typical contradictory sinicism that has plagued our society... I think our innability to think analytically leads to the rise of seudoscience and delusional truths. Still, I must admit though, I support accupuncture, shadow government conspiracy theories, and astrology as part of MY consistent and observed reality. Is the problem the approach to obscure truths on the fringes of our world view?

Please clarify, this comic is equalizing religion with eastern medicine as both ridiculously unprovable? If so, it's stupid. And not funny. You think accupuncture is faith-based?

yes, no more than a placebo in my opinion.

as far as i've been told, the one measurable effect of acupuncture is a flood of endorphin. Its what makes people feel so wiped out after a session. it explains the good feelings and much of the 'healing' properties as the endorphins can do much to manage pain and general discomfort. i'm not sure i believe anything beyond that as far as effectiveness.

Uh-oh. I smell a storm brewin.

warning: comments made after this post may contain links to the connection of autism/mercury/vaccines, effecacy of acupuncture, how homeopathy gets stronger with each dillution, astrology, psychics, and other assorted bits of quakery.

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

When I hear the claim that something will "remove toxins," this sets off the quackery alarm bells.

Watch out for those quakers. They believe weird things... sigh oops.

Mr. B(ecker):

kwakzalver? quicksilver, and you of such (com)mercurial stock, philosopher-stoner, et al.!

We each of us have a psychic sidekick/sidequick, whatever, our "Genius". Some Geniuses are anything but. According to Jungian sidekcology. I'm into equal opportunity deBunkering myself, kinkypuncture of myths, Breaking the (hypNOTic) Spell, qualia, Ding-an-psych notwithstanding: Dennett as "Das Wohl-tempierte Kwakzalvier". Autistic? Hugless Dofstadter. Or, closer to home, Maahu.

Winter Palace, heated? Drama/Maahu queen, prince and pea. Watch out for the "cultural anthropologists". That's who. Survivalism of the Fist!

Next thing you know, Norm's going to say there's something ridiculously unprovable about the space aliens' doing anal probe experiments. ("Placebo" my ass.)

Warning: comments after this post by me may try to disagree with me by providing links or "evidence" for their claims. Feel free to agree with this paragraph and outright dismiss it without reading any of it. Because when you're this smart, prejudging is a courtesy.

Come on guys, this whole post is going on the idea that there is a consensus against eastern medicine. There isn't.

Get ready, a link! And it's to the National Institute of Health!!! http://consensus.nih.gov/1997/1997Acupuncture107html.htm

Likely, whatever the crystal skulls are referencing are an agreed upon form of non-effectiveness (I assume, I don't know what the hell that is), however, acupuncture and homeopathy are still in a lively debate in medical circles, and actually, are recently getting more accepted in the medical world (not for chem-trails, but specific things like nausea and back pain). Also, if you think about it, homeopathy is pretty similar to vaccination, you're giving your body a diluted form of what you want protected against. I haven't heard too much lately against vaccinations.

I'm actually not sold on any of this stuff, but I'm open to it and find their arguments interesting enough to repeat.

It's a funny comic and Norm, I certainly don't begrudge you your opinion of placebo-ness, but I think what myself, Not Dawk, and many of the millions of others who read this blog for information would've preferred is a link to your side of the argument in this debate, not just a notification of what side your on.

Still, nice cartoon.

Sorry for my Quakery. I felt the inner light.

Did someone mention 9/11 Truthers?

Also, if you think about it, homeopathy is pretty similar to vaccination, you're giving your body a diluted form of what you want protected against.

By comparing homeopathy with vaccination you have forfeited your right to use the phrase "If you think about it".

Why? Because a "homeopathic" solution of snake venom or pollen or whatever that has been diluted to 30C (that is, by a factor of 10 to the power of 30) has as much snake venom in it as every other drop of water every person is swallowing every day of their life. Want some free homeopathic medicine? Just drink water from the tap - or open your mouth in the rain - it's the same thing! Unless you believe in magic, I guess.

To borrow from Dawkins, only someone who is ignorant or insane could know what homeopathy is and still believe it can work.

