10th July 2005, 7:12 PM
(This post was last modified: 10th July 2005, 7:23 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
Isn't that like a Canadian 2 dollar coin?
Oh and, for the record, that guy doing the interview wasn't entirely right in saying "well they said it worked for them" meant it was good medicine. Now, that medicine does work, but someone saying "hey I feel better" after taking medicine isn't really proper evidence.
Now let me explain that, because I know that at first glance it seems stupid to say something like that. I say it's not scientific proof because there are two things you don't know with just one thing like that. One, how long after they took the medication did it take for them to get better? I mean, if you will credit the medication or treatment for someone getting better without taking into account the time frame, well, consider the possibility that they just got better on their own. Now, let's say years pass when someone is on homeopathic remedy alpha, and one month their cancer goes into remission. How can you say with any certainty that it was the medicine? Sure, they were taking it, and eventually at some point they got better in that one case, but are the two connected? Humans have a pretty good knack for finding connections, whether they exist or not, because it's a pretty good "rough" strategy for finding things out, but it's not precise, and in science, you need precise. In medicine, there's too many variables for it to be counted on at all besides. So, you need to test over and over again across a LOT of cases confirming a lot of things, and THEN you have some evidence. Always collect more, since there's the chance it's something else you just weren't able to think of in the previous experiments though. The second thing is whether they even had the condition to begin with. Lots of testing needs to be done just to find a reliable method of diagnosing a symptom, so misdiagnosis happens sometimes. Placebo effect is a very simple thing, it's when you just don't notice the symptoms you previously paid a lot of attention to (in some cases placebo just won't cut it, like when you get shot, mind isn't really over matter so much as not really noticing the matter as much, and if it's just a mild headache that does the trick a lot of the time).
But, aside from taking a little issue to that, the reporter really handled that pretty well. Not sure I know of too many people who could be confronted with THAT and not just snap or walk off. Well, not that he was in a position where he could DO that :D.
Oh and, for the record, that guy doing the interview wasn't entirely right in saying "well they said it worked for them" meant it was good medicine. Now, that medicine does work, but someone saying "hey I feel better" after taking medicine isn't really proper evidence.
Now let me explain that, because I know that at first glance it seems stupid to say something like that. I say it's not scientific proof because there are two things you don't know with just one thing like that. One, how long after they took the medication did it take for them to get better? I mean, if you will credit the medication or treatment for someone getting better without taking into account the time frame, well, consider the possibility that they just got better on their own. Now, let's say years pass when someone is on homeopathic remedy alpha, and one month their cancer goes into remission. How can you say with any certainty that it was the medicine? Sure, they were taking it, and eventually at some point they got better in that one case, but are the two connected? Humans have a pretty good knack for finding connections, whether they exist or not, because it's a pretty good "rough" strategy for finding things out, but it's not precise, and in science, you need precise. In medicine, there's too many variables for it to be counted on at all besides. So, you need to test over and over again across a LOT of cases confirming a lot of things, and THEN you have some evidence. Always collect more, since there's the chance it's something else you just weren't able to think of in the previous experiments though. The second thing is whether they even had the condition to begin with. Lots of testing needs to be done just to find a reliable method of diagnosing a symptom, so misdiagnosis happens sometimes. Placebo effect is a very simple thing, it's when you just don't notice the symptoms you previously paid a lot of attention to (in some cases placebo just won't cut it, like when you get shot, mind isn't really over matter so much as not really noticing the matter as much, and if it's just a mild headache that does the trick a lot of the time).
But, aside from taking a little issue to that, the reporter really handled that pretty well. Not sure I know of too many people who could be confronted with THAT and not just snap or walk off. Well, not that he was in a position where he could DO that :D.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)