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How do I tell the difference between woo and science?
Several ways, actually.
First off, the "There's a conspiracy to keep (fill in the blank) from everyone."
The conspirators are most often "Big Pharma" which I have yet to actually see.
There are large pharmaceutical firms, but I've never seen a "big conspiracy" among the companies.
Another is the "Truth by anecdote" method.
"I went to a chiropractor/acupuncturist and now everything is all hunky-dory!"
Acupuncture and chiropractic are both based on nonsense, about "vital energy" ("chi"
that only getting your neck popped or having needles stuck in you will put your vital energy or chi right.
The placebo effect is stronger than one can imagine.
Third, is the $$$ effect.
Woo advocates are almost always unwilling to have their treatment/pill/whatever tested by actual science, using the rules of science, because they make tons of money selling bullshit to the gullible.
Just look at Kevin Trudeau.
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NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)Companies that have the capital to go through the hoops make more money selling their pills to the public. I'm not really sure what the point is here. Neither pharma or "woo" companies are charities. They both make gobs of doe.
G_j
(40,366 posts)National Cancer Institute - PDQ Cancer Information Summaries.
Created: September 23, 2005; Last Update: August 6, 2013.
<snip>
Although acupuncture has been practiced for millennia, it has come under scientific investigation only recently. In 1976, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classified acupuncture needles as investigational devices (Class III) (www.fda.gov), resulting in a number of research studies on the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture.[19] In November 1994, the Office of Alternative Medicine (the predecessor of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored an NIH-FDA workshop on the status of acupuncture needle usage. Two years later, the FDA reclassified acupuncture needles as medical devices (Class II) without, however, giving specific indications for their use.[20] In 1997, NIH held a Consensus Development Conference on Acupuncture to evaluate its safety and efficacy. The 12-member panel concluded that promising research results showing the efficacy of acupuncture in certain conditions have emerged and that further research is likely to uncover additional areas in which acupuncture intervention will be useful. The panel stated that “there is clear evidence that needle acupuncture treatment is effective for postoperative and chemotherapy N/V.” It also stated that there are “a number of other pain-related conditions for which acupuncture may be effective as an adjunct therapy, an acceptable alternative, or as part of a comprehensive treatment program,” and it agreed that further research is likely to uncover additional areas in which acupuncture intervention will be useful.[19]
These actions by the FDA and NIH have resulted in the establishment of a number of active programs of research into the mechanisms and efficacy of acupuncture, much of which is, or is potentially, relevant to cancer management. To date, the most extensively investigated aspect of these mechanisms has been the effect of acupuncture on pain management. The NIH Consensus Panel concluded that “acupuncture can cause multiple biological responses,” local and distal, “mediated mainly by sensory neurons…within the central nervous system.” Acupuncture “may also activate the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland, resulting in a broad spectrum of systemic effects,” including “alterations in peptides, hormones and neurotransmitters and the regulation of blood flow.”[19] Recent studies show the effect of acupuncture on chronic inflammatory pain.[21,22] Evidence suggests that acupuncture operates through the autonomic nervous system to balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems and suggests that the anti-inflammatory effects of acupuncture are mediated by its electrophysiologic effects on neurotransmitters, cytokines, and neuropeptides.[22-31] Reviewed in [1] Many studies provide evidence that opioid peptides are released during acupuncture and that acupuncture analgesia is mediated by the endogenous opioid system.[32,33]
Laboratory and animal cancer studies exploring the mechanisms of acupuncture have focused mainly on the activation and modulation of the immune system. Acupuncture treatment points are located by using standard anatomic landmarks and comparative anatomy. EA is the most commonly used treatment intervention; a few studies have used moxibustion.[34] These studies show that acupuncture may boost animal immune function by enhancing NK cell and lymphocyte activity.[34-36] According to one animal study, acupuncture may be a useful adjuvant for suppressing chemotherapy-induced emesis.[37]
Although several studies published in China examined the effect of acupuncture on the human immune system,[8,29,32,38-41] most cancer-related human clinical studies of acupuncture evaluated its effect on patient quality of life. These investigations mainly focused on cancer symptoms or cancer treatment–related symptoms, predominantly cancer pain [10,23,42-46] and chemotherapy-induced N/V.[25,27,47-55] Studies have also been done on the effect of acupuncture on radiation-induced xerostomia (dry mouth), proctitis, dysphonia, weight loss, cough, thoracodynia, hemoptysis, fever, esophageal obstruction, poor appetite, night sweats, hot flashes in women and men,[56] dizziness, fatigue, anxiety, and depression in cancer patients.[8-10,57-60] The evidence from most of these clinical studies is inconclusive, despite their positive results; either poor research design or incompletely described methodologic procedures limit their value. There is controversy about the most appropriate control for acupuncture, which also limits the interpretability of the results of clinical trials.[61] The positive results of the studies on chemotherapy-induced N/V, which benefit from scientifically sound research designs, are the most convincing.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)There is some decline in reported pain following acupuncture but "fake" acupuncture (not using the medians) has a similar and nearly identical effect. There may be some benefit in certain anxiety and depressive illnesses but the effect, if it exists, seems to be short term and may just be the effect of attention. The activity is probably less than SSRIs and SSNRIs
Treatment of actual physical maladies show it to be an ineffective panacea, no better than a placebo.
