![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 |
I have notice that User:Snowspinner's recently vandalized several of my edits. I would like somebody to inform Snowspinner that vandalizism on Wikipedia is NOT permitted. I have reversed his vandalizism with the following edit summaries.
I have documented the goals and accomplishments of my recent editing activities on my talk page [1]. And, currently am working on a write up as to why cateogories have NOT replace project infoboxes. I believe that I will finish it today.
I added this brand new infobox on Alternative medicine a couple of weeks ago [(03:05, 4 Feb 2005 John Gohde (Adding the Project on Alternative Medicine, very active Wikiproject, infobox.)] in order to very publicly announce my new editing activities that have re-activated the project on alternative medicine. As Alternative medicine is a very public article being watched by a number of administrators and editors, I was waiting for a response to my edits. I have received none to date. In fact User:Geni has actually restored my edits there. Since, I received no rejection of any of my edits at alternative medicine I have moved on to other areas and articles. I have yet to restore any infobox that was deleted by anybody. I do however plan on restoring a few project boxes that were wrongfully deleted by User:FoxFire and perhaps others, now an Adm, in the last phase of my editing activities.
I have absolutely no plans on re-adding CamMenu or any of the other wrongfully deleted project templates back to any of the articles, where they have have been deleted by somebody else.
I will of course continue to reverse any edit that is clearly vandalism because their assertions are factually incorrect and totally divorced from reality. -- John Gohde 19:41, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
As previously stated, all of the project on alternative medicine's branches of AM infoboxes are in full compliance with Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes for no other reason than this guideline clearlys does not cover infoboxes. An infobox is quite different from an article series box.
"An infobox on Wikipedia is a consistently-formatted table which is present in articles with a common subject (An infobox is a generalization of a taxobox (from taxonomy) which summarizes information for an organism or group of organisms)." Wikipedia:Infobox And, see our large branches of AM infobox at [3]. Our large branches of AM infoboxes primarily exists to summarize information for a given branch of AM and for related branches of AM.
Second, our new box with a direct link to Category:Alternative medicine, such as the one in alternative medicine is clearly not an Article series box as defined by that guideline. Our box, what ever you want to call it, is in effect a very visible version of Category:Alternative medicine. IF anything this guideline recommends the use of categories which is precisely what our box uses.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that new visitors visit alternative medicine using the default user skin. Using this skin, visitors are more likely to find Talk:Alternative medicine, which has a very visible link on the very top of the page and, thus, a direct link to our project pages then they are to find the hidden Category:Alternative medicine link which is shown on the very bottom of the web page. -- John Gohde 09:07, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
User:Snowspinner on 13 Feb and on 14 Feb 2005 voluntarily decided for no good reason to destroy the Philosophy of alternative medicine article, one of the Core Project Articles of the Wikipedia:Wikiproject:Alternative_Medicine that was created by this project in April 2004. Snowspinner moved this article to List of topics in alternative medicine in a manner that did not maintained the original links to it. In other words, nothing links to this new article. That makes it a case of vandalism committed by User:Snowspinner, an adminstrator, because the work of dozens of editors in Wikipedia have been deliberately orphaned. I have previously attempted to moved the article back both on 13 Feb and on 14 Feb 2005, but Snowspinner has reversed it back to List of topics in alternative medicine sans cross-links. Further, the Philosophy of alternative medicine article is now showing up as a completely different stub article. In other words, there are two articles physically in existence. There is no rational explanation other than vandalism that explains the actions of Snowspinner. John Gohde 23:55, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I have figured out a quickfix to the mess created by Snowspinner. I have moved everything to List of topics on the philosophy of alternative medicine. The name of the article now has the word List in it, which presumably is why Snowspinner waited almost one year to change the name. Any more moves with a stub article rather than the standard re-direct will most certainly be contested by me as another case of deliberate vandalism/harrassment. I think Snowspinner's original move was a total waste of my time. -- John Gohde 08:16, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Alternative medicine is making good progress. -- John Gohde 00:36, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The criticism section is very weak, and needs to be developed more. The references are really poor and of low quality. -- John Gohde 00:39, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Both statements in the disputed paragraph are at least partly wrong, as follows.
