Atheists, smarter than theists?

[pocaracas]

The placebo effect only works if the patient is convinced he's getting the real deal...

Actually, this is not true

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ado...ne.0015591

The placebo effect is without doubt one of the most fascinating things in medicine!

I find that paper strange...
But they do address that strangeness at the end...
"given the impossibility of double-blind assessment of open placebo versus no-treatment control, the effects of report bias cannot be eliminated. Another related limitation is that patients assigned to no-treatment may have been disappointed, thus inflating the differences between open-label placebo and no-treatment control groups. "

It seems the placebo effect of the placebo works!