Growth of Pseudoscience Harming Australian Universities

wired_parrot writes "The international credibility of Australia's universities is being undermined by the increase in the 'pseudoscientific' health courses they offer, two academics write in a recent article decrying that a third of Australian universities now offer courses in such subjects as homeopathy and traditional Chinese medicine, which undermines science-based medicine. 'As the number of alternative practitioners graduating from tertiary education institutions increases, further health-care resources are wasted, while the potential for harm increases.'"

Comments

Homeopathic

[Oswald McWeany]

I think people that use homeopathic medicine should be allowed to marry.

Re:Homeopathic

[AliasMarlowe]

I think people that use homeopathic medicine should be allowed to marry.

Maybe just if they promise to use homeopathic fertility enhancements only. The average intelligence of the human race would not be diminished thereby.

Re:Homeopathic

[GameboyRMH]

Also they should be allowed to offer and receive fertility treatments where they dilute the hell out of the man's sperm for maximum pregnancy potential. This is a great idea.

Re:Homeopathic

[GameboyRMH]

Oh you beat me by seconds you bastard! But you included an xkcd so I concede victory to you.

Re:Homeopathic

[Penguinisto]

I wish they would stop breading......

...so what if they used a Panko crust instead? Would you be okay with that, or are you one of those traditional grill-only types?

Re:Homeopathic

[vlm]

I think people that use homeopathic medicine should be allowed to marry.

But only in extreme dilution like say 10e-30th of couples per country. After all, from an evolutionary standpoint, assuming they'd pass that "belief" along to their kids, that makes for a stronger ... solution... (oh I love /. puns)

Re:Homeopathic

[Anonymous Coward]

No way. A marriage is between one vaccine refuser and one chiropractic patient.

Re:Homeopathic

[i kan reed]

Are you crazy???? Hyperdiluted milk would cause them to die of starvation. Have you forgotten the law of opposites? you should only feed them hyperdiluted syrup of ipicac.

Re:Homeopathic

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

This is how Bush v. Gore should have been decided.

Re:Homeopathic

[Pope]

Remember: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate!

Re:Homeopathic

[Krishnoid]

Would you be okay with that, or are you one of those traditional grill-only types?

I'd be pretty flexible, but I draw the line at grill-on-grill.

Re:Homeopathic

[Jimbookis]

Yeah and if they ever have an accident they can go to a homeopathic emergency ward.

Re:Homeopathic

[ArsonSmith]

Two Grills. One Cup....of BBQ sauce.

Re:Homie Opethie

[idontgno]

It doesn't take much. Just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit. Diluted well. It's more effective that way.

As Horacio Caine would put it

[Daas]

Seems that Australia is "diluting" its talent.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Re:Homie Opethie

[Samantha Wright]

I have this bookmark that I keep in my browser just for circumstances like this. This is it. The disappointing thing is, I don't even listen to Pink Floyd.

But a plecebo is the most effective drug of all

[scorp1us]

These "pseudo science" articles indicate that pseudo science works better than science seems to indicate.
Plecebo works better than the real thing (warning :vulgar language)

Accupunture works, doesn't matter where

Accupunture works

Re:But a plecebo is the most effective drug of all

[Hatta]

Working as well as placebo is better known as "no statistically significant effect". This applies to both scientific and pseudoscientific treatments. If your treatment isn't performing better than your sham treatment, you haven't demonstrated anything at all.

Re:But a plecebo is the most effective drug of all

[volkerdi]

To be an effective placebo, it has to be a believable placebo.

Thus, you have to dress it up with ritual or herbs or pins and needles or lots of water or whatever the method of convincing the patient that they're getting something that will help.

Actually, there was a study comparing a double-blind placebo with "here, take this sugar pill containing no active ingredients", and the placebo was just as effective even when the patient know it was a placebo.

Re:But a plecebo is the most effective drug of all

[darkstar949]

Then why prefer herbalism to other medicine?

Who said it was preferable? Herbalism is good for some things, not so good for others. Anyone trying to treat all ailments with herbalism is going to find that there are a lot of gaps that they can't cover; however, on the same token, it can also cover a lot of the minor aches, pains, upset stomachs, etc that are part of life and limits the number of times people are rushing to a hospital for something trivial. Likewise, depending upon where you live, running down to the hospital isn't always an option and you want to attend to some things on your own.

Actually it does. There are specific standards they must adhere to, the MD does precisely mean they are qualified. You're talking nonsense here.

Again, the existence of initials after someone's name in and of itself does not mean that they are qualified. This is reason why in the United States getting an MD doesn't automatically grant you a license to practice medicine. Likewise, where you live in the world also plays a huge factor as the quality of education is quite variable.

They'd be better putting their learning efforts into mainstream medicine then. Of course things have to be adjusted by patient, but if you're using palnt material you have no idea what you're giving them, and as pointed out the plant source material can easily contain bad stuff as well. I gave willow as the example - there is indeed aspirin in there, there are also hepatoxic compounds. You are far better off giving a known dose of a pure substance than you are giving herbal supplements. This is an actual fact. There is no instance I know of where herbal remedies are both more effective and less harmful than refining the active ingredients and giving them at known doses.

Except not everyone is in a position to be able to study for a full medical degree, nor does everyone that studies herbalism necessarily want to do it to help other people, sometimes you just want to be able to treat your own minor concerns. Additionally, depending upon where you are in the world, you might not even have access to refined medications and knowledge of pants and herbs is arguably almost mandatory. Remember, not everyone lives in the city with fairly easy access to doctors and pharmacies.

The possible exception to this is cannabis/marinol, but the retarded legal and moral situation around cannabis use makes this whole area difficult, and AFAICT the cannabis derived medications so far only look at THC, which is far from the whole picture.

Cannabidiol is also known to have a strong potential as an anti-psychotic and possibly as a cancer treatment but currently it is too restricted legally to likely show up any time soon.

Using what works

[S-HubertCumberdale-F]

my favorite quote concerning alternative medicines is... "If Alternative medicine practices worked, they wouldn't be alternative any more" not sure where it came from.

Re:Using what works

[TarMil]

Well there's this bit from Tim Minchin's storm - "Do you know how they call alternative medicine that has been proven to work? Medicine."