Many in the scientific community define alternative medicine as any treatment that has not been verified through peer-reviewed, controlled studies. This is simply false. Most in the scientific community do not define alt med that way because it fails to distinguish conventional and alt med, since much of conventional medical practice has not been "verified through controlled studies."
This is in contrast with conventional medicine. The real difference between conventional and alt med lies in the nature of the theory and evidence for the practice. Conventional practice is (1) compatible with known scientific facts and theories, and (2) controlled trials are universally accepted as the highest level of evidence of efficacy. In contrast, the practices of alt med are often (1) based on theories incompatible with the rest of our scientific understanding of the physical world, and (2) controlled trials, falsifiable hypotheses, and compatibility with known science are nearly universally rejected as evidence of efficacy or lack thereof by alt med practitioners.
Do either of you have an objection to these clarifications? Please don't offer rare exceptions as a refutiation. alteripse 23:28, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
One of the several difficulties of improving this article is Mr Gohde's peculiar insistence upon broadening the definition of alternative medicine to the point of meaninglessness by claiming that it includes noncontroversial aspects of prevention, wellness, and medical care-- sort of like arguing that one should vote Republican instead of Democratic because Republicans are willing to participate in peaceful elections instead of because of what makes Republicans different from Democrats. I don't really blame him for not wanting to defend all the nonsensical aspects of alt med, but his problem is that most doctors don't have any problem with the things he wants to defend (e.g., the value of eating right, or the 99% of modern osteopathic practice that is indistinguishable from conventional medicine) and don't even consider it alt med anymore. alteripse 02:04, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Now, now, let's eschew invidious stereotypes. It is obvious to most people that there are both biological and social dimensions to most diseases. Optimal care pays attention to both dimensions. The OBSSR was set up to support investigation into psychosocial dimensions. It never occurred to me that a psychosocial perspective was alt med. The OBSSR isnt part of NICCAM and isn't hampered by the same obstacles in alt med culture to scientific investigation of the topic. There are only a couple of MDs who have been writing here, and I suspect that we tend to write about what we have the most expertise about. Our medical coverage is very spotty and uneven with a wide range of quality, so don't make too much about our not writing about this-- we haven't written about the NIDDK either.
Furthemore, with respect to the health screening question: the core of medicine and medical practice is the attempt to alleviate illness for an individual patient, not preventive medicine. Preventive medicine has developed fairly recently as an aspect of primary care in the last few decades. Immunizations are probably the most striking success in terms of a preventive treatment administered in the context of an individual doctor-patient relationship. It isn't that doctors don't think it is better to prevent disease than treat it, but that isn't what 99% of us do. An example in my specialty is the recent epidemic of type 2 diabetes in children. The rise appears to be a result of changing cultural practices that have made children less physically active and consuming an unhealthy diet. The best prevention would occur long before the child was referred to me and would consist of a healthy diet and minimal television. It takes an entirely different kind of person, with different training and skills, to work on the social and cultural basis of this problem than it does to treat the diabetes when it appears. There is certainly no conflict between preventing diabetes and treating it--- just like there is no conflict between improving schooling and home environments to prevent crime-- improving schooling and home environments is important but no one expects the police to do it. I have never understood why some alt med proponents think doctors are somehow doing the wrong thing because we treat individual people when they get sick and come to us, instead of somehow preventing something that is not in our power to prevent. Or am I missing the point of your questions? alteripse 04:06, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC) alteripse 03:49, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The insult is unwarranted and your assertion is bizarre. If most practitioners, both conventional and alternative, agree that the psychosocial dimension to a patient's health is important, where is the argument? It makes no sense to call the aspects of psychosocial care that are compatible and congruent with science "alternative" if they are supported by everyone. There are, however, specifically alt med forms of psychosocial care, just like there are alt med treatments for diabetes. They are the ones that fall into the definition I offered: they are incompatible with our current scientific understanding and their proponents reject controlled trials as evidence that they work or don't work. An example of a specifically alt med psychosocial treatment is the forehead tapping treatment for trauma. It makes no sense, fits with nothing we know about the way the mind works, and its proponents reject the idea that a controlled trial might demonstrate its lack of efficacy.
