acupuncture

So they could compare the reported benefits of 'fake acupuncture' with real acupuncture, and see if there's any health benefit to the physical intervention, or if it's all just theatre.

In short, the placebo (or acupuncture, or holistic tinctures, or voodoo) allow your body to heal itself.

But then if you are willing to believe in acupuncture you are willing to believe in anything.

It would be like WalMart telling me that acupuncture was good - it has nothing to do with their business.

The situation to me feels a lot like acupuncture, homeopathic medicine, etc.

By the way, have you considered alternative healing therapies like acupuncture?

It's not the same as saying that acupuncture doesn't work.

Well, that appears to be real science about acupuncture.

She's also does acupuncture, which makes her a pseudo-scientist.

I'm not taking a position on that question, as I haven't studied it sufficiently (though acupuncture, for example, seems more compelling that reiki).

This movement has the double advantage to create a new fancy specialty with a fresh occidental name, and allows ignorant GPs to keep calling acupuncture a quack.

I have read that some points of acupuncture have been shown to have the effect they claim, and how it works can be explained.

Its easy to do and as an offshoot from acupuncture/acupressure" - Gnarl Yeah...

(Studies of acupuncture had better always have sham acupuncture arms in which "real" acupuncture points are disregarded or other aspects of supposedly ancient Chinese technique are intentionally omitted without the patient knowing that.) This will improve the evaluation of safety and effectiveness of new surgical techniques.

Though I'm unaware of empirical studies, wouldn't attempts in Chinese medicine be precedents here - particularly could the sending of electrical pulses through acupuncture needles inserted at various places to "stimulate the immune system" be some kind of primordial theory connecting the nervous system and the immune system?

The biggest difference between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates is Steve Jobs rejected modern medicine, science and technology, leading to his early and most likely avoidable death.[1] > In spite of pleas from family and friends, he tried to cure himself through acupuncture sessions, drinking special fruit juices, visiting "spiritualists" and using other treatments he found on the internet.

In the particular case of Acupuncture, they first said that you cannot run a proper clinical trial because the technique is invasive and you cannot control against placebo effect.

Acupuncture works better than a placebo, but it doesn't matter where you stick the needles, or if you use fake needles.

Acupuncture isn't a science based not on whether it works or not (there appears to be some scientific evidence that it can), but rather because it is based on handed-down traditional knowledge and personal experience rather than empirical research.