Next thing you know, Norm's going to say there's something ridiculously unprovable about the space aliens' doing anal probe experiments. ("Placebo" my ass.)

I see what you did there.

The antidote to homeopathy:

High School chemistry.
Avogadro's number = 6.02 X 10^23

Number of moles of water in one liter = 55.5

Number of molecules in one liter of water = 3.34 X 10^25

A 30C dilution = dilution by a factor of 10^60

The odds that one molecule of the original solute (e.g., snake venom) is present in a homeopath's "vaccine" is less than 1 in 10^35. To get one molecule of the original solute one would have to drink a volume of water that would encase the solar system and any star system within more than 50 light-years in any direction.

Only a moron would dignify homeopathy as anything but pure quackery.

By using the phrase "forfeited your right" you have forfeited your right to use forfeited your right. Is this a debate or a forum on who's allowed to speak?

And why is it that every time there are lines drawn in these threads one side gets labeled dumb, ignorant, or insane? I don't mean to insult the site by saying that, nor would I say the site encourages it, but I'd like to see one argument where the the two sides are trying to inform the other, not make them feel bad. (I can already feel the response, "Well, if you weren't so stupid, I wouldn't call you stupid." Which may as well be saying "I only know how to look at you as stupid.")

And Pete, yes I've read the wikipedia page too. While 30C is the most dilute a substance can be while still maintaining what it contends to be, many modern homeopathic medicines advocate using solutions with considerably lower dilutions than say... water. It's a broad enough field of work and medicine (which I must admit I am not an expert in nor even deeply into, but aware enough of it to put forth some of their arguments) that by talking about dilution one is not advocating 30C of it. The principle of greatest dilution was born in the 18th century and like most science or (AH!) pseudoscience, those interested in it progress its ideas past its somewhat anachronistic origins.

And yeah, it has problems. Here's an Indian paper talking about homeopathy for use in "common day to day diseases" for people who can't afford much health care. http://www.delhihomeo.com/paperberlin.html But clearly if it was super effective, everyone would be on its side by now.

Jonathan, I clicked on your link. According to this scholarly source (wiki), Louis Pasteur and John Harvey Kellog are among history's famous quacks.

And L. Ron Hubbard too. Scientologists love their cereal.

I think some folks around here need to embrace the ideals of open-mindedness. I see a lot of bigotry from some of you self-described progressives, and I find it ironic.

Perhaps "Qi" (Chi?) is hocus pocus, just like Jesus and Zeus. Even so, acupuncture treatments predate western medicine by millenia. Modern testing has revealed that it does indeed stimulate the release of several endorphins, and also, stimulates tissue growth.

I could also rant about chem trails, or 9/11 truth, or libertarian conspiracy, but I'll save us all from the hassle of ignoring it.

It's a lot easier to mock something than it is to propose a better alternative. If you've read the evidence, and find it illogical or incomplete, you have every right and reason to ignore it as quackery. Sadly, all too often the people who mock me and my zany theories are ignorant, arrogant turds who have never bothered to research the issue either which way.

I assume this is how you would feel when debating healthcare with a person who only reads "Ayn Rand" and listens to Fox News.

Somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

No, the truth does not lie "in the middle," it is something supported by evidence.

I am frankly shocked at some of you people. How could you not believe that there are magical "energy centers" in the body, magically stimulated by needles which affect these non-material "energy centers," for which there is no good biological or physiological evidence.

Oh save me, save me from "reductionist" Western medicine, with its clinical trials, evidence, peer review, and consensus formation! Oh so painful, oh it hurts. Only a bigot, blind to the middle way, could reject non-material causes. Just because there is no evidence whatsoever that acupuncture works, does not mean that it ain't so. For example, there was this one person, and she said acupuncture made her very happy. So it must be true! And there could be tea cup orbiting Mar right now!! Only a "reductionist" who does not admit that everything is possible, therefore everything is actual, could deny that.