As a general point of debate etiquette, it is both annoying and an admission of intellectual and logical bankruptcy when you use the phrase "you people" and proceed to argue against something that your opponent didn't claim. This is called a "strawman argument" and is the kind of behavior that can make people think you are not worth conversing with and have nothing valid to say. alteripse 12:13, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
John Gohde, previously known as Mr-Natural-Health and once banned for three months, brought a request against Snowspinner, who has been monitoring Gohde's activity for several weeks, for systematically reverting Gohde's addition of infoboxes to articles dealing with alternative medicine. The arbitrators rejected this request, but agreed to consider Snowspinner's "counterclaim" that Gohde had "returned to the behavior which got him in trouble twice before."
I suggest that you join Snowspinner, and perhaps set up a new Request for Comments in regards to John Gohde. Sadly, he is again harassing any Wikipedia user who dares disagree with him. I am saddened to see that he is harassing you, and lying about me. (BTW, I actually am a scientist, and Gohde's claim to the contrary is libel.) RK 20:45, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
I am not sure this is the best choice of paper to cite as evidence of the efficacy of the placebo effect.
It uses a less conventional definition of the "placebo effect". Specifically, in this paper, conventional medical treatment is given or removed without the knowledge of the patient, and their responses are compared with patients to whom treatment is given or removed with an explanation of what treatment they are undergoing and what results would be expected. Conventional placebo-controlled studies compare the reactions of patients that receive or do not receive treatment, but all believe that they are receiving appropriate treatment.
Even in the discussion of the paper, Benedetti et al. note that it "is probably wrong to call placebo effect the difference between open and hidden treatments, since no placebos are given". They also conclude that "the open-hidden approach [which is how they refer to the experimental technique that they present in this paper] might be a valid complement to the classic placebo-controlled studies".
It's certainly an interesting paper, and should be referred to in the placebo effect article, but it might be better if the citation in alternative medicine was a traditional placebo-controlled study, in my view. - MykReeve 11:56, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
See the last few paragraphs at [14] for my reply, [15] and [16] for background information. I correctly predicted todays events back on 11 Apr 2005. -- John Gohde 15:43, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
First of all, this quote should reference the specific paper/study from where it came, preferably with a link, so that the reader can have full context for the remarks. Secondly, the quote invites the possibility of others posting lengthy rebuttal quotes. Thirdly, lengthy quotes such as these are out of place in an encyclopedia article. Finally, attempts to educate readers about the placebo effect should be made at... placebo effect. These lengthy quotes need to go. If it would help to resolve the dispute, I would accept something along these lines: "Advocates of alternative medicine believe that the placebo effect is substantially beneficial to those receiving alternative therapies." That statement is true and fits concisely into the section of why there is support for alternative medicine. John? -- Edwardian 11:12, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Personally as a licensed practitioner of an "alternative medicine", Chinese Medicine in my case, I find this article to be biased and ill informed. Using Chinese Medicine as an example I would like to point out the Alternative medicine is not in conflict with Western Drug Based medicine, and it has 2,000 years of scholarly discussion to support it's theories. The fact that many things can NOT be measured by blinded studies, and placebo controlled experiments does not negate their existence. Example - LOVE. I have yet to hear about a compassion meter, but no serious healer would deny the importance of compassion to the process of healing. -- Jeffrey Goodman 03:55, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
2 things - I did not say things cannot be measured -I said things which can be measured by "scientific" means are not the only things which are real. Second Chinese medicine does have a longer larger body of scholarly discussion than those who are involved in this "psuedo scientific medical" ranting seem to be knowledgeable about. I detect there is some fundamentalism here and I have no reason to fight with people whose minds are clearly set to see things in such good vs evil ways. I am not interested in struggles with persons who would characterise me as a "humor writer' etc. So I think I check in on this article in a year or so to see if there is something I can contribute. Jeffrey Goodman
This is the original version:
Which I changed to the following in April 2004.
