From: KPJ (kpj@sics.se)
Date: Fri May 26 2000 - 06:24:28 MDT
It appearas if Michael S. Lorrey <retroman@turbont.net> wrote:
|
|Placebo is not a 'cure'. Placebo is roughly that in any study, around
|17% of participants will report 'feeling better' or 'noticing a
|difference' (subjective opinions all) when treated with sugar water. If
|the study is on curing cancer, some cancer tumors go away for no
|explicable reason. That they may go away at the same time someone is
|undergoing a placebo treatment is purely coincidence. Similarly, the
|recent claims about the 'power of prayer' all hinge on placebo effect.
|It is self and mass delusion accompanied by coincidental occurences.
All models of the real world is a delusion, really.
This reminds me of the SF story in which the Catholic Church did away which
the Renaissance types, and after some centuries learned about radio and other
phenomena. The explanation for radio was that the holy radio device asked the
local invisible angel present in the room to send this message to the angels
present in other locations. The angel told the angel next to ir, and that
angel told its neoighbour, and so forth. The angels are very fast.
Worked just as well as the radios we have even though you could argue it was
really a mass delusion... !-]
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