, I just posted a comment about a spectrum I perceive: There are principle-oriented people and position-oriented people. The former strive for a consistent rationale in how they reach their position. The latter start with an arbitrary position on an issue and then fish for principles and rationalizations to support their predetermined position. I think Marg is heavily position-oriented, and I expect her answer to JGC's question would be revealing in that regard. Of course, I won't be surprised if she avoids it.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

I find it very interesting that all of you seem willing to defend the authority of science to your last drop of blood yet at the same time are quite prepared to believe (and completely unfazed by the notion) that trained scientists at university laboratories would have screwed up 10 or 12 of Bengston’s experiments either by providing him with faulty mice or through inadequate handling of the experimental animals.

As we have pointed out, the literature does not support Bengston's claims about the mice involved, and their life expectancy. Remind me again where we can find details of those 10 or 12 experiments in reputable peer-reviewed journals, or any journals for that matter? Or anywhere that Bengston's claims about these experiments are corroborated by these "trained scientists at university laboratories"?

I have only see one account written by Bengston published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine decades after the experiments were carried out. That particular journal is full of what looks to me like credulous nonsense.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

I'd also like to point out that, like with vaccines, some people who take medications indulge in risky behaviors like swimming, sky-diving and riding or driving cars. A lot of quacks tend to 'fold-in' deaths by misadventure to drive up the numbers.
For example, let's say a woman is undergoing chemotherapy, and gets into a car with, say her 16-year old grandson who just got his licence. They get into a car crash, and she dies of her injuries. For another example, consider a toddler who drowns two days after getting a vaccine. Now, in both cases, what was the cause of death? For bonus points, what would Gary Null say was the cause of death?

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Flip
Glad to be so entertaining. Let me know when you fill your bingo card. Do you get to win a dog?

@gaist
The pain relief and gain in mobility usually happen during the course of the session. I like to keep working until the pain goes to 0 (from 0 to 10) or as close to 0 as possible, because in my experience it's less likely to return then. A lot of people need only that one session. In other cases the pain returns at lesser intensity -- in some people within a few hours, in others within a few days, in yet others in a couple of weeks. I then do another session. As I said, three or four sessions ought to be sufficient. With one person who had a chronic injury I did about a dozen short ones and each time she experienced a noticeable gain in mobility.

After the session I tell people to rest the affected body part because the tendency is to overuse it once the pain is gone. I can't prescribe pain killers. Even if I could, I wouldn't; besides they don't seem to be necessary.

I treated a man in a hospital once (at the request of his doctor) who had stage-4 pancreatic cancer that had gone to his liver. He had had as much conventional therapy as his body could handle, and he was in considerable pain. His doctor wanted to see what energy healing could do. I asked him before I started working what the level of his pain was, from 0 to 10. He said ten. After 45 minutes of energy healing I asked him what his level of pain was. He said two. I don't know how long the pain relief lasted because that was the only time I treated him. He was then sent home, and "home" was too far for me travel to treat him, and "energy healing" was a strange enough concept for all of them that "distance healing" was not something they were willing to entertain.

Another man I treated with a colleague. He also had terminal cancer. When he came in he was ashen, and bent over with pain. By the end of the session he was cracking jokes. When he left his color was much better and he was also much lighter on his feet. Pain relief for him lasted about two days.

I have no way of knowing if there are more frauds out there in the energy healing business than in science or medicine. Generally speaking energy healers get their business not through advertising but through word of mouth. Somehow I can't imagine frauds would get much business through word of mouth.

I don't think it is desirable to reduce fever, unless the fever is life threatening. I have never encountered anyone with a life threatening fever, so I can't tell you whether anything I do could affect it.

I think there is built-in safety mechanism in energy healing, which is that it is purposed not by the healer but by the body wisdom of the "healee". All I can intend as a healer is wholeness. Bengston relates that when he was healing the cages of sick mice they all ran to his left hand (which he calls his "healing" hand). If the cage was spun around, they would run to his left hand again. Once they were healed they were no longer interested.

A lot of people need only that one session. In other cases the pain returns at lesser intensity — in some people within a few hours, in others within a few days, in yet others in a couple of weeks.

Do all/most patients report back to you, do you check on them, or do they talk about previous effects during the next session? What I'm asking is are patients whose session wasn't effective less or more likely to report the failure, thus tilting the "statistics" towards one side.

I can’t prescribe pain killers. Even if I could, I wouldn’t; besides they don’t seem to be necessary.

Do you give any other advice, (apart from eat well, rest and take care)? What would you say if a patient asked you should they stop taking their meds if the ailment is gone?

If the patient's mental outlook affects the outcome (or even dictates it), would anti-depressants or other psych medication have a effect on healing?

I asked him before I started working what the level of his pain was, from 0 to 10. He said ten.

Admittedly a personal assessment, but I thought the 10 in 1-10 scale was pretty much screaming-until-you-fainted sort of agony.

Another man I treated with a colleague. He also had terminal cancer.

I take it that (to the best of your knowledge) neither recovered from cancer?

I personally have no problem viewing energy healing as palliative care, in the same vein as how mommies can kiss a pain away, rubbing one's temples alleviates headache and reading a really good book can distract you so well from a broken wrist bone in a too tight cast that you forget it's there until you bump it against the armrest. But every claim that energy healing could offer more than palliative care seem to be based either on personal anecdotes, hearsay or studies that fall short of rigorous scientific norm.

I have no way of knowing if there are more frauds out there in the energy healing business than in science or medicine. Generally speaking energy healers get their business not through advertising but through word of mouth. Somehow I can’t imagine frauds would get much business through word of mouth.

Well, at least many televangelist healers (whom you mentioned having less faith in, pun only partially intended) don't seem to be lacking in patients.

Do you think energy healers should be licensed and regulated like medical personnel? Would such regulation improve the standard and rate of healing? Do you think peer review of medical boards should have oversight?

Are there any experimentation in healing processes and techniques to see if they could be improved? You hoped for a fruitful co-operation between healers and scientists, which might help uncover new, less hand-wavy forms of healing. Is there such process of trial and error going on now, even without the scientists?

(apart from sniping at petri dishes, unless they were to test a new technique or hand-wave or thought pattern...)

I have never encountered anyone with a life threatening fever, so I can’t tell you whether anything I do could affect it.

Say someone with a fever of 42 degrees centigrade (107,6 Fahrenheit) comes to you for help. Would you try healing them or call an ambulance?

I think there is built-in safety mechanism in energy healing, which is that it is purposed not by the healer but by the body wisdom of the “healee”.

So the body knows best? So if the recipient is "unwilling", is it more likely a mental problem (overt scepticism/bad mojo) or is the body itself unwilling to heal?

Both my parents and their siblings and my one living grand parent are on high blood pressure medication, and have been for years - as is my older brother so in all likelihood there is a genetic cause (from both sides of the family). Do you think their bodies (and probably mine in a few years) are at their healthiest high-pressurised, or is the body mistaken? Most of them live quite different lives, so I doubt it would be that everybody has the same knot in their energy fields. If the body is mistaken, can it be mistaken about other aspects of itself?

Does the body also identify with beneficial gut fauna, or can it mistake those for unwanted alien bacteria/fungi/protozoa?

In the instances where a patient requires several treatments, do you think the reason is the body or mind of the patient is unwilling or distracted? If the symptoms return, is it the fault of the patient for "returning" to bad energy ways?

Could you rid a patient of parasites, or would the parasite's "self" resist it?

As a side note, on the whole outside consciousness-bit. A hundred years ago there were less than 2 billion humans. Today we are close to 7 billion. Did the source multiply, were the 5 billion stuck in limbo somewhere (and if yes, how many there are still in limbo waiting for overpopulation to reach the apex?) are we somehow "lesser" because the whole human consciousness-thing has been individualized into over 3 times as many beings, or are there 3.X me's running around somewhere?

@gaist
Generally speaking the patients for whom the healing wasn't effective feel nothing during or after the healing, so the feedback is immediate. Others usually report back.

I would say that the conditions that require several sessions are more chronic in nature.

I've been told that stage-4 pancreatic cancer is one of the most painful things a human being can experience. Both these patients were on morphine but still in great pain which even the morphine could not manage.

Televangelists have a larger schtick than just healing. Faith healing is just a sideline in the Jesus business.

No, it's not the patient returning to "bad energy ways". It's more an issue of habit. The body returns to what it's accustomed to, so it might need more treatment to nudge it.

I don't know why bodies can't "self-heal". It puzzles me that intermediaries should be needed.

No clue about parasites, as I don't have any experience with them. The same is the case with anti-psych medications or anti-depressants.

If someone with a 42C temperature came to see me, I would call an ambulance first and treat them while we waited for the ambulance. Similarly, I would never tell anyone to discontinue their medication.

I really wish scientists got curious about the phenomenon of energy healing to work with us. I think there are on-going efforts by individuals to improve on techniques. I know of one: Kurt Peterson of www.cancertouch.com. He also claims to have a good track record with cancer.

Remind me again where we can find details of those 10 or 12 experiments in reputable peer-reviewed journals, or any journals for that matter?

Perhaps they're filed somewhere near Judith's stash of hospital records regarding the miraculous energy-recovery from pancreatic cancer that was sadly cut short for wholly unrelated reasons. (Marg's invocation of which malady as a talking point above is no doubt completely coincidental.)

If someone with a 42C temperature came to see me, I would call an ambulance first and treat them while we waited for the ambulance.

Now, would you take that temperature with your hands, or do you routinely use a thermometer? Moreover, do you think someone with that level of fever would be likely to "come see you"?

the miraculous energy-recovery from pancreatic cancer that was sadly cut short for wholly unrelated reasons

The treatment was successful but the patient suddenly died, as I recall.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

Televangelists have a larger schtick than just healing.

A bold claim, given that your river of shtick seems to have no far shore whatever.

Faith healing is just a sideline in the Jesus business.

And "energy healing" is just a sideline in the equally as venerable occultist business.

I really wish scientists got curious about the phenomenon of energy healing to work with us. I think there are on-going efforts by individuals to improve on techniques. I know of one: Kurt Peterson of http://www.cancertouch.com. He also claims to have a good track record with cancer.

Oh, look, you can pay the $2000 deposit for your $7500 "session" using Paypal! Holy f*cking Christ. Good work, Marg, really good f*cking work.

By the way, this is probably not the brightest thing to put into a disclaimer, legally speaking:

Keep in mind that this type of treatment is not a "miracle" cure of any kind. 29% of clients that Kurt see's [sic] will not go into remission.

You have now hit rock f*cking bottom, Marg.

Sorry about the link scope, I had to go outside and really express my feelings for a bit.

@Narad
Don't have an aneurism over this.

Peterson says he kept extensive patient records and that he follows up on everyone he treats for five years. He claims very high success rates, which ought to be verifiable.

@ Bronze Dog:

*Merci beucoup, mon cher chien*.
I guess I'm rather good at 'distilling' as I am descended from a guy created fine spirits c. 1870s-80s. I have an essay entitled *The Distilled Essences*- it's not about gin but photosynthesis; I really should complete it some day.

At any rate, the woo-meisters would have us believe that prior to the advent of SBM, people lived long, healthy lives free of disability and chronic illness. Naturally.

They believe that SBM CAUSED the chronic problems people suffer today. People in intensive care die BECAUSE of the care they receive. HAART causes hiv. Pharma kills.

Why did they take the heart meds or bp meds ? SSRIs are deady- or so we're told- so why take the miserable poisons?

Alt med has to conjure up a vision of a poisoned world in order to answer these questions: it's not just the meds but toxins in food, water and air.. and bad thoughts, I guess.

@ Krebiozen:

I have also had visions and dreams of remarkably splendid realms without drugs. I think I described the dream above.
I used to try to put myself into a trance of sorts so I could feel calmer or to recall the massive task I was assigned for a qualifying exam. Now I stick to more mundane visual imagery.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

Peterson says he kept extensive patient records and that he follows up on everyone he treats for five years. He claims very high success rates, which ought to be verifiable.