So, it seems to me that the problem is the editing process in Wikipedia. -- John Gohde 14:50, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Go waste somebody else's time. Your purpose here appears to be simply argumentative. -- John Gohde 18:11, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I repeat, I have better things to do with my time. As stated on my user page [18] all my future edits on wellness and alternative medicine will be made on my own fork edition of Wikipedia. Accordingly, 3 separate pages were updated with the above change which I wrote.
Furthermore, there has been more activity on alternative medicine and talk since April 19th than before April 19th. Just thought that you might want to know.
Editing anything on Wikipedia for me, would be a total waste of my time. Unlike RK, I happen to have an alternative. It is called the Dictionary of Alternative Medicine. Bye!
Gee, I did not even bother to revert the recent changes once! Could it be a total waste of time? Ha, ... Hah, Ha! -- John Gohde 00:17, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Can someone confirm the following assertion?
I couldn't find where PubMed actually classified studies, but a search of "alternative medicine" found 2369 items. Thanks! Edwardian 07:34, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This article is a joke and needs to be completely rewritten. For starters:
-- Leifern 15:40, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC)
Leifern writes "All conventional medicine comes from peer-reviewed, golden standard studies. That's not accurate - much if not most of medical care comes from clinical experience, which may or may not find confirmation through studies. Further, there is lots of experimental medicine within conventional medicine that requires further study."
Ok, here is some disagreement, but then agreement: Unfortunately, most adherents of alternative medicine do reject double blind studies. That is precisely why their methods are "alternative". Think of all the crystal healing claims, crystal power claims, pyramid power claims, iridology, rhinocerous horn elixirs, and "energy-charged" water therapies. None of the people promoting these therapies have anything to do with any form of blind studies or scientific peer review. In fact, they often rage against science in general.
On the other hand, in what way are you defining "alternative"? It seems to me that the subject you are writing about is very different from the content of most alternative medicine articles on Wikipedia. You seem to be writing more on proto-medicine, on new techniques that have not yet been fully evaluted by multiple double-blind studies. Well, you would be correct. There are a lot of medical techniques out there that are not pseudoscience, but are also not yet proven or disproven. It takes many people many years to fully test new therapies, especially when effects are subtle, or take years to realize. Some within conventional medicine are too quick to dismiss new thinking. (They are correct not to blindly accept new claims; scientific skepticism is healthy. But some move from scientific skepticism to cynicism, which is not scientific.)
Leifern's comments bring me to a problem that I have had with this specific article for some time. There is no such technique as "alternative medicine". Similarly, there is no such technique as "conventional medicine". It makes little sense to have an article arguing data for or against "alternative medicine", as a whole, in the same way it makes little sense to have an article arguing data for or against "conventional medicine". When we go to a hospital to treat asthma, does the doctor order "One unit of medicine for the patient!" Nope. The doctor orders a specific drug, to be given in a specific fashion. Well, one can have an article analyzing evidence for and against any one given approach. The same is true for the very wide set of therapies and treatments that are considered "alternative".
Thus, maybe this article should remove all sections on data for or against alternative medicine. We can have a list of links to alternative medicine topics, each of which can be evaluted individually within their own article. This article could concentrate on defining the term: Who uses this term, and how do they use it? Thoughts? RK 02:27, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 |
I have notice that User:Snowspinner's recently vandalized several of my edits. I would like somebody to inform Snowspinner that vandalizism on Wikipedia is NOT permitted. I have reversed his vandalizism with the following edit summaries.
