Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Lying generally is considered to be when people espouse falsehoods they know to be false. I however would also include people who espouse ideas they have absolutely no basis for thinking true. If I tell you I know the next random card from a deck will be the Ace of Hearts... I am lying. If you turn it over and it just so happens my guess was right, that does not change the fact I was lying.
No, that would not be lying, beacuse lying involves intentionally saying something untrue for the purposes of deception. If you believe you can read the next card in a deck of cards, that is not lying. Perhaps delusional, but not lying. You need to stop ascribing malicious intent to people who are sincere in their beliefs. The majority of religious people and clergy are not con-men or duped.
You had better hope that you don't get really ill... Qigong, acupuncture, acupressure, reki and all the other so called spiritual healing practices are no better than placebos...Pure proven quackery.
Actually, I did get really ill... and western science had little to offer to me that was genuinely effective. People who talk like you do about acupuncture have never tried it. This is another example of something western science doesn't understand being dismissed because it would challenge the materialistic paradigm.
You had better hope that you don't get really ill... Qigong, acupuncture, acupressure, reki and all the other so called spiritual healing practices are no better than placebos...Pure proven quackery.
As usual you overreach, Sans. Acupuncture is real . . . NOT the explanations for it . . . but the practice. It has been developed heuristically over millennia. This is an important distinction because we are outstanding pattern finders and can develop correlations and patterns that work. Creating arcane explanations for them is just an unavoidable corollary because we don't really have any idea why they exist. So . . . while the acupuncturist may think that the needle in your ear is balancing the whosiwhatsis in the whatsinjammer to eliminate the pain in your whosidingus . . . it still works. I know this is not placebo because it was effective on my daughter's Doberman . . . who I assure you has no ability to think himself out of pain.
No, that would not be lying, beacuse lying involves intentionally saying something untrue for the purposes of deception.
As I said, the danger here is to pointlessly and pedantically equivocate over the meaning of lying. To me pretending to know something you do not and have no reason to believe is another form of dishonesty and is barely distinguishable from lying.
And alas this is what many people of the theistic persuasion do. They make claims to know things that not only can they not know, but they have literally not offered a single basis for claiming to know, and that is dishonest and often harmful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
As usual you overreach
And as usual you make baseless claims on subjects you know nothing about... while hiding behind derision of others in order to artificially boost your own credibility. Investing 5 minutes research anyone with google can find out these claims are false....
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
I know this is not placebo because it was effective on my daughter's Doberman . . . who I assure you has no ability to think himself out of pain.
...you are offering unverifiable anecdote as evidence now? Lovely.
The effect of placebo on animals is well know and is not even dependent on the dog "thinking himself out of pain".
Read studies like the article in a veterinary journal called “The placebo effect in animals,” which was followed up by an article called “Effects of human contact on animal health and well-being,”
Dogs respond to human care and presence. They also respond to the owners and if the owner is affected by the placebo the dog will be too by proxy.
In other words dogs very much are affected by placebo and human contact and care, and if the owner believes in the treatment strongly enough this will also transfer to the dog.
So you can "assure" people on facts based on one single unverifiable anecdote all you like, but I "assure" them you are talking nonsense.
REFERENCES
McMillan, Franklin D. “The placebo effect in animals.” J Am Vet Med Assoc 1999; 215, No. 7:992–999.
McMillan, Franklin D. “Effects of human contact on animal health and well-being.” J Am Vet Med Assoc 1999; 215, No. 11:1592–1598.
The effect of placebo on animals is well know and is not even dependent on the dog "thinking himself out of pain".
Read studies like the article in a veterinary journal called “The placebo effect in animals,†which was followed up by an article called “Effects of human contact on animal health and well-being,â€
Dogs respond to human care and presence. They also respond to the owners and if the owner is affected by the placebo the dog will be too by proxy.
In other words dogs very much are affected by placebo and human contact and care, and if the owner believes in the treatment strongly enough this will also transfer to the dog.
So you can "assure" people on facts based on one single unverifiable anecdote all you like, but I "assure" them you are talking nonsense.
REFERENCES
McMillan, Franklin D. “The placebo effect in animals.†J Am Vet Med Assoc 1999; 215, No. 7:992–999.