I'm a world-leading expert on homeopathy

[Gordonjcp]

Well, I skimmed the first chapter of a book on it, anyway. Less is more, right?

Re:I'm a world-leading expert on homeopathy

[serviscope_minor]

I'm a world-leading expert on homeopathy

Me too! It doesn't work. The end.

Re:I'm a world-leading expert on homeopathy

[SockPuppetOfTheWeek]

Guess what, no it isn't. It's produced by injecting an animal with enough venom to produce an immune response, then harvesting the immune cells which target the venom. It's as much homeopathy as vaccination, which is to say, it's not.

I've got a solution

[elrous0]

Keep offering the courses, but let Penn and Teller teach them.

Perhaps study these treatments scientifically?

[tjlee]

Practitioners and patients of Homeopathy and traditional Chinese medicine seem to believe that they work. Wouldn't it be good to devote some resources towards scientific study of these practices? Even if it's to prove that the placebo effect is playing a part, at least science is advanced. Just because we don't understand whether/how it works doesn't rule out the possibility that there might be something to be discovered. If we want to be objective about it, why not study it?

Re:Perhaps study these treatments scientifically?

[Aladrin]

I think you'll find that it's so roundly rejected *because* it's already been researched properly and didn't hold up.

Re:Perhaps study these treatments scientifically?

[arose]

I have personally felt its effect firsthand.

People feel the presence of god on a regular basis. People can hear the difference between "two cables" by someone telling them that cables have been switched though the equipment is untouched. People can remember things that weren't there with a little bit of suggestion. People have felt the Bad Eye on them. People have their pain soothed by a sugar pill, even knowing it is a sugar pill. I don't believe myself to be exempt, do you?

Re:Perhaps study these treatments scientifically?

[Hatta]

If shark cartiledge was shown to be effective "many times", then how come the best clinical research we have on glucosamine/chondroitin still inconclusive?

Researchers found that:

        Participants taking the positive control, celecoxib, experienced statistically significant pain relief versus placeboâ"about 70 percent of those taking celecoxib had a 20 percent or greater reduction in pain versus about 60 percent for placebo.
        Overall, there were no significant differences between the other treatments tested and placebo.
        For a subset of participants with moderate-to-severe pain, glucosamine combined with chondroitin sulfate provided statistically significant pain relief compared with placeboâ"about 79 percent had a 20 percent or greater reduction in pain versus about 54 percent for placebo. According to the researchers, because of the small size of this subgroup these findings should be considered preliminary and need to be confirmed in further studies.
        For participants in the mild pain subset, glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate together or alone did not provide statistically significant pain relief.

And here's the result of a 2010 metaanalysis of the literature:

For none of the estimates did the 95% credible intervals cross the boundary of the minimal clinically important difference. Industry independent trials showed smaller effects than commercially funded trials (P=0.02 for interaction). The differences in changes in minimal width of joint space were all minute, with 95% credible intervals overlapping zero. Conclusions Compared with placebo, glucosamine, chondroitin, and their combination do not reduce joint pain or have an impact on narrowing of joint space. Health authorities and health insurers should not cover the costs of these preparations, and new prescriptions to patients who have not received treatment should be discouraged.

So, does it make sense now why nobody paid attention to the research showing that shark cartilidge was efficacious? That research was almost certainly flawed, because serious research institutions have been unable to reproduce any effect.
You have been duped.

Re:Perhaps study these treatments scientifically?

[Hatta]

I have personally felt its effect firsthand.

This attitude ignores everything we know about the capacity for humans for self deception. Your eyes lie. If you don't have well controlled data, you don't really know anything at all.

Re:Perhaps study these treatments scientifically?

[LordLucless]

Actually, science has demonstrated that some alternative medicines, for some treatments, are significantly more effective than placebo. To wit, chiropractcy and acupuncture both proved effective, under scientific scrutiny, for headaches and upper back pain.

The reason they're alternative is because science doesn't understand the reason they work - as the explanations given by the practitioners are usually bunk (as is the wide list of ailments they claim to be able to correct). But there are nuggets of useful medicine buried in the dross.

Re:Homie Opethie

[forkfail]

Just part of our decent into a post-industrial dark age, where technology is magic to most folks.

And since it's magic, why shouldn't other forms of magic work?

Re:Fundamentalists

[IceCreamGuy]

I think you're missing a piece - the measurement of the health of a human is well within the realm of human perception and instrumentation. The goals of standard medicine and alternative medicine are the same: improve the health of a human. If standard medicine works and alternative medicine doesn't, well, you should be able to figure the rest out from there.

Re:Homie Opethie

[AliasMarlowe]

I have this bookmark that I keep in my browser just for circumstances like this. This is it. The disappointing thing is, I don't even listen to Pink Floyd.

Youtube says "This video contains content from EMI, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds." Sod them.

Re:Fundamentalists

[pe1rxq]

Human perception has proven itself to be pretty much useless many times..... But I guess you missed that lesson as you seem to have a pretty screwed up notion off science.

If it works it will be measureable and you can call it 'medicine', if you can't measure even a single thing different when using the stuff it is not medicine.
You can try and label it 'alternative' but it won't change the facts: its junk.

Source of the problem

[jesseck]

Is the problem that these schools are teaching non-traditional medicine, or that there is a market for that education? Schools need money to run, and they can increase enrollment by offering courses such as "Eastern Medicine". I don't think this is completely the school's doing- there are consumers out there that swear on non-traditional medicine and practitioners who will perform those services. If anything positive, this non-traditional medicine "medical school" may raise the bar for entry into the field.

As for the cheapening of the science behind medicine? Yes, it hurts. But, at the end of the day, it is science that finds cures to our ailments, not rhinoceros horn powder.

Re:Fundamentalists

[serviscope_minor]

Alternative therapy is outside the domain of science because science

Utter rubbish.

measure stuff with a physical instrument (human perception not being good enough).

Again, utter rubbish.

A trial (simplified): give people (a) a placebo and (b) homeopathic treatment. See which get better and which don't. Doesn't even require anything more than perception. Do I percieve this person as dead yes/no?