I have documented the goals and accomplishments of my recent editing activities on my talk page [1]. And, currently am working on a write up as to why cateogories have NOT replace project infoboxes. I believe that I will finish it today.
I added this brand new infobox on Alternative medicine a couple of weeks ago [(03:05, 4 Feb 2005 John Gohde (Adding the Project on Alternative Medicine, very active Wikiproject, infobox.)] in order to very publicly announce my new editing activities that have re-activated the project on alternative medicine. As Alternative medicine is a very public article being watched by a number of administrators and editors, I was waiting for a response to my edits. I have received none to date. In fact User:Geni has actually restored my edits there. Since, I received no rejection of any of my edits at alternative medicine I have moved on to other areas and articles. I have yet to restore any infobox that was deleted by anybody. I do however plan on restoring a few project boxes that were wrongfully deleted by User:FoxFire and perhaps others, now an Adm, in the last phase of my editing activities.
I have absolutely no plans on re-adding CamMenu or any of the other wrongfully deleted project templates back to any of the articles, where they have have been deleted by somebody else.
I will of course continue to reverse any edit that is clearly vandalism because their assertions are factually incorrect and totally divorced from reality. -- John Gohde 19:41, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
As previously stated, all of the project on alternative medicine's branches of AM infoboxes are in full compliance with Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes for no other reason than this guideline clearlys does not cover infoboxes. An infobox is quite different from an article series box.
"An infobox on Wikipedia is a consistently-formatted table which is present in articles with a common subject (An infobox is a generalization of a taxobox (from taxonomy) which summarizes information for an organism or group of organisms)." Wikipedia:Infobox And, see our large branches of AM infobox at [3]. Our large branches of AM infoboxes primarily exists to summarize information for a given branch of AM and for related branches of AM.
Second, our new box with a direct link to Category:Alternative medicine, such as the one in alternative medicine is clearly not an Article series box as defined by that guideline. Our box, what ever you want to call it, is in effect a very visible version of Category:Alternative medicine. IF anything this guideline recommends the use of categories which is precisely what our box uses.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that new visitors visit alternative medicine using the default user skin. Using this skin, visitors are more likely to find Talk:Alternative medicine, which has a very visible link on the very top of the page and, thus, a direct link to our project pages then they are to find the hidden Category:Alternative medicine link which is shown on the very bottom of the web page. -- John Gohde 09:07, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
User:Snowspinner on 13 Feb and on 14 Feb 2005 voluntarily decided for no good reason to destroy the Philosophy of alternative medicine article, one of the Core Project Articles of the Wikipedia:Wikiproject:Alternative_Medicine that was created by this project in April 2004. Snowspinner moved this article to List of topics in alternative medicine in a manner that did not maintained the original links to it. In other words, nothing links to this new article. That makes it a case of vandalism committed by User:Snowspinner, an adminstrator, because the work of dozens of editors in Wikipedia have been deliberately orphaned. I have previously attempted to moved the article back both on 13 Feb and on 14 Feb 2005, but Snowspinner has reversed it back to List of topics in alternative medicine sans cross-links. Further, the Philosophy of alternative medicine article is now showing up as a completely different stub article. In other words, there are two articles physically in existence. There is no rational explanation other than vandalism that explains the actions of Snowspinner. John Gohde 23:55, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I have figured out a quickfix to the mess created by Snowspinner. I have moved everything to List of topics on the philosophy of alternative medicine. The name of the article now has the word List in it, which presumably is why Snowspinner waited almost one year to change the name. Any more moves with a stub article rather than the standard re-direct will most certainly be contested by me as another case of deliberate vandalism/harrassment. I think Snowspinner's original move was a total waste of my time. -- John Gohde 08:16, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Alternative medicine is making good progress. -- John Gohde 00:36, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The criticism section is very weak, and needs to be developed more. The references are really poor and of low quality. -- John Gohde 00:39, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Both statements in the disputed paragraph are at least partly wrong, as follows.
