Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
|
Post by Al Johnston on Mar 30, 2006 5:23:56 GMT -4
Stage magicians are better placed to detect fraud than scientists: fooling people is their specific area of expertise: a scientist friend told me once of how a magician had (apparently) cut out his own tongue, taken a section with a microtome and then reattaching the remainder of his tongue. Microscopy could not distinguish between the section he took and that of a human tongue, but it was a trick.
|
|
|
Post by truthseeker on Mar 30, 2006 9:19:06 GMT -4
Shame he didnt cut his head off lol, that would of been a good trick hehe.
;D
|
|
|
Post by Bill Thompson on Mar 30, 2006 19:41:27 GMT -4
I find it interesting that Faith Healing is listed here www.randi.org/research/faq.html#2.3 If anyone can think of a way that Faith Healing can be conducted in a double blind study, I would like to hear it. Have a room full of christians and another room of skeptics, perhaps? That might be a start but how would that be a true double blind?
|
|
|
Post by gwiz on Mar 31, 2006 3:42:20 GMT -4
If anyone can think of a way that Faith Healing can be conducted in a double blind study, I would like to hear it. Have a room full of christians and another room of skeptics, perhaps? That might be a start but how would that be a true double blind? It's been done, I saw a bit about it recently on a BBC TV series on alternative medicine. What it boiled down to is that an actor copying all the speeches and mannerisms of a faith healer got just as good results. Lot of other interesting stuff in the faith healing programme, including the effectiveness of dummy surgery (I've got a scar so they must have cured me) and research uncovering the brain chemistry basis of the placebo effect.
|
|
|
Post by Bill Thompson on Apr 1, 2006 14:57:31 GMT -4
Gwiz (good username, by the way) It is the faith that does the healing. The faith is the placebo effect, I think. And you suggest that works. Even Jesus Christ reportedly told people that it was their faith that was healing them when he did faith healings.
So maybe a double blind study would involve an audience that had no faith and were just actors VS one that did have faith. That, I think, might be a way to win the prize. If you do it, I want 50% of the winnings for suggesting it.
|
|
|
Post by gwiz on Apr 3, 2006 4:05:07 GMT -4
To expand a bit on my previous post - and excuse me if I'm a bit vague on the details, this is not my area of expertise - if you believe that you are going to be cured, your brain releases chemicals (dopamines?) that act as pain killers and also help with some other conditions. This is a way that the placebo effect can work. I can't remember whether the programme mentioned how the patients belief was measured, but I'd guess with a questionnaire.
|
|
Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
|
Post by Al Johnston on Apr 3, 2006 5:21:12 GMT -4
There were reports at the weekend of a study into the effects of prayer on recovery.
It seems the only detectable effect was a slight increase of anxiety in the cardiac patients told they were being prayed for...
|
|
|
Post by PhantomWolf on Apr 3, 2006 7:10:42 GMT -4
I'd note that the only major study I have heard of that did this would have been unlikely to have done much IMO because the "prayers" were split up in about 5-6 religions and a number of christian denominations. If only one or two of the groups were efective, the other all result would have been lost in the noise of the ones that weren't.
|
|
|
Post by gwiz on Apr 3, 2006 7:33:19 GMT -4
Is this the study you mean?
|
|
|
Post by Bill Thompson on Apr 3, 2006 8:53:46 GMT -4
I think this study and what faith healing really is are two different things. To me, the placebo effect is the same thing as faith healing. This, of course, is a real thing.
If you forget this study mentioned in the previous posts for a moment and return to the topic of the faith healers who do performances you will see something that actually has benefit. If the faith healers trick people’s minds into thinking that they are healed, then it is plausible to think that their illnesses were all in their minds as well. But this does not mean their illnesses were not “real” because to the person who believes that they are not well, the illnesses are real to them. What I mean to say is that faith healing and the placebo effect is the same thing, and this is not a bad thing. Faith healing can have a benefit.
I think the placebo effect could be tested and shown to be a real thing and an argument could be made that this qualifies to win the million dollar prize.
|
|
|
Post by gwiz on Apr 3, 2006 9:14:46 GMT -4
I don't think anyone is claiming that the placebo effect isn't real or a suitable subject for investigation by normal scientific methods. That's why new drugs are tested against placebos to see if they give any benefit beyond what a placebo would give.
Faith healing can benefit someone who has no faith in conventional medicine, but conventional medicine can give a benefit whether you believe in it or not. The danger with faith healing is in relying on it when you have a condition that the placebo effect isn't adequate to remedy.
|
|
|
Post by PhantomWolf on Apr 3, 2006 9:41:08 GMT -4
Is this the study you mean?
No it wasn't the one I was refering too, but after reading that peice, I'd be embarrassed to be associated with it gwiz. It really is little more that an attack peice based on "if I ran the zoo," incredulousness, speculation, an homenin attack and casting aspersions due to other actions. If he had a good scientific reason for showing the research was flawed then great, but he didn't show it, his attack on it boils down to "it wasn't set up simply enough for me, I don't understand why they did it that way. Therefore it has to be wrong and as such the results must be fraud, and since one of them was convicted for finacial fraud later that proves it."
I'm not saying that the paper he was critiquing had merit, just that is one of us took that line of attack against an HB's claims here the rest would be all over him like wool on a sheep.
|
|
|
Post by Bill Thompson on Apr 3, 2006 11:05:08 GMT -4
I don't think anyone is claiming that the placebo effect isn't real or a suitable subject for investigation by normal scientific methods. That's why new drugs are tested against placebos to see if they give any benefit beyond what a placebo would give. Faith healing can benefit someone who has no faith in conventional medicine, but conventional medicine can give a benefit whether you believe in it or not. The danger with faith healing is in relying on it when you have a condition that the placebo effect isn't adequate to remedy. This is a good point.
|
|
lonewulf
Earth
Humanistic Cyborg
Posts: 244
|
Post by lonewulf on Apr 11, 2006 9:49:00 GMT -4
I don't know if this was brought up (I didn't read through the entire thread), but how exactly can Randi test UFO footage?
I mean, the majority of UFO footage is just a picture or video footage of something shiny in the sky. There's not really that much you can do to objectively look at the photo and say "It's real" or "It's a weather balloon".
|
|
|
Post by gwiz on Apr 11, 2006 12:20:06 GMT -4
I don't think he investigates UFOs. His prize is for a demonstration of "paranormal" phenomena.
|
|