Venom,
As far as I know, there is no hint of a requirement that participants use the introduce yourself thread, its there for when participants decide to do so -- if they do. Your sarcasm was uncalled for.
Its common for Skeptics to exaggerate the lack of relevance of so-called "anecdotal evidence". Ultimately, all scientific evidence depends on anecdotal evidence -- scientists describing anecdotally, in their reports or lab notebooks, the conditions under which data was collected and what they observed (and didn't observe) while it was.
It is hardly a new observation, though, that Skeptics' aversion to anecdotal evidence only applies to evidence that might seem to weaken their case. Anecdotal evidence that supports their beliefs tends to be embraced enthusiastically as not only valid but conclusive (e.g., confessions of admitted hoaxers whose word is unreliable by their own confession and whose testimony is frequently inconsistent, or Langmuir's decades old recollections of a casual conversation with Rhine where Rhine supposedly openly admitted to being ignorant of elementary elementary errors and having committed them, despite having written, by that time, extensively on the importance of avoiding those same errors and excluding them from his published protocols).
Of course, with the kind of evidence described here we need to consider alternate explanations, e.g., personal validation, and post hoc as you suggest, as well as selective reporting and differential treatment by handlers who know that the horses in question received the treatment. In evaluating any evidence we need to consider these alternatives.
But contrary to the strong, irrational insistence of Skeptics, "partial evidence" is not "no evidence" (denial of which handily allows them to ignore any cumulative evidence -- any piece of evidence must stand alone as complete and inarguable proof strong enough to overcome any degree of prior doubt however extreme).
I would judge that rationally, pacificwhim's report is an interesting, relevant bit of evidence in support of chiropractic treatments, especially in line with the strength of the reported effect which is a stretch for the alternative explanations to cover. Naturally, it is not conclusive. Of course, in the case of chiropractic, we already have strong, double-blind, controlled (using sham manipulations as the control case), replicated studies that support their effectiveness (for some conditions) and relative safety in humans. This is in stark contrast to some of the "mainstream" treatments for the same conditions (contrary to what you might expect, use of double-blind studies to validate surgical techniques is relatively rare unless they involve implantation of a new medical device -- effectiveness is generally evaluated by comparing outcome for treated patients compared to independently recorded -- often informally collected -- outcomes for existing treatment or those who receive, for whatever reason, no treatment at all).
For the record: I have never been to a chiropractor, have no friends who are chiropractors, and overall, have no particular emotional investment in it being "real". Lots of treatments, both complementary (a term I prefer to "alternative") and conventional that looked promising once were later disproved or superseded. The failure of any technique which it looked might have provided relief from suffering with much lower risk and cost should be regretted by anyone, but that would be the extent of my emotions if someone were to show that all the existing studies were wrong.  |