…and this is a 
Below is a news clip from our local Fox station. I feel very, very sorry for Leif Reffsgaard, who is being rewarded with a lot of attention for being gullible. He's a third grader who claims to be able to heal his friends by waving his hands around.
There is some small hope for the poor deluded kid. Here's what he thinks about his 'powers'.
I just think magic is really cool…I feel like I'm a wizard using the healing spell.
Maybe someday he'll wake up to the fact that magic doesn't work in the real world. Or maybe about the time he reaches adolescence he'll realize that he looks awfully dorky flapping his hands like that.
There's probably no hope for the adults in his life who are pushing this nonsense on him. And there's probably also no hope for those credulous television announcers, but then, they do work for Fox News, so they had to be brain-damaged or desperate before they took the job, anyway.
Comments
Posted by: Ben Goren
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March 2, 2011 10:46 AM
PZ, did you pay attention to the whole clip? The announcer cites an un-referenced recent study by UM and the Mayo clinic which allegedly found relief from chronic pain after weeks of application.
Seems to me like one or more of your colleagues needs some head-upsmacking.
Cheers,
b&
Posted by: spaceboyzach
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March 2, 2011 10:46 AM
The kid is obviously deluded. Wizards don't get healing spells! Clerics and druids get the healing spells.
Posted by: Akira MacKenzie
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March 2, 2011 10:46 AM
Given their penchant for religiosity, I'm surprised FAUX didn't proclaim this kid a Christian miracle-worker or, since he used the word "magic," a minion of the Prince of Darkness.
Posted by: KillJoy
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March 2, 2011 10:47 AM
Seriously?
I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this coming out of fox news. If I had been doing this as a kid my parents would have smacked me up side the head and told me to stop being silly. Not only is this NOT news, ita down right exploitive.
KJ
Posted by: te24hours
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March 2, 2011 10:52 AM
@2: Thank you! I'm glad I'm not the only one who caught the grevious flaw in the kid's self-description. He may be masking as a Chaotic Good, but this kid strikes me as Neutral Evil if ever there were one.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/XKPUsid2wude6a4ggcbgYgMPofXr#0d726
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March 2, 2011 10:54 AM
It's sad that even in modern times it's so easy to earn a reputation as a mystical "healer." It speaks volumes about how easy it must have been for alleged healers of ancient times (e.g. Jesus).
Posted by: fauxrs
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March 2, 2011 10:57 AM
Before watching the clip I was ready to assume that this was just another one of those "local public interest" stories that are usually about some cute cat stuck up in a tree of girl scout cookies or some other harmless local thing.
after watching, and I could only get a few minutes in before I had to stop for fear of the stupid infecting me. Good fucking grief, we send energy from our heart? clearly Fox is little more than a televised HuffPo when it comes to Woo.
Posted by: feralboy12, der Ken-Puppe Sie außerhalb in 1983 verlassen
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March 2, 2011 10:59 AM
"Coming up next, a little girl who thinks she's a princess!"
Posted by: umkomasia
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March 2, 2011 11:03 AM
Are you actually implying that society will punish him for this? Based on what I see in the idiot America in which I live he will probably get his own TV show on the Oprah network, sell tons of books, make personal appearances, and make more money than most of us will ever see in our lives. Don't feel sorry for him, feel sorry for us.
Posted by: Romeo Vitelli
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March 2, 2011 11:05 AM
The kid won't be so cheerful once the fundies burn him for being a witch.
Posted by: Quodlibet
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March 2, 2011 11:10 AM
When I was a kid, we did things like that, too. We called it "make believe" or "pretend magic" or "playing pretend" - we had a lot of fun with all sorts of silly stuff. But we always knew it was just play. We never once thought it was real.
I guess kids used to play "doctor" -- now they play "witch doctor"?
*sigh*
Posted by: sockonafish
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March 2, 2011 11:15 AM
That reminds me of Emily Rosa, the girl who conceived and executed an experiment that demonstrated that healers like these are just making it up as they go along.
The experiment demanded that healers put both hands through a partition, then use their 'energy field' detection abilities to tell above which hand the experimenter had placed her own hand. In Emily's sample of about a dozen healers, they fared worse than chance.
