Acupuncture

[Kingsindian]

The Journal of Chinese Medicine has an article about Wikipedia's treatment of acupuncture. Here is a more accessible version of the article. I have no idea what kind of journal it is. Here is a discussion on the Fringe Theories noticeboard.

The article is fairly detailed. The author states that they tried to get "pseudoscience" as a descriptor removed, got abused by the skeptics on Wikipedia and got banned. Several quotes are given from the talkpage.

The relevant section on the talkpage seems to be this. The banned user seems to be Ellaqmentry (T-C-L). After this ANI report, they were blocked by JzG, then unblocked because JzG was involved, then re-blocked by Bishonen.

I am not knowledgeable about the subject, but some Googling on the Cochrane Review website suggests that most studies of acupuncture are of low quality and/or show no effect, but there are certain kinds of maladies (typically some kind of pain) where it is found to be mildly effective. On the other hand, there are two sources cited in the article which directly call it "pseudoscience". The article says about these sources:

the first is an introductory undergraduate textbook for non-science majors. The second is a primer on science in education. Neither of these sources is peer-reviewed, referenced or bills itself as a representation of scientific or medical consensus.

As far as I can see the article is right on this point.

Whatever the merits of acupuncture (I think it's bogus, and the few positive results are likely to be noise, but as I said, I'm not knowledgeable about the topic), the ganging up at ANI and the talkpage, accusations of socking without evidence, the gang-bullying so on, is typically horrible. Acupuncture is big business, so I would not be surprised if it was indeed some kind of sock. Isn't there a better way to handle these kinds of things?

[Poetlister]

The Journal of Chinese Medicine has an article about Wikipedia's treatment of acupuncture. Here is a more accessible version of the article. I have no idea what kind of journal it is.

It's produced by the International Society for Chinese Medicine, which is the lobby group for what is passed off in the West as traditional Chinese medicine. It cannot remotely be called a NPOV source.

[Kingsindian]

Thanks. I did not mean to imply that it is a neutral source; obviously it is strongly in favor of acupuncture whereas the mainstream is, at best, mildly interested.

[Bezdomni]

Hasn't Wikipedia put PDR out of business yet?

Navigating around a little through the talk page, I found an interesting piece on pseudo-scepticism that rings about right. (It's not as detailed as the WWHP post you linked to at abetterwaytohealth though.)

[iii]

Navigating around a little through the talk page, I found an interesting piece on pseudo-scepticism that rings about right. (It's not as detailed as the WWHP post you linked to at abetterwaytohealth though.)

Please, do tell us how you came to the conclusion that this piece of acupuncture propaganda "rings about right".

[iii]

mildly disinterested.

FTFY.

[Bezdomni]

Because I watched SageRad get railroaded out of WP by Jytdog and JzG, because I read the talk page that KI linked to where the banned user provided sufficient evidence to eliminate the culturally arrogant "pseudo-science" claims but still got banned, am sufficiently well-read / traveled to know that acupuncture is a very old Chinese tradition worthy of encyclopedic treatment without denigration, etc.

I am also aware of BigPharma's hold on certain areas of Wikipedia, having watched them smear candidates in the 2016 election for BS the candidates never said. I am also aware of the insane number of people who have been banned or topic-banned for not towing the Monsanto line on pesticides and GMOs.

I take it you are somehow not aware of these things?

[Rogol Domedonfors]

I was surprised by the insistence of certain Wikipedians in calling acupuncture a pseudoscience. As far as I can tell, acupuncture itself is a surgical or medical procedure, not a system of thought, and hence can be neither in itself scientific or non-scientific . The underlying system of thought is traditional Chinese medicine, which is not a pseudoscience either: it is a system of belief that is not scientific, in the sense that it does not rest on hypothesis formation and testing by experiment, but on authority and tradition; but neither does it claim to be scientific in that sense. It is thus non-scientific but not pseudoscientific,

A parallel example might be trepanning. As far as one can tell it has been practised for a very long time, and the original reasons are unknown, but we may guess them to be non-scienitific, and are quite possibly based on tradtition and appeal to authority; it is also used in traditional Chinese medicine. Today, trepanning is a medical procedure used as part of scientific medicine to treat certain conditions. It is also promoted by advocates of a pseudo-scientific theory that it enhances human consciousness: this is a theory that presents itself as scientific but is not, It would be equally nonsenical to describe trepanning as a science, because some of its uses are based in science, as it would be to describe it as a pseudoscience, because some of its uses are based in pseudoscience.