All the bashers that follow one comment that goes against my first comment is so homogenous and anticipated it really makes a collective almost religious distinction. Like you're all a bunch of atheist quacks. It's been a good blog and i've even donated to the cause, but your all so pathetically redundant that it sounds like just another church that i shouldn't belong to. Merry Christmas, assholes.

If this were a debate over Evolution and Intelligent Design, I wonder if cries for "Middle Ground!" would still be yelled so loudly.

mr. o(ne evo emo): if, as i suspect, you are confusing me with the Jonathan who posted the wiki link, you may cease now. i only post under one name (my own) to avoid confusion- a condition which you, to my everlasting literary delight, have no qualms about causing. :)

mr/ms. "the pound": vis a vis the wiki link- pasteur and kellog were described as having been accused of quackery, not of actually being quacks. though kellog, at least, was certainly weird enough.

and norm: i agree with you about homeopathy, but i do find it ever fascinating that the very meaning of "placebo" implies a scientifically verifiable result proceeding from nothing but belief. fwiw.

I intended the "forfeited your right" bit as dry wit, not literally, of course. So we are all on the same page about astronomically high dilutions, then? That's a start, that at least means we agree on chemistry and physics. Now we just have to agree on double-blind clinical trials and the reality of the placebo effect..

So have you taken a homeopathic remedy? If so, what C-level was it?

...and for goodness' sake, for the last time, strenuous criticism of publicly held views is not bigotry.

@TL: I'll say to you what I ask of anyone making a claim.

Evidence?

I don't mean to bash or have "religious belief" in "Western Medicine", I just have not been given evidence to prove alternative medicines. That's all I want. If you have studies to show this, I'll completely agree with you. I have just not personally seen anything to prove the effacacy of homeopathy or accupuncture.

Mr. j B, Mr. j:

My bad. I wasn't sure and opted for presumptiousness after seeing almost identical feelings presented about some Infinite Intelligence, or some such, by the both of you. Who knows, you may be connected as part of an unseen daemonic archipelago, such beliefs are rampant amongst the hangers on around the entertainment "industry," Scientology, Dianetics, or something, engrams. Since there are way more than one Sam Bushes, Evo Emos, and Evil Axises, I have been posting here as the "one," in contrast to Many . They, are the Many, i, am the one. Not counting... years ago.

Glad to see you back with your nose so well scrubbed, clean and bright, won't you guide Dan Dennett's sleigh, one of these nights?

Or, on the subject of sleighs being drug along, Dr. Andrew Weil's?

"sinicism," a conflabulation of being cynical about Chinese ideas? I believe the whisperings about shadow government though, and subliminal hypnosis. Not one of us is without sin as far as being part crank/quack, but I say, don't wait around for someone else to throw the first stone, form up a circular firing squad and, bombs away, cold (con)fusion, it's called (it's like,) Science. Sort of.

honest question:

as an atheist, do you reject the concept of spirituality?

I understand that gods are out, but what about general spirituality?

Adam:

You have illustrated my complaint perfectly. Thanks.

Rather than do a single Google search, you mocked me for claiming that there is something to acupuncture, even if "Qi" is baloney.

From wiki:

Scientists are studying the mechanisms and efficacy of acupuncture. Researchers using the protocols of evidence-based medicine have found good evidence that acupuncture is effective in treating nausea[1][2] and chronic low back pain[3][4], and moderate evidence for neck pain[5] and headache.[6] The WHO, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the American Medical Association (AMA) and various government reports have also studied and commented on the efficacy of acupuncture. There is general agreement that acupuncture is safe when administered by well-trained practitioners, and that further research is warranted.

Are the AMA "quacks"?

"Bigot" as defined on dictionary.com:

a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.

Magnolia Electric:

re: Intelligent Design

There is no way to scientifically test that theory, unlike acupuncture. Bad example.

However, there IS still room for common ground.

Perhaps the natural process of evolution has been guided by a supernatural force?

I can't PROVE that scientifically of course, but neither can it be disproved.

And, for clarity: I don't believe that to be true, rather, I hold it as a possibility.

