Research on energy medicine

[jacob]

Bryan is very welcomed here because him being a skeptic (and a serious one at that) brings conversation and helps to filter far fetched or simply wrong arguments made by proponents of psi.

Everyone one should check himself once in a while and the supporters are also guilty of filtering good skeptical work. Bryan and, hopefully, other skeptics fill that need for those who are lazy or not interested of checking the skeptical side of things by themselves.

He's been very helpful with analyzing my Psi Experiments design flaws and other articles posted here.

[pacificwhim]

OK, I'm confused. Does being a skeptic mean looking at all the evidence with an open mind and judging based on it, or deciding beforehand what can't be true and looking only at evidence that supports your beliefs?

You say you took my claims of a skeptical point of view "too seriously." What does that mean? if it means that you expected me to take your word for the fact that there have been no studies that show energy healing works, then you're mistaken. I don't take anyone's word for anything. I do my own research, and my research so far has been a mixed bag.

There's some energy healing work that's shown promising results, and some that's shown failure. In my experience, that's the nature of science. I'm just beginning to explore an area that's been unknown to me until the last three months or so, and I have a long way to go before I draw any conclusions. Those conclusions will be based on the evidence and not my desire to reach a certain conclusion. That is the attitude I have seen from many (not all) of the people calling themselves skeptics.

I stand by my comment about the ridiculousness of a study by a nine-year-old being published by a major journal and anyone being expected to take it seriously. That seems like reaching by the skeptics to say, "See, this stuff is crap!" What would be the response to a study done by a ten-year-old on telepathy published in a parapsychology journal and touted by the pro-psi community as "proof of psi"? They'd be ridiculed to death.

In my work, I'm much like a criminal attorney. I judge my evidence based on the credibility of the source. Solid science, conducted by people without any emotional investment in the results, stands atop the list. That's why I've pretty much concluded that things like crystal healing and reflexology are junk; there's just no reliable, objective evidence to support them. But the jury is still out for me on much else. The nature of my work demands that I keep an open mind and research all leads.

[SkepticalBry]

Hey, don't be dissin' Emily. If there's something wrong with her experiment, try your own. Laboratory experiments are supposed to be repeatable. No reason to think the laws of nature change for fourth-grade science-fair projects. The one thing that does seem to change is the willingness of practitioners to take part in the test. Adult skeptics find few takers, no paranormal abilities.

Are we skeptics closed minded? We're biased, that's for sure. Over and over, we've watched consistent physical principles hold and psychic phenomena fail; we expect the pattern to hold. Still I find skeptics, on the whole, more open-minded than psychic-believers. We are up for the test that could prove us wrong.

I worry that skepticism comes off as negative. I think a world that works on consistent and discernible principles is a great place to live. Observation and reasoning continue to perform wonders for us. To see the power of human mind, forget the psychics; look at Emily Rosa.

[pacificwhim]

No disrespect to Emily. Bravo to her for trying an ambitious experiment. That's great. It's JAMA that I'm dissing for publishing her study. Again, it looks to my eyes, as someone whose work has to pass editorial muster to make it into a newspaper or magazine, that the peer review and editorial board was so eager to publish something negative about therapeutic touch that they accepted a piece that would be rejected 1,000 times out of 1,000 if it were on some other topic. When you bend the principle of professional peer-reviewed research to the breaking point in order to pursue a personal agenda (as this case appears to me), then you call your credibility very much into question.

Emily, as far as I'm concerned, should keep on keeping on.

[SkepticalBry]

In reality, Rosa's paper did pass muster at a top-tier peer-reviewed journal, and the 1000-out-of-1000 rejections exist in pacificwhim's imagination.

One "principle of professional peer-reviewed research" is to review the science, not the scientist. Many journals, though not JAMA, use double-blind reviewing, in which the referees do not even get to see who wrote the paper.

Pacificwhim's idea about the work of criminal attorneys strikes me as similarly uninformed.

[mahoward]

I began to read this thread and was very excited to see a topic like this discussed. As I continued to read, however, my energy levels dropped and now I sort of have a sick feeling in my stomach.

[jacob]

Originally Posted by mahoward

I began to read this thread and was very excited to see a topic like this discussed. As I continued to read, however, my energy levels dropped and now I sort of have a sick feeling in my stomach.

I guess you were right. The thread lost its original subject. I created this new thread for this discussion to leave the other one clean.

[pacificwhim]

Good point. My original intent was not to get in a virtual shoving match. I'll be moving on to my work at hand.

[ilovelife]

Well I don't know if it can help you but I remember a book I read and that was very well written with many scientific reasearch explained. It seemed to be for the people who don't really believe it unless they can read some scientific proves...if it's what you are looking for then please read this greaaaaat book:
The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe
Good luck!

[Leajay]

I may have answers after November, i am waiting on a email from a professor to test me with an EEG, he is going to test my consciousness, kind of excited about it as i know that what i have is very much there to even the average person or none believer, i have had the opportunity to be ridiculed but no-one have yet because of what they have felt.