Many in the scientific community define alternative medicine as any treatment that has not been verified through peer-reviewed, controlled studies. This is simply false. Most in the scientific community do not define alt med that way because it fails to distinguish conventional and alt med, since much of conventional medical practice has not been "verified through controlled studies."
This is in contrast with conventional medicine. The real difference between conventional and alt med lies in the nature of the theory and evidence for the practice. Conventional practice is (1) compatible with known scientific facts and theories, and (2) controlled trials are universally accepted as the highest level of evidence of efficacy. In contrast, the practices of alt med are often (1) based on theories incompatible with the rest of our scientific understanding of the physical world, and (2) controlled trials, falsifiable hypotheses, and compatibility with known science are nearly universally rejected as evidence of efficacy or lack thereof by alt med practitioners.
Do either of you have an objection to these clarifications? Please don't offer rare exceptions as a refutiation. alteripse 23:28, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
One of the several difficulties of improving this article is Mr Gohde's peculiar insistence upon broadening the definition of alternative medicine to the point of meaninglessness by claiming that it includes noncontroversial aspects of prevention, wellness, and medical care-- sort of like arguing that one should vote Republican instead of Democratic because Republicans are willing to participate in peaceful elections instead of because of what makes Republicans different from Democrats. I don't really blame him for not wanting to defend all the nonsensical aspects of alt med, but his problem is that most doctors don't have any problem with the things he wants to defend (e.g., the value of eating right, or the 99% of modern osteopathic practice that is indistinguishable from conventional medicine) and don't even consider it alt med anymore. alteripse 02:04, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Now, now, let's eschew invidious stereotypes. It is obvious to most people that there are both biological and social dimensions to most diseases. Optimal care pays attention to both dimensions. The OBSSR was set up to support investigation into psychosocial dimensions. It never occurred to me that a psychosocial perspective was alt med. The OBSSR isnt part of NICCAM and isn't hampered by the same obstacles in alt med culture to scientific investigation of the topic. There are only a couple of MDs who have been writing here, and I suspect that we tend to write about what we have the most expertise about. Our medical coverage is very spotty and uneven with a wide range of quality, so don't make too much about our not writing about this-- we haven't written about the NIDDK either.
Furthemore, with respect to the health screening question: the core of medicine and medical practice is the attempt to alleviate illness for an individual patient, not preventive medicine. Preventive medicine has developed fairly recently as an aspect of primary care in the last few decades. Immunizations are probably the most striking success in terms of a preventive treatment administered in the context of an individual doctor-patient relationship. It isn't that doctors don't think it is better to prevent disease than treat it, but that isn't what 99% of us do. An example in my specialty is the recent epidemic of type 2 diabetes in children. The rise appears to be a result of changing cultural practices that have made children less physically active and consuming an unhealthy diet. The best prevention would occur long before the child was referred to me and would consist of a healthy diet and minimal television. It takes an entirely different kind of person, with different training and skills, to work on the social and cultural basis of this problem than it does to treat the diabetes when it appears. There is certainly no conflict between preventing diabetes and treating it--- just like there is no conflict between improving schooling and home environments to prevent crime-- improving schooling and home environments is important but no one expects the police to do it. I have never understood why some alt med proponents think doctors are somehow doing the wrong thing because we treat individual people when they get sick and come to us, instead of somehow preventing something that is not in our power to prevent. Or am I missing the point of your questions? alteripse 04:06, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC) alteripse 03:49, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The insult is unwarranted and your assertion is bizarre. If most practitioners, both conventional and alternative, agree that the psychosocial dimension to a patient's health is important, where is the argument? It makes no sense to call the aspects of psychosocial care that are compatible and congruent with science "alternative" if they are supported by everyone. There are, however, specifically alt med forms of psychosocial care, just like there are alt med treatments for diabetes. They are the ones that fall into the definition I offered: they are incompatible with our current scientific understanding and their proponents reject controlled trials as evidence that they work or don't work. An example of a specifically alt med psychosocial treatment is the forehead tapping treatment for trauma. It makes no sense, fits with nothing we know about the way the mind works, and its proponents reject the idea that a controlled trial might demonstrate its lack of efficacy.