Posted by: Sastra
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March 2, 2011 11:16 AM
Ben Goren #1 wrote:
I'll have to wait for Orac or someone else capable of evaluating the actual study to weigh in before I form any (tentative) conclusion here, but my educated guess is that this study probably "discovered" that the placebo effect helps with the perception of pain and suffering. Well, yes, we already knew that.
Did Qigong do anything in addition to placebo? And if so, has the study been replicated? Sufficiently? Under proper controlled conditions?
Otherwise, we've simply got another superficial trick that may help some people feel better to some extent some of the time -- but it involves a doctor fibbing to the patient and screwing up their understanding of how things actually work. I think there are ethical problems there. It might be okay for mommy to kiss and make it all better, but there's not going to be a lot of progress in understanding healing if we're content to throw out science for simplistic emotional band-aids and a good story.
Posted by: peaceman
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March 2, 2011 11:22 AM
At the end of the clip the newsreaders do (kind of) admit that the treatment puts the patient in a positive frame of mind (ie placebo effect).
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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March 2, 2011 11:23 AM
@Romeo
#10
Wizard.
Female is witch.
Male is wizard.
Another one is warlock, which has a more negative connotation.
Posted by: Doug
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March 2, 2011 11:25 AM
Meet your 2041 Republican Presidential ticket.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 2, 2011 11:28 AM
I'm always torn on these sorts of things appearing on Fox. On the one hand, Woo! Science doesn't know everything, the flakes will say. On the other hand, it's dirty Eastern occultism, so it'll piss off the fundies.
Is it so wrong to want to see Jenny McCarthy square off against Shirley Phelps-Roper in the octagon?
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/2CfYEEYTn5eooPApEEX8qtberO7.yxU5S4E-#de2ad
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March 2, 2011 11:32 AM
This kid is making his friend feel better by using a simple technique called distraction. Nurses use it all the time. As for the adults - when people pay for something, it's often easier to convince one's self that the "healing" is working than it is to admit that they've wasted their money and now feel like a fool.
Posted by: Timberwoof
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March 2, 2011 11:38 AM
Fair and balanced? No opposing view "for balance"?
peaceman, the bit about how it makes you feel good is not really admission of the placebo effect: that's what this practice *does*.
Posted by: iamnothouse.com
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March 2, 2011 11:46 AM
.....wow.
How do you follow that up? "Child sells gourmet mudpies?" "Child foils robbery in basement, using only invisible gun"?
Posted by: Mark Bools
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March 2, 2011 11:55 AM
The bullshit is strong in this one!
Posted by: cairne.morane
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March 2, 2011 12:01 PM
@spaceboyzach #2
You should try out Chloromancer sometime!
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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March 2, 2011 12:02 PM
@iamnothouse.com
#20
"Child sells his imaginary ball for $9.99."
Imaginary Ball
Posted by: Victor
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March 2, 2011 12:06 PM
Since when do adults feel the need to not just play along but actually believe in their child's fantasies?
Posted by: Beatrice, anormalement indécente
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March 2, 2011 12:10 PM
Who knew, my friend who was making faces while I was getting my shots in elementary school was actually miraculously healing me... Poor guy never even realized. He could have been rich and famous by now.
Posted by: PseudoPserious
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March 2, 2011 12:12 PM
Ha ha, gotcha! Check your calendar, PZ...
APRIL FOOLS!
This was a good...wait, what? It's only March? Oh dear..
Posted by: gabriel.bianco78
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March 2, 2011 12:17 PM
Jesus Christ does not support wizards, that is the symbol of Satan so that his parents do not stop him and educate him about Jesus Christ and the Evils of Satan is sad indeed.
In Jesus Name protect Leif Reffsgaard from satans word and make his heart Strong. In Jesus Name BE GONE!
Gabriel - Son of Jesus
Posted by: laughingmn
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March 2, 2011 12:17 PM
Yeah, attack the kid and the Fox affiliate (which reported stories like this before they were Fox), but ignore the issue of the U of M and Mayo Clinic studies. Kids and Fox are easier to attack, after all.
BTW, why would Fox run this? I thought they were part of the great Christofascist theocratic takeover of this country. Shouldn't they be promoting Christian prayer and faith healings and only Christian prayer and faith healings?
