Acupuncture- Real or B.S.

[JustAnotherGuy]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

So the consensus is that it is in the mind, not the treatment.

It seems that the people who have used acupuncture say it works for pain. The people who have never used acupuncture say it doesn't work. What you conclude from that is up to you.

[Rhettzky]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

It seems that the people who have used acupuncture say it works for pain.

Yeah and those five who died in case studies aren't feeling any pain either.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

It seems that the people who have used acupuncture say it works for pain. The people who have never used acupuncture say it doesn't work. What you conclude from that is up to you.

The studies only look at people that received accupuncture treatment, or a placebo. What people who have never used accupuncture think is irrelevant.

[photon]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

It seems that the people who have used acupuncture say it works for pain. The people who have never used acupuncture say it doesn't work. What you conclude from that is up to you.

Actually it'd be more accurate to say that "It seems that the number of people who have used acupuncture and say it works for pain is the same as the number of people who didn't use acupuncture but thought they did who say it works for pain".

Not sure if your misrepresentation was intentional or not.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by photon

How do you know though? I've asked a bunch of times how you determine if something is effective or it isn't, but you refuse to answer for some reason.

You claim millions of people experience healing effects, and you claim they are due to the therapies, but how do you know the healing effects are no different than if the people had done nothing at all? It's not mass coincidence, for you to say there's something that has to be attributed to mass coincidence you have to be evaluating the efficacy of something on a large scale! But you seemed to say previously that you can't evaluate it.

Google it. There are all sorts of studies that either recommend or don't recommend acupuncture for various types of treatments and only speculate on why it does or doesn't work. If it works, it's effective.

[JustAnotherGuy]

Originally Posted by photon

Actually it'd be more accurate to say that "It seems that the number of people who have used acupuncture and say it works for pain is the same as the number of people who didn't use acupuncture but thought they did who say it works for pain".

Not sure if your misrepresentation was intentional or not.

I am talking about the people who responded to this thread. I am not trying to misrepresent anything.

[photon]

Originally Posted by zuluking

Google it. There are all sorts of studies that either recommend or don't recommend acupuncture for various types of treatments and only speculate on why it does or doesn't work.

And a review of reviews of those studies finds that when those studies agree, they tend to agree that it doesn't work, and the higher the quality of the study the more negative it is.

But you earlier claimed that such studies can't account for all the variables and therefore can't be used to represent reality. You either accept the concept of a scientific study to determine efficacy (not cause, just efficacy) as valid, or you don't.

Which is why I keep asking, if such studies cannot be used to evaluate efficacy, how can you evaluate it?

Originally Posted by zuluking

If it works, it's effective.

This doesn't mean anything, you're just telling me that "it works" and "effective" are synonymous.

How do you know if it works?

[photon]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

I am talking about the people who responded to this thread. I am not trying to misrepresent anything.

In your post you said "the people", not "the people who've posted". We can only respond to what you say, not what you mean.

But even then, it's still a misrepresentation. I (for example) am not saying it doesn't work, because proving a negative is very difficult. What I am saying is there is little evidence that it does work, and when it does work it works no better than fake acupuncture.

Plus you suggest drawing a conclusion based on what people who have tried it have said and people who haven't have said, when that's not a valid thing to draw a conclusion on. You can draw a conclusion on it I guess, but it'll be a flawed one.

[JustAnotherGuy]

Originally Posted by photon

In your post you said "the people", not "the people who've posted". We can only respond to what you say, not what you mean.

But even then, it's still a misrepresentation. I (for example) am not saying it doesn't work, because proving a negative is very difficult. What I am saying is there is little evidence that it does work, and when it does work it works no better than fake acupuncture.

Plus you suggest drawing a conclusion based on what people who have tried it have said and people who haven't have said, when that's not a valid thing to draw a conclusion on. You can draw a conclusion on it I guess, but it'll be a flawed one.

Oh my god you are painful to talk with. Are you that guy from The Big Bang Theory? I am sorry if I am not writing paragraphs to make sure what I am saying is more clear. But make a little bit of effort to understand that a person is not quoting the entire history of everything when talking.

I told the original poster to draw his own conclusions based on the responses here. (Okay, I implied the responses here. My mistake.) Based on the responses here the people who have used acupuncture for pain have found it works for them. Then the other side of question is the people who have never used acupuncture and they say it does not work.