As a general point of debate etiquette, it is both annoying and an admission of intellectual and logical bankruptcy when you use the phrase "you people" and proceed to argue against something that your opponent didn't claim. This is called a "strawman argument" and is the kind of behavior that can make people think you are not worth conversing with and have nothing valid to say. alteripse 12:13, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
John Gohde, previously known as Mr-Natural-Health and once banned for three months, brought a request against Snowspinner, who has been monitoring Gohde's activity for several weeks, for systematically reverting Gohde's addition of infoboxes to articles dealing with alternative medicine. The arbitrators rejected this request, but agreed to consider Snowspinner's "counterclaim" that Gohde had "returned to the behavior which got him in trouble twice before."
I suggest that you join Snowspinner, and perhaps set up a new Request for Comments in regards to John Gohde. Sadly, he is again harassing any Wikipedia user who dares disagree with him. I am saddened to see that he is harassing you, and lying about me. (BTW, I actually am a scientist, and Gohde's claim to the contrary is libel.) RK 20:45, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
I am not sure this is the best choice of paper to cite as evidence of the efficacy of the placebo effect.
It uses a less conventional definition of the "placebo effect". Specifically, in this paper, conventional medical treatment is given or removed without the knowledge of the patient, and their responses are compared with patients to whom treatment is given or removed with an explanation of what treatment they are undergoing and what results would be expected. Conventional placebo-controlled studies compare the reactions of patients that receive or do not receive treatment, but all believe that they are receiving appropriate treatment.
Even in the discussion of the paper, Benedetti et al. note that it "is probably wrong to call placebo effect the difference between open and hidden treatments, since no placebos are given". They also conclude that "the open-hidden approach [which is how they refer to the experimental technique that they present in this paper] might be a valid complement to the classic placebo-controlled studies".
It's certainly an interesting paper, and should be referred to in the placebo effect article, but it might be better if the citation in alternative medicine was a traditional placebo-controlled study, in my view. - MykReeve 11:56, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
See the last few paragraphs at [14] for my reply, [15] and [16] for background information. I correctly predicted todays events back on 11 Apr 2005. -- John Gohde 15:43, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
First of all, this quote should reference the specific paper/study from where it came, preferably with a link, so that the reader can have full context for the remarks. Secondly, the quote invites the possibility of others posting lengthy rebuttal quotes. Thirdly, lengthy quotes such as these are out of place in an encyclopedia article. Finally, attempts to educate readers about the placebo effect should be made at... placebo effect. These lengthy quotes need to go. If it would help to resolve the dispute, I would accept something along these lines: "Advocates of alternative medicine believe that the placebo effect is substantially beneficial to those receiving alternative therapies." That statement is true and fits concisely into the section of why there is support for alternative medicine. John? -- Edwardian 11:12, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Personally as a licensed practitioner of an "alternative medicine", Chinese Medicine in my case, I find this article to be biased and ill informed. Using Chinese Medicine as an example I would like to point out the Alternative medicine is not in conflict with Western Drug Based medicine, and it has 2,000 years of scholarly discussion to support it's theories. The fact that many things can NOT be measured by blinded studies, and placebo controlled experiments does not negate their existence. Example - LOVE. I have yet to hear about a compassion meter, but no serious healer would deny the importance of compassion to the process of healing. -- Jeffrey Goodman 03:55, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
2 things - I did not say things cannot be measured -I said things which can be measured by "scientific" means are not the only things which are real. Second Chinese medicine does have a longer larger body of scholarly discussion than those who are involved in this "psuedo scientific medical" ranting seem to be knowledgeable about. I detect there is some fundamentalism here and I have no reason to fight with people whose minds are clearly set to see things in such good vs evil ways. I am not interested in struggles with persons who would characterise me as a "humor writer' etc. So I think I check in on this article in a year or so to see if there is something I can contribute. Jeffrey Goodman
This is the original version:
Which I changed to the following in April 2004.