Posted by: maggotpunk
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March 2, 2011 12:18 PM
This guy studied something for 30 years that a third grader did after watching Harry Potter? What a joke. Not as much as Fox "News" reporting this as news.
Posted by: rob
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March 2, 2011 12:23 PM
earlier i had a headache, but i took an advil and watched that third grader on the news clip and now i am healed!
praise be to harry potter!
WWHPD?
Posted by: serendipitydawg
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March 2, 2011 12:29 PM
Most likely wait for Hermione to cast the healing spell.
Posted by: serendipitydawg
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March 2, 2011 12:36 PM
I haven't watched the video (well, I am at work) but I did search on Qigong to find out what that is.... more woo, plain and simple.
It would appear that any season is silly season on Fox.
Now if he could make sparks come from his hands to zap people like the emperor with Luke Skywalker.....
Posted by: Xeonicus
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March 2, 2011 12:40 PM
I'm tired of holding down a real job. I need to invent a nonsense language, find some gullible people (apparently easy), and become a millionaire healer (con man).
Posted by: Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom
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March 2, 2011 12:43 PM
Much love.How many other stations picked this up?
Fox affiliates are likely only stupid, not actively evil.Do you seriously doubt that Fox News is a propaganda machine that is pushing for megacorporate interests? That they're doing a good job of it?
Posted by: ralphgentile3
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March 2, 2011 12:57 PM
Off Topic?:
When I was a teenager my friend's dad "hypnotized" a bunch of us kids at a party. He asked us to relax, clear our minds and focus on his voice, then he told us to pretend a balloon tied to our wrist was dragging our arms upward. I discovered that I seemed to be sensitive to suggestion and later I was able to give similar suggestions to myself. Self-experimentation probably fails protocols, but I can honestly say that I wasn't purposely raising my arm in the air, but the envisioning worked.
Does anyone know whether there are scientific studies of suggestion?
Posted by: Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom
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March 2, 2011 1:00 PM
Many, Ralph. They're quite interesting, but I can't dig up citations because I don't have paywall access or my psych book on me anymore.
Posted by: Mike in Ontario, NY
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March 2, 2011 1:01 PM
My fundie-nutjob sister has people, including in her church and in my family, believing that she is both a healer AND a prophet. Mind you, one of her daughters has a SERIOUS medical problem and will likely require live-in assistance for life, our father suffers from chronic, severe spinal pain, and our mother required bypass surgery 3 years ago (of course, her recovery was GREATLY facilitated by laying on of hands and magical incantations, and not the skilled medical care she got during and after the surgery). Maybe she should prophesy some lottery numbers so she doesn't have to keep asking the rest of us for money, or else maybe GET A JOB!
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawllEcEBsA2EjoTMIVbLBlOFVckrbpu7jpY
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March 2, 2011 1:10 PM
In reply to #12, the lesson is that the "healers" should have chosen the opposite hand to the one they did choose thereby beating chance. Translated, facilitated healing works because it doesn't.
Posted by: algegarble
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March 2, 2011 1:32 PM
It is possible that this is hooey. It is also possible that you just haven't found a way to measure it yet.
I dispute that there is nothing at all to this. I have personally experienced positive results from Qigong treatments. Maybe I am just deluded. But maybe it is real.
It is very unscientific to just dismiss something because you can't measure it. Maybe you need to look for a better detector.
This is the first time I have been seriously disappointed in PZ Myers. He needs to be a better scientist about this.
Posted by: serendipitydawg
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March 2, 2011 1:36 PM
Also in response to #12:
Being worse than chance is actually as significant as being better, since it demonstrates an effect.
With a small sample size and/or a small number of trials, even assuming a proper double blind protocol, the results belong in the bin of anecdotal evidence... mind you, I don't doubt that they were making it up :D
Posted by: Randomfactor
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March 2, 2011 1:41 PM
we send energy from our heart?
Of course. It's easily detectable with the right instruments. Like a stethoscope.
Posted by: attorney
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March 2, 2011 1:46 PM
Doug @ #16
We're going to have an election in 2041? Are we doing them in odd years now, or every year?
Please, nOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Posted by: shonny
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March 2, 2011 2:00 PM
Where I have the problem is that anyone with an IQ above body temperature in °F watches Fucked TV at all.