It certainly ought to be verifiable, but I can't seem to find anything of the sort on his website. By the way, I love his variation of the quack Miranda:

Statistics on this website do not take into account the effect that traditional cancer treatments play in treating cancer. Almost all (about 91%) of the clients that Mr. Peterson uses his energy healing on, are also on conventional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, etc... Mr. Peterson recommends that anyone with cancer should always seek proper medical advice and follow their doctor's orders. Oncology has come a long way, and there are certainly some good cancer treatments available. Mr. Peterson's energy healing method is provided as an adjunct ONLY to traditional medical care. This method is an alternative cancer treatment, and not meant to be first line. Cancertouch.com does not claim to be the sole reason for the extraordinarily high percentage of remissions. We recognize that in some instances, a client that was seen by Mr. Peterson, and then goes into remission, may be doing so as a result of current conventional cancer treatment that he/she is receiving.

So an oncologist treats you successfully, or not, and you pay a scam artist $7,500? I do sometimes wish I had no moral compass, I could be rich.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

He claims very high success rates, which ought to be verifiable.

So do you, Marg.
Is your claim verifiable?

Don’t have an aneurism over this.

Peterson says he kept extensive patient records and that he follows up on everyone he treats for five years. He claims very high success rates, which ought to be verifiable.

No, screw you. You are acting innocent and now digging yourself even deeper over some goddamned picece of trash who charges cancer patients $7500 to wave his f*ckiing hands around. This is no longer the game where you get to pretend you know a goddamned thing about all the crap that you flail around with while posturing about how other people just don't know enough about physics to interact at your level, or your comical attempts at philosophy. This is where people with serious problems get taken advantage of, and you have No F*cking Problem. If you think I don't have anyone in my family who could fall prey for this sh*t, you're sorely mistaken, Blavatsky.

There is not a goddamned bit of difference between you and the Burzynski lice, and if you think the "who, me?" routine is going to serve you in this regard, you are sorely f*cking mistaken.

@Narad
Tell us how you really feel.

@Narad
Why do you assume he is lying?

Marg, a humbug remains a humbug regardless of the fee. Narad knows this, too.

On a different topic - I attended a wonderful seminar - Luis Parada from the U of Texas Southwestern Medical center at Dallas.

@THS
Why do you assume he is a humbug?

@Krebiozen
What do you think happens to stage-4 pancreatic cancer patients who are in liver failure?

Marg, I'd really like to complement you on sticking with the "who, me?" routine. It has inspired me to look into which regulatory agencies are in play, given that interstate commerce and the wires are, when one directly insinuates that 71% of patients do go into remission as a result of having thier bank accounts fleeced. I'm sure Kurt will appreciate the advertising.

@Marg

Why do you assume he is lying? ... Why do you assume he is a humbug?

Because that is what Occam's razor as well as history suggests. Every other person who has made such an extraordinary claim about curing cancer from Gerson through to Burzinski has turned out to be a fraud.

Because if a decent human being had discovered they had such a great cure with cancer they would be publishing their results (advertising is not the same thing as publishing in a peer reviewed venue) instead of profiting from them.

For the same reason that it is reasonable to assume that someone who is offering a risk free investment investment with an annual rate of return of 25 to 50% is lying.

Because he is using the standard Cancer quack technique of taking credit for the success when the patient is also undergoing conventional treatment.

Peterson says he kept extensive patient records and that he follows up on everyone he treats for five years. He claims very high success rates, which ought to be verifiable.

So does every quack - where has he published the results in a venue where they can be verified? Dollars to doughnuts, if someone asks for those records he will use patient confidentiality as an excuse not release these "extensive patient records".

Marg if someone rents a chainsaw from Home Depot (with new chain, a full fuel tank, a full oil reservoir, a gas can with extra fuel and a container of chain oil) and brings it back with an empty fuel tank, an empty chain oil reservoir and a chain so worn that it is almost falling off the cutting bar and then doesn't want to pay for the rental because they couldn't get the chain saw to run, what is more likely?

A: A mysterious energy field (unknown to those narrow minded scientists) sucked the fuel out other fuel tank and the oil out of the oil reservoir and caused metal to vanish from all the wear surfaces in the chain.

B: The customer is lying in order to scam a free rental.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

I wonder if Reiki can cure SIWOTI syndrome?

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 09 Oct 2012 #permalink

"Energy healing is now considered to be the most effective alternative cancer treatment known" - Kurt Whatever

Un-fucking-believable. For $7500?

In fact, all too believable, given he is preying on the desperate.

And we see just where Marg's threshold of trust lies.

Is Marg short for margarine because you're displaying the moral, ethical and intellectual weight of a tub of that oily melange.

You are a thoroughly modern Allardyce T. Meriweather and deserve his fate.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg,
You seem to have a touching faith in people's honesty. Have you not yet realized that a great deal of what you find on the internet is not true? Much of it is simply mistaken, but a fair bit is deliberately deceitful and designed to part you from your money.

What do you think happens to stage-4 pancreatic cancer patients who are in liver failure?

I know what happens, unfortunately, having followed the progress of many of them over the years. They die, most quickly, some more slowly. However, Peterson claims he can cure them, so perhaps Judith (or was that you?) isn't as skilled a healer as he is. Perhaps she should learn his "DNA Signature Destruction Methodä". Then again, Gonzalez claimed to have great success with pancreatic cancer, but when his treatment was subjected to clinical trial, patients on conventional chemotherapy lived 3 times longer than his patients.

It should be very easy for Peterson to prove his claims, using anonymized medical records. Why hasn't he?

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Marg

Feel free to post the peer-reviewed study when it’s published. Put up or shut up.

As for the rest, blah blah blah no evidence, more anecdotes, blah blah

Oh and this:

Marg said on October 9, 6:20 pm

I don’t know why bodies can’t “self-heal”. It puzzles me that intermediaries should be needed.

Marg said on September 15, 5:00 pm

I think it needs to be made clear that no one can heal anyone else: that all healing is self-healing. All the so-called healer does is help set up parameters that facilitate self-healing.

Someone needs to clarify her language.

@Krebiozen

I'm so glad *someone* knows what I'm talking about. King's Cross is the next stop!

However, I also apparently witnessed a couple of things that I was able to check on later – I saw some people in another part of the house I was in, and saw some objects in a part of the room I was in that was out of my sight. Neither of them had any basis in reality – I had imagined them.

I've had a couple of lucid dreams, and though still dreaming I was not only aware that I was doing so, but could hear noises (people getting up in the morning) and was aware that it was light outside.

I guess that proves I'm 'sensitive'.

If not, why do you keep citing Bengston’s studies as if they were evidence that energy healing cures cancer?

Because she's got nothing else and she knows it.

@gaist

There's research on near death experience where there were playing cards placed on top of furniture.
drpennysartori.com
See the publications page.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=penny%20sartori

Also: a big internets should be awarded to you for both getting answers and asking questions. You turned a dead thread into an interesting one again.

@Al Kimeea

That was either well played or I have no idea what's going on.

@Adam G

So do you, Marg.
Is your claim verifiable?

Of course not. If it was, she'd be rushing to take up my suggestion and post some data to lord over us.

if i were morally and ethically bereft
i could participate in the theft
of patient's hard earned gains
by easy removal of their pains
in this there is no shame
as i am only helping, not to blame
for when my methods do not please
it is down to the mark for the progress of the disease

By al kimeea (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Al Kimea
I think that's what the pharmaceutical companies do.

@Krebiozen
Have you ever known one to reverse the course of his disease, even temporarily?

@Militant Agnostic
Occam's razor and history never dreamed of quantum physics.

@ flip:
I know what you're talking about! Appropriately so!

More seriously:
There's a grain of truth in this because bodies do self-heal TO A POINT- minor cuts close up, bones mend, an immune response is mounted against infection, there is activity against cancers et al.
But to assume that this has nearly unlimited potential and application...
One of the alt med creatures I surveille trades on the public's general knowledge that the body can mend itself ( to a degree) and then expands upon this propensity unrealistically and baroquely.

I just heard his tale about Josef Issels' ideas on *boosting immunity* ( first you pull out bad teeth, give juices, use imagery about battling cancer etc) He fails to mention that this costly and bizarre treatment has been bought by many famous people- including Bob Marley- we all know how that turned out.

I recently ran into a documentary which sadly illustrated the musical innovator's last days, trudging through the snow in Germany,pathetically thin and obviously dying. Awful.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

Occam’s razor and history never dreamed of quantum physics.

You've already had it explained to you exactly what gave rise to the necessity for quantization, you evasive apologist for your theiving "colleague." Go eat a bag of salted dicks.

Marg,

Have you ever known one to reverse the course of his disease, even temporarily?

It's quite common for cancer patients to have a brief period of feeling better just before they die, for some reason, which is what Judith's description sounds like.
If you mean a failed liver recovering, pancreatic tumors disappearing etc. then no, I have never heard of that happening, and I don't believe you, "Judith", Ellen Lewinberg or Kurt Peterson have either. I would have to see before and after scans and biopsy results before I would believe that.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

I think that’s what the pharmaceutical companies do.

Then, do you believe you should hold "energy healing" to the same standards you advocate for mainstream medicine?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg, do you even know what Occam's Razor is?

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

There’s a grain of truth in this because bodies do self-heal TO A POINT

For some reason healers never seem to be able to persuade severed limbs to grow back - that would impress me. You would think that since the morphogenetic field is still there since you can see it on Kirlian photography, it should be easy*.

* Please note, both morphogenetic fields and Kirlian photography are imaginary, my sarcasm is playing up again.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Gray Falcon

I think we ascertained earlier up in the post that marg does not hold energy healing to the same standards as mainstream medicine.

marg is pretty much a hypocrite through and through.

I think it's cute that Kurt Peterson leads with an epigraph from Bobby Fischer before casually letting letting slip that, at his current rates, he would have made $15 million over the past 13 years with this scam. I can certainly come up with some other choice remarks from Fischer.

except in my case, it is the exact opposite as to how I was treated and cured by Big Pharma

By al kimeea (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg, I'll be willing to entertain the notion that kimeaa's poem might apply to clinically tested, FDA/EMEA approved pharmaceuticals when you can demonstrate there's no credible scientific evidence that things like statins, antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals, vaccines, NSAIDS, TNF inhibitors like Enbrel for arthriti,…well, the list just goes on and on doesn't it?- actually work.

Until then suggesting energy healing is analogous to FDA/EMEA approved small molecule drugs or biologicals isn't even a false analogy—it's a dishonest one. We're not talking about wrong on the level of comparing apples to oranges--that at least is comparing fruit to fruit. We're talking comparing orchids to bicycles, or fish to rainbows, or mudguards to War and Peace

As for quantum physics, show your math: explain exactly where quantum physics violates Ockham's razor by multiplying entities without necessity.

Oh cripes...I can't believe that this thread is still going on.

Way upthread "flip" stated that Marg appears to be Pegamily...rebooted.

If Marg isn't Pegamily...then it is another crank troll trying to beat Pagasus' and Emily's personal bests for the most comments on RI (1,300 + and still going strong).

In case anyone is wondering, Pegamily made herself legendary, in her defense of fasting as medicine, by claiming the following:

This is not true hunger, which is a mouth/throat sensation.
Toxic hunger, however, arises from uncomfortable sensations in the stomach, weakness, pain & headaches, which are mistaken as cues to eat.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ lilady:

This thread is like a cafe, you order your cappuccino or chai latte while the 1300+ comments load...especially since I am a lady of leisure today.. lounging around the maison.

Although I am often highly entertained when I espy alt med types portraying themselves as health experts, dieticians, biochemists, immunologists, epis, physicians, economists , physicists and even psychologists ( AoA today has riotoous comments re dx NPD), still something in me wants to scream-
"If you presume to play the role, do the REAL work involved before you start reaping the benefits".

This irks me although I am probably more tolerant than most sceptics. Perhaps I should allow my own mean self to emerge and shine through more frequently... and believe me, it IS mean but above the mean, if you know what I mean.

Drifting, self-promoting dilletantes ( see Natural News/ PRN/ TMR/ AoA) cast aspersion on professionals' serious, hard work and dedication as they take shortcuts, make up stuff, decorate themselves with phoney degrees and strike poses,

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Krebiozen
Not just feel better temporarily, but have their lab work return to near normal?

