(May 18, 2016 at 12:57 pm)Huggy74 Wrote:(May 18, 2016 at 12:36 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: The Placebo Effect is what happens when a person thinks they're getting medicine, but in reality nothing is happening.Nice explanation attempt but as the article I posted states "Scientists recognize that there are placebo effects but have trouble accounting for them.". would you mind posting your source that contradicts that statement?
However, due to their brain's reaction to the "good news" of the cure they're getting, they produce fewer stress hormones and their immune system's reaction improves. They are thus "cured" (or improved) by absolutely nothing other than their own natural processes.
You're talking about the dude's opinion piece in Psychology Today, the magazine?
Okay. I'll just skip around the fact that the dude offered no hard science, only the vague statement "have trouble accounting for them" (I'll get to that in a minute) and a couple of anecdotes, for his claim. I would agree with him that science "has trouble accounting for" faith healing.
What does it mean to "account for" something, in science? It means you propose a suspected mechanism, you eliminate all the variables which may contaminate your results, and you run a control group and an experimental group in order to test your hypothesis.
How would one do that, exactly, with "faith healing"? However, they are trying to nail down a definition of both, and to study the phenomenon. I'll give you a hint: no one is thinking that faith-healing is magical.
Here's a scientific article, with references, from the National Institutes of Health, if you want to have a fuller explanation of what exactly we do know, don't know, and why your Psychology Today sound-bite and your/his bizarre conclusions from it are worthless.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2814126/
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
