I agree with most of what you say, and I think you say it well. One minor instance of my own skepticism concerns your statement above. I’m an amateur too. I invented/discovered my “Metatheory of Sailing”, which has been checked by a physicist for accuracy. Basically, it shows that there are 4 fundamental ways in which sailing craft may function to propel themselves, and sailing can occur in 12 material media context, one of which is wind over water. I’m writing a book about my Metatheory.

In the process of devising my theory, I had to fit all of the thousands of facts into a consistent pattern. I realized that the distinction between discovering and inventing a theory doesn’t hold up. The process of discovering a consistent pattern is highly inventive. I’m an amateur inventor so I’m familiar with the process of invention. Many of my inventions are based on discovering new mechanical principles by trying a lot of things to see what happens.

So my opinion is that scientific theories, such as those of Newton and Einstein, are most definitely invented. But when they are well invented, they describe reality so closely that the theories seem to be discoveries of truths that were already there. We accept those truths as if they were Platonic ideals that had always existed somewhere out there. But that, I believe, is supernatural thinking.
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ON DENIERS

A subject related to the debate over global warming is the sailing debate over sailing directly downwind faster than the wind (DDWFTTW). There are, remarkably, DDWFTTW deniers. Their thinking processes seem quite similar to those of global warming deniers. They include even engineers. The reason seems to be that sailing DDWFTTW challenges (flawed) basic physical assumptions about the nature of physical reality held by those engineers. They seem to not understand that all inertial frames are equivalent, and they apply F = MA in a naive and oversimplified way. They deny that sailing DDWFTTW is possible because if it were, then they would need to acknowledge that their understanding of basic physics had been incorrect, and that is too disconcerting (cognitive dissonance)for some people.

My academic training was as a school psychologist, so I’m interested in understanding the patterns of thought that underly the thinking of deniers.

Thanks for your attention to my comments.

Peter

I don’t discount the mind-body connection at all, and I don’t mean to suggest there isn’t one. What I intended with my argument was to point out that the placebo effect isn’t a cure-all, which in urban legend it’s often portrayed as being. It helps most often when someone is experiencing some kind of discomfort or pain sensation. However, many studies have shown that if you have an actual physiological condition, such as cancer or a viral infection, the placebo effect doesn’t apply. This is because while there is a definite mind-body connection when it comes to your perception of pain, there is no mind-body connection when a third agent is involved, such as a tumor or a virus, simply because outside agents like tumors and viruses are not vulnerable to any kind of belief system, even yours. Belief in a healing agent, no matter how powerful, can’t shrink a tumor.

As to harm caused by standard medicine, sure. Doctors are people and make mistakes, and medicine is not perfect. We do our best, but it’s not exactly a “hard” science like physics or mathematics. We’re dealing with biology, and we’re really in our infancy in studying both biology and medicine, and we have a long way to go. But there’s a difference between treatments that have clinical veracity and those that do not. All alternative medicine really is, is unproven medicine. Once it’s studied, it either becomes proven or discounted, and is no longer alternative. I don’t reject alternative medicine, rather I call for it to be studied and either verified or dismissed. The only reason I mention harm with regards to acupuncture is because acupuncture is well-studied and we know its limits pretty well, and if someone tries to use it to treat a serious disease caused by an outside agent, such as the aforementioned cancer or viral infection, it’s going to fail. In such cases, people should seek more proven treatments. Though they may not work either, they stand a better chance.

Your final question is a good one, though, so please don’t think I’m discounting your statement. You make a good point: it is important to ask how much harm compared to other treatments. This is a question that should be asked of all treatments, in order to try and select the best ones for a particular case.

Thanks again for the comment, I really like the back and forth dialogue and I think such discussions are useful for all involved.

“But if you have a condition such as cancer or a viral infection or what have you, the placebo effect isn’t going to do anything, and believing otherwise is likely to cause harm. Tumors don’t have beliefs and are not affected by placebos.”

Doesn’t the very existence of the placebo effect suggest a strong mind-body connection that you, in the excerpt, seem to be discounting?

Further, there’s significant evidence out there that medical treatment has a likelihood to cause harm. Suggesting that an acupuncture can do harm may be accurate but HOW MUCH harm relative to an oncologist or infectious disease specialist?