Barack_America
(28,876 posts)I actually worked with a physician who learned to perform it himself, for limited purposes.
It's the megadoses of multivitamins, magnetic bracelets and various other "treatments" that the scientific community frowns upon. You know, the things that have failed study after study, yet are still vehemently defended by "alternative medicine" because of this or that magic, conspiracy, etc.
Sancho
(9,067 posts)The best researchers are well aware that "science" can be just as stupid as "woo". Maybe it would be best to be open-minded to all possibilities and question all conclusions:
Check out John Snow and Richard Feyman as examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Snow_(physician)
"Snow was a sceptic of the then-dominant miasma theory that stated that diseases such as cholera and bubonic plague were caused by pollution or a noxious form of "bad air". The germ theory of disease had not yet been developed, so Snow did not understand the mechanism by which the disease was transmitted. His observation of the evidence led him to discount the theory of foul air. He first publicised his theory in an 1849 essay, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, followed by a more detailed treatise in 1855 incorporating the results of his investigation of the role of the water supply in the Soho epidemic of 1854."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman
Feynman played an important role on the Presidential Rogers Commission, which investigated the Challenger disaster. During a televised hearing, Feynman demonstrated that the material used in the shuttle's O-rings became less resilient in cold weather by compressing a sample of the material in a clamp and immersing it in ice-cold water.[39] The commission ultimately determined that the disaster was caused by the primary O-ring not properly sealing in unusually cold weather at Cape Canaveral.[40]
Feynman devoted the latter half of his book What Do You Care What Other People Think? to his experience on the Rogers Commission, straying from his usual convention of brief, light-hearted anecdotes to deliver an extended and sober narrative. Feynman's account reveals a disconnect between NASA's engineers and executives that was far more striking than he expected. His interviews of NASA's high-ranking managers revealed startling misunderstandings of elementary concepts.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Methodologies and processes can become outdated, but that doesn't make it woo.
Woo is pseudoscience, and by its very nature, cannot be science.
Sancho
(9,067 posts)the best and most solid science becomes woo and vice-versa on occasion....
and good scientists are well aware it!
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Nowhere in your first post was anything said about pseudoscience (woo). Pseudoscience never becomes science, and science never becomes pseudoscience.
Methods, ideas, and hypotheses become outdated or replaced as new evidence from new technology or methodologies emerges, but those previous ideas that underwent scientific testing weren't ever woo.
Please don't confuse the two.
Sancho
(9,067 posts)I think that pseudoscience becomes clear as science (sometimes) and solid science becomes absolutely silly (with time). We simply don't always understand things, even simple things right before our eyes...not because of a new technology or method, but because we just don't get it.
Once the concept takes hold, the methods and technologies follow.
The best science never predicted little critters (like bacteria) in water causing illness even though the technology was easily available to see the bugs - and only with Snow's insight did anyone look!
"Bad air" (woo) was real, believable science, while little invisible critters was voodoo...until someone thought of it.
Now we see physics "transporting" particles and other mysterious stuff. Conspiracy theories may be a social phenomenon, but sometimes a good investigation of "woo" turns into real science a century later. I'm sure that will be the case in the future even more than the 20th century (hmmm...atomic bombs, relativity, antibiotics, big bang, DNA, GMO, airplanes, etc.). These were not just advances in technology - but theories developed and often considered woo (no proof of relativity for a long time you know) until many years and devices invented simply to test the original theory!!
I think that just like science should be challenged, woo must be considered. Either may be right or wrong tomorrow.
Barack_America
(28,876 posts)Never mind that the very basis of science is the vigorous testing of hypotheses, whereas the basis of "woo" is the rejection of the scientific method in favor of "belief" that something works because it "makes sense".
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Sometimes crock is just crock, and the only people conspiring against it are the people who hate crock.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Some think chiropractors help them - states license them. So there may well be something to it.
Chrom
(191 posts)It was previously considered a neurotoxin.
Is it woo to question whether it is safe?
When corporations are now running the organizations which are suppose to monitor them...is it woo to question this?
And since when do we have to prove something is unsafe?
It is the job of the FDA to prove it is safe before it hits the market.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)condescending people will appear if it is indeed woo.