At the same time, you've got peer-reviewed journal articles and studies -- published by those scientists that others in this thread are holding to such a high standard -- saying things like this:
Quote:
Abstract: Background Biofield therapies (such as Reiki, therapeutic touch, and healing touch) are complementary medicine modalities that remain controversial and are utilized by a significant number of patients, with little information regarding their efficacy.
Purpose: This systematic review examines 66 clinical studies with a variety of biofield therapies in different patient populations.
Method: We conducted a quality assessment as well as a best evidence synthesis approach to examine evidence for biofield therapies in relevant outcomes for different clinical populations.
Results: Studies overall are of medium quality, and generally meet minimum standards for validity of inferences. Biofield therapies show strong evidence for reducing pain intensity in pain populations, and moderate evidence for reducing pain intensity hospitalized and cancer populations. There is moderate evidence for decreasing negative behavioral symptoms in dementia and moderate evidence for decreasing anxiety for hospitalized populations. There is equivocal evidence for biofield therapies' effects on fatigue and quality of life for cancer patients, as well as for comprehensive pain outcomes and affect in pain patients, and for decreasing anxiety in cardiovascular patients.
Conclusion: There is a need for further high-quality studies in this area. PDF of full paper on Springerlink
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Basically an evaluation of studies (conducted by researches at UCLA and the U of California) says 'it seems like these practices are good for some things, average for others, and potentially ineffective for yet others. So we need to study them more.' Certainly not an outright dismissal.
Now, of course that's not a guarantee of anything. I guess I'm just proposing that not all research so unequivocally shows that such therapies are 'bunk'. At least some studies demonstrate that they have value. In my mind, it' s a double standard to point to studies that say they don't work as 'proof', but to ignore the ones that indicate they very well may. In other words -- the 'jury' is still out. But that's getting off track a bit from the initial direction of the thread, and will leave it at that
/shrug