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by photon

And a review of reviews of those studies finds that when those studies agree, they tend to agree that it doesn't work, and the higher the quality of the study the more negative it is.

But you earlier claimed that such studies can't account for all the variables and therefore can't be used to represent reality. You either accept the concept of a scientific study to determine efficacy (not cause, just efficacy) as valid, or you don't.

Which is why I keep asking, if such studies cannot be used to evaluate efficacy, how can you evaluate it?

To be fair, scientific literature should be scrutinized as well.

The review of reviews could be biased. The reviews it was reviewing could be biased. The studies looked at by the reviews could be poor quality studies, with poor controls, confounding variables, poor internal/external validity, etc etc.

I've found that in trying to explain scientific method to those on CP who don't know it has caused the explanations to sound like studies and peer-reviewed literature should be accepted 100%, which is very far from true.

[photon]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

But make a little bit of effort to understand that a person is not quoting the entire history of everything when talking.

Sure, you were making a point that wasn't valid from either way I could have read it, and I went with the way it seemed to make the most sense to me in that you were trying to undermine the other side.

You pointed out that I misread your intent, so I gave my response to the other intent.

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

I told the original poster to draw his own conclusions based on the responses here. (Okay, I implied the responses here. My mistake.) Based on the responses here the people who have used acupuncture for pain have found it works for them. Then the other side of question is the people who have never used acupuncture and they say it does not work.

I'm pretty sure that isn't the case (that there's been people who posted who have used it but didn't say it works) but I'm really not interested in going back through the thread. So let's just assume that's true. As I already said, that's still not a good piece of data to draw a valid conclusion from.

[photon]

Originally Posted by TheSutterDynasty

To be fair, scientific literature should be scrutinized as well.

The review of reviews could be biased. The reviews it was reviewing could be biased. The studies looked at by the reviews could be poor quality studies, with poor controls, confounding variables, poor internal/external validity, etc etc.

Most definitely. Thats' why there are such things as reviews and metareviews and other secondary sources (which often can be both secondary and primary, it's kind of an arbitrary distinction).

Originally Posted by TheSutterDynasty

I've found that in trying to explain scientific method to those on CP who don't know it has caused the explanations to sound like studies and peer-reviewed literature should be accepted 100%, which is very far from true.

The answer to any question I've found is always "it's complicated", nothing is ever as simple as it's made out to be.

I mean as long as something has made it through peer review and has been published in a good journal (define good! ) it should be "accepted", but accepted meaning the things done in it have merit for as far as they should be taken.

But throw in "it's complicated", because it's very easy to take something and take it out of context (which is what the media is so good at). A study might be interesting but ultimately contribute little to the overall view on something because of issues you mentioned, or the assumptions were flawed, or whatever.

Passing peer review is the beginning of science, not the end of it. It's the basis of establishing the body of work required to come to a strong conclusion.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by photon

And a review of reviews of those studies finds that when those studies agree, they tend to agree that it doesn't work, and the higher the quality of the study the more negative it is.

But you earlier claimed that such studies can't account for all the variables and therefore can't be used to represent reality. You either accept the concept of a scientific study to determine efficacy (not cause, just efficacy) as valid, or you don't.

Which is why I keep asking, if such studies cannot be used to evaluate efficacy, how can you evaluate it?



This doesn't mean anything, you're just telling me that "it works" and "effective" are synonymous.

How do you know if it works?

The thread, unless I misread, was about using acupuncture for pain relief. Studies done in this respect have demonstrated that there is no discernible relief provided by acupuncture. I suggested that this is too broad a topic to generate a functional experiment (after all, "pain" is subjective.) I proceeded to say that some people find it be effective, as in it relieves pain, as in it works. However, other studies have shown that acupuncture is effective (synonymous with "works") for other issues that are more specific than pain. Therefore, one could conclude that acupuncture works to some degree, just not predictably for pain relief.

Are you intentionally being obtuse?

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by zuluking

The thread, unless I misread, was about using acupuncture for pain relief. Studies done in this respect have demonstrated that there is no discernible relief provided by acupuncture. I suggested that this is too broad a topic to generate a functional experiment (after all, "pain" is subjective.) I proceeded to say that some people find it be effective, as in it relieves pain, as in it works. However, other studies have shown that acupuncture is effective (synonymous with "works") for other issues that are more specific than pain. Therefore, one could conclude that acupuncture works to some degree, just not predictably for pain relief.

Are you intentionally being obtuse?