Zaphod,

Honest answer

Not wanting to speak for anyone else out there, but, as an atheist, I don't believe in anything supernatural. That includes spirits, souls, etc. to me, there is no difference between believing in horoscopes, unicorns, giant sky fairies, qi, or the healing power of crystals.

As for acupuncture, yes it does cause your body to release endophins, but so does laughing, or getting laid. And since it makes absolutely no difference where you stick the needles, so long as you believe they will have an effect, the effect is the same. Now if that isn't a textbook placebo effect, I don't know what is.

One more point. You might want to take your own advice sometime, and not assume that people who have different opinions to your own may have actually done some research before forming those opinions, instead of coming across like one of the ignorant, arrogant turds you so dislike.

Haha. Wonderful that in the information age wikipedia and google can make so many arguments possible. I'm serious, I love it.

Adam, it strikes me that Zaphod's point is that if you're going to debunk something, debunk it. If not, why not come to the middle for some rousing crashing of ideas. What he (and I, and I hope many) didn't want is immediate dismissal of ideas. If you're going to dismiss something, repeat some evidence, link a paper, quote a theory, something. Don't just mock people and insult them. Which is exactly what you then did.

Which goes into what it seems TL from Brooklyn's point was. Is this website here to inform or affirm? If it's here to inform, then we should be encouraging these disagreements, hoping we get into these kinds of arguments. Can any of you who disagree with it say you know the argument for acupuncture well? How would you like to hear it from someone, that way you can better confront the idea, instead of calling the person insane? If there was a proponent of Intelligent Design here, you're goddamn right he/she would be calling for coming to the middle, because they don't like being called names. And while I've heard Richard Dawkins deride plenty of ideas, I've never seen him in a debate with someone and throw the first stone by calling the individual crazy or of lackluster intelligence (maybe I haven't seen him enough). Why do you think he goes on to respectfully debate so many people that the atheist kids are calling "jag bags" these days.

WWDD? (What would Dawkins Do?)

Of course, if this website is only here to affirm the beliefs people already hold, then there should absolutely be no dissent. Every comment should be a race to see who can agree with the posting first, a race to see who can call the dissenting voice an idiot first. They forfeited their right to debate the moment they disagreed and should be soundly attacked for it with all the condescension ad hominem can provide.

Clearly I do not enjoy the latter. I see this as an informational site, but Norm can weigh in on this however he chooses, as can anyone.

Pete, no I don't take any homeopathics but I have a friend who does and used to enjoy speaking to me about how homeopathy is practiced nowadays. I have put in a request for some evidence with a paper trail.

Mr. Becker, I'm not quite sure how to respond because I'm not sure what you're implying, but I enjoy Messrs. Kellog and Pasteur (though I think germ theory is often used to avoid the popular "You're sick because you eat garbage, fatass" theory. First put forward by Eugene Fatass.)

I'm not certain about my thoughts on spirituality ("agnostic," perhaps) but I would love for someone to tell me in scientific terms what happens to a person's consciousness when they die. It feels like that as people who believe in science, there's a whole realm of "give me some time to check on that" we should recognize and when something harkens to it, it should be viewed with respectful cynicism, not "WHAT ASS DID YOUR HEAD CRAWL OUT OF?!?!?." I guess my point is, don't be a dick until you've discredited someone's evidence, not heard someone call it stupid and repeat that.

That being said, I need some evidence. This is tangential, but I have had something sexy about reflexology demonstrated to me (I'm sorry if this opens up a new front, I'm mostly just trying to share). Take out a tennis ball and put it under your feet, right behind the ridge behind your toes (just behind the ball). Breath out and put pressure down on the ball from that part of your foot. You'll feel pressure in your lungs.

And Malcolm, if acupuncture can recreate the feeling of sex, I see no problems.

Oh, and I've already linked some shit, so sorry for not doing it again.

"Somewhere in the middle lies the truth."