The YouTube clips from Fucked are so nauseating that anything more than milliseconds of it induces instant barf. As to watching it - - never tried.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 2, 2011 2:08 PM
And I'm so neurotic as to be un-hypnotisable. I once tried so hard to get hypnotised during the preliminary stages of a hypnotist show that I convinced him I was hypnotised and had to spend three hours pretending I thought I was a kangaroo whenever the Bonanza theme song played. I learned something* about stage hypnotists, though: they're experts at reading and responding to reactions and manipulating them slightly for the sake of the show. Fascinating.
(I also learned my ex is a weak-minded fool who can be hypnotised at the wave of a hand, but I'd already known that from previous encounters involving droids and stormtroopers.)
Posted by: Judy L.
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March 2, 2011 2:12 PM
There is no healing going on here at all; it's soothing attention and connection that makes people feel better and improves their subjective experience of quality of life and may also improve their actual well-being just like other relaxation techniques. There is tremendous power of suggestion: Hand-waiver says, "You may feel a tingling," and Money-paying dupe thinks, "Yes, yes, I do feel a tingling (because I want to be agreeable and for this to work and to feel that I'm getting my money's worth...I have faith)." And when the hand-waiver is the subject herself she experiences self-care, giving herself time to focus on her own well-being. It's not energy fields and it's not magic; it's just stress relief.
Posted by: Krazinsky
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March 2, 2011 2:28 PM
@2:
Hes using somatic components, though, so he can't be a druid or a cleric either. Maybe he's a bard.
Posted by: mikerattlesnake
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March 2, 2011 2:40 PM
@39
It's all fun and games until it's YOUR nonsense being called out, eh?
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 2, 2011 2:43 PM
Timberwoof wrote:
What did you expect? "Third-Grader Heals Friends with Qigong But Cooties Remain At All-Time High Among Elementary Students"?
Come to think of it, it is Fox: "Let's go to O'Reilly Factor host Billy O'Reilly for his take on this. Billy?"
"Thanks Danny. A lot of people are claiming this isn't proof of God. Why not? You want proof? Finger goes in; booger comes out. It doesn't get more simple than that. But these atheists and so-called skeptics just don't want to accept any evidence. Why, next they'll be telling us that the noises from my closet are actually the furnace turning on and off, rather than the Boogeyman. Frankly, if you want to put your trust in an atheist when he tells you the piranhas in the playground sand are only imaginary, then I'm afraid you have only yourself to blame when you get eaten halfway to home-free."
"Thanks for that perspective, Billy."
"You're welcome, Danny. Be sure to catch the O'Reilly Factor this week where I expose the atheist 'War on Recess.'"
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 2, 2011 2:48 PM
FIFY.
Posted by: CalliopeJane
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March 2, 2011 2:49 PM
OK, since some people have asked, here's the abstract from one of those studies. I would draw attention to a few points:
(1) "Most patients were also receiving other treatments (74%)" - that's just plain bad science; how on earth can you tell where effects are coming from?
(2) I can't tell from just abstract (full text is not in the database), but there is the obvious question of whether their "equivalent attention time" was as wonderfully-wooful as the qigong treatment.
(3) By the 8th week, differences were not statistically significant (novelty of the woo wearing off, perhaps?)
(4) Anyone know about the quality of this journal? I'm a psychologist so really don't know. Looking at their website, it seems rather woo-focused.
External qigong for chronic pain.
Authors:
Vincent A; Hill J; Kruk KM; Cha SS; Bauer BA
Author Address:
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, USA. Source:
The American Journal Of Chinese Medicine [Am J Chin Med] 2010; Vol. 38 (4), pp. 695-703.