[Kingsindian]

Acupuncture has an associated theory based on qi ("energy") and "meridians". See this article for an overview. There is no firm evidence for this theory.

Some people have advanced theories using modern concepts to explain acupuncture. There is some partial basis for some of the mechanisms, but the evidence and reproducibility is very weak. Most of the positive results come from China, and this literature has very few "negative" results, while independent researchers find both negative and positive results. Probably some kind of publication bias or other fudging is going on.

[iii]

Because I watched SageRad get railroaded out of WP by Jytdog and JzG, because I read the talk page that KI linked to where the banned user provided sufficient evidence to eliminate the culturally arrogant "pseudo-science" claims but still got banned, am sufficiently well-read / traveled to know that acupuncture is a very old Chinese tradition worthy of encyclopedic treatment without denigration, etc.

An interesting proposition, but the question of what counts as "acupuncture" and "very old Chinese tradition" is rather an interesting one. I take it you are somehow not aware of these things.

I am also aware of BigPharma's hold on certain areas of Wikipedia, having watched them smear candidates in the 2016 election for BS the candidates never said.

Ha! BigPharma smeared candidates IN Wikipedia to sway the 2016 election? You are a special beast. Do tell us more!

I am also aware of the insane number of people who have been banned or topic-banned for not towing the Monsanto line on pesticides and GMOs.

But now that Monsanto is bought up by Bayer, we can connect the dots and understand how Big Asprin is the group who really pull the strings, right? No more Agumentum ad Monsanto? Now Argumentum ad Willow Bark Derivative? Right?

I take it you are somehow not aware of these things?

I am only not aware of what your particular angle is, friend. Hope you're enjoying your time here!

[iii]

I was surprised by the insistence of certain Wikipedians in calling acupuncture a pseudoscience. As far as I can tell, acupuncture itself is a surgical or medical procedure, not a system of thought, and hence can be neither in itself scientific or non-scientific .

It turns out that it doesn't really work like that. Acupuncture as it is practiced in the West is actually a system of thought based on the assumption that meridians are the key to basically all health outcomes. It is this mechanistic claim which is pseudoscientific.

The underlying system of thought is traditional Chinese medicine, which is not a pseudoscience either: it is a system of belief that is not scientific, in the sense that it does not rest on hypothesis formation and testing by experiment, but on authority and tradition; but neither does it claim to be scientific in that sense. It is thus non-scientific but not pseudoscientific,

TCM is a rather broad concept and is not an "underlying system of thought". It is a hodge-podge just like traditional medicine of any culture. Acupuncture may base certain proposals on ideas that came from TCM, but it is a different beast, really.

A parallel example might be trepanning. As far as one can tell it has been practised for a very long time, and the original reasons are unknown, but we may guess them to be non-scienitific, and are quite possibly based on tradtition and appeal to authority; it is also used in traditional Chinese medicine. Today, trepanning is a medical procedure used as part of scientific medicine to treat certain conditions. It is also promoted by advocates of a pseudo-scientific theory that it enhances human consciousness: this is a theory that presents itself as scientific but is not, It would be equally nonsenical to describe trepanning as a science, because some of its uses are based in science, as it would be to describe it as a pseudoscience, because some of its uses are based in pseudoscience.

It's an okay comparison, but as far as I know there aren't trepanning institutes, trepanning schools, trepanning fake journals, and trepanning conferences that mimic the mainstream medical community. Is there? I would be interested to learn if that was the case.

[iii]

There is some partial basis for some of the mechanisms, but the evidence and reproducibility is very weak.

I actually think that the evidence and reproducibility is stronger than the "partial basis for some of the mechanisms" that is often claimed by those who are kinder to the practice than I. Of course, there is also the placebo effect which means that we may not be able to go much further than this, and considering that we've had decades to tease out real effects here, it seems highly irresponsible to claim "jury is still out" arguments as a saving grace.

Some proponents claim that needling provokes some sort of nerve response that has a palliative effect. Putting needles in at the point of pain seems mechanistic enough, but the mechanism ends right there. So it's acupuncture, cupping, reiki all in the same boat for me.

Pay a good massage therapist -- one who doesn't delve into complicated arguments and just provides human contact that soothes and comforts. Honesty, in my estimation, is better than these games that the alt med crowd plays.