Marg, are you willing to apply that same standard to "energy healing"?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ Denice Walter:

I saw the posts on AoA about NPDs...which most of them exhibit.

Wait until they see the DSM-5 ! While they are busy fussing and fuming about the DSM-5 for their kids' diagnoses of ASDs, their particular NPDs will be eliminated...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/health/views/30mind.html

Hmmm, where did I misplace the telephone number for "Dial-A-bot"? We could certainly use a Marg-bot right now.

@Narad
Salted dicks is a new one for me, but I must say it's quite creative. I can see why you are so incensed. I get just as incensed when I hear of the 38-year-old daughter of someone dying of aggressive breast cancer after puking her gut-lining out due to chemo, sustaining 3rd-degree radiation burns that did not heal, and finding out two days after her treatment ended that she had grown bone metastases while she was receiving chemo.

Regarding Burzynski, how do you explain that after something like 15 years of aggressive prosecution by the Texas Medical Board and the FDA the man is still free and still in business? How do you explain that charge after charge is dropped, that juries find him not guilty, that his patients come out to support him? How do you explain that while prosecuting him the US government is patenting his active ingredients (which he alleges and for which he seems to have documentation). You would think that the Texas Medical Board and the FDA have sufficient funds and legal firepower to put a fraudster in jail. So maybe if they have not, it's because he is not one, and the judges had the the sense to see it.

So maybe if they have not, it’s because he is not one, and the judges had the the sense to see it.

Blow it out your koot hoomi, Marg. You're morally, ethically, and intellectually bankrupt, and I have had it with your passive-aggressive sh*t rain.

@Narad
It's not passive aggressive in the least. Those are the facts, ma'am. He is still a free man. He is still practicing. The PTB have spent millions trying to shut him down. Why hasn't it worked? They managed to get Al Capone, so why not Burzynski?

"Koot hoomi" is a new one on me too. I see it's not a body part. That's a relief.

Marg,

Not just feel better temporarily, but have their lab work return to near normal?

In pancreatic cancer the enlarged pancreas often pushes on the liver, blocking the bile duct. This causes grossly elevated bilirubin and alkaline phosphatase, and other liver enzymes are moderately elevated. Serum amylase is also grossly elevated in pancreatic cancer. I have seen these blood tests become more normal towards the end of a patient's life, whether because the pancreas completely fails, or ruptures, relieving pressure on the bile duct, I'm not sure. I think there's a technical term for this phenomenon but I don't recall what it is. Statistically, about 5% of pancreatic cancer patients will live for 5 years or longer.

I get just as incensed when I hear of the 38-year-old daughter of someone dying of aggressive breast cancer after puking her gut-lining out due to chemo, sustaining 3rd-degree radiation burns that did not heal, and finding out two days after her treatment ended that she had grown bone metastases while she was receiving chemo.

Why would that incense you? It saddens me that the best treatments we have don't always work. Would you prefer her to have been left for her tumor to burst through her skin, ulcerate and rot, and for her to die even more horribly? If not, what do you think the doctors should have done differently?

I'll leave your gross misrepresentation of Burzynski's case to others.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

Regarding Burzynski, how do you explain that after something like 15 years of aggressive prosecution by the Texas Medical Board and the FDA the man is still free and still in business?

I'll hazard an answer. Those more knowledgeable than me please correct me if I'm mistaken on something. (and there are bound to be stuff I missed).

He's good at taking advantage of loopholes and influential friends.

FDA and medical boards are large bureaucracies, where everything takes time, everything can be appealed and there are several earlier steps like warnings and requirements for extra paperwork, (which both have been made) before they can/will strip away his license.

He's not allowed to offer the antineoplaston treatment AS a treatment, only as part of a trial. So he keeps continuing/starting trials and having willing test subjects pay to get in (60 such trials so far, according to wikipedia) Charging for phase II trials seems, to put it mildly, a controversial issue. Also, no results of any of these studies have ever been published.

Legal issues also take time, and can be delayed, postponed and appealed ad nauseam. According to wikipedia, he had been found guilty once, and it mentions two open lawsuits. No dismissed ones.

I also seem to recall he or his supporters dismissing failed treatments (dead patients), because the patients either did not stick to the regime, or the treatment was started too late. Both explanations, of course, apply to standard medicine as well, but in the case of recommended* chemo drugs, would be called death by medicine?

* Burzynski uses chemo as part of his treatments as well.

Alternately, the Big Parma NWO conspiracy can't yet again get their Sh!t together.

They managed to get Al Capone, so why not Burzynski

Burzynski hasn't cheated on his taxes?

@Marg - Dr. B has been discussed at length here. Particularly, we find it galling that after 30 years of "trials" he has not published any of his results - none.

A group of researchers that attempted to replicate his treatment were forced to terminate their experiments very early in the process because the treatments themselves were so toxic as to be incredibly dangerous to the patients.

Please explain again why Dr. B refuses to publish or better yet, why he charges hundreds of thousands of dollars for clinical trials, while all other legitimate clinical trials are "free."

Since you know so much, perhaps you can enlighten us?

It’s not passive aggressive in the least.

Q.E.D.

“Koot hoomi” is a new one on me too.

That's because you're too goddamned stupid to have figured out, despite repeated clues, that the entire stinking pile of garbage that you proudly wave a flag for is no different from any other such steaming heap of rot that has graced the annals of occultism. Was "Blavatsky" too subtle for your keen sensing abilities?

@Krebiozen
I cannot comment on the particular details of the blood tests, but I have heard that his doctor referred to him as "our little miracle on the ward" and that one of the oncology nurses said that in 25 years she has not seen anything like the recovery he staged. If you read Judith's blog, you will see that the man's oncologist then invited her to speak at the hospital, so from that I would judge that they considered the case to be unusual.

@Narad
When your reason fails you, you resort to insults.

When your reason fails you, you resort to insults.

No, Marg, this is my reason having made finally a compelling case with respect to your character.

@Narad
I am being forced to making conclusions about yours -- and you would not be flattered.

I am being forced to making conclusions about yours — and you would not be flattered.

Remember Marg, "it's all an illusion." This is your creation. Don't like the perceived world? Don't blame me, because I'm your very own doing. It's like magic.

Marg,

I cannot comment on the particular details of the blood tests,

Changes, some apparently positive, in blood results are not unusual at the end-stage of many diseases. For example, if your liver completely fails, it won't be producing any enzymes, so an elevated AST may return to normal. BTW, I did find a discussion by hospice nurses one of whom said they see a temporary improvement in cancer patients in 97% of patients before they die, though I think they were talking of hours rather than days.

but I have heard that his doctor referred to him as “our little miracle on the ward”

Could that have been sarcasm from someone who regarded energy healing as nonsense?

and that one of the oncology nurses said that in 25 years she has not seen anything like the recovery he staged.

He had a remission for ten weeks and died of an infection, didn't he? That doesn't seem that impressive to me. Remember that about 2% of stage 4 pancreatic cancer patients will live for over 5 years. Judith seems to take the average survival as being maximum survival, but it isn't.

If you read Judith’s blog, you will see that the man’s oncologist then invited her to speak at the hospital, so from that I would judge that they considered the case to be unusual.

Maybe, maybe not. She says:

I had the opportunity to present Mischa's case to a group of oncologists in 2009. When I told them that Mischa had not died of cancer, they looked at me and said, almost in unison, "no cancer patient dies of the cancer". They die of complications their weakened bodies cannot fight off. So maybe Mischa dying of something other than his cancer was not as significant as I thought, but his ten-week remission remains an extraordinary event.

I don't think a ten week temporary improvement is that extraordinary. I have had friends and relatives who seemed to be at death's door, then rallied for a few months before dying of cancer. I don't think it's unusual. Also, we have only Judith's word for what happened, and the patient died. If you had a dozen similar tales backed up with hard evidence, you might have my attention.

In this case we have no idea if the same thing might have happened without energy healing. He might even have done better without a bunch of energy healers breathing pathogens all over him...

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Narad, I was gonna take a stab at the nascent Buddhist Brainfartisms, but no need now

Glad Marg brought up Burchinski who charges his human lab rats $200,000 or thereabouts to be in his endless studies.

The first Big Pharma study I was in cost $1800 a month and was to last 18, but failed after 12. There was a charge because it was an observational study based on anecdotal evidence using drugs that are already approved and work for many people, but not me.

The second cost nada cause, quelle surprise, experimental drugs and Big Pharma ain't allowed to charge for them.

So, for 1/10th the cost Big Pharma does what alties often deny and I dinna take anything more either, all done.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

Although alt med supporters and providers paint a rosey picture about the possibility of cure through their own methods, they simultaneously narrate grim tales about SBM : witness some of Marg's quotes.

It might make you nauseous but I suggest you leaf through Natural News' or PRN's/ Null's articles about cancer: brave mavericks are lauded and applauded whilst SBM is irrevocably condemned. Cut, burn, poison.

Now the alt media often speaks about its spirituality and morality which I find rather startling:
what is so spiritual about leading trusting people astray?
Is it that they shouldn't value things of this earth because they may not be here very much longer?

I ask supporters of alt med, like Marg, don't you feel the slightest tinge of guilt or responsibility in that you might be leading people astray? Isn't that a problem?

Suppose a person who believes she has cancer - and is terrified- reads your arguments and puts off reasonable actions- like seeing a doctor- don't you feel a tiny bit responsible? Words have power. Frightened people are often searching for a reason to PUT OFF medical intervention- do you want to enable them to behave so irrationally? Even a small amount?

The alt media I surveille makes a business out of getting people to whistle past the graveyard as visions of cancer cures dance in their heads and, though their words may have a profound influence on their enraptured followers, I've yet to hear that their survivors have brought a law suit citing 'alienation of rationality' against woo-meisters after their relatives died - even in the case of hiv/ aids denialists where there is a clearer path to destruction.

Even if their grandiosity allows them to think themselves unimpeachably correct at all times, doesn't that bother YOU in the least, Marg?

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Marg

Feel free to post the peer-reviewed study when it’s published. Time to stop running the Gish gallop and put up or shut up. If you had any sense you'd go and get some evidence to lord over us.

When your reason fails you, you resort to insults.

And when you see that you're not gaining traction, you refuse to answer questions and reply with meaningless banter.

@Lilady

Way upthread “flip” stated that Marg appears to be Pegamily…rebooted.

If Marg isn’t Pegamily…then it is another crank troll trying to beat Pagasus’ and Emily’s personal bests for the most comments on RI (1,300 + and still going strong).

I forgot I said that. But Marg doesn't seem to have the same fascination with starvation as Pegamily did.

Besides, wouldn't Orac ban the sock puppet? (If I recall rightly Pegamily got banned for it too...)

@Gaist

Burzynski hasn’t cheated on his taxes?

If I recall correctly though, he may be doing funny things with his business funds. Try Left Brain Right Brain for info.

@Krebiozen
I repeat: his oncologist thought it was unusual. But have it your way. In fact, you can all have it your way.

I have to comment on Marg's 'assessments' of her patients. Pain is a notoriously difficult thing to quantify. Subjective feelings of pain cannot be objectively measured, yet. The scale is only a guide and a poor one at that. But then Marg states that these folks she is treating have improved mobility, now that is something that can be measured. Please tell us Marg, which standard test you are using to measure improvement in mobility? Unfortunately for us, they are easily found on internet searches, so she can tell us what she it using, but I for one will not believe she actually uses them or ever did in the past because so far, she has not gained any credibility with me. Waving hands, baahh!!!

If I recall correctly though, he may be doing funny things with his business funds.

He also lost in a case of insurance fraud to the tune of $90,000 in 1994, Trustees of the Northwest Laundry v. Burzynski. And included a citation from Gary Null in a supplemental memorandum. And tried to appeal from the 5th Circuit to the Supreme Court.

I repeat: his oncologist thought it was unusual.

Yeah, and the purported records are for some reason hermetically sealed in a mayonnaise jar on Judith's porch.

But have it your way. In fact, you can all have it your way.

Sure thing, Underoos.

They managed to get Al Capone, so why not Burzynski?