The results: homeopathy is no better than a placebo.

If it doesn't make you better, then by what reasoning or intuition is it doing any good at all?

So science has immediately disqualified itself from judging alternative medicine, yet still the science fundamentalists continue pushing their doctrine outside of its bounds.

More tosh. Simplifying, either medicine makes you better or it does not. Science can tell you if it does.

Please, in future learn *something* about science before dismissing it out of hand. And if you don't have the inclination to do that, then please carefully consider your comments about "fundemantalists".

Counter-argument...

[Pollux]

Two academics write in a recent article decrying that a third of Australian universities now offer courses in such subjects as homeopathy and traditional Chinese medicine, which undermines science-based medicine.

I think that academic scrutiny and study are exactly what these areas of medicine need. While I would definitely argue that there are many areas of these medicines that are placebos at best, I have heard and witnessed accounts of individual remedies, scrutinized by science, which nevertheless empirically appear to be effective. I would hate to through the baby out with the bathwater by dismissing either subject entirely.

I don't want to feel that it's merely conspiracy theory to believe that "the man" / "big pharma" is trying to squeeze out all alternative medicine because it competes with their company. But, in the same sense, I don't want people acquiring argyria en mass just because they keep hearing about colloidal silver on the internet. Presently, US law outright forbids scientific study of these remedies. I believe they need to be studied so that there's conclusive evidence of what works and what doesn't work. And what we discover does work should be allowed in practice. The world of academia can help tremendously with that.

Re:Counter-argument...

[tibit]

Presently, US law outright forbids scientific study of these remedies.

Yeah, sure. Links to the law, please. Otherwise, you're full of it.

This is the danger...

[JustShootMe]

... of worshipping science to the extent of all else.

Some "traditional medicines" are bupkus. Some are not. Just because science has not discovered something does not mean it doesn't exist. To think otherwise is arrogant. I can think of quite a few things in my life that science cannot (or at least does not at present) explain.

There are things about the human body and mind that science does not understand yet. And as long as their mindset continues to be "if I can't see it, smell it, touch it, taste it, or hear it, it doesn't exist" that will continue to be the case.

Re:This is the danger...

[serviscope_minor]

Some "traditional medicines" are bupkus. Some are not.

OK... some herbs can have active compounds in them, etc..

Just because science has not discovered something does not mean it doesn't exist. To think otherwise is arrogant. I can think of quite a few things in my life that science cannot (or at least does not at present) explain.

The trouble is that you are basically jumping from "science can't explain everything" to "maybe one of these wooly theories is correct". Yes, it is certainly true that not everything is explained. That doesn't make some random wooly theory likely to be correct.

And really, "well, science can't explain everything" is not a piece of evidence in favour of something being correct.

There are things about the human body and mind that science does not understand yet.

Certainly true.

And as long as their mindset continues to be "if I can't see it, smell it, touch it, taste it, or hear it, it doesn't exist" that will continue to be the case.

And what precisely do you propose as the alternative? Over the years, people have conjectured many fanciful theories. Despite science being incomplete, they have generally been found to be junk.

And when it comes to medicine, it is generally very easy to measure: do people get better or not.

Re:This is the danger...

[Tom]

Some "traditional medicines" are bupkus. Some are not.

Name them. The ones that aren't.

Just because science has not discovered something does not mean it doesn't exist.

Science will gladly investigate the working treatments that you name above, I am sure of it. All of the commonly named examples have been examined - and found to be lacking.

One thing that most people aren't aware of is that the comparison against a placebo is only the very first step of investigating a treatment. It is to establish whether the thing has any effect whatsoever. That doesn't mean it will become a treatment. Because it will then be compared against the best treatments currently available. Because, quite honestly, if you already have something that can save 80% of the patients from an otherwise deadly disease, why would you want to give them something else instead that saves only 60%?
(and before you yell, yes of course that is simplified, factors such as side-effects, cost, availability, etc. are also considered. That's why there are different treatments available for many diseases, because some may be less effective, but also have fewer side-effects, etc.)

I can think of quite a few things in my life that science cannot (or at least does not at present) explain.

Don't leave us guessing! Give us examples. Pics or it didn't happen.

There are things about the human body and mind that science does not understand yet.

Name five.

I keep repeating myself, because there are probably 50 comments all saying that there are such things, but none of them actually say what they are.

Re:This is the danger...

[Hatta]

Just because science has not discovered something does not mean it doesn't exist.

If science has tested something, and the test fails to show any effect, then yes, it does mean it doesn't exist. Or at least, it means the probability of existance is under some threshhold determined by the statistical power of the test.

As for arrogance, what would you call believing in something that science has tested and failed to find any evidence for? Do you people really think that you are smarter or more thoughtful than the professionals whose job it is to empirically demonstrate what is real and what is not? If so, where's your data?

There are things about the human body and mind that science does not understand yet. We agree on that much. But rejecting empiricism, the ONLY method that has EVER proven to be effective at determining what is real and what is not, isn't going to get us anywhere.

Re:This is the danger...

[darkstar949]

There are things about the human body and mind that science does not understand yet.

Name five.

You might have to to give a bit more in the way of parameters for this but off the top of my head:

• The obvious one of ailments of unknown etiology
• Consciousness
• Storage and retrieval of memories
• Neural basis for metal disorders such as schizophrenia
• Mechanism of action for general anaesthesia

Re:Homie Opethie

[Baloroth]

The same way a course in "Star Trek" makes its way into Georgetown University. Or "Art History" or "Golf Management" or dozens of other courses at dozens of other universities. Because higher education stopped being about actual education and more about a) making money and b) making the students feel good about themselves.

Probably started around the time Philosophy classes stopped reading and teaching Neitzsche, Bacon, Aristotle, and Kant, and started being about... well, slacking off, wondering randomly about whatever, and getting high. Biggest contributing factor, IMO, was when people started to feel they need college degrees, but weren't smart enough or dedicated enough to actually study seriously. So, colleges started making up stupid courses people could take, without requiring them to actually do any work. This allows everyone to get a degree, but makes half of them worthless. But hey, now most people at least have a college degree, right?

