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I’m not in the habit of reblogging posts from other sites here, unless I think they’re really important. Usually I’ll just link to them from within one of my own rants. This is one of those exceptions.
Like the author, Dr David Gorski, I’ve noticed that woopologists, when their every argument for their favourite fringe therapy has been countered, often resort to the Maginot line of defence: “the placebo effect is real and we don’t fully understand it, so that makes it important to research and promote CAM”. This is doubly bollocks, as a moment’s thought would have told them. Not only does real medicine also have a placebo effect, hence the use of inert controls in clinical trials, but if a therapy has no more effect than placebo, then there is no reason to provide it in place of, and at a higher price than, placebos like sugar pills or coloured water. Unless, of course, you’re the homeopath selling those sugar pills or coloured water, but I was talking of ethical reasons; although the ethics of prescribing placebos (and by definition lying to the patient) is another stormy philosophical debate entirely.
Due to a total lack of angelic censure, this blog continues apace: spreading its negative energies throughout the howling nutterness where Stupidity roams free. Hey ho, Silver and awa… (“Cheese it” – the SO. Yes, dear).
