This is turning into rather an interesting discussion, and people seem to be keeping a level head which is nice. This will be long, but I've split things up and quoted and stuff again. This time I even figured out the proper quote formatting.
Evan,
I have read the science, and there is evidence that acupuncture is even more effective than placebos for relieving pain. We also know that placebos are just as effective, if not more effective, than administering actual medication.
Two things here. First of all, yes, there are some studies which show positive results. But the reason I posted that specific article before is because it addresses comments like these. It’s also worth reading the Ioannidis paper that is referenced at one point (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/). You can’t take the “some evidence” (i.e. a minority of studies) on their own or on face value – that’s why meta-analyses and systematic reviews exist. What was the quality of the studies? What is the effect size? What do all the other studies say? What is their quality? It seems to be that, on the whole, acupuncture is so rarely and so minimally positive that it’s unlikely to be effectual.
why try to deprive them of that if it has no bearing or effect on you?
I don’t routinely go into acupuncture offices and try to convince people to leave. But Rick asked our opinion, and I gave it. It’s worth dwelling on the fact that yes, it does indeed have no effect on me. So why would I be so fervent? Because I’m actually doing him a favour. I’m trying to convince him not to spend money on something that there’s a very strong chance will have no effect, and if it does have an effect is likely to be little more than placebo. Now, some people believe in selling placebo. That’s a complex ethical discussion, but I personally believe in honesty and integrity and that selling placebo is not acceptable. I wouldn’t want to be led to believe having needles stuck in my body is effective and charged for it to occur any more than I would want my doctor to charge me prescription medicine prices for a sugar pill that may or may not help me via placebo.
I would much rather take my chances with something that is minimally invasive and drug-free like acupuncture than have to get surgery or take medicines that are loaded with crap that I don’t want to be putting into my body, not to mention the potential side effects.
You seem to keep painting me as some kind of drug and surgery fanatic.
I am not. I don’t even take basic pain killers unless it’s really bad (two occasions in the past 5 or so years – one was a headache that woke me up in the middle of the night; after 90 minutes of being unable to get back to sleep I took a couple; the other was after a car crash when I was forced to lie in bed in a neck brace while waiting for X-Rays and the lack of movement started to give me a really bad lower back ache, and ideally I wouldn’t have taken them then I would have just moved around but that was not possible). I am not in the habit of recommending drugs or surgery at all either. I’m in the habit of recommending evidence-based practices with an honest and open consideration of all options and their potential consequences (i.e. the side effects you mentioned).
Herr,
Actually, there is fraud. The surgeries with no anesthesia are frauds usually, at least, the high profile ones I know. So, anything which seems extraordinary is usually suspicious.
Nobody credible recommends acupuncture as an anesthetic.
Thankyou! I especially agree on the suspicion for the extraordinary point. This is something that a lot of the folks here seem to be missing. Somehow, somewhere along the line, they decided that there might be merit to acupuncture. Now they’re arguing from this weird perspective – “people have been doing it for centuries, so it must be right”, “it worked for me, so it must be right”, “people believe in it hard enough, so it must be right”. However, how many of these people believe in faith healing? I hope the answer is few to none – but then again, maybe they do. Still, I’ll try and work on this analogy anyway. A person who doesn’t believe, what do they think… “Well, there’s no evidence for a God. There’s no logical mechanism why this should work. There’s no reason to believe it should… so why would I believe it?” And this makes sense!
Acupuncture… well, someone give me a biologically plausible mechanism why it should work. Because I’ve never heard one. And in the absence of a biologically plausible mechanism, and in the absence of good evidence, what rational reason is there to accept it? “Lots of people already believe it” is not a rational reason.
A broken analog clock does not work, despite being correct at certain times. Traditional Chinese Medicine as a system does not work, so whatever elements which may be efficacious work for reasons other than the Traditional Chinese Medicine theories.
Brilliant! I am going to steal this analogy from you.
Christine,
I agree with Iron Tamer, 1500 years, to be more precise. … Samuel, you are living in Australia, do you know that private health insurance, and the biggest one, Medibank, pay for the traditional chinese treatments ?acupuncture included ?
I didn’t comment on Dave’s post before, but since you decided to make the same point, I will. Or rather, I was going to. HerrMannelig beat me to the punch. I will just reiterate that this is a fallacious argument, called the appeal to antiquity (or argumentum ad antiquitatem, or appeal to tradition, etc.). Herr did say this, but I want to bring it up again. It is fallacious (read more: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition). The rest of his examples are also far better than I would have managed, so I won’t dwell on this point further.
Your second point however is also entirely irrelevant. As mentioned earlier there are ineffectual surgeries and drug prescriptions that are covered by insurance as well. I’m not interested in what insurance will cover, I am interested in what works. The fact that Medibank will pay for acupuncture is completely irrelevant to the topic.
Zach,
@Samuel- the article you posted is an “con editorial,” not a peer-reviewed study. That same issue of A & A has a “pro editorial” that you can read if you pay them money.
I’m aware and have skimmed the ‘pro’ article too (I have access through my uni). You might call it bias (or maybe it was the fact in the opening paragraph they said “Acupuncture practice has constantly evolved throughout history and has been based on the knowledge and ideas garnered from
astronomy, nature, science, and technology” (emphasis mine)), but I found that at the end of it all that I still am not convinced acupuncture is a worthwhile investment. It (the article I posted) is obviously not a study but it does, however, cite meta-analyses that one can follow up at their whims and discusses the pertinent points. I posted it specifically because it’s reasonably comprehensive while being easier reading for the people here than typical dry academia. Those who can tolerate the latter can easily find it if they want.