Re:Fundamentalists

[Anonymous Coward]

Science is not opposed to homeopathy or alternative medicine per se. If the course of treatment cannot be measured by physical measurements, that is perfectly fine. However, if the treatment does not have an effect on outcome of the patient, it is rightly labeled as ineffective. For example, clinical trials of massage and acupuncture have proven the effectiveness of these treatments for specific conditions. http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Js4926e/ and http://nccam.nih.gov/health/massage However, homeopathy specifically the serial dilutions of compounds or extracts in water, has never been proven effective in any clinical trial and goes against basic precepts of chemistry and biology.

Re:Homie Opethie

[vlm]

Just part of our decent into a post-industrial dark age, where technology is magic to most folks.

And since it's magic, why shouldn't other forms of magic work?

Next thing you know, we'll be engraving our coinage with trust in religious beings. Maybe that'll fix the economy?

The problem is we're trying homeopathetic treatment on the inflation adjusted median midle class family income. After all, the lower the income, the more effective each dollar is, right?

This is why we need to improve science education

[betterunixthanunix]

Nobody claimed that alternative therapies are beyond the reach of scientific inquiry; there have even been some studies on the effectiveness of Chinese herbal medicine (part of traditional Chinese medicine). The problem is that these alternative therapies are being practiced and taught without first being subjected to scientific evaluation -- it is anyone's guess as to whether or not these treatments are actually effective. Here is an example, from TFA, of the sort of claims that are being made:

some chiropractors now extended their manipulation of the spine to children, and claimed that this could cure asthma, allergies, bedwetting, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, colic, fever and numerous other problems, and could serve as a substitute for vaccination.

Evidence? Studies? Clinical trials? Nothing has been presented to support the claim that chiropractors can cure asthma or bedwetting, let alone the really bizarre claims (a substitute for vaccination?).

There is no conspiracy or closed-mindedness. When evidence that herbal medicines do work, scientists embrace them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_marijuana

You see that long and extensive list of studies? Did you notice that the scientific criticisms were almost entirely focused on smoking as a method of ingestion? Did you notice that the non-scientific criticisms were political, driven by America's far-right government agenda that has been pushed for decades now?

These scientists are objecting to the teaching of treatments that have no evidence to support their use, which have not been the subject of any studies, and for which no statement of efficacy can be made (how do we know these treatments do not cause more harm than good? how do we know that these treatments are not just a waste of time?).

Re:Creationism

[0123456]

I thought it was going to be about 'Global Warming'.

Re:Homie Opethie

[Penguinisto]

Hell, I'd be happy if they just re-introduced Rhetoric and Logic as required courses. That alone would knock out at least half of the garbage we have to put up with in both media and society...

Re:Homie Opethie

[jackbird]

Whoa, whoa wait a second. Art history is a non-serious field, on par with a course on Star Trek? Having you been smoking the straw man teaching your philosophy class?

Re:Hypocracy

[GameboyRMH]

And modern chemistry owes its beginnings to alchemy but we know better now and we don't do that shit anymore. Why go backwards instead of just relegating the outdated and largely wrong knowledge to the history books?

Re:Fundamentalists

[betterunixthanunix]

That includes many things that we take advantage of daily -- even before we start on the stuff which is ridiculed by people like you

[citation needed]

Are scientists representatives of God?

No, scientists are just people who back up their claims with evidence, collected and analyzed according to careful procedures. Representatives of deities are the people who demand that we believe their claims regardless of the available evidence, because we are supposed to place value on "faith."

Do they really know EVERYTHING?

Did someone claim that scientists know everything? Scientists conclude their publications with lists of unanswered questions, which is what motivates scientific investigations in the first place. Scientists are not claiming that treatments which have not been investigated do not work -- they are claiming that there is no way to know, until those treatments are investigated.

I think a better question is this: do you think that you know everything? If you do not demand evidence, then how do you determine what is or is not true (or which treatments are or are not effective)?

Re:Fundamentalists

[serviscope_minor]

There are lots of things that work without the benefit of science,

Er, not sure what that means. Things work or not because of the underlying physics of the universe. Science does not make things work or not.

Science explains things. It gives understanding. That may help devise other things that work by using the modelling powers of science.

lots of things that science is not yet able to measure,

Is there something specifically you have in mind?

and lots of things that science does not yet understand. That includes many things that we take advantage of daily --

Sure. Heck, science doesn't even understand gravity really.

even before we start on the stuff which is ridiculed by people like you.

And here we go. There's your leap. What things are these things that are taken advantage of on a daily basis and are ridiculed by the likes of me?

Do you really believe that Science explains everything? No

No scientist would every claim that - we'd be out of a job for a start. You're setting up a straw man.

Then why can't you accept that some real things may exist outside of the bounds of current scientific dogma.

You're angling to leap from "not everything is explained by science" to "my whacky theories of the world are true".

Just because science is not complete doesn't mean (e.g.) homeopathy works.

fundamentalists... fundamentalists... fundamentalists...

Inigo Montoya would like a word with you.

What a relief

[assertation]

I started reading the title of this thread and though "please don't be the US".

After all, we have
- global climate change deniers
- anti-vaccination groups
- paleo diet followers
- raw foodism
- a museum that claims dinosaurs and cavemen lived together on the newly created 5 thousand year old Earth.

What a relief to know that the US is not the only developed country with a problem of people making up their own reality.

Re:Political correctness in plain view

[GameboyRMH]

All Chinese people aren't idiotic (that's racist. You're racist.) but traditional Chinese medicine sure as hell is. It drives A LOT of the trade for products from the carcasses of endangered species. Tiger penis, rhino horn, and elephant tusk, off the top of my head, are some things that morons take when they should be taking Viagra.

Re:Homie Opethie

[Joce640k]

How does something like homeopathy even find it's way into a traditional school?

How do you even "study" homeopathy? The text book can't be more than a single sheet of paper....

Re:Hypocracy

[GofG]

We owe way more to Hippocrates than we do to Ancient China, and Hippocrates believed that all illness was caused by an imbalance of the four biles, which is absolutely ludicrous and shares absolutely no notions with reality.

Everything today owes everything to the past. To say that the past is in any way better or more important than the present, however, is hugely ridiculous.