So, it seems to me that the problem is the editing process in Wikipedia. -- John Gohde 14:50, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Go waste somebody else's time. Your purpose here appears to be simply argumentative. -- John Gohde 18:11, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I repeat, I have better things to do with my time. As stated on my user page [18] all my future edits on wellness and alternative medicine will be made on my own fork edition of Wikipedia. Accordingly, 3 separate pages were updated with the above change which I wrote.
Furthermore, there has been more activity on alternative medicine and talk since April 19th than before April 19th. Just thought that you might want to know.
Editing anything on Wikipedia for me, would be a total waste of my time. Unlike RK, I happen to have an alternative. It is called the Dictionary of Alternative Medicine. Bye!
Gee, I did not even bother to revert the recent changes once! Could it be a total waste of time? Ha, ... Hah, Ha! -- John Gohde 00:17, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Can someone confirm the following assertion?
I couldn't find where PubMed actually classified studies, but a search of "alternative medicine" found 2369 items. Thanks! Edwardian 07:34, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This article is a joke and needs to be completely rewritten. For starters:
-- Leifern 15:40, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC)
Leifern writes "All conventional medicine comes from peer-reviewed, golden standard studies. That's not accurate - much if not most of medical care comes from clinical experience, which may or may not find confirmation through studies. Further, there is lots of experimental medicine within conventional medicine that requires further study."
Ok, here is some disagreement, but then agreement: Unfortunately, most adherents of alternative medicine do reject double blind studies. That is precisely why their methods are "alternative". Think of all the crystal healing claims, crystal power claims, pyramid power claims, iridology, rhinocerous horn elixirs, and "energy-charged" water therapies. None of the people promoting these therapies have anything to do with any form of blind studies or scientific peer review. In fact, they often rage against science in general.
On the other hand, in what way are you defining "alternative"? It seems to me that the subject you are writing about is very different from the content of most alternative medicine articles on Wikipedia. You seem to be writing more on proto-medicine, on new techniques that have not yet been fully evaluted by multiple double-blind studies. Well, you would be correct. There are a lot of medical techniques out there that are not pseudoscience, but are also not yet proven or disproven. It takes many people many years to fully test new therapies, especially when effects are subtle, or take years to realize. Some within conventional medicine are too quick to dismiss new thinking. (They are correct not to blindly accept new claims; scientific skepticism is healthy. But some move from scientific skepticism to cynicism, which is not scientific.)
Leifern's comments bring me to a problem that I have had with this specific article for some time. There is no such technique as "alternative medicine". Similarly, there is no such technique as "conventional medicine". It makes little sense to have an article arguing data for or against "alternative medicine", as a whole, in the same way it makes little sense to have an article arguing data for or against "conventional medicine". When we go to a hospital to treat asthma, does the doctor order "One unit of medicine for the patient!" Nope. The doctor orders a specific drug, to be given in a specific fashion. Well, one can have an article analyzing evidence for and against any one given approach. The same is true for the very wide set of therapies and treatments that are considered "alternative".
Thus, maybe this article should remove all sections on data for or against alternative medicine. We can have a list of links to alternative medicine topics, each of which can be evaluted individually within their own article. This article could concentrate on defining the term: Who uses this term, and how do they use it? Thoughts? RK 02:27, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)