Abstract:
External qigong as a pharmacotherapy adjunct was investigated in 50 subjects with chronic pain (pain lasting > 3 months with pain score of > or = 3 on 0-10 numeric analog scale) who presented to a qigong healing center. Participants were randomized to receive either external qigong treatment (EQT) or equivalent attention time (EAT) in weekly 30-min sessions for four consecutive weeks. Outcomes were assessed before and after sessions. The primary outcome measure was intensity of pain by a 10-cm visual analog scale used to rate all pain severity measurements. At 8-week follow-up, participants were contacted by telephone and mailed a questionnaire. Most had experienced pain for > 5 years (66%); the rest, for > 3 to 5 years (8%), 1 to 3 years (10%), or 3 months (10%). The most frequent concomitant diagnoses were multifactorial (26%), osteoarthritis (18%), and low back pain (12%). Most patients were also receiving other treatments (74%); none previously had EQT. Participants were randomly assigned to EQT (n = 26) or EAT (n = 24). These groups had no significant differences at baseline except for prior awareness of qigong (EQT 31% vs. EAT 63%; p = 0.025). Compared to the EAT group, EQT participants had a significant decrease in pain intensity in the 2nd (p = 0.003), 3rd (p
Posted by: CalliopeJane
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March 2, 2011 2:55 PM
And as I was looking for the "other study" referenced I have realized that I think they're just talking about this ONE study, which was conducted by "researchers at UM and the Mayo Clinic"
Posted by: CalliopeJane
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March 2, 2011 2:58 PM
And now I realize the abstract cut off due to a "less than" sign. I replaced that with words; hopefully here is the whole thing:
External qigong as a pharmacotherapy adjunct was investigated in 50 subjects with chronic pain (pain lasting > 3 months with pain score of > or = 3 on 0-10 numeric analog scale) who presented to a qigong healing center. Participants were randomized to receive either external qigong treatment (EQT) or equivalent attention time (EAT) in weekly 30-min sessions for four consecutive weeks. Outcomes were assessed before and after sessions. The primary outcome measure was intensity of pain by a 10-cm visual analog scale used to rate all pain severity measurements. At 8-week follow-up, participants were contacted by telephone and mailed a questionnaire. Most had experienced pain for > 5 years (66%); the rest, for > 3 to 5 years (8%), 1 to 3 years (10%), or 3 months (10%). The most frequent concomitant diagnoses were multifactorial (26%), osteoarthritis (18%), and low back pain (12%). Most patients were also receiving other treatments (74%); none previously had EQT. Participants were randomly assigned to EQT (n = 26) or EAT (n = 24). These groups had no significant differences at baseline except for prior awareness of qigong (EQT 31% vs. EAT 63%; p = 0.025). Compared to the EAT group, EQT participants had a significant decrease in pain intensity in the 2nd (p = 0.003), 3rd (p [less than] 0.001), and 4th weeks of treatment (p = 0.003). At week 8, these differences in overall decreased pain intensity persisted but were not statistically significant.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 2, 2011 3:06 PM
The article is behind a paywall, but I'd be interested to know what they considered equivalent attention time (EAT).
Posted by: natural cynic
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March 2, 2011 3:15 PM
Right at the beginning of the piece, the female anchor actually spoke some truth when she [probably] misread the script and said "needless acupuncture" instead of "needleless". As for such woo, it's always needless.
Posted by: spaceboyzach
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March 2, 2011 3:16 PM
@46:
Many divine spells have somatic components, and cure spells are touch based. We just need to figure out where the kid is hiding his holy symbol so we can tell what god he's using.
Posted by: MJM
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March 2, 2011 3:29 PM
Just curious about the source here. Are local Fox affiliates' news departments linked directly to Faux News national as far as editorial content is concerned? It seems to me this is a local puff piece not really associated with Faux News at all. Not to say that it isn't just plain silly, (I could't watch after the Qi-gong "master" began to speak) just that it's more than likely a local news channel "edu-tainment" piece. Or am I way off on this?
Posted by: algegarble
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March 2, 2011 4:10 PM
@49
Yup, my nonsense. Because you are certain it is nonsense. Because you have thoroughly investigated it.
Did you even read what I wrote? It doesn't seem like you did.
Am I a dupe? Possibly. Are you being dismissive of something you don't know anything about? Almost certainly.
Posted by: algegarble
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March 2, 2011 4:12 PM
Re #57
Apologies to #49. Comment #57 should have been addressed to #47.
Posted by: raven
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March 2, 2011 4:29 PM
No. You are an idiot.
No. We gave up the Demon Theory of Disease and faith healing after 8,000 years for a reason. We found something better. It is called science based, modern medicine. In the last century, thanks to modern medicine, US lifespans have increased 30 years.