Re:Fundamentalists

[vlm]

There are lots of things that work without the benefit of science, lots of things that science is not yet able to measure, and lots of things that science does not yet understand. That includes many things that we take advantage of daily -- even before we start on the stuff which is ridiculed by people like you.

Name one thing.

Good troll response would be the miracle of Transubstantiation during daily mass, of course. That LOL funny. I'm betting we don't get anything this witty.

Re:Fundamentalists

[serviscope_minor]

the problem with your argument is the definition of "better".

I was simplifying for the OP who clearly didn't understand science.

but if you're talking about reducing pain, then it gets complicated.

Yes certainly.

objectively, you can see that a proposed treatment has the same result that a placebo does. does this mean that the treatment is worthless?

Well, ethics aside, placebos aren't worthless treatments. But alternative-medicine placebos aren't any better than regular placebos.

but what do we do in the case of conditions where a "placebo" works very well for a significant fraction of people? shouldn't we fund some research into why the placebo works?

Certainly. The placebo effect is amazing and well worthy of scientific research.

Homeopathy for instance isn't. The science is done and it has been shown to be a simple instance of the placebo effect.

Fun fact: the placebo effect works even if people know they are taking placebos!

Re:Fundamentalists

[berashith]

Tim Minchin knocks this out of the park ... alternative medicine, by its definition, has either been not proven to work , or proven not to work. Alternative medicine that has been proven to work is called ... medicine..

Re:Homie Opethie

[MysteriousPreacher]

I don't mind the fluff being taught. What I object to is the teaching of outright falsehoods. Teaching homeopathy as medicine is akin to teaching a history course in which France was founded by Kiss after they'd defeated the Samoans by destroying their Deathstar.

Courses must be rigorous to be accredited - not three years spent wankibg for course credits.

Re:Fundamentalists

[Anonymous Coward]

"Alternative medicine" that works is just called "medicine".

Lots of mainstream medical theory originated with folk remedies. Among the examples of alternative medicine that was studied and proven to have benefits are:

Willow bark tea (now called aspirin)
Exposure to Cow Pox to prevent Smallpox (origins of the vaccine)
Manual re-alignment of joints to aid in healing after an injury (now called physical therapy).

Now, the problem is that for every one remedy that works there are a bunch more that "only work if you believe" (placebo effect), or "work but can't be measured" (don't really work at all). Furthermore over time the ones that do work become accepted as legitimate medicine, so increasingly "alternative" medicines just the collection of crap that people believe because the guy who sold it to them had a "trustworthy face".

If a remedy actually works you can trivially prove it by conducting a double blind study (the control group will recover more slowly to a statistically significant degree than the experimental group). If your alternative medicine of choice can't live up to this than that means (with mathematical certainty) that any healing effects you feel are purely coincidental. Believing otherwise is roughly as intelligent as insisting that when your computer got a virus, and I performed a chant and reformatted the hard drive, it was the chant that got rid of the virus, and if you had believed a little more maybe you wouldn't have also lost all your files.

Re:Fundamentalists

[forkfail]

So how do you explain all the intelligent people using it?

Because intelligence is not by any means always adequate to overcome fear.

Alternative medicine in Australia

[nbauman]

Here's what's going on in alternative medicine in Australia. Unfortunately this article is behind a paywall, so I'll give you an excerpt. (It helps to understand that when you give a lung x-ray, you have a good chance of finding spots that nobody can really interpret, that usually turn out to be harmless.)

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1110812
What's the Alternative? The Worldwide Web of Integrative Medicine
Ranjana Srivastava, F.R.A.C.P.
Department of Medical Oncology, Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
N Engl J Med 2012; 366:783-785 March 1, 2012

Out of curiosity, an impressionable woman in her 30s attends an integrative medicine exhibition; having recently had a child, she's been sleep-deprived and wants to investigate natural remedies. At the seminar, she wins a door prize — a blood test that promises to diagnose cancer. She was considering getting a blood test anyway and seizes this opportunity for a more comprehensive workup. After all, you can't be too careful about avoiding cancer.

Weeks later, she receives a call from an apologetic but alarmed stranger telling her she has advanced cancer.

“How do you know?” she gasps.

“Your blood test is positive for circulating tumor cells.”

“What does that mean?” she cries.

He sends her a three-page report and tells her to seek immediate help. She spends a nail-biting week awaiting an appointment with the recommended integrative health expert.

Glancing at the report, the expert declares, “You have advanced non–small-cell lung cancer. You need treatment now.” The woman is petrified: Has her teenage smoking habit come back to haunt her?

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“Absolutely. There are circulating tumor cells in your blood.”

Tears streaming down her face, the woman asks, “What now?”

The practitioner prescribes a 12-week course of intravenous vitamin C, at a cost of $6,000, paid up front. Without further discussion, an appointment is made.

[Gets a CT scan, which shows 2 2mm nodules. They could be lung cancer.]

The hunt for a rapid cure brings the woman to my office. Relating her story, she shifts between self-assurance and sheepishness. “I know you find this incredible, but I need your help. I am dying of cancer.”

“There's no evidence of cancer,” I reply, seeking to reassure her.

Instead, her tone sharpens: “But I have circulating tumor cells! How can you say that?”

Incredulous, I try to explain too many things. The blood test is a long way from being validated for clinical use. It was unscrupulous even to offer it. Does it make sense to her that it was sent to an unheard-of overseas laboratory for processing? Why did no one recommend that she see an oncologist?

[Demands a PET scan. PET scan clear, the 2 nodules on the CT have disappeared. Probably transient foci of inflammation. Srivastava tells her, "There is no cancer." Woman still insists she has lung cancer. Demands to see a surgeon. Surgeon refuses to see her.]

Re:Homie Opethie

[Grishnakh]

Yeah, no kidding. No, art history doesn't offer you a direct career path, but neither does Philosophy, and that's been a pretty important component of university curriculum for a long time, as have many other liberal arts fields like anthropology, sociology, etc.

example of harm

[spacefem]

The saddest example I see of pseudoscience is in the birth communities, medical technology has taken us out of the tragic "good old days" when 1 in 10 babies and 1 in 100 mothers didn't survive a birth. But suddenly everyone thinks it's a great idea to run away from hospitals and doctors and use untrained homebirth attendants, even for high risk pregnancy. In Australia death rates are four times higher for homebirth babies.