Marg - they got Al Capone for tax evasion, not murder, bootlegging, racketeering etc. The fact that someone has not been convicted does not mean they are not guilty of unethical conduct. How many people have been convicted with respect to the subprime mortgage fraud? None of the perpetrators of the biggest mining fraud in history (Bre-X) was ever convicted. Does this mean the gold was actually there in spite of all the expert evidence that the cores had been salted and the lack of gold in Bre-Xs prospective partner's test holes? Apparently Marg considers science to be a matter to be decided in the courts.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg, it's not Narad's reason that has failed him, it's his patience, and it's no wonder, because you have been posting stupid, useless crap on this thread for a month and a half. No, let me amend that: stupid, useless, CONTEMPTIBLE crap. In my mind, Marg, I do not think of you as "Marg" but as "Marg, the contemptible purse-snatcher of science."

Will you whine that that is an insult? I'm sure you will, but you know, you are the one who has degraded this conversation to the point where such insults do not lower its tone. Every time you have been challenged to provide some sort of evidence for energy healing, and instead have tried to change the subject to "oh look, here's a paper I can misinterpret as 'chemotherapy makes cancer spread faster than no chemo!'" or "oh, look at how awful reimbursement practices are in mainstream medical practice!" or "read 'em and weep, here's someone from the world of science-based medicine who cheated!" you insult our intelligence. None of these things do a g-dd-mn thing to support the premise that energy healing exists. You treat us as if we're idiots who can't spot that you're changing the subject, as if you think that all you have to do is repeat weak anecdotes and assertions that we're blind/biased/etc., and sooner or later you'll win. We're not idiots, Marg. We're never going to say "Gosh, Marg, you've kept this b-llsh-t up for two months; that absolutely substitutes for any sort of evidence!!" The only reason we give the time of your day to your red herrings is because we're so bloody bored saying the same things to you over and over again. How many times do we need to say "An experiment where the experimental group and the control group have the same outcomes does not imply any effectiveness to the intervention" before it sinks in?

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I'm done with you, Marg. You've had a month and a half to try and put together some sort of non-stupid argument for energy healing and half the time, you can't even get the 'argument for energy healing' right; you just launch some scurrilous attack on mainstream medicine as if demeaning SBM somehow elevated CAM. Would your mother be proud of you doing that, Marg? When you were a little girl, did she smooth your bangs away from your forehead and say "Now, listen, Marg, if you ever feel bad because someone else is having success that you aren't, don't put in the hard work needed to earn your own successes, just tear down the others until you feel you look better by comparison to them"? I hope not, because that behavior is contemptible, and you should be ashamed of it. The shocking thing is not that Narad lost his temper with you but that we've all managed to keep them so long.

By Antaeus Feldspar (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

Apparently Marg considers science to be a matter to be decided in the courts.

Actually, I think Marg considers science a matter to be decided on a person to person basis. Because you know, reality is perception.

@Antaeus Feldspar

˄ This!!

Now why would I believe a cancer patient when he says his pain level has gone from 10 to 2? Why would I believe an injury patient who couldn't lift or turn her arm before and now can? Why not believe you instead, who never saw any of these people and are prejudiced beyond belief against anything that's not within the purview of your philosophies, arrogant as hell, RUDE as hell (with some exceptions), and not able or willing to use your brains to look beyond the confines of your conformist education. Science progresses in part by the old guard that resists new knowledge dying out. There are now doctors out there who do reiki as part of their practice. There is at least one oncologist I know of who has retired from oncology and is doing energy healing instead because she feels it is of greater use. There are doctors out there questioning the pharmaceutical approach and beginning to mistrust pharmaceutical companies. The public is voting for alternative therapies with its pocketbook, not only out of naivete, but because they feel they benefit from it. So you can splutter and fulminate all you want, the future is coming all the same, and alternative medicine is a part of it.

So, I took it into my head to go looking for an anecdote that I had read about kids in the late '60s or early '70s whose only understanding of Buddhism came by way of D.T. Suzuki and would wander into actual religious enclaves and start throwing teacups at the wall and so forth in response to perfectly normal questions.

One place I was looking was at the beginning of Robert Buswell's The Zen Monastic Experience (which I hearily recommend for fans of the simultaneously dry and engaging). I had forgotten that he was a fan of Renato Rosaldo[*], and I was struck by the similarity between Marg's approach and that ascribed to the "objectivist ethnographer": "a classic illustration of the problems of emotional distancing, cultural marginalization, and usurpation of authority." In short, the fake-Indian trip of the Age of Aquarius with a different target, once again embodying exactly that which it supposes itself to be rebelling against.

[*] And didn't expect Culture and Truth to have a Facebook fan page.

Marg,
Say you treated a patient for a some chronic ilness for which he had been taking medication for years, with some noticeable side effects (lets say drowsiness, some difficulty concentrating, making food taste bland). It's a ailment you feel usually cures, rather than returns later, with energy healing. Your treatment cures him. A week later he calls you and tells you he's quit taking medication as he's now symptom free. What is your responce?

What would your answer be, if you knew that should the ailment return and be left untreted, it would eventually cause permanent damage to the body and possibly serious complications later on?

Would the answer be different if there was some other medical issue you hadn't cured, for which the patient was continuing taking different medication? For example heart medication and insulin?

Generally speaking the patients for whom the healing wasn’t effective feel nothing during or after the healing, so the feedback is immediate. Others usually report back.

So there are no delayed effects with energy healing? How likely do you think the pain relief i "merely" psychosomatic, rather than a sign of actual healing (reduction in inflammation, correction of tears in ligaments etc.)

No, it’s not the patient returning to “bad energy ways”. It’s more an issue of habit. The body returns to what it’s accustomed to, so it might need more treatment to nudge it.

Is it possible conventional medicine e.g. psych meds, chemo) somehow also affects the energy fields, and remissions and whatnot are "the body returning to what it's accustomed to"?

I really wish scientists got curious about the phenomenon of energy healing to work with us.

Would you think regulation and licencing of healers would...
a) help conventional scientists be more willing to take healers seriously?
b) be of benefit to energy healing discipline?

If you think it would benefit the field, do you think there is enough internal momentum to generate such a regulationary system, or would it have to be brought in from the outside? How would this differ from (the current practice) of demanding double blind studies, sufficient numbers and replicability?

If you think such regulation wouldn't benefit energy healing, why do you think that is? Do you feel regular medicine would be better if any doctor would be free to experiment and offer cures and treatments he/she wanted, withouth FDA to demand clinical trials and a large investment of money and time?

I think there are on-going efforts by individuals to improve on techniques. I know of one: Kurt Peterson

How different do you feel your techniques are, and do you think you could improve your healing rate or accuracy or range? If no, why? If yes, why don't you?

Well, at least I didn't italicize the Internet.

So you can splutter and fulminate all you want, the future is coming all the same, and alternative medicine is a part of it.

Marg, I would like to heartily suggest that you take a job as a safety officer in a patchouli factory.

@Marg

Now why would I believe a cancer patient when he says his pain level has gone from 10 to 2?

Because you're not willing to discount all other possibilities first? Because you're seeing confirmation bias? Because a billion other reasons that once again have nothing to do with proving anything scientifically.

Why not believe you instead, who never saw any of these people and are prejudiced beyond belief against anything that’s not within the purview of your philosophies, arrogant as hell, RUDE as hell (with some exceptions), and not able or willing to use your brains to look beyond the confines of your conformist education

Because you [expletive removed], we don't accept ANECDOTES as data. Because instead we prefer to have data to look at so that we can confirm for ourselves that something exists instead of just taking your word for it. Because we prefer to rule out confounders, variables and confirmation bias, amongst other things. Because BELIEF has nothing to do with EVIDENCE.

How many times does it have to be explained to you?

Science progresses in part by the old guard that resists new knowledge dying out.

Science progresses mostly due to people adding new knowledge by actually using the scientific method, including collecting good data, basing predictions and hypotheses on available data (not belief), vigorous debate, replication and more data.

The old guard changes their mind when enough data is put forward to support a position. Until then they tentatively accept Occam's razor and the null hypothesis.

There are now doctors out there who do reiki as part of their practice. There is at least one oncologist I know of who has retired from oncology and is doing energy healing instead because she feels it is of greater use. There are doctors out there questioning the pharmaceutical approach and beginning to mistrust pharmaceutical companies. The public is voting for alternative therapies with its pocketbook, not only out of naivete, but because they feel they benefit from it. So you can splutter and fulminate all you want, the future is coming all the same, and alternative medicine is a part of it.

Blah blah anecdote, blah blah appeal to authority, blah blah appeal to popularity, blah blah

Feel free to post the peer-reviewed study when it’s published. Time to stop running the Gish gallop and put up or shut up. If you had any sense you’d go and get some evidence to lord over us.

Marg

Don't you think it is a more than a bit arrogant to think that you know more about physics because you attended some lectures than people who have taken post secondary courses in physics and thermodynamics know.

I find it utterly hilarious that you object to the Big Bang theory on the basis of thermodynamics while believing that someone can evaporate tons of water by pointing at a cumulus cloud. I find it despicable that you criticize us for being too trusting of Big Pharma while you credulously accept the claims of cancer cure con artists like Burzinski and Peterson as well as a host of other implausible claims like cloud busting etc. You are one of the most extreme example of the Dunning Kruger effect I have ever encountered. You are just like the Rush Limbaughs, Inhofe's, Michelle Bachman's Wall Street Journal scumbags etc who think they know more about climate science / biology / astronomy than scientists who have been working in these fields for a lifetime. Your kind are trying to drag us back into the middle ages while claiming the mantle of being progressive and "new age". You disgust me with your smug arrogance that refuses to admit the possibility that you might be wrong while you sneer at those who work in an endeavor that requires them to always consider the possibility that they might be wrong and have to present their claims in an arena where others will try to prove them wrong.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 10 Oct 2012 #permalink

Doctor's use reiki - Dr. Oz adds it to his already astronomical bill for open heart surgery

He also promotes psychics talking to the dead as emotional therapy

None of which is evidence for how you shamelessly rip people off

By al kimeea (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg,
You don't appear to have understood or taken on board a single thing anyone has written here.

Now why would I believe a cancer patient when he says his pain level has gone from 10 to 2? Why would I believe an injury patient who couldn’t lift or turn her arm before and now can? Why not believe you instead, who never saw any of these people and are prejudiced beyond belief against anything that’s not within the purview of your philosophies,

The point is that you can do the same thing by injecting saline and telling the patient it's a new highly effective painkiller, or with hypnosis or even by simply distracting them. Pain, even severe pain, is highly responsive to suggestion, there is copious evidence for this. You don't seem to understand that attributing these results to magic when there is an obvious alternative explanation is simply dumb, there isn't really a more polite way to put it. Nothing you have presented challenges our current scientific understanding in the slightest.

arrogant as hell, RUDE as hell (with some exceptions),

Marg, you have been extraordinarily arrogant and rude in this thread. You have claimed that the whole basis of medical science is fraudulent, that illness in the elderly is mostly caused by doctors, and that conventional therapy for cancer kills. Don't you think that those of us who have studied and worked in this area find it a bit offensive to be accused of being fraudulent, murderous monsters who are too narrow-minded and blinkered to realize we are killing our patients? To add even greater insult, the only alternative you offer is magic, pure and simple. You seem to think the Harry Potter books are biographies.

You also claimed that energy healing works on the basis of some gobbledygook about quantum physics you read on the internet and swallowed uncritically because it supports your prejudices, and that a religious fanatic like Sheldrake understands the origins of the universe better than astrophysicists, and you present the unsupported claims of an obvious con artist who charges $7500 to take credit for the successes of real doctors as evidence that handwaving does anything more than act as a placebo.

I could go on but if that alone is not extraordinary, narrow-minded, blinkered arrogance, I don't know what is. Yet you are blissfully unaware of this.

and not able or willing to use your brains to look beyond the confines of your conformist education.

It's ironic that you make this claim when you seem to be incapable of looking at any evidence that challenges your beliefs, which is the very definition of narrow-mindedness. I'm quite confident that all of us that have engaged with you here have asked ourselves if it is possible that there is something to your claims. The difference is that we have taken the time to look at the quality and quantity of the evidence that supports and contradicts your claims and their prior plausibility, and come to a conclusion based on that.