Even if that's true, I still don't see why you're declaring two other existing views on offer Not The Middle (i.e. the extreme positions), and your position or some other position yet-to-be-found as the middle. Perhaps the open-minded ignoramuses who think this or that remedy might work are in fact not the middle at all but the extreme. Or perhaps if there is any spatial relation between positions it doesn't really have anything to do with the truth of those positions. Perhaps the extreme view is right.

"However, there IS still room for common ground."

This makes truth sound like the negotiated settlement between two positions. I don't think it's like that. Rather it seems like some appropriate relationship between us and the actual reality of the matter. People are not going to cured of cancer by figuring out some common ground between regular medicine and homeopathic medicine.

I cheered as I read The Pound's last post. I hope it represents the majority here (I think it does).

I also understand the quest for Truth with a capital T. For example: the Earth is NOT flat, we can't compromise and call it "squished". I understand.

By "the middle" I mean issues of opinion or philosophy, not science. Science is great because it provides answers. Philosophy and opinion only create new questions. I tend to bounce between the two, and I will try to be more clear in the future.

I defend acupuncture as scientifically valid. I base this on the following:

1. the AMA is the top dog when it comes to medicine. If they take it seriously, so do I.

(fallacy: appeal to authority)

1. my wife is a nurse, and has received great benefit from it. So have many Dr.s she works with. If these people are falling for quackery, our med schools are seriously flawed.

(fallacy: appeal to authority)

1. most insurance policies now cover acupuncture treatment. Why would those tightwads pay for something that hasn't been proven effective?

(fallacy: straw man; they also pay for some very dubious psychotropics)

If someone can link me to a peer-reviewed paper that says acupuncture is baloney, I would appreciate it.

I am often wrong, but I hope I am self aware enough to accept correction.

Ask Tim- his arguments re: healthcare have made Kucinich my second choice.

What I want to get across is this: science is great at what it does, but science has nothing to do with religion. I find it obscene when the religious cross that line, and just as terrible when the opposite happens.

The spirit, or God, is, by definition, supernatural. It is a topic for philosophy, not science.

For example: say that in 50 years science discovers that consciousness is contained in a certain part of the brain, and that consciousness dies along with the organ itself. Someone has devised a repeatable experiment to show this, and it has been confirmed and reconfirmed independently.

This doesn't disprove God, or the afterlife, or reincarnation, or anything else of that sort. Perhaps the "soul" and consciousness are separate things; so long as the "soul" remains "supernatural", it is a dog chasing its own tail.

I don't believe in a sentient God, but I do believe that their is a spirit within mankind that is either supernatural, or yet to be discovered. Perhaps I am simply misunderstanding simple emotional reactions, but I have witnessed coincidences and perfection that draw me to consider a "higher purpose". Self delusion? Perhaps. But perhaps not. And the science of 2007 cannot answer this debate either which way.

Most philosophy does consist of unfounded beliefs and nonsense, but not all. As far as I can tell, science, in the end, offers the best philosophy.

"Good scientific methodology is not an abstract set of rules dictated by philosophers. It is conditioned by, and determined by, the science itself and the scientists who create the science. What may have constituted scientific proof for a particle physicist of the 1960's-namely the detection of an isolated particle-is inappropriate for a modern quark physicist who can never hope to remove and isolate a quark. Let's not put the cart before the horse. Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy. " --Leonard Susskind

Science deals with anything that exists, regardless if it exists in this universe or not. In fact, many times physicists and mathematicians explore the possibilities outside this universe (multiuniverses, extra dimensions, etc.).

The only other sense that a god exists outside the universe is in the realm of imagination. Now that, indeed, is not open to science, because a god of imagination doesn't really exist in this universe, or in any other universe.

However, even here, science is open to the question of nonexistent things such as fantasy and imagination through cognitive neuroscience and psychology. And just where does the idea of god reside? In the mind.

People of faith like to think that they have a path toward knowledge of god through faith, without realizing that faith describes anti-knowledge. Faith is against knowledge because faith describes a form of belief in things without evidence. You just can't have knowledge without evidence and facts. Science describes the only method known to achieve knowledge. Science, by the way, means knowledge (the term comes from the Latin term for knowlege).