We tried various types of woo for millennia. Those ages have names like...The Dark Age. Life was short and death was common.
Where you went wrong is where all crackpots and morons go wrong. You are the one making positive claims. You are the one expected to prove them. It isn't anyone else's responsibility to disprove your primitive superstitions and extraordinary and improbable claims.
Posted by: Sastra
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March 2, 2011 4:33 PM
algegarble #39 wrote:
And I dispute that any of us have said that there is "nothing at all to this." What we're saying is that, given the evidence we have to date, the strong likelihood is that "experienced positive results" are not due to manipulated Qigong energy, but from a combination of placebo effect and standard confounding factors such as regression to the mean, etc.
If you think you felt better after the treatments, then you did feel better after the treatments. Nobody has to tell you that you don't know what you feel. But you can't then interpret this correlation as convincing evidence that the treatment worked. Something happened, sure. But the scientific method evolved over time to carefully try to weed out what did happen. Or, what didn't.
Although it's tempting to start at the fact that the claimed "human energy field" or whatever it is is scientifically implausible, we don't have to start there, at the convoluted explanation for the effect. As Ray Hyman has famously pointed out, there is no need to figure out what's behind an effect until you first establish that there really is an actual effect. Qigong isn't there yet. It doesn't do anything that can't be explained by other means which are well-established. And which have nothing to do with mysterious magic powers.
Qigong is not some new, cutting edge treatment which is just now being looked at scientifically. It's simply the same rehashed form of faith healing that's been examined and discarded over and over again form more than a hundred years. Remember, Qigong and TT practitioners can't even reliably pick out a human arm from empty space if they're not allowed to see which is which. This rather puts a damper on their claim to be able to feel the vitalistic energy field which instruments can't detect.
Posted by: mikerattlesnake
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March 2, 2011 4:40 PM
@57
Yes, because it's my job to personally investigate every piece of bullshit that comes along. You make the claim, you put up the evidence, dumbass.
No one is saying that Tai Chi and the like can't provide some relaxation and focus, but qigong is built primarily on the idea of vital enrgy called chi (qi), which is nonsense. Got evidence that it's not? Put up or shut up.
Posted by: j-brisby
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March 2, 2011 4:52 PM
Would it be cruel to suggest giving this kid a broom and taking him somewhere high?
Posted by: Joe Bloe
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March 2, 2011 4:53 PM
My guess: One day soon he'll discover that he can make money from his scam. He'll quit school, put the show on the road, and make a million dollars before he's twenty.
...and if he's too dumb to work it out for himself, mummy and daddy will point him toward the cash,
Posted by: j-brisby
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March 2, 2011 4:59 PM
Screw Fox News. Who wants to see a YouTube video I made of Tim Minchin's song explaining why God didn't cure Sam's mum's cataracts? It's a crime this wasn't on YouTube already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BBZcbeTq0k
Posted by: chewielogan
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March 2, 2011 5:12 PM
that wizard has a rough but kind face.
Posted by: truthspeaker
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March 2, 2011 5:54 PM
I have studied qi gong. It involves some useful stretching exercises but that's about it.
Posted by: CalliopeJane
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March 2, 2011 6:32 PM
More thoughts, regarding:
"These groups had no significant differences at baseline except for prior awareness of qigong (EQT 31% vs. EAT 63%; p = 0.025)."
- so the concept was fresher & newer to the treatment group, and about 2/3 of the "control" group knew about this thing, and so knew they weren't getting it (control groups should not know they are the control group!)
- I'd like to know how they measured this "prior awareness" and whether such measurement itself may have set up demand characteristics.
OK, think I'll just have to ILL this whole article (while we have the service, til our funding for that & databases runs out in June), now I'm too curious.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 2, 2011 6:40 PM
Me too, though the kind I know were considered martial, not medical (Eight-Piece Brocade and all that). 'Medical' qigong includes a lot less stretching.
Posted by: John Morales
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March 2, 2011 6:44 PM
ObLink: Kiai Master vs MMA.
Posted by: KG
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March 2, 2011 6:47 PM
Oh good, an easy one: Yes.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 2, 2011 6:56 PM
Funny how medical qigong sounds a lot like some bullshit making the rounds in nursing. The nurse can sense what is wrong by waving their hands over the problem, and by their mental concentration, help the problem. I forget the name of it, and after a couple of very short nights, don't feel like looking it up.