You seem to have fooled yourself into some erroneous beliefs through confirmation bias and wishful thinking, as thousands of people have before you and thousands will after you, and simply dismiss or fail to even register anything that doesn't fit with those beliefs. All humans are prone to this kind of bias, which is why we need science, and why elevating anecdotes over careful studies is so foolish and so dangerous.

Science progresses in part by the old guard that resists new knowledge dying out.

[Groans inwardly at yet another abuse of Kuhn] Let's hope the next generation will abandon the medieval belief in New Age magic that has infested the developed world over the past few decades. Anyway, what "new knowledge"? I have been looking for this new knowledge for years and I have found nothing of any substance. Energy healing has been tested over and over, along with prayer, homeopathy, acupuncture and other therapies based on supernatural claims, and has not shown any benefits greater than placebo. Even those studies that do seem to show some benefits show such a tiny effect that it is clinically insignificant, and are outnumbered by far more that do not (according to The American Cancer Society, "An article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported that only 1 study out of 83 confirmed positive results for TT").

There are now doctors out there who do reiki as part of their practice. There is at least one oncologist I know of who has retired from oncology and is doing energy healing instead because she feels it is of greater use.

Regrettably, even doctors are not immune to idiocy.

There are doctors out there questioning the pharmaceutical approach and beginning to mistrust pharmaceutical companies.

Which is another issue entirely. Those doctors want better, safer and more effective drugs. This is not evidence for the efficacy of handwaving, as has been repeatedly pointed out to you.

The public is voting for alternative therapies with its pocketbook, not only out of naivete, but because they feel they benefit from it. So you can splutter and fulminate all you want, the future is coming all the same, and alternative medicine is a part of it.

You argumentum ad populum is noted, but fails even on its own terms, as interest in energy healing has been declining.

Since you seem to accept popularity as meaningful, haven't you noticed that medical science is accepted all over the world by thousands and thousands of scientists and billions of people? You don't find Indians in remote villages calling out for energy healers or acupuncturists; they want vaccines and antibiotics because they know they work. You are the one in a tiny minority here Marg.

Most educated people understand that alternative medicine is at best a little bit of TLC used in addition to real medicine which does the real work. Only the desperate and the foolish resort to alternative medicine when faced with a serious medical condition. Energy medicine of the sort you practice is never, ever going to replace real medicine, not in a million years.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

The public is voting for alternative therapies with its pocketbook, not only out of naivete

You know, I only just noticed those last three words. I wonder if Marg is admitting something here...

Only the desperate and the foolish resort to alternative medicine when faced with a serious medical condition.

And even Marg admits she calls for an ambulance when it gets serious.

@gaist
I would never tell a patient to stop taking medication even if they told me their condition improved or that all their symptoms disappeared. I would tell them to go their doctor before stopping taking any medication.

One of the reasons I would like to see doctors work with energy healers is that we could then monitor the effects.

You misunderstood what I meant by the body returning back to what it's accustomed. I'm sorry if I wasn't entirely clear about what I meant. I have found that with recent injury is easier to treat than a chronic one because the body still remembers "normal". With a chronic injury the condition has become the normal. So it might take several treatments to nudge the body out of its "new groove" and back to what it considered normal before. If medication could be taken temporarily to resolve a condition such as, e.g., high blood pressure, I would say it does the same thing.

At some point in the future energy practitioners will be formally trained, licensed and regulated. Right now it's a bit like the Wild West. But again, before it can be licensed and regulated, it has to be recognized as a real phenomenon.

I was surprised to read in Rupert Sheldrake's book that only a relatively small percentage (ca 30%) of medical studies are double-blinded. I would have expected 100%. Sheldrake advocates effectiveness studies. He suggests that we take a condition such as back pain (presumably caused by the same problem), recruit a large number of patients, divide them up among multiple practitioners and see how they fare. Some could be getting drugs, others surgery, others acupuncture, still others energy healing. This is the kind of study that makes eminent sense to me.

The reason I don't think the pain relief is psychosomatic is that the effect usually lasts over the long term. Even if the pain returns, it is less intense. Further treatment decreases it further. Sometimes it plateaus, a lot of times it goes away altogether. By "psychosomatic" here I take that you mean the person's brain is temporarily tricking them into believing that they are not in pain even though the physical parameters of their condition haven't changed.

I am continuously upgrading my skills by learning new techniques.

@Militant Agnostic
I have nothing against the Big Bang. I was merely asking whether anyone knew what led up to it and suggesting that there was debate on the matter. No one can say for certain what there was before the Big Bang or how came to be. The Vatican was delighted with it because it accorded with the biblical story of God saying "and let there light, and lo, there was light". All the laws of physics, including thermodynamics, apparently came into the world with the Big Bang.

@Krebiozen
I don't think it will take a million years.

BTW how long is chemotherapy effective? If a patient has been on chemo and it has been declared ineffective, and their condition continues to deteriorate, and say six months later they see Kurt Peterson and another three months later go into remission, was it the chemotherapy that cured them? This is a serious question. I don't know answer, so I am asking.

The desperate usually resort to alternative medicine after allopathic medicine failed them for their serious medical condition.

"the answer"

@Marg

One of the reasons I would like to see doctors work with energy healers is that we could then monitor the effects.

You mean you don't monitor them anyway?

This is the kind of study that makes eminent sense to me.

Of course it does. (I literally eye-rolled at this) Do you know what a confounder is?

If a patient has been on chemo and it has been declared ineffective, and their condition continues to deteriorate, and say six months later they see Kurt Peterson and another three months later go into remission, was it the chemotherapy that cured them? This is a serious question. I don’t know answer, so I am asking.

And that's why science is done. To separate the chaff from the wheat, so to speak. Relying on anecdotes is always useless because you can't test or examine any/all of the variables in a reliable way.

The desperate usually resort to alternative medicine after allopathic medicine failed them for their serious medical condition.

Which of course doesn't prove that the alt med actually works.

Marg, feel free to post your peer-reviewed study when it’s published. Of course, judging by your inability to understand even the most basic concepts - most of which I learned in high school - I doubt you'll do it. Of course I doubt you'll do it for other reasons, but hey, let's stick with this one for the time being.

A few months ago, I took a trip: after flying thousands of miles and then being active all day, I find myself in a spectacularly well-appointed hotel with large, luxurious beds.

Upon waking, my companion and I are both absolutely miserable: he's moaning about his back and my neck hurts-
we're thousands of miles from home and it's a weekend- so what do you do? We only have a few days and this excursion has already cost us real money; we decide to grin and bear it, going ahead with my plans.

We drive over to hipsterville: within 15 minutes A spots "Mr Lee's Tui Na Therapy Shop": a lovely, little place with incense, a babbling fountain, a statue of Kwan Yin and several cots, dimmed lighting. So Mr Lee has a new customer but I decline his ministrations..

Instead I go walking around hipsterville, looking at antiques, spiffy clothes, drinking over-priced, fashionable tea, talking with vendors; then I spot "Treasures of Indochine" - or suchlike- I converse with the proprietor who travels and imports crafts and artwork. I buy myself pearl earrings that each dangle upon a fine chain. I put them on. These things were made for me, I swear.

I feel fine and A, now lying down at Mr Lee's, is also fine- actually he feels 'transformed', he says and wants to eat. Later, we drive off and go exploring lakes and mountains in the area- totally recovered and we stay as such throughout the remainder of the trip and long flight back. No drugs involved, some alcohol though.

So what fixed us? Mr Lee adjusted A's unruly Qi. According to Ayurvedic philosophy, you can heal with gems- the earrings brush my neck. Probably were some herbs in the tea also .

A more parsimonious explanation would be that relaxation and distraction saved the day. A did get a real massage and I did walk around and talk to several people. Neither of us has serious problems - although his is worse; neither is anything new.

It doesn't matter what explanation you use for minor issues like ours BUT putting off care by distracting yourself away from important warnings like pain or palpable lumps is another thing. Alt med advocates often encourage people away from real help when there is a real problem.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

But again, before it can be licensed and regulated, it has to be recognized as shown to be a real phenomenon.

u are skipping this step

By al kimeea (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

The desperate usually resort to alternative medicine after allopathic medicine failed them for their serious medical condition.

and like vultures there's a culture circling to profit from this sad reality

I work with a Serbian woman who has a weird thing going on with one of her feet, a bone seems to protrude from the side

She went to an energy healer who used this device - Lahovsky Multiwave Healing Machine

The "healer" played to her roots by playing up the Tesla angle and, of course, claiming to have successfully cured this condition many times, often within 24hrs.

After $everal vi$it$, no difference.

Now, when she told us of her malady/treatment, a couple of us were skeptical.

I guess all the negative waves prevented the energy healing properties of the device, even though the patient was convinced it would work.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg, as others have said, and I agree, you are an extremely arrogant and rude person. Here's a hint: If you can't handle rude responses, don't start with rude comments. If there's no polite or charitable way to say something, then act like an adult and learn to deal with the tone.

We're skeptics. We're used to crude hatemongers pissing over science and humanity's intricate, constructive efforts like it's no big deal. We're used to being treated as subhuman and over-sensitive for caring about the health and well being of others. (And I'm sure female skeptics are tired of being called "hysterical" for the same.) We're used to being called "hateful" and "cynical" for advocating a cautiously optimistic approach to discovery instead of blind trust in authoritarian dictates or for questioning the invincibility of alleged brick walls. We're used to being vilified for daring to ask honest questions instead of being all blissful, harmonious and agreeable. We've developed thick skin. We've gotten so used to being treated badly, we're rarely motivated to complain about it. Of course, it wouldn't do any good, since woos generally don't care about how we feel. When we do talk about how we feel, they call us liars for asserting emotions other than the ones their gurus assigned to us. It's infuriating.

There. I said it.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg,

I was surprised to read in Rupert Sheldrake’s book that only a relatively small percentage (ca 30%) of medical studies are double-blinded. I would have expected 100%.

In many cases you can't use double-blinding. How do you double-blind a coronary bypass, breast cancer lumpectomy or CPR? With hard endpoints, such as death, placebo effects are extremely unlikely, so blinding is not as much of an issue as it is in studies with softer endpoints. Here's how I have responded to similar points in the past:

Perhaps this article will answer your question.

Thus, published results show an average of 37.02% of interventions are supported by RCT (median = 38%). They show an average of 76% of interventions are supported by some form of compelling evidence (median = 78%).

It's worth noting that a number of interventions are not amenable to RCTs as this would be unethical, and that the article was published 12 years ago; I think it is likely that evidence (and science) based medicine has become even more widespread since then. Dr Steve Novella has said that:

My personal experience is that nearly 100% of the clinical decisions I make are based upon the best available evidence combined with plausible and rational extension of what is known. I can’t think of any time when I use treatments that are based upon nothing, or even nothing but anecdote.

It's not a veterinary article, anticipating that immediate criticism, it's just that site hosts a full text version of the article.

BTW how long is chemotherapy effective? If a patient has been on chemo and it has been declared ineffective, and their condition continues to deteriorate, and say six months later they see Kurt Peterson and another three months later go into remission, was it the chemotherapy that cured them? This is a serious question. I don’t know [the] answer, so I am asking.

It can be effective as long as the patient is taking it, but it's not always immediately clear if it has been effective or not. Anyway, having perused a large number of testimonials for CAM having had an allegedly beneficial effect on cancer, this isn't what I have usually seen. More often the patient will have had surgery to remove the tumor, or sometimes chemo and radiotherapy to shrink the tumor to a size amenable to surgery. Often a patient misunderstands when their oncologist tells them there is nothing further they can do, and assumes they are being sent home to die. After surgery, chemo and radiation a patient may be feeling pretty miserable for some time, and if their improvement coincides with some alternative treatment...

A surprising number of patients claim they had no conventional treatment yet wave around a histopathology report on the lump that was removed, perhaps not realizing that this is the mainstay of conventional treatment for solid tumors; chemo and radiation are really icing on the cake. There are several of these on YouTube - freeze-framing these reports is often very interesting. Also, some CAM practitioners are not averse to faking biopsy and scan reports. Jli, a pathologist, does a great job of debunking some of these on the Anaximperator blog.

