The anti woo thread.

[LetThereBeRock]

Can all those who don't believe in homeopathy,ghosts,talking to the dead,reading minds etc,please check in here?

There must be a few of us.

I feel as though I've logged onto allthingswoo.com rather than Mumsnet.com at the moment,and I'm not referring to this particuarly forum,but chat and AIBU?.

And if anyone says anything about how we should be openminded,I'm afraid I'll have to beat you to death with a a stick,one cut from an ash tree by the light of the first Summer moon of course.

big -- interesting,and this was trillian's point.

however her link to show the same was flawed

the researchers handed over the sugar pills saying

here are some sugar pills which have no active ingredient but have been found to have an effect in previous IBS trials

so there is a. belief that they'll work

and b. that belief depends on deception in the previous trials

it's basically, telling somebody that something would work and that somebody believing in it

at some point that belief has a basis in deception

but yes, this is interesting and you have got to the point

Who said I'm arguing it for woo? what on EARTH are you on about?

You are the only poster on this thread being insulting and unpleasant. Please stop.

Clearly there is quite a difference between recognising that the Placebo effect exist and woo. So there. We are all agreed. Play nicely, please.

Iridology, anyone?

So Appletrees' breathtaking rudeness and aggression is simply because she believes the placebo effect exists? I don't think anyone was disputing that. As Buzz rightly points out, this does not give credibility to the 'peddlars of woo' we have been discussing.

Ooooo iridology. That's a bit like reflexology without the nice relaxing foot massage...

I am anti-woo. I have woo friends. They sometimes buy me woo gifts. They mean well. I still think they're a bit silly.

My local woo-centre offers colour therapy, which is my favourite so far (she also employs a very good beautician: woo to the right, pedicures to the left - just so's you know why I've been in there). AFAIK this seems to comprise lying down with your eyes shut, lovely essential oily smells and relaxing whaley music, while somebody covers you, in a meaningful way, with sheets of - this is the important bit - different colours. Sounds lush :)

but if you have your eyes shut she might tricking you. they might be all beige.

I've had a reflexology session once - 'twas v pleasant . Particularly as I was not paying for it - a friend needed willing 'victims' to practice.

Loving the sound of Colour therapy - how do they decide what colours one needs??

I wonder what Beige cures?

Excitement?
Enthusiasm?
Zest for life?

do you think if she gets the colours wrong you come away feeling worse?
some shades of pink are really not good for me, for instance.

But hey, wait, maybe beige cures cancer : all these overenthusiastically deviding malignant cells taking over their host's body could be stopped with a bit of beige!!!

Stop the presses! Call the Nobel Prize committee!

Oh, sorry, I am sneering again, aren't I?

no, not at all, you are producing mordant satire.

Our local Haven Cancer Support Centre offers all sorts of Complementary Therapies; it is run by a lovely woman who really cares for all her clients. And there is no doubt that a lot of patients benefit greatly from time and attention being spent on them, so I don't actually have a problem with any of that. Even though it is an NHS service...

However, said woman recently was v upset because one of the women attending wanted to stop all conventional therapy in favour of Aromatherapy .

Complementary therapy: to complement other treatment, not 'instead of'. And not 'Complimentary' either

My friend went to a spa for a mud wrap, just for fun, not because she thought it would really give her Yasmin Le Bon's skin. Is lying there, and therapist starts to explain the treatment

Therapist: This mud will recharge your energy because it contains special minerals from, [hushed whisper] the earth

Friend: As opposed to from where?

Therapist: Exactly

Friend

I posted this on the Astrology thread, but it sits even better on here.

What I find interesting about irrational versus rational explanations for things is that people like me, who want to find a rational explanation for odd-seeming phenomena, are usually perfectly open to there being more than one.

e.g.:
Someone came into your church in a wheelchair and got up and danced in the middle of the service after the Holy Spirit was invited to come down on them? Well, OK, it happened, so they were (a) not really disabled (b) a stooge/plant (c) someone with a condition like M.E. which has good and bad days (d) quite able to dance, but in a bit of pain... etc. It could be any of them.

e.g.:
Odd smudge on the photo? Hmmm, well, that might be (a) light reflection (b) a lens scratch (c) an oddity caused in development (d) a thumbprint....