Having recently been pregnant and seen the "trust NATURE" mantras thrown at me again and again in online communities, I'm so afraid of who else is being mislead. But the consequences are unimaginable.

Re:Homie Opethie

[Grishnakh]

If you look at all the homeopathic remedies available, there's an enormous number of them out there. Obviously, it's total BS, but its practitioners have made a real pseudoscience out of it, with tables of ailments and which corresponding remedy to try (the remedies themselves being some item, perhaps a poisonous substance, diluted so much into water that there's probably none left in the vial of water you're buying).

It's very much like Phrenology, a pseudoscience where bumps on the head were thought to indicate peoples' personalities and other mental properties. The practitioners of phrenology had a very complex system devised, with all kinds of charts and such, though it was all eventually proven bogus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology

Re:Homie Opethie

[Daniel_Staal]

The problem is in writing a law that doesn't also apply to day-spas or grandma's chicken soup.

Also, your example shows part of the problem as well: Chiropractors have some value as specialists for specific problems. (Where the problem is actual bone-alignment related, as basically a form of specialty medicine.) But they tend to over-state what they can solve, and generally it's hard to curtail that unless someone makes a complaint. This happens with GP's as well, which is part of the reason for the encroachment of red tape in the healthcare system. Which then has it's own costs.

But I agree: Good regulation would help.

Let's test them...

[hsthompson69]

...and see *if* they work.

In terms of medical science, that means double-blind placebo controlled studies.

Sadly, our tests of these pseudo-scientific medical practices has shown them to come up short:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/04/sham_acupuncture_is_better_than_true_acu.php

Nonsense

[datsa]

As the number of alternative practitioners graduating from tertiary education institutions increases, further health-care resources are wasted, while the potential for harm increases.

As if there's no waste and harm in Western medicine. Western health practitioners tend overtreat their patients with more invasive techniques like prescription drugs and surgery, with their side effects and "complications". Acupuncture and herbs can be medically active and effective. Why not apply the scientific method to understanding how these less invasive treatments work instead of demonizing them because they are "traditional"?

Homeopathy and holistic medicine

[PrimalChrome]

It's worth noting that the handful of homeopathy practitioners that I've met over the years have a holistic approach to their medicine. I'll try to provide an example :

Western Doctor visit : You sit in the waiting room for an hour before being taken back to a room. They spend 2 minutes to weigh, measure, and get your vitals. Doc walks in and you complain of headaches. He nods, looks you over, and prescribes Tylenol 3 and ushers you to the payment processor.

Homeopathy practitioner visit : You sit in the deserted waiting room for 5 minutes before going back to a room. The practitioner comes in and gets your measurements/vitals and asks you what's wrong. You say you're having headaches. They ask more questions about activity cycle, diet, stressors, and your social situation. They prescribe you a placebo, tell you to quit playing League of Legends until 2am, and get another 2 hours of exercise per week.

There are positives to the methodology that contribute to the observed successes in those that believe.....but the actual treatments are not one of them.

Re:Fundamentalists

[Tom]

There are lots of things that work without the benefit of science

Name five.

lots of things that science is not yet able to measure,

Do you mean "measure" or do you mean "quantify"? Because measurement is not as important in science as many non-scientists believe. It is important, yes, but not so important that you couldn't do science without.

lots of things that science does not yet understand

Depending on your definition of "understand". Do you mean entirely, completely, know-everything-about? Then yes, pretty much everything falls into that category. But on almost everything that scientists have ever bothered to have a few looks at, we have at least a general idea of how it works. And - that is the important part - we are continually improving them.

Science basically works like this: Imagine the fact, law of nature or whatever you have is a number between 1 and 99. Instead of writing a book about how god made the number 42 special and everyone who says otherwise needs to die, scientists will figure out an experiment that tells them if the number is less or greater than 50. It takes ten years to build. They still don't know very much, but now they have a better idea than anyone else. Turns out it is less than 50, so the religious fanatics who wanted to kill all the scientists when they started the experiment may be right. Of course they now celebrate their "victory".
The scientists continue to work, and manage to come up with an experiment that can tell them that the number is +/- 10 of any number they choose to test. It is horribly expensive, so they only get funding to run it three times. Since they know it's But they are getting a pretty good idea.

So yes, we have many fields where we still don't know what the number is. But in almost all of them, we are much closer to it than guesswork, and on many, we already know the first 20 decimal places and are trying to figure out the 21st and 22nd.

Then why can't you accept that some real things may exist outside of the bounds of current scientific dogma.

Name five.

Do they really know EVERYTHING?

You don't seem to have any issues using a computer connected to a global network, neither of which has come into existence through homeopathy, praying or interpreting ancient mystical texts.

So here is the $1 mio. question for you:

If you trust scientists enough to put your life into their hands every time you take a plane - because, just in case you didn't know, planes don't fly because of acupuncture or Genesis - then what is your criterion for picking the areas of your life where you trust science, and where you doubt science?

Based on what wisdom and higher understanding do you decide which things fall into the bounds of science and which ones don't?

And, the $10 mio. bonus question: What does it take to convince you that you are wrong?

fundamentalists scientists

You really want to look up "fundamentalist".

Re:Hypocracy

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>I find it amusing and depressing that modern medical science has fallen so far. Everything that is known by modern medicine owes its beginnings in ancient medical practices such as Chinese medicine and homeopathy.

Far from having "fallen so far," modern medicine has come a long way since its roots. Polio killed people when I was a child, and I challenge you to find a homeopathic polio vaccine.

>A perfect example of this is aspirin. Hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago, the medical minds of the day would give their patients tea brewed from willow bark to ease their pain. Where is aspirin found in nature? Willow bark.

