"Peter Ashby" <pashby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
> Pity you didn't quote Edzard Ernst's contribution.
I will - It is indeed a good one !
Steve M
EDZARD ERNST
Professor of complementary medicine
I don't believe in anything that I can't prove. My only true belief is in
science and its ability to sort out belief from fact. Part of my fascination
with alternative therapies stems from the fact that some of them have not
yet been proved. My job is to establish whether or not they are
evidence-based. There is no aspect of belief in this at all. If there is, it
gets in the way and becomes a bias. Once you have tested and established
your hypothesis, you try to disprove it. If you can't, you do the test again
before you consider believing it. If you find the results contradict your
belief, you abandon it - or you're a fool. This is why I am convinced of the
power of placebo. I have done trials with patients who suffer from
intractable pain. A portion of them, who were seen by actors pretending to
be spiritual healers, improved so significantly that some were able to
abandon their wheelchairs. This is this kind of proof I look for before I
believe in something.
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