McMillan, Franklin D. “Effects of human contact on animal health and well-being.†J Am Vet Med Assoc 1999; 215, No. 11:1592–1598.
Thanks for that. One of my issues that I have with Mystic's grand theory is he insists that human minds are SO fundamentally different from other animals. As a psychologist who has spent a lot of time studying human cognition and comparative psychology with animals, I don't agree with those who claim our minds are SO fundamentally different from all other animals.
Love is very important in Mystic's theory, and I have observed in animal behavior that which is indistinguishable from human loving behaviors.
Oh, and there numerous scientific studies that have found acupuncture to be no more effective than placebo. So, does it help? Yes, at the same rate a placebo procedure helps. It doesn't appear to have any active ingredient above and beyond eliciting the body and brain's natural way of healing and reducing pain, which can also be elicited equally as well using a placebo. And as we all know some diseases and disorders respond well to placebo and others don't.
The same is true of many religions and also the work of Charlatans like Deepak Chopra. Essentially what they do is take things that actually are interesting and important to people.... such as love.... preferably something that the common lay person does not understand very well or is linguistically unable to expatiate their knowledge of it..... and package them in woo and sell it as a new product.
MysticNoActualPHD here is no different at all in this. It is the same canard that has been played by numerous people before and will be by numerous people in the future. Take for example everything Jesus ever was claimed to have said on the subject of Love. Try and find one useful thing he said on the subject that actually requires you to accept anything at all on insufficient evidence, let alone the existence of a god or its paternal relationship with the speaker.
You will find that deity, messiah, prophet or purveyor of mystic woo... none of them have ever said anything on subjects like love that actually would be any less interesting or useful having stripped the woo and metaphysics away.
Its the same product, repackaged in new woo, and sold to the punter again. No More. No Less. Certainly nothing new (or even valid) is being added to the subject by layering on mystic fantasy as icing.
And as usual you make baseless claims on subjects you know nothing about... while hiding behind derision of others in order to artificially boost your own credibility. Investing 5 minutes research anyone with google can find out these claims are false....
There is no placebo effect possible with animals absent a deliberately corrupted definition of the effect in the study . . . a common tactic of animal studies with an agenda. You assume that the empirical definition and instantiation of the concept of placebo effect was identical to what is used and meant in human studies. It is seldom the case with animal studies . . . as the gross abuses of rigorously defined terms in human studies are bastardized to fit the animal researchers' agendas . . . as the abuses of the terms cognition and consciousness in the myriad studies on animals will attest. Simply googling the terms will avail you nothing.
Quote:
...you are offering unverifiable anecdote as evidence now? Lovely.
I offer you nothing, Nozz . . . your exhibited bias and ignorance is exceeded only by your exhibited presumptuousness and arrogance. I try not to waste my time.
I tried an acupuncturist out on my back pain once, with no results other than lightening my wallet. He phoned me to tell me that I needed several more treatments to have any definitive results, which I politely declined. He became very antagonistic about it and we had an argument, and the clown even called me a few more times to argue with me some more! I'm not saying there is definitely nothing to acupuncture, but my experience with it was a huge turn-off. I don't think I'll be trying it again.
My Ex believed in acupuncture and had a few treatments, with no effect other than a drain on her bank account...She even sent my daughter for several treatments....Same results...
The National Council Against Health Fraud asserts that acupuncture is scientifically unproven as a modality of treatment. The NCAHF says (as of 1990) that research during the past twenty years has failed to demonstrate that acupuncture is effective against any disease. Perceived effects of acupuncture are, argues the NCAHF, probably due to a combination of expectation, suggestion and other psychological mechanisms. The NCAHF points out that acupuncture was banned in China in 1929 but underwent a resurgence in the 1960s. The organization also advocates that insurance companies should not be required to cover acupuncture treatment, and that licensure of lay acupuncturists should be phased out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nat...ud#Acupuncture
There is no placebo effect possible with animals...... . . your exhibited bias and ignorance is exceeded only by your exhibited presumptuousness and arrogance.
See what I mean? You offer no evidence for your claims and simply engage in name calling as a substitute. You just proved everything I said in post #44 better than if you had given me your password and let me write your own post for you.
The evidence for my position? I cited a study and a source.
The evidence for YOUR position? You simply repeat your claim as if repeating it often enough proves it.
Evidence 1 Repetition 0.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