You seem to be confusing herbal medicine with homeopathy. I have a degree in botany and actually have studied and used herbal medicine (more as a hobby than anything.) Yes, willow bark, Salix sp. contains salicin, which is similar to acetylsalicylic acid. The concentration in the willow bark varies widely from species to species, and willows are relatively difficult to key out. In species with enough active ingredient to be effective, the concentration can vary from 0.01% to over 10% depending on time of year, growing location and other factors. That's a 100-fold difference in concentration of the active ingredient making it fairly difficult to make sure you get an effective dose and don't O.D. Personally, I find it easier and safer to take two 500 mg. tablets. Also, you don't want to give willow bark tea to a child, because of Reyes Syndrome, and I have yet to find the Tylenol Bush.

>Natural cures and remedies are available for most ailments,

No, they aren't. There are no natural remedies for polio, smallpox, yellow fever, scarlet fever, TB, Ebola, rabies, cholera, and a whole long list of others.

>but modern medicine has dismissed the natural treatments in favor of synthetic solutions.

That's because they work better. There is a treatment for breast cancer derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree, Taxus brevifolia. If your wife, daughter, or sister has breast cancer, you really want them taking the commercial drug under the supervision of a good oncologist, rather than sucking on yew bark. Also, before a synthetic version was developed, the tree was damn near wiped out from people stripping the bark to sell.

>These same synthetic solutions have lead to the rise of super-germs and man-made diseases Mother Nature would have nightmares about.

"Super germs" have come about through the overuse of antibiotics, an entirely different issue.

Re:This is why we need to improve science educatio

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

There are thousands of years of observation behind Chinese herbal medicine. There is a plausible mechanism of action.

That makes it, not "pseudoscience", but protoscience. To the best of my knowledge, Chinese doctors hadn't discovered double-blind statistically valid clinical trials. That makes their observations subject to improved scrutiny, but not necessarily wrong.

Pre-scientific medicine made some valid discoveries. Indian doctors had figured out that you should boil water before drinking it, and locate the privy downhill from the well. The Chinese figured out that motion was a necessity for health before we discovered anything about lymph circulation. The Greeks knew that being fat was bad for you.

Nor is Western medicine necessarily scientific. The "evidence-based medicine" movement is constantly finding that standard treatments are not justified scientifically.

The sound argument to be made here is that a university should be testing Chinese herbal medicine rather than teaching it.

Re:Fundamentalists

[Tom]

(repost because stupid /. editor swallowed two sentences because it thinks the "smaller than" symbol starts an HTML tag)

There are lots of things that work without the benefit of science

Name five.

lots of things that science is not yet able to measure,

Do you mean "measure" or do you mean "quantify"? Because measurement is not as important in science as many non-scientists believe. It is important, yes, but not so important that you couldn't do science without.

lots of things that science does not yet understand

Depending on your definition of "understand". Do you mean entirely, completely, know-everything-about? Then yes, pretty much everything falls into that category. But on almost everything that scientists have ever bothered to have a few looks at, we have at least a general idea of how it works. And - that is the important part - we are continually improving them.

Science basically works like this: Imagine the fact, law of nature or whatever you have is a number between 1 and 99. Instead of writing a book about how god made the number 42 special and everyone who says otherwise needs to die, scientists will figure out an experiment that tells them if the number is less or greater than 50. It takes ten years to build. They still don't know very much, but now they have a better idea than anyone else. Turns out it is less than 50, so the religious fanatics who wanted to kill all the scientists when they started the experiment may be right. Of course they now celebrate their "victory".
The scientists continue to work, and manage to come up with an experiment that can tell them that the number is +/- 10 of any number they choose to test. It is horribly expensive, so they only get funding to run it three times. Since they know it's less than 50, the run the 2nd test on the numbers 20, 30 and 40. This gives you the greatest confidence (if they all fail, you know it's less than 10, the first succeeds, but the second fails, it must be between 10 and 20, etc.)
After these experiments, they still don't know what the number is. But they are getting a pretty good idea.

So yes, we have many fields where we still don't know what the number is. But in almost all of them, we are much closer to it than guesswork, and on many, we already know the first 20 decimal places and are trying to figure out the 21st and 22nd.

Then why can't you accept that some real things may exist outside of the bounds of current scientific dogma.

Name five.

Do they really know EVERYTHING?

You don't seem to have any issues using a computer connected to a global network, neither of which has come into existence through homeopathy, praying or interpreting ancient mystical texts.

So here is the $1 mio. question for you:

If you trust scientists enough to put your life into their hands every time you take a plane - because, just in case you didn't know, planes don't fly because of acupuncture or Genesis - then what is your criterion for picking the areas of your life where you trust science, and where you doubt science?

Based on what wisdom and higher understanding do you decide which things fall into the bounds of science and which ones don't?

And, the $10 mio. bonus question: What does it take to convince you that you are wrong?

fundamentalists scientists

You really want to look up "fundamentalist".

Comment on the article calls for a citation

[lamber45]

Interesting comment on the article:

"Dear Professors,

"Please supply citations for the quantitative data and analysis that led to your claim that; "pseudoscientific" health courses are undermining the international credibility of Australia’s universities.

"Your article's references in the Medical Journal of Australia neither support nor contradict your claim, they indicate no causal link between the international credibility of Australian universities and the offering or otherwise of alternative health courses."

Scientists and Doctors Caused This

[medv4380]

Doctors and Scientists demonized midwives as "witches" and worse to give us Puerperal fever. Which caused an extreamly high infant and mother mortality. Which then caused every idiot to believe that before modern medicine was about 40%. Truth is Scientists and Doctors caused it and the actual mortality rate has always been closer to 1 in 100 prior to their incompetence getting injected in. And the 40% rate was caused by Modern Medicine to begin with. Doctors now perscribe C-Sections because it's interfering with their Weekend or their 5 O'clock Golf game. Truth is C-Section are tied to Athma. Wonder why Athma increases whenever a country "modernizes" and moves more to centralized hospital medicine. When you ask a doctor if this medicine given to a mother during labor will cause any problems with the Child long term they say "Sorry but we can't do that due to Ethical testing concerns we cant perform a double blind study to find out". So they are willing to go into the Ethically ambiguous area of not knowing if something is dangerous and rather than find out they use another "Ethics" argument to defend themselves.

What has Pseudoscience given us? Asprin as Willow Bark Tea. Hypnosis as pain management.

What has modern medicine and science given us? Plenty, but demonizing others and blaming your 40% mortality rate on others doesn't help gain you any respect.