And so on. We don't argue angrily for it being one to the exclusion of all others.

Whereas people who want to find a supernatural explanation - despite the fact that there are, if you believe that sort of thing, literally thousands on offer - always seem to want their particular favourite one to be the only answer. It was God! It was angels! It was demons! It was a ghost! It was crystal healing! And so on.

Confirmation bias, pure and simple. If you believe in Woo A, you will be looking for examples of Woo A at work in the world and attribute things to it. If you believe in Woo B, you will be looking for examples of Woo B at work in the world and attribute things to it. And so on.

"You are the only poster on this thread being insulting and unpleasant"

rubbish

brainless, stupid, demented etc etc -- you just don't like it in the other direction

"Clearly there is quite a difference between recognising that the Placebo effect exist and woo"

actually, given that the only benefit likely the be achieved through alternative treatments is placebo, there isn't

"The interesting thing about the placebo effect is you don't have to believe."

I think you have misunderstood the term "placebo effect".

= any effect that seems to be a consequence of administering a placebo; the change is usually beneficial and is assumed result from the person's faith in the treatment

= A positive or therapeutic benefit resulting from the administration of a placebo to someone who believes the treatment is real.

= If you believe something will make an improvement, it will make an improvement (usually). A scientific fact so well documented that trials of new drugs are always blind-tested vs. a placebo (something with no "real" effect).

= A remarkable phenomenon in which a placebo, a fake treatment, an inactive substance like sugar, distilled water, or saline solution, can sometimes improve a patient's condition simply because the person has the expectation that it will be helpful.

... definitions from various sources.

that's true UQD. Scientists are perfectly well able to hold in their minds numbers of possibilities and different degrees of uncertainty, and yet science is often characterised by people who believe in woo as excessively certain about things.

I've never understood people who say 'I know what I saw, it was a ghost' whereas if they are genuinely open-minded they should be saying 'I know I saw something, it may have been a ghost but it may also have been a hallucination or a trick.' For someone to say 'there might be ghosts, we don't KNOW there aren't' seems almost fair enough, but effectively they are denying the possibility of hallucinations or trickery, which makes less sense.

Quite. The study already linked showing that subjects who were given sugar pills were told they were being given sugar pills (hence the claim that deception is not necessary) were also told that the sugar pills would work or could work. Hence the deception is a condition.

Remove the deception and to a large degree you could remove the health benefit.

This is ethically intrguing. A proper debate would need to have at hand figures on health costs, private financial costs and relative benefits.

Many studies show no observable benefit, which in many ways would be expected, and leads you to the conclusion they are worthless.

But such studies rarely take account the fact that people who explore alternative therapy have failed to find resort in conventional medicine. There is no other way they are going to see an improvement in symptoms.

The benefit then is measurable. It is privately funded and largely without health costs.

That's why I think it's an interesting debate and not something to be derogatory about mindlessly. It has a place and a value, though not the value it puts on itself.

While people are mindlessly insulting about it, there's no possibility that its value can be investigated and understood.

You think you're so clever, but you're not. It's just easy targets. But the targets have a hidden value which you can't appreciate.

It would cost the NHS millions if all private alternative health clinics closed. I'm sure you can work out why.

(actually I'm not sure given the level of exchange but you could always try)

None of us go on the religious threads and start jumping up and down shouting about imaginary friends and sky fairies.

well that ain't true for a start

so you can only hold your private little smirking club successfully so long as no one is allowed to question you?

seriously, no one is allowed to call you on it?

you are joking?

What exactly are you questioning Appletrees?

I've skimmed the thread and it's not clear to me. I do agree with you that any benefit from woo "therapies" are from placebo effect.

Was there anything else?