Holy carp you completely do not understand at all.

[photon]

Originally Posted by zuluking

The thread, unless I misread, was about using acupuncture for pain relief. Studies done in this respect have demonstrated that there is no discernible relief provided by acupuncture. I suggested that this is too broad a topic to generate a functional experiment (after all, "pain" is subjective.) I proceeded to say that some people find it be effective, as in it relieves pain, as in it works. However, other studies have shown that acupuncture is effective (synonymous with "works") for other issues that are more specific than pain. Therefore, one could conclude that acupuncture works to some degree, just not predictably for pain relief.

Are you intentionally being obtuse?

I'm not being obtuse, I'm trying to resolve contradictory statements. Obtuse isn't something I'm usually accused of, it's usually being needlessly verbose in an attempt at understanding.

So lets start with what we agree on.

We agree that for the purposes of most studies pain is subjective (you can objectively detect the physiological results of pain but I'm going to assume that most studies don't do that, they rely on the truthful reporting of pain by the person).

To determine if acupuncture is effective you would rely the reporting of individuals to tell you if their pain has been alleviated, on that we would also agree correct? What they report they feel is what's being measured.

So what about the word "effective"? To me something is effective if it functioning as intended. The intent of acupuncture with respect to pain is to relieve pain faster or more completely than doing nothing. Yes?

"I suggested that this is too broad a topic to generate a functional experiment (after all, "pain" is subjective.)"

Why is this necessarily so? Pain being subjective isn't an obstacle, since it's the reporting of pain that's being studied. So it's simply acupuncture being given, and pain being reported. If your sample size is big enough and broad enough why couldn't you generate a functional experiment? And then if there are patterns in the data that would actually be prime ground for further studies.

"Therefore, one could conclude that acupuncture works to some degree, just not predictably for pain relief."

Just to be clear I'm assuming when you say "one could conclude that acupuncture works to some degree" I'm hearing "the studies showed that there was a statistically significant reduction in the reporting of pain for those who underwent real acupuncture vs those that were in the control group", correct?

If that's what the studies showed then yes I would agree with you. (However that's not what the studies seem to show; yes you can pick some that give a positive result, just like you can pick some that give a negative result, but overall the same clear increasing signal seen in other effective treatments is not seen here)

So let me know if I've gone far astray from what you would agree with, but if I'm generally on the right track let's go back to this:

"Do we need to measure things scientifically in order to prove efficacy? No."

That doesn't sync with what you seem to be saying later on, so I'm still trying to resolve the discontinuity.

If you aren't measuring things scientifically, how can you measure them to demonstrate efficacy?

Or maybe it's definitions, what's an example of a way that you would demonstrate efficacy in a non-scientific manner?

[jammies]

Originally Posted by photon

Or maybe it's definitions, what's an example of a way that you would demonstrate efficacy in a non-scientific manner?

i also eagerly await a specific answer to this question, although I'm quite certain I won't get it.

Also, I have had acupuncture done, and it didn't seem to do anything for me (more or less nagged into it by a girlfriend). My non-scientific theory is that if I have to believe in something for it to be efficacious, I might as well believe in drinking beer to cure illness, as it's both cheaper and more fun.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by jammies

i also eagerly await a specific answer to this question, although I'm quite certain I won't get it.

Also, I have had acupuncture done, and it didn't seem to do anything for me (more or less nagged into it by a girlfriend). My non-scientific theory is that if I have to believe in something for it to be efficacious, I might as well believe in drinking beer to cure illness, as it's both cheaper and more fun.

If you had experienced relief, would you have considered it effective? (in a non-scientific manner)

(sadly, i can't write entire chapters in every post.)

[JustAnotherGuy]

Originally Posted by jammies

i also eagerly await a specific answer to this question, although I'm quite certain I won't get it.

Also, I have had acupuncture done, and it didn't seem to do anything for me (more or less nagged into it by a girlfriend). My non-scientific theory is that if I have to believe in something for it to be efficacious, I might as well believe in drinking beer to cure illness, as it's both cheaper and more fun.

Why can't you just use the word effective?

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

Why can't you just use the word effective?

Something doesn't necessarily have to be "effective" (have a large effect), but can be "efficacious" (has a statistically significant effect where chance/individual factors/confounding variables can be ruled out).

Although it doesn't really matter which word he used in that context.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

Why can't you just use the word effective?

I like using synonyms.