Re:Some of it works, including the placebos

[Tom]

others are placebos so advanced that modern medicine may take decades to catch up

The combination of "placebos" and "advanced" scrambles my head. Are you sure you know what the placebo effect actually is ?

Re:Homie Opethie

[lgw]

I dunno, I always found "applied phrenology" quite effective at behavioral modification.

Re:Fundamentalists

[lgw]

Well, science isn't good at giving emotionally satisfying answers to "why" questions. A few generations ago, it was expected that it would be. Modern science is great at predictive models (for the most part), but the promise of explaining the universe in terms of a few simple "first principles" remains elusive.

And people want elegant answers! That's what motivates a lot of people to study science in the first place, after all.

Plus as we've come to understand complexity and chaos, we now know that even if we had some simple first principles, they'd only explain good engineering practice in some philosophically distant way. Understanding the physics of the interaction of individual gas molecules was useful in going beyond the basic gas laws of a century ago, but a good theory of quantum gravity would add very little to the design of a refinery. (It makes me sad to realize that.)

Re:Homie Opethie

[Rogue Haggis Landing]

If you look at all the homeopathic remedies available, there's an enormous number of them out there. Obviously, it's total BS, but its practitioners have made a real pseudoscience out of it, with tables of ailments and which corresponding remedy to try (the remedies themselves being some item, perhaps a poisonous substance, diluted so much into water that there's probably none left in the vial of water you're buying).

Homeopathy has been around since the early 19th century, and has been a fairly organized practice for almost the entire time, which has meant that it's been able to iterate and refine itself enough to have developed a very complex and mature (though not effective) set of doctrines.

One thing that's interesting, and surprising at first, is that homeopathy's success in the 19th century was due in large part to the fact that it worked better than many other medical practices, in that patients treated by homeopathic remedies often had better outcomes than patients treated by other methods. This seems to be at odds with the known fact that homeopathy doesn't work, but if you think about it for a bit it makes sense. Remember that ancient practices like bloodletting survived until well into the 19th century, and that scientific medicine was very immature -- the common use of anesthesia dates to the 1850s, and germ theory wasn't generally accepted until fairly late in the century. Both traditional and scientific medical practices were often harmful to the patient -- going to the doctor could kill you.

Now consider what a homeopathic doctor does. He visits you, gives you a checkup, then gives you a prescription for a lot of water with a few molecules of something else in it. Put another way, his treatment is bed rest, plenty of fluids, a nice placebo, and a little TLC. That regimen won't ever harm you, and for a lot of diseases and conditions it'll always be the preferred method of treatment. Compared with the sometimes incompetent, often misguided, and occasionally murderous regimes of other forms of 19th century medicine, it's no surprise that homeopathy was a popular and successful practice.

That says nothing about it's place in the 21st century, of course.

Re:Fundamentalists

[jollyreaper]

I think you're missing a piece - the measurement of the health of a human is well within the realm of human perception and instrumentation. The goals of standard medicine and alternative medicine are the same: improve the health of a human. If standard medicine works and alternative medicine doesn't, well, you should be able to figure the rest out from there.

Seems reasonable. I'm completely open to testing the healing power of prayer. Double-blind study, various religions, an assortment of deities. We don't even have to propose a mechanism of action: you either get a result or you don't. If we can prove prayer helps patients, then we can ask whether it's a) some paranormal stuff humans can innately do and there's no god involved b) an intercession with a higher power and c) what sort of mechanism is actually interacting with the body to achieve healing.

But these studies have been done over and over and prayer doesn't work beyond a placebo effect. Certainly there is a mind-body connection that can be utilized in medicine, i.e. helping the patient help himself, but there's no evidence of prayer or faith-healing working.

Re:Homie Opethie

[Pstrobus]

Plato? Aristotle? Morons.

Give me Aristophanes any day, the first person to figure out that people liked to laugh when they went to the "move-ies." He also managed to write political satire in the ancient world and not get killed for it (the audience was laughing too hard to try).

And yes, it is better in Attic because you get all the puns.

Re:Fundamentalists

[IceCreamGuy]

Totally fair point. But I still believe that providing a science degree in acupuncture is misleading. A biologist studying why acupuncture worked so well with your son using scientific methods is certainly science. But the practice of acupuncture itself is not scientific; as far as I know (and I may not have the most up-to-date information, so please excuse me if that is the case), there are no known mechanisms which can explain how or why acupuncture works, and indeed, again to the best of my knowledge, when double blind studies are performed comparing acupuncture to standard western medicine there is no statistically significant correlation between the application of acupuncture and positive effects beyond those of a placebo. That being said, acupuncture is the only thing that, at least temporarily, alleviated some joint pain my mother was experiencing. But anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence. It's because of these reasons that people are up in arms about acupuncture degrees being classified as science degrees.

Re:Homie Opethie

[snowgirl]

Yeah, no kidding. No, art history doesn't offer you a direct career path, but neither does Philosophy...

You do realize that Philosophy is like the closest you coudl get to a "pre-law" degree, yes? Philosophy majors often go on to make really good lawyers, because they understand how to make an argument, how to break apart and understand arguments, and law, and also, according to a brochure I read on the topic at one point, they make good lawyers, because they are "belligerently argumentative."

Re:Homie Opethie

[ajlisows]

The thing is, you just made an assumption that a legitimate course (Art History) is somehow a garbage class. There are a lot of things that we learn about history through art. Unless of course you think History itself is a worthless endeavor.

Re:Homie Opethie

[mug funky]

yes, but there's the payoff that in a hospital you have a chance to actually get better.

if you go into a hospital with cancer, there's at least a chance that you might leave without it.

Re:Homie Opethie

[Carnildo]

Hell, I'd be happy if they just re-introduced Rhetoric and Logic as required courses. That alone would knock out at least half of the garbage we have to put up with in both media and society...

I wouldn't be so sure of that. My uncle is a professor who teaches logic at a university where it is a required course; about a third of his students simply never "get it" no matter how many different techniques he tries or how much effort they put into it. Around 10% have trouble with simple logical inference of the form "If A is true then B is true. A is true, therefore ____"