[Bezdomni]

Hi iii, was thinking about some entailments of your wishes and noticed that the second sentence flows much more naturally than the first.

? Hope you're enjoying your time here, because it's going to be great.
Hope you're enjoying your time here, because it's going to end soon.

I have actually written more on the subject since you apparently don't know my POV, my COI, or my SSN. ^^ Here are a couple of the posts I've written related to the subject. There are others, though they're not in as readable a form:

http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... tryptofish

Did you, iii, choose Tryptofish's winning formulation in the RfC on GMOs game?

Also, we shouldn't mix cabals, though sometimes cabals do join forces on political candidates' pages:

http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... avid-brock

[iii]

For those keeping track (and to keep this relevant) the precise content of the acupuncture (T-H-L) article has been subject to a long and tortured history. Not surprisingly, many acupuncturists have been involved and they don't take too kindly to the contention that they are either ignorantly or willfully duping their patients. However, over time, it's become more and more difficult for them to make arguments that there are strong pieces of evidence in favor of their position and while pseudoscience labeling is obviously polemical, it's also the first-stop shop for articles that need overhauling. I think the situation is similar to those situations from ten years back in homeopathy (T-H-L) and chiropractic (T-H-L). Way back when these kinds of arguments were the basis of arbitration cases because there were idiots like myself who thought that Wikipedia disputes were all about content. Silly us.

Some fun light reading:

• Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Barrett_v._Rosenthal (T-H-L)
• Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Homeopathy (T-H-L)

[iii]

Hi iii, was thinking about some entailments of your wishes and noticed that the second sentence flows much more naturally than the first.

? Hope you're enjoying your time here, because it's going to be great.
Hope you're enjoying your time here, because it's going to end soon.

I have actually written more on the subject since you apparently don't know my POV, my COI, or my SSN. ^^ Here are a couple of the posts I've written related to the subject. There are others, though they're not in as readable a form:

http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... tryptofish

Did you, iii, choose Tryptofish's winning formulation in the RfC on GMOs game?

Also, we shouldn't mix cabals, though sometimes cabals do join forces on political candidates' pages:

http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... avid-brock

Thanks for this. It does bring your position into higher relief. I watched with some glee that RfC progress into nonsense. I attempted some Overton Window shifting in that imbroglio, but you'll have to tease that out for yourself as I don't want to lay my cards on the table quite yet, if you don't mind.

I will say though, that I'm not in any position of power here to make insinuated threats, and so I only mean to say that I find it interesting to interact with those who hold alternative positions on certain topics.

Cheerio!

P.S. For those not in the know, here is the "GMO RfC" linky: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Genetically_modified_organisms (T-H-L)

[Kingsindian]

An RfC with 22 proposals!

[Poetlister]

This is not a bad summary of the acupuncture controversy. However, the author is clearly not very experienced with Wikipedia. She says:

Her belief that anyone or any group can “control” Wikipedia pages is a delusion and a conspiracy theory.

[Rogol Domedonfors]

It is strange that apparently quite intelligent people are unable to accept that someone could be wrong about one thing, say, acupuncture being scientific, and right about another, say, the toxic nature of Wikipedia.

[collect]

It is strange that apparently quite intelligent people are unable to accept that someone could be wrong about one thing, say, acupuncture being scientific, and right about another, say, the toxic nature of Wikipedia.

The problem, as I understand it, is "Acupuncture Theory" (involving specific "lines" on a body, and use of acupuncture where a legitimate medical result is found (using a needle to stimulate a nerve into almost a short-circuit mode to relieve pain). The former is likely properly derided, but labelling all use of needles as "pseudoscience" is also likely improper. Needles in an earlobe may help dieters mentally, but medically should have no effect on weight loss. Needles near the sciatic nerve may indeed block signals from that nerve. So, as far as I can tell, some acupuncture use may be "scientific" where the basis for acupuncture in general is not scientific.

Fuzzy.

[Kingsindian]

This thread should be merged with this.

[Zoloft]

This thread should be merged with this.

Done.

[Bezdomni]

lesVegas (lesHills ?), & Playa Lake (who seems to be calling themself a famous dog, though this may be a misquote) will soon both have been disciplined at AE. And the tireless jytdog (& much of the Jimbosphère) seems to have been reading about guilds of late. I wonder where. K.I.T.T power!