Some cancers do go into remission for no apparent reason much more often than you might expect so relying on the kind of anecdotal data you are referring to can be very misleading. For example, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer, refused all treatment apart from estrogen blockers (it was an estrogen sensitive tumor) and self-medicated with whiskey and cigarettes. She is still alive and relatively well over two years later, and the tumor has apparently disappeared (she has refused any more scans or biopsies). If she had been treated by an energy healer it would no doubt have been chalked up as a success.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

I may be out of line here.

I am going to ask Marg directly to stop posting on this thread for the rest of this week, and allow folks to comment on more current threads - please.

I am also asking Marg directly to show respect for the commenters on yesterday's (Oct 10) post and refrain from posting there at all.

Please, Marg. Please stop making this blog "the Marg show."

and see how they fare

What does "see how they fare" translate to, in concrete terms? Having the patients report how they're feeling using something like the Oswestry index, or are you going to objectively measure some actual physical parameter indicative of healing? If energy healing actually heals</i--if it causes actual physiologic changes to occur resulting in improved health or function--why not choose a disease that can provide hard number readouts rather than relying on subjects' self-reporting?

Some could be getting drugs, others surgery, others acupuncture, still others energy healing. This is the kind of study that makes eminent sense to me.

Which would require at least four matched control groups: a group receiving sugar pills, one receiving faux surgery (how exactly would you do that?), one recieving faux acupuncture (either those retractable needles or actual needles inserted at the 'wrong' meridian points) and of course one receiving faux energy healing.

Why so complicated? Why include arms looking at surgery, drugs and accupuncture when the question we're asking is whether energy healing is effective? We know surgery can be effective already, we know drugs can be effective already, and there's already plenty of evidence indicaiting any efficacy seen with acupuncture is due to placebo effects.

@Krebiozen
My point was that if a patient has conventional treatment and his or her condition continues to deteriorate and conventional treatment is abandoned, and then six months later they see someone like Kurt Peterson and go into remission, you cannot claim that it was the conventional treatment that put them there. I agree with your point on people who have surgery and then attribute their remission to alternative treatments.

My point was that if a patient has conventional treatment and his or her condition continues to deteriorate and conventional treatment is abandoned, and then six months later they see someone like Kurt Peterson and go into remission

You mean a predatory scumbag? I'm sure one can be found cheaper.

@ Chemmomo: "Marg" is an ignorant thread-derailing troll. As long as people keep responding to the Marg Troll...(s)he won't stop.

@JGC
As @Krebiozen pointed out, not everything is amenable to double blinding. Acupuncture would probably not be a good candidate. And as I pointed out, only 30-odd per cent of medical studies are double-blinded. So from your point of view does that make rest useless?

@Chemmomo
It seems to me people are having rather a good time abusing me and that we have had some interesting discussion. I will not post on Orac's latest because I see no point in re-hashing this argument.

"the rest"

Marg,

My point was that if a patient has conventional treatment and his or her condition continues to deteriorate and conventional treatment is abandoned, and then six months later they see someone like Kurt Peterson and go into remission, you cannot claim that it was the conventional treatment that put them there.

I have never seen a well-documented case like that, and I have scoured the literature quite thoroughly. Even if such a case was well-documented you still have the problem of spontaneous remission which does happen, though very rarely, even in those expected to die imminently. Only a RCT could conclusively prove there was something to energy healing. Since Peterson has no problem with his patients getting conventional treatment as well as his energy healing, I see no reason he could not participate in one, but I very much doubt he would, for obvious reasons.

BTW, Peterson claims to have treated thousands of cancer patients. If that is true, a handful of them will be statistical fliers whose survival far exceeded their prognosis, like Stephen Jay Gould, that's about the same number as Peterson has testimonials on his website.

Out of respect to Chemmomo, and because I think she's right, this will be my last comment on this thread, unless I get the opportunity to add something new, which seems unlikely the way this has been going.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

not everything is amenable to double blinding

How about the healing effect of a Whore with a Heart of Gold?[*] Because that would be way cheaper.

[*] Has Buddhist credibility, as well.

One of the reasons I would like to see doctors work with energy healers is that we could then monitor the effects.

You misunderstood what I meant by the body returning back to what it’s accustomed.

Yes I did. Thanks for clarifying.

Sheldrake advocates effectiveness studies. He suggests that we take a condition such as back pain (presumably caused by the same problem), recruit a large number of patients, divide them up among multiple practitioners and see how they fare.

I think a study like that would have to address a few major difficulties.

First off, a study like that would probably have to have a control group which received no treatment, which seems unethical. Or you would use current standard medical approach or similar treatment with plenty of published literature to back it up as your control. This would also have some problems, with what published studies (or the average/median of which) to use as the control, and the differences in location and background and habits of the patients.

It would also be unethical to randomly assign participants into treatment groups, if one felt that the treatments might not be equally promising. (Not a statistician, by the way, so I might be off and my terminology is likely off too).
That latter unethical bit could perhaps be sidestepped by letting the participants choose their preferred treatment, but that would bring on the confounding factor al kimeea mentioned in full - namely that a certain type of person with certain type of values and background and habits is more likely to select a particular treatment, making it harder to compare the actual efficacies because the control groups are less likely to be similar. (say you had two treatment options, and 80% of those who chose treatment A were under 35 years old, while 80% of those who chose B were over 50 years old. Add to that all the genetic backgrounds, financial status, travelling habits, diets, alcohol consumption and so on, and accurately comparing the efficacy of the treatments becomes hard).

You would also agree on what the study measured? For back pain, pain relief obviously (hard to measure), probably mobility issues, but would it follow general health (like someone said way upthread, there are no studies about 5-year incidence of heart attack with energy healing...), which would increase the confounding factor, or adverse side effects from surgery or medication (or unsterilised needles)...

And then there would be selecting the actual doctors and healers and acupuncturists, and either tracking their individual track record, or then averaging their scores, both of which present more chances for errors.

Also, I'm not claiming these are only problems for this kind of study, but they would need to be addressed before the study would be of any/much merit.

Some could be getting drugs, others surgery, others acupuncture, still others energy healing.

Would those four be the most likely to produce useful comparative data, or do you think a study such as this should include other treatment options, or multiple variants of these four* basic types?

* = I don't think that there are too many significantly different ways of acupuncture, but for the other three there ought to be.

I am continuously upgrading my skills by learning new techniques.

Is there considerable differences, or is it a slow gradual progress? Meaning, do you feel there are actual "rites" (not meant derogatively, what I mean are specific techniques/movements/mental exercises that work noticeably better than similar but not identical ones) or is it more a gradual refinement of energy manipulation talent?

I believe that this thread represents an excavation of the thinking processes of a woo-supporter in great detail- we can survey the various artefacts we find there- I'll look at characteristics *other* than logical fallacies,

We are told that we think we know everything, are close-minded, materialistic and mechanistic, follow our leaders in lock-step fashion amongst many other endearing traits.

We find great persistence and stamina on Marg's part because these ideas represent core beliefs/ issues that form part of her identity: they're emotionally charged, not cold and dry products of a classroom . Our way is on the way out.

The arguments our web woo-meisters present similarly engender emotion and fervent belief- often betraying a church meeting, revival feel. Like any religion worth its salt, enemies of the righteous must be identified and excoriated. And we are that. Devils all, some nicer than others.

To repeat myself: if you scratch alt med, you'll find religion. As the Christians say, faith is belief in things unseen. In other words, without DATA Like followers of AJW, thousands upon thousands of words, hundreds of proofs and dozens of rulings will not convince the faithful because opposition is truly the work of the devil.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

And as I pointed out, only 30-odd per cent of medical studies are double-blinded.

As I pointed out, I've been in one of each. Both valid in their approach. Why think otherwise?

The SBM Doctor overseeing the study had bitter words over the regulatory hoops he must jump. I think it was because the earlier human trial of this new drug was obviously effective.

Ewe aren't required to navigate those same hoops and wish to rely on anecdote, antiquity and authority to lead us back to the future.

Marg, please do me a favour and read this short essay - The Argument Clinic and tell me what you think of it. For some background, the article is in regards to a conversation about psychics, homeopathy, acupuncture and naturopathy.

As a bonus, you'll be treated to a viddy of some classic Monty Python.

Seriously.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

@gaist
I would imagine conditions could be chosen that are not lethal. In Canada, for instance, people wait for aeons for knee replacement surgery. While they are waiting, pain control needs to be exercised. So many opt for pain killers, others go for acupuncture, a few might have some kind of energy healing. So that could be a good group for a study. I see what you mean by it being complicated, however. I see what you mean also by variants. For the "energy healing" component I would pick one that claims a good track record with the condition, and a practitioner or practitioners that likewise claim a good track record.

By improvement I mean more consistent results. When I first began about half the time nothing much happened. Or the person would report that the pain went away and then later report that it came back in an hour. I was initially very skeptical and expected nothing to happen. I was also quite surprised when something did.

Over time as I studied more I began to see some kind effect more often than not. People would report that the pain did not come back until the next day or until three days later.

There were interesting effects. Poison oak disappearing as we watched. A wasp sting not swelling at all but remaining as a flat gray & white blotchy spot, about one inch in diameter (in someone who normally reacted to wasp stings with a huge swelling). The next day it was the size of a mosquito bite (I suspect what the "healing" did was to stop the histamine reaction). A man whose knee was frozen after being immobilized in a cast watching as his leg straightened without pain, without manipulation, apparently on its own. If this is all the power of the mind, then bring on the mind!

The purpose of multiple techniques ("rites" if you will) is to have a toolkit. Out of curiosity, or out of necessity, one can try different things. The one thing all techniques require is non-attachment to the outcome. Some teachers of techniques (e.g., Bengston, Bartlett) emphasise "being playful". Over time one learns to be less involved with the outcome, and that supposedly produces better results. Also, as Malcolm Gladwell says in Outliers, practice makes a huge difference. By the time you put 10,000 hours into doing something, you get pretty good at it. The 10,000 hours is Gladwell's number.

@Denice Walter
It's pretty funny. I say you all have a dogmatic attachment to science as a religion and you say "scratch alt med, you'll find religion". It's like people pointing fingers at each other saying "you are religious", "no I'm not, you are". "I said it first!'' "No, I did!"

@Al Kimeea
Very funny sketch. Thank you. The abuse department sounds just like @Narad.

I drift back and forth between "a" and "b". As you see from my discussion with @gaist, I can be quite reasonable, and part of my intent was to provide information that people on the board may not have. I see them as being quite knee-jerk in their reaction against alt-med and I foolishly believed that information might make a difference. But apparently double-blind studies is the only information they are interested in.

@Krebiozen
I found a number of testimonials for Peterson on the web. Nothing thrashing him. He says he has treated 1200 people. You say about 8 per cent of cancers spontaneously go into remission. What percentage of stage IV cancers do? Out of 1200, 8 per cent is 96 people. Peterson says he mostly works with stage IV cancers, so 8 per cent would probably be quite high. If he can present documentation for several hundred, as he ought to be able to do based on what he says, would that not be significant?

"I say you all have a dogmatic attachment to science as a religion"

It never ceases to amaze how believers in the illogical think that accusing opponents of being religious is a stinging insult.

Why do you hate religion?

By Dangerous Bacon (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Dangerous Bacon

I don't hate religion. As you saw above, @Denice Walter said all alt-med is religion. Science becomes a religion too if its precepts are accepted on faith.

As you see from my discussion with @gaist, I can be quite reasonable,

You couldn't reason your way out a wet paper bag, so no. The word is not some sort of substitute for a form of tone.

and part of my intent was to provide information that people on the board may not have. I see them as being quite knee-jerk in their reaction against alt-med and I foolishly believed that information might make a difference.

I.e., you completely refuse to acknowledge just how much rope you've been given, or your own evasiveness, or the general pattern of failure leading inexorably to attempted change of subject. Finish the job, Marg, and slink back to you partners in fraud and burble about how you really showed everybody, but they couldn't stand to behold the blinding light revealed when you thrust back the curtain to the multiverse. It's what sad sacks do.

