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Biofeedback - Replacing Medicine?
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Post by
Squishalot
I haven't forgotten this thread. I'll come back to it when I get more time to read and think about it (i.e. not right now).
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Heh, yeah, I can guess as much. It's just a busy time with Chinese New Year and all, I've got to catch a lot back up at work, so I don't have as much time as I would normally for side things.
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
I agree that the results of Targ's experiments were just somewhat of an "accident," in that she found things that she wasn't looking for.
However, the link that you provided me with only stated that the participants in this study were selected based on the type of AIDS and the number of AIDS-defining illnesses. Targ went to an almost neurotic (albeit necessary to eliminate a large percentage of variables) detail of matching her subjects, down to:
The forty patients chosen to participate were now perfectly matched for age, degree of illness and many other variables, even down to their personal habits.
I still agree that her results need to be further tested before they can be considered to have some merit, but they would need to be tested in an experiment that has as few variables as possible. It doesn't seem logical to test something when the thing being tested has fewer variables than the test itself. I'm not saying that you need to scour the internet for 1000 years to find something that was perfectly designed to test Targ's experiment, but I think it needs to be somewhat closer than just accounting for the type of AIDS and the number of AIDS-defining illnesses.
Ok, finding the time to come back to this.
I just wanted to note, firstly, that the book doesn't cite where the quoted statement comes from. It has no reference to any research paper that was produced from that study.
Having said that, I looked at the research paper most recently linked by IronGolem, which appears to be the one referred to in the paper. I'd like to note the following:
1. Control was made on age, CD4 cell count and number of AIDS-defining illnesses. However, results were reporting on outpatient visits, hospitalisations, new ADDs, etc. There were a lot of stats that Targ has used to justify her experiment results, without controlling for such things initially.
A proper treatment-trial experiment should control for the result variables initially, and measure the improvement / change in such variables. As an example, if you're using the number of hospitalisations as the measure of how effective your treatment is, you need to control on the number of hospitalisations initially.
The other thing is that you need to control for every part of their treatments. If you read the paper, you'll note that the distance healing subjects actually received 50% more alternative therapies during the study - significant at the 10% level of significance.
As far as baseline habits were concerned, they put all the existing smokers in the control group, and none in the distance healing group. Targ et. al. argues that two of the treatment group started smoking again, and that somehow evens it up. It doesn't. There was no real control on baseline habits if they happen to put
all the ethnic minorities and smokers
into one group.
Summary: Controls are meaningless if they don't actually control for the results. Targ uses the controls as a proxy for the result variable - this is flawed. What she and the others should have done is to run a two-stage experiment - 6 months observation period, matched the relevant result variables at the 6 month point, then run a 6 month double blind treatment period. The improvement in the result variables could then be used to demonstrate the impact of distance healing. For now though, we can't tell whether the distance healing actually did anything, because there's no real control.
2. In relation to whether she had a goal in mind, consider the Wired Magazine article:
IS THIS EVEN THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE?
Targ refused to speculate. Her position: Use the scientific method to find out if an effect exists before trying to analyze how it works.
It seems pretty clear that she's using very much a scattergun approach - test as much as you can, and celebrate when you get a statistically significant result, even if you can't explain why.
Final summary: There needs to be further research in this field, definitely, because the quality of the existing research is rubbish. Sadly, too much garbage gets published these days.
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
It's not so much how we like the topics formatted, or anything in particular. It's more a general concern on how you present an argument.
Think about how a research paper is put together:
1. Introduction (background behind the topic)
2. Literature review (explanation of past research / supporting arguments)
3. Method (the process taken to come to your conclusion)
4. Results (actually reporting the results of the above process)
5. Assessment (discussing what went right, what went wrong, and why you might get the results that you do)
6. Conclusion (summary of your paper plus potential new ideas)
The reason this is done is because it provides a clear explanation of what you're trying to demonstrate (intro), it explains why it's worthwhile discussing (literature review), it shows you've put thought into how you'll test it (method) and the results that you're getting (results). It also demonstrates that you're willing to self-reflect on things you've encountered (assessment) and are able to suggest where your ideas can go after this (conclusion).
Now, in the case of a good discussion topic, it's very similar:
1. Introduction (introducing the topic)
2. Explaining why it's a worthwhile discussion topic (providing supporting articles or threads, or at least, making a good explanation for why it's worth talking about, also showing that you've researched your idea sufficiently)
3. Providing your thoughts on the topic and attempting to answer your own question (specifically, in an objective, logical manner)
4. Self assessment - as others reply, attempt to understand their point and take it on board, rather than try to drag it back to the original post all the time whilst ignoring criticisms of portions of it.
In this case, your opening post wasn't well thought out enough. You didn't explain the purpose clearly, nor the existing research behind it. The idea originally received was that Biofeedback would replace drugs and be just as effective. What you actually meant was that Biofeedback could be useful, even if it's not as effective as medicinal drugs. As self-assessment, the idea is to take that on board, and rewrite the OP to then better clarify your position, rather than rigidly trying to drag discussions "/Back. On. Topic." as you did, when people were criticising the strength of the placebo effect on page 1.
Think of the OP as a guide for discussion. You keep updating it as people make new points and develop the ideas (or critique the ideas). The amount of critiquing that journal articles get is phenomenal, but they need to take it on board before they can get published. And yet, as you can see, the results still aren't flawless.
And no, you can't sue me :P
Post by
475128
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Post by
Squishalot
Shunned for being a wall of text?
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Heh, to me, that just seems like a waste of time. Why talk about the unviable / impossible?
Post by
166779
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Heh, to me, that just seems like a waste of time. Why talk about the unviable / impossible?
It's fun to me and the other people who partake in it, trust me. =)
There are different levels to that. I don't see any problem trying to create an internally-coherent system even if it has not relation to the real world, for instance talking about what the zombie apocalypse would be like. What I think Squish is pointing at is when people start creating these systems but try to keep them related to the real world, even when they have no real connection.
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
How would a zombie apocalypse
not
related to the real world? I'm confused here; you're saying that things like that don't have any connection - then why discuss them at all? I can't think of really anything that has absolutely zero connection to the real world, even the most outlandish discussion. Can you clarify what you mean here?
Because there's not going to be a zombie apocalypse...
Any discussion about it (by people at least semi-sane) is built from a theoretical framework that is not a part of the real world. It might import facts and laws that govern our universe in order to add realism, but it's not meant to actually include the real world. I could argue for days about which superpower is the best, about whether a portable water-purifier will be enough to drink water after the apocalypse, about whether aliens on Mars would be more intelligent than aliens on Venus. That's all in it's own bubble.
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
It's not derived from the real world. That I posit aliens on Mars is arbitrary. There is no real world evidence for that claim, and I don't care because I'm discussing it as not real.
Unrelated to any of my posts:
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is always even a 0.0000000001% chance of something happening
This is just crazy talk.
This goes back to the determinism thread. You see that you don't understand/see all the causes at work in a situation, so you just blame it on chance/probability and call it a day.
Post by
475128
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
If it's a theory it's not a principle....
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