From my understanding, the evidence base for aromatherapy is about as sturdy as that for homeopathy. I tend to avoid any intervention besides diet, exercise, and rest, though.
Yeah. Their is a very strongly adverse portion of the population who hates homeopaths. Since I'm open to using whatever works, it makes me sad. For years we have treated our cats homeopathically and had good results. I also use homeopathic remedies for things like colds, immune boasting, allergies. They seem to work. I'm open to the possibility that it's all the placebo effect as well. And, yet, if it works, what's wrong with the placebo effect?
I've been studying this a little more closely recently, and what's wrong with the placebo effect is that there is a really big ethical murk around proscribing something that you know doesn't actually have any effect. Personally, I think that there would be a lot of value in getting a better understanding of the placebo effect and learning effective methods of triggering it that don't involve needing to pay inflated prices for water.
"They seem to work." So, is eliciting a placebo response better than doing nothing at all? I don't know. But I can definitely say that I can't stand behind any ostensibly scientific medical practice that doesn't thoroughly investigate the method of operation of its medicines when given over one hundred years to do so.
I do agree that how homeopaths describe the mechanism of action makes no sense. What I believe is that we don't have any way of measuring the energetic interaction that takes place and thus, it's not possible to define it. That doesn't make it hooey for me. It just means we don't understand.
Re: EvidencedawningdayFebruary 24 2010, 20:06:23 UTC
I am finding myself less and less able to believe in "energetic interactions" that are absent any sort of explanation. As some stand up comic put it (or as nearly as I can paraphrase it): this water can "remember" the presence of some medicinal substance but conveniently forgets all the feces that has been in it?
Even when it comes to chi, I find myself far more apt to believe that it's a metaphor for referencing a complicated series of interactions between different bodily systems and less apt to believe that it is some sort of energy that has completely eluded any sort of measurement for thousands of years.
Then again, I've used it for things like allergies, not HIV.
I think this is a really important distinction. It's one thing for a (relatively) privileged Westerner to explore ways of provoking a placebo response to alleviate (relatively) minor suffering. It's a whole different ball of wax when you start dealing with using placebo response as primary health care. That's no better than relying on the local shaman for all your healing, and the lifespan data we've got certainly indicate that at least in terms of prolonging life, we've got that beat with Western bio-medicine.
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"They seem to work." So, is eliciting a placebo response better than doing nothing at all? I don't know. But I can definitely say that I can't stand behind any ostensibly scientific medical practice that doesn't thoroughly investigate the method of operation of its medicines when given over one hundred years to do so.
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Even when it comes to chi, I find myself far more apt to believe that it's a metaphor for referencing a complicated series of interactions between different bodily systems and less apt to believe that it is some sort of energy that has completely eluded any sort of measurement for thousands of years.
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
I think this is a really important distinction. It's one thing for a (relatively) privileged Westerner to explore ways of provoking a placebo response to alleviate (relatively) minor suffering. It's a whole different ball of wax when you start dealing with using placebo response as primary health care. That's no better than relying on the local shaman for all your healing, and the lifespan data we've got certainly indicate that at least in terms of prolonging life, we've got that beat with Western bio-medicine.
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