@ Marg:

You get us wrong!
Very little of my life has to do with science; I choose and behave as I desire, based purely on my rather mercurial feelings- as ephemeral and frivolous as they may be... I do what I please and what feels good to me.

HOWEVER when I have to counsel someone concerning their education, career or future OR advise a relative about their investments ( the former is paid/ the latter gratis), you can bet your a-- I'm not going to rely upon my feelings and whims because someone else's life and well-being are at stake and I want DATA and research because I am not the last word. I don't presume to 'see into' the deeper nature of human endeavors to enlighten others towards their true pathway to their own true self and heart 's delight. I look at the NUMBERS. And TRENDS.

The world is a vast intertwined mingle of variables that work together invisibly- our usual place within this matrix of possiblities is hemmed in with fear and doubt: data provides a little light in the seeming darkness of uncertainty that we flail around in.

I define faith as belief in the unseen and unknown; my belief in research concerns belief in what I can SEE and what is knowable now. Following rules about research is no more dogmatic than using correct spellings or patterns of arithmatic: it's how it's done and what works.

What I feel and what I like are of little consequence in the wide world BUT if I want to help people I need the opinions and consensus of experts which is what research eventually boils down to-
if I am "right" ( whatever that means) it comes from others' work and study, not from 'on high', or from my opinion alone.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

And...

(I suspect what the “healing” did was to stop the histamine reaction).

I am reminded of this recent comment at SBM. How promptly did this wasp victim present to you, Marg? You do understand that not all local reactions are mediated by histamine, right? By all means, sketch the steps in your colonial "reasoning."

"Science becomes a religion too if its precepts are accepted on faith."

Well I accept that we are fallible and easily fooled by our own prejudices and so must strive to mitigate their influence to understand the nature of our home and ourselves.

But it is more a trust.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Narad
Immediately after being stung.

Yeah, Monty is great at insightful absurdity.

Marg, did that article make any reference at all to the subject matter?

Did it in any way provide support or undermine the subject at hand?

Was there any reference to arguments or evidence that may have been offered?

By al kimeea (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

@al kimeea
Are you speaking of the article which contained the Monty Python skit? It only spoke of debating styles. I saw no reference to homeopathy or alt-med.

Whatever, "energy healing" (and related alt woo - and cancer quackery - and homeopathy) remains a humbug.
A wonderful 19th century term - Mark Twain, quick to recognize that sort of pompous nonsense reminds us:
"All you need is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure."
By the way, DW, I'm also enjoying your comments on another concurrent RI thread.

Argument from authority, but this is some authority:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/glaxo-chief-our-drugs-do-not-…

"A senior executive with Britain's biggest drugs company has admitted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them.

Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them.

It is an open secret within the drugs industry that most of its products are ineffective in most patients but this is the first time that such a senior drugs boss has gone public. His comments come days after it emerged that the NHS drugs bill has soared by nearly 50 per cent in three years, rising by £2.3bn a year to an annual cost to the taxpayer of £7.2bn. GSK announced last week that it had 20 or more new drugs under development that could each earn the company up to $1bn (£600m) a year.

Dr Roses, an academic geneticist from Duke University in North Carolina, spoke at a recent scientific meeting in London where he cited figures on how well different classes of drugs work in real patients.

Drugs for Alzheimer's disease work in fewer than one in three patients, whereas those for cancer are only effective in a quarter of patients. Drugs for migraines, for osteoporosis, and arthritis work in about half the patients, Dr Roses said. Most drugs work in fewer than one in two patients mainly because the recipients carry genes that interfere in some way with the medicine, he said.

"The vast majority of drugs - more than 90 per cent - only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people," Dr Roses said. "I wouldn't say that most drugs don't work. I would say that most drugs work in 30 to 50 per cent of people. Drugs out there on the market work, but they don't work in everybody.""

More fail, Marg. At least you're consistent. You've already had your only hint.

So what you're saying, Marg, is you believe that evidence provided for energy healing should be questioned even more stringently than mainstream medicine?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 11 Oct 2012 #permalink

@Gray Falcon
I am not sure where that question comes from. What I am saying, or rather what Dr. Roses of GSK above appears to be saying, is that all those stringently tested drugs in mainstream medicine work, just not for most people. Nice percentages, wouldn't you say? I don't know where he gets those numbers, but you would think he would know whereof he speaks.

What I am saying, or rather what Dr. Roses of GSK above appears to be saying, is that all those stringently tested drugs in mainstream medicine work, just not for most people. Nice percentages, wouldn’t you say?

Not if the percentages involve your reading comprehension scales, Fakey McFakerson.

(I duly note that this particular item, once instantiated into its published Ecologist form, appears juxtaposed with the "75% of physicians refuse chemotherapy" trope at... the David Icke forums. I would recommend these happy fields of clover to Marg; in particular, user "princessofwands" is probably a BFF just waiting to happen, aside from the part where Marg wouldn't be quite so special any more.)

Please, Marg. Please stop making this blog “the Marg show.”

I've been thinking about this in the past couple of days actually. Is it me or is Marg just attempting to have the last word and pronounce 'winner' based on the fact that she's tired us all out? She really is a run-of-the-mill crank troll.

Of course, she's dealing with the wrong people. Most I guess would have SIWOTI, but my personal hobby for a while was spamming the spammers on forums. It's funny that they actually get tired after a few hours of being spammed themselves.

As for me, I agree with the idea of stopping the replies. Marg's comments have clearly been flattened, there's no point in doing it ad naseum.

My last words to Marg, not that she reads them:

Feel free to post your peer-reviewed study when it’s published. Until then...

Shouldn't this thread be almost at the point of the automatic closure? Did Orac say it was 60 or 90 days?

The error that many of the modern energy gurus who claim the word quantum make is they think that the analogies used by theoretical physicists ARE the science and not just a way to explain a very complicated theory. Mathematics is the actual language of particle physics, not story, and the one unifying factor that energy magic has is the gurus never use maths to describe their claim. Most or all of what they say is just made up out of whole cloth, and Veltheim is no different.

That is aboot a mode of energy healing I'd not heard before - Body Talk

This involves tapping to manipulate the HEF. I wonder if this is the same energy field for all these $CAMs or are there cultural differences?

DW said - "The arguments our web woo-meisters present similarly engender emotion and fervent belief- often betraying a church meeting, revival feel. Like any religion worth its salt, enemies of the righteous must be identified and excoriated. And we are that. Devils all, some nicer than others."

Not just the meisters, their acolytes behave in a similar manner. That link I provided for Marg is indeed about homeoquackery etc. between a poet - 'I thought of a friend and was phoned, I'm a psychic'; a lawyer - 'Einstein is open minded & evidence free' and me.

They have no monetary or professional stake in it, yet behave just as Marg but with a much thinner skin.

The surprise was the lawyer, hopefully not criminal, and his idea of what constitutes evidence - after admitting we need to use the scientific method to separate the wheat from the chaff.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 12 Oct 2012 #permalink

It's 90, unfortunately.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 12 Oct 2012 #permalink

Nice going, everyone. What, not even an attempt at refutation? He was misquoted, taken out of context, etc.? No, it's "oops, she made a point we can't refute, so let's just shut down the thread, eh?"

I am not sure where that question comes from. What I am saying, or rather what Dr. Roses of GSK above appears to be saying, is that all those stringently tested drugs in mainstream medicine work, just not for most people. Nice percentages, wouldn’t you say? I don’t know where he gets those numbers, but you would think he would know whereof he speaks.

Marg, it's a simple point. If you demand we hold high standards for mainstream medicine, then expect alternative medicine to be held to the exact same standards. The fact that you refuse to do so suggests that you came into this discussion without any sense of honesty.

Nice going, everyone. What, not even an attempt at refutation? He was misquoted, taken out of context, etc.? No, it’s “oops, she made a point we can’t refute, so let’s just shut down the thread, eh?”

You made no point. You may as well have written "I had green curry with fish today for lunch. It was good." and you would have said just as much to prove energy healing as you did before.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 12 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg, you've been actively avoiding making a point. Whenever someone tries to get you to prove one of your claims, you change the subject in hopes that no one will notice or care.

Your behavior is that of an internet troll arguing not to convince, but for the lulz. That's how you look. That is the image you have gone through great effort to project. I have absolutely no reason to believe you are sincere about anything. You get your jollies teasing complete strangers and trampling over their emotions.

So prove me wrong. Where are the high quality trials of energy medicine where there is a statistically significant difference between the treatment group and the control group?

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 12 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ Lawrence, Krebiozen:

Worse - I think I recall there being a second condition, like 90 days old AND no replies in the past week (or something like that).

@Beamup - damn.

Marg,

What, not even an attempt at refutation? He was misquoted, taken out of context, etc.? No, it’s “oops, she made a point we can’t refute, so let’s just shut down the thread, eh?”

I don't think this particular canard has come up on this thread before, just a million times elsewhere on this blog, so:

“The vast majority of drugs – more than 90 per cent – only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people,” Dr Roses said.

It's not a point we can't refute, it's true, but it's a great deal better than CAM which doesn't work in anyone. At the moment a doctor will prescribe a drug for, say, high blood pressure and monitor the patient for a while. If the patient's blood pressure falls, and the side-effects are tolerable, the doctor will continue to prescribe that drug. If the patient doesn't respond or cannot tolerate the drug, the doctor will prescribe a different drug, and continue this process until they find a drug that suits that patient.

Everyone is different and different people respond to different drugs differently. Medical scientists are currently working on identifying which drugs will work on which patients, using genetic and other markers, so the trial and error aspect can be eliminated. Some drugs are already targeted in this way, breast cancer treatments spring to mind. What's wrong with that?

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 12 Oct 2012 #permalink

“The vast majority of drugs – more than 90 per cent – only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people,” Dr Roses said.

If for the sake of argument we accept ths assertion at face value we then do know they work in that 30 or 50 or whatever percent. of people. How do we know? We know because there's actual evidence demonstrating they work: pre-clinical testing, experiments demonstrating proof-of-concept, Phase I, II and III clinical trials demonstrating efficacy and assessing safety, idnetifying possible adverse events and establishing risk-vs.-benefit, and of course after-marketing surveillance further monitoring efficacy and safety. For most of these drugs we know how they work as well (ibuprofen, for example, through inhibition of the enzyme cyclooxygenase).

With energy healing, not only do we not know how it works we don't know if it works on anyone at all.

Certainly you've offered no credible evidence that it does.

Nice going everyone, not even an attempt at refuation?

Nice going, Marg, from someone who has never made any attempt at addressing the topic under discussion. Where is your proof that energy healing works? You've never provided any -- wWhen asked for it, you make a mad dash to find a squirrel.

I look at meds this way:
even without genetic testing, doctors know plenty about their patients because of observation, testing and interview.
A guy has an arrhythmia: let's suppose we know all of his symptoms, test results and intervening factors about him.
We can create a matrix with rows being- perhaps- symptoms and columns being severity- thus he'll wind up in a particular cell or locale - which the doctor can match up to results of research he or she has studied and then *choose* the best drug of many possibilities- so what if drug a helps only 30% of people with arrhythmias if it helps YOU! Then, the patient is started on the med and OBSERVED- ( including tests) does it help? does he feel better? can he do more? does he have any disturbing side effects? they can change the med. 30 or 50 % means something different if you have a choice of many meds.

Alt media likes to present doctors' choices/ thought as being a simple, cut and dry, one variable deal that doesn't involve input or choice by the patient and is entirely dictated by pharma decision making.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 12 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ THS:

I truly appreciate your kind words- and yes, flattery will get you everywhere : it's like ambrosia to me.

@ al kimeea:

Followers mimic and posture in emulation of their leaders in response , some even become preachers themselves. I see their progress along these lines at AoA and TMR- they in turn have followers.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 12 Oct 2012 #permalink

@JCG goes to the doctor. The doctor says "you have appendicitis; you need an appendectomy."

JCG: "where is your proof an appendectomies work? Have there been any controlled double-blinded studies done on appendectomies?"

Dr.: "no, but our clinical observation is that they cure appendicitis."

