[LINK] electromagnetic fields effect brain activity

[Adrian Chadd]

On Tue, Jan 09, 2007, Karl Auer wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-01-09 at 12:18 +1100, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> > establishment. I had to laugh because the caller couldn't see her own 
> > bias when she 'swore' by the positive impact of these 'cures' based 
> > on some pseudo-'science' examples comparing the effects of potato 
> > skins on healing burns with no scars and no pain in 15 minutes. Of 
> > course she wouldn't listen to the show's compare, Lindy Burns (no 
> > pun, real name), who asked why scientific tests would be so wrong? 
> 
> There have been a lot of real, rational, sceptical scientific studies
> into the placebo effect, and the results can be truly startling. People
> tend to forget the placebo effect.

Taking first/second year Psychology at University has been a bit of an
eye-opener. They talk about the "human, heal thyself" rates in relation
to the placebo effect. The second year courses really seem to try and
drill into people that they're looking not only for statistically significant
effects but improved healing rates from the baseline self-healing rate.

Sometimes I wish this kind of exposure to critical thinking was a requirement
at upper secondary schooling levels but I know how unrealistic that'd be.



Adrian