JCG: "clinical observation! why, that is just anecdotal evidence! how can you trust your observation? or your colleagues' observation? you need trials, man, trials!
I will not go under your scalpel unless you provide me with adequate proof! I want to see successful stage I, stage II, and stage III trials! Double blinded! Controlled!

Dr.: "It has also been our observation that a significant number of people with appendicitis who don't have appendectomies then go on to have a perforated bowel and peritonitis, and subsequently they die."

JCG: "your observation! piffle! blah blah blah! you can't trust your observation! people thought for centuries based on observation that the sun revolved around the earth! you scroundrel, you'll say anything to distract me from the fact that you have no proof that appendectomies work! None!"

Indeed. What would JCG do?

Marg, have you ever considered engaging in honest discussion? Or applying the slightest bit of thought to what you write?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 12 Oct 2012 #permalink

It's stiff competition, but that may actually rank as the most moronic comment Marg has made yet.

One thing, Marg: Every single penny you've ever taken as a "donation" is ill gotten. Each red cent.

@Marg:

What would JCG do? Ignore another pathetic attempt on your part to change the subject and ask you --- again --- for proof that energy healing works.

I posted a link to an article that discussed why double blind studies are sometimes impractical or unethical and why other kinds of compelling evidence are acceptable, just a little way upthread. I'm not sure why I bothered.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 12 Oct 2012 #permalink

Marg once again demonstrates that she has no concept of "evidence" or "proof."

@Krebiozen
I am perfectly awareof why double-blind studies would sometimes be impractical or unethical. JCG, however, does not seem to be. I was just illustrating the absurdity of his position taken to the extremes.

BTW this thread began with me pointing out the shortcomings of Science and allopathic medicine. It was your lot that then changed it to "oh yeah, prove that energy healing works then!"
With the Roses quotation I returned to where I began, and where I will now rest. Your precious gold-plated studies produce medicine that works in less than half the population. They are expensive, cumbersome, and time-consuming, in addition to being ineffective when those "proven" drugs are taken out into real populations. It's time to dump the method and come up with something better -- such as the comparative efficacy studies I suggested earlier.

BTW this thread began with me pointing out the shortcomings of Science and allopathic medicine.

No, your first comment was this mind-numbingly stupid remark:

The biggest group perpetrating quackery against cancer patients is oncologists promoting chemotherapy, which has now been shown to promote the spread of cancer.

And "energy healing" would be "allopathic" if not for the problem of simply being a dumb-ass scam, f*ckwit.

Yeah, Narad's right. A bit rude at this point due to thoroughly justified impatience, is all.
I reckon this will continue until Orac closes the thread. Please don't dominate the rap, Marg, when you've got nothing new to say. Worse, what you have said has no basis in reality.

Marg,

I am perfectly aware of why double-blind studies would sometimes be impractical or unethical. JCG, however, does not seem to be. I was just illustrating the absurdity of his position taken to the extremes.

Having reread the last few of JGC's comments, I don't see any evidence at all that he takes that position. He pointed out that there is copious evidence that the pharmaceutical drugs referred to by Dr. Roses work in a substantial minority of people, and no equivalent evidence that energy healing works any better than a placebo for anything at all in anyone. There is also copious evidence that appendectomy is an effective treatment for appendicitis and we know that the longer appendectomy is delayed, the greater the risk of perforation and nasty sequelae so your reductio ad absurdum falls flat on its face.

The rest of your comment betrays a gross ignorance of how clinical trials and other studies actually work, and why they are carried out the way they are.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 12 Oct 2012 #permalink

" Your precious gold-plated studies produce medicine that works in less than half the population."

And your methods work on none.

The essence of what Marg is doing: She doesn't care about the truth or which treatments work best. She's doing the Gish Gallop, shotgunning pseudo-points in hopes we don't refute them all, so that she can "win."

She ignores our points and refuses to acknowledge our actual positions because she just wants to play the script in her head and distorts everything we say to try to make it conform to her prejudices.

She also wants to put every comparatively tiny problem with SBM on trial because she has no defense for energy medicine and is completely blind to its much greater shortcomings. What the gullible marks in the world don't know won't hurt her, and acknowledging the Ayn Randian caveat emptor anarchy of the altie market would only direct attention where we want it to be, not where she wants it to be.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 12 Oct 2012 #permalink

The only thing Marg has done is show that she is impervious to thinking about the responses people have given. She doesn't care about the answers, or making an informed reply back; she cares about being right (even if she's wrong) and making emotional pleas that have nothing to do with science.

In fact, she may think she'll convert a lurker or something, show them that science is just full of blowhards... instead she'll make herself appear as though she's an ignorant person who prefers wishful thinking to reality.

In fact, she may think she’ll convert a lurker or something, show them that science is just full of blowhards…

I'm certainly still entertaining the notion that, in some mental nook, perhaps cranny, she thinks this exhibitiion may be a springboard to the Big Time.

@Narad

Interesting hypothesis. She could be posting this thread to some alt-med forum, and saying "see, see, I'm so much smarter than they are" and having her acolytes be so darned impressed with her reasoning abilities.

Luckily for us, that doesn't make her any more right than she's ever been on anything.

“The vast majority of drugs – more than 90 per cent – only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people,” Dr Roses said. “I wouldn’t say that most drugs don’t work. I would say that most drugs work in 30 to 50 per cent of people.Drugs out there on the market work, but they don’t work in everybody.”"

If you allow for a whimsical allegory, let's think of drugs as clothes. Most clothes only fit a small percentage of people, but if there is enough different sizes on sale everybody can find something suitable.

Then there are some clothes, that albeit they fit, the colours clash, they chafe or feel uncomfortable enough not to be bought. These would be the side effects. Luckily, in most cases, there is something else the shopper can choose instead.

Now, if we stick with the allegory a little further, most alt-med marketers want you to think that regular medicine means ugly one-size fit military uniforms that chafe and squeeze and are made from dead bady hairs for everybody. And instead of offering similar but better clothes, they have all-encompasing cures for everybody (or rather, everybody who gets better, because if you didn't YOU didn't want it or believe in it hard enough)

Continuing with the allegory, none of these alt-med clothes have been through the same rigorous manufacturing standards as traditional med clothes, and if yours falls apart while you're wearing it, it was your own fault. Also, there are no quarantees or any statistics showing they keep you warm, or dry like clothes should. At worst, these would be like the fabled emperors new clothes. You can't see them, you can't feel them, they offer no help or protection, but at least you "KNOW" you're wearing something.

"Drugs for Alzheimer’s disease work in fewer than one in three patients"

This doesn't mean that over 70% of all Alzheimer's patients are left untreted, with only the side effects to keep them company. What it means, that (best case scenario), three different drugs would treat practically everybody with Alzheimer's. Best case scenarios like this rarely happen, but luckily we have more than 3 drugs for Alzheimer's. This multi-prong approach is also better because some drugs are better and treating certain symptoms, so depending on the stage of the disease, and particular manifestations, the doctor can choose the one that best fits the symptoms.

Very well put Gaist.

Building on Gaist's excellent post about various classifications/various combinations of drugs to treat hypertension...

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/hbp/treat/bpd_type.htm

Wow, is Marg not the dumbest troll that we've seen here in a (very) long time?

Marg, as Gaist very eloquently pointed out, we're all aware of the limitations of Newtonian medicine and what is required for new medicines to be marketed. We're also aware of the same for the $CAM industry.

The eebil allopathists promised me nothing and told me upfront it was 50/50 for me because of genetic variation in the bug. For others with another variant, the odds are much better. They also warned of all known side effects with the caveat of possibly experiencing any combo or none of them.

And, because we aren't all exactly the same, please let us know of anything you experience not on the list, such as my 'stache going all silky soft and growing straight out of my upper lip, almost like a Shih Tzu flower face.

It wasn't pleasant Marg, but I understand why. All the things living on this rock, "grew up" on it and so are related which means if you're going to mess with a protein of a bug to hinder reproduction, there's a good chance we have that protein - but doing something else.

Allopathists aren't allowed to just market new techniques even with already approved drugs - hence the first study I was in. For the second, all I was told is that it was promising.

$CAM artists can and do say whatever the fuck they want. It is no wonder they want to dump the scientific method and lead us into the bright future of Galenopathy.

Marg it is obvious that you don't have any idea that you are shamelessly lying to people as you reach into their wallets.

The sad part is your patients marks have no idea either as the lawyer, poet and the bloke who wrote that entertaining ad hom aboot me made clear - "science has it's place".

As DW nicely pointed out, that place is snuggled or smothered by a belief system where mystery is compelling and knowledge is arrogant.

By al kimeea (not verified) on 13 Oct 2012 #permalink

I'll add my thumbs up for gaist's last comment. It also touches on how I see things in terms of individualization of treatment.

Real doctors and researchers go through the trouble of finding out what can vary in a patient and how that would vary the response to different treatments. People vary based on genetics, background, patient history, and so forth, so you can't expect a drug to work under every circumstance. All the various specialties interact on things like this and it's why doctors need you to permit them to share your medical information so they won't be operating in the dark when it comes to your individual quirks.

I doubt many quacks show that level of attention, aside from the fraudulent or sincere but less confident quacks looking out for signs that their patient needs real serious care from useful doctors. If one quack treatment doesn't work out, they've got the far more extreme version of individualization as an excuse: You can't know anything about what will work because no one has anything in common (in such a case, how can anyone assert that any treatment works on anything?). This encourages the patient to keep seeking out new treatments until there's an apparent success, whether from the self-limiting nature of some illnesses, regression to the mean, spontaneous remission, or whatever, so long as they keep trying stuff that conforms with altie identity politics.

By Bronze Dog (not verified) on 13 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ al kimeea:

I really appreciate your comments.

I find that alt med *coddles* its followers by first flattering them - they're part of a 'paradigm shift', a *nouvelle vague*, if you will: they're riding the crest of a great tsunamic, over-washing of science - a cleansing of its soiled linens .

Secondly, it insulates them from dire prognoses and realistic consequences of illness as well as un-attractive, uncomfortable - but necessary- treatments. Instead it provides *easier* options that work without fail: uncertainty and fear are eliminated by panacaea. promises and spiritual assurances.

Obviously, comfort is important, especially when people are hurt, physically or emotionally: however it's important that the coddling not interfere with the REAL treatment. Alt media may RIGHT NOW be interfering with people getting care because it frightens them away from SBM and wastes time and money. So much of their MO is fearmongering.

-btw- there's nothing wrong with coddling: when I had a minor eye injury a few months ago, I was rather pleased that someone brought me a very overpriced, cashmere scarf that probably accomplished more than OTC pain pills and ice. I think I'll wear it later today.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 13 Oct 2012 #permalink

You know, there are two possible things you can believe:

1) That what works for most people must work for all people and individualized treatment is therefore not necessary.

2) Individualized treatment is necessary because people vary.

Why is it, exactly, that Marg can condemn Big Pharma for saying "these pills are not what will work for all people" but lionize Burzynski, who tells his marks "Oh, sure, I gave that guy a different cocktail of chemo drugs than I'm going to give you, but the really important thing is that you're buying them through my pharmacy at my markup"?

By Antaeus Feldspar (not verified) on 13 Oct 2012 #permalink

@ Bronze Dog

I was told of another patient whose markers were waaay outta whack which alarmed our minders. Turns out the person was taking some traditional Chinese herb and failed to mention it - even though we were regularly quizzed on supplements.

These minders, BTW, were shruggies regarding the $CAM industry, "science doesn't know everything.".

@ DW

I too have found this endless discussion useful for it's insights into Altieville. That this one has carried on so long is very interesting as they usually dissolve by now.

The poet et al are a lefty political site, so I was interested in how they would argue $CAM-wise, seeing as that end of the spectrum are supposed to be Friends of Science.

Marg redux, religion rebooted. Not too happy to be told Einstein wasn't so open minded his brain fell out.

When you believe in things you don't understand, then you suffer"

By al kimeea (not verified) on 14 Oct 2012 #permalink

@al kimeea
Also endless insights into "Alloville"....

Can you tell us what particularly valuable insights you've taken away from the dialogue with regard to 'Alloville'?