But it requires being able to actually sense the life-force in a patient. When practitioners (sic) were presented with a series of arms/legs/torsos, they were unable to differentiate between silicone and carbon flesh at a statistical level (I believe this was run by a young lady, or a Randi Challenge). So we as a blog are very skeptical of all such claims, until everything is proven in true double-blind tests, including the ability to actually sense the problem, and a real mechanism for the actual "cure" presented.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/xmumtPsSuOGGXbjsMBxAC4b2lIhVFycp85k-#4c06e
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March 2, 2011 7:13 PM
It's a local Fox affiliate, not Fox News.
Posted by: Sastra
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March 2, 2011 7:16 PM
Nerd of Redhead, OM #71 wrote:
Therapeutic Touch; Emily Rosa was the girl who performed the experiment which was publish in the AMA journal.
My very first introduction to organized skepticism was a Skeptic magazine with a TT nurse on the cover. To the uninitiated, "Therapeutic Touch" sounds like some form of massage. It's not. There's no touch in Therapeutic Touch, and the only real therapy is the inflated sense of importance its practitioners get from believing they can "heal" in ways that science "can't understand." Just like this little boy.
Part of TT's appeal was that it was supposed to be a sort of feminist means of empowering women, who as a sex presumably had a special sensitivity and ability which their rationality-bound male colleagues lacked. "Difference Feminism" of course. As Ophelia Benson says, "bollocks."
Posted by: Taifun
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March 2, 2011 8:18 PM
@56:
FNC has little to no influence over local affiliates and provides essentially no content. Entertainment, sports, etc. content is provided by a separate subsidiary of News Corp. Honestly, I'm getting tired of people conflating Fox affiliates with Fox News... While FNC's idiocy is great, they're not responsible for any stupidity aired on affiliates, and vice-versa.
This is like blaming MSNBC for touchy-feely inanity on my local NBC affiliate.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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March 2, 2011 9:14 PM
The Witch-King of Angmar might disagree.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 2, 2011 9:33 PM
Thank you Sastra, you refreshed my memory banks. It's been a long and tiring week so far.
Posted by: DoubtingT
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March 2, 2011 9:46 PM
Nerd of Redhead, #71:
A test of a Therapeutic Touch practitioner was carried out in Philadelphia on November 8, 1996 by members of PhACT, the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking, under the supervision of James Randi. This was a preliminary test for the JREF million dollar challenge.
The subject claimed she could sense the difference between an injured female wrist and a healthy male one even when the bodies were concealed by a curtain and the arms in question were concealed by opaque plastic tubing.
In an unblinded test, with randomly selected targets but with the curtain open, she scored correctly ten times out of ten trials. In a double-blinded test with the curtains closed she identified the correct target in eleven out of twenty trials. As this is well within the range expected from guessing we concluded that TT was unproven.
It might be noted that the opportunity to gain $1 million by demonstrating the efficacy of TT was widely publicized. Of the estimated 40,000 TT practitioners, only one applied to be tested.
Posted by: TimKO,,.,,
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March 2, 2011 10:00 PM
The person who pursued the piece was unscrupulous. The producer who okayed airing the piece was an unprofessional idiot who must be hard up for content.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 2, 2011 10:03 PM
Thanks DoubtingT. My Google Fu goes down with my eyelids, which are barely open at the moment. I think I read about Randi's results in Skeptical Inquirer awhile back.
Posted by: shawkins4444
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March 2, 2011 10:33 PM
OK where are the parents in all this? They are the ones who set this kid up with the Chinese teacher. If they hadn't, he would be just another kid pretending to be Harry Potter or some other fictional character, but the news piece said he had been studying "healing" under the Chinese teacher for 4 years. That means he's been doing it since he was like four or five years old. This is not just silly, it's flat out wrong for parents to miseducate their child in this manner.
The only thing worse is when parents think their little boys are the Dali Lama or the son of god.
Come to think of it, this story does sound a lot like the one about Jesus. In fact I wouldn't be at all surprised that Christianity started that way.
Posted by: Vyapada
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March 2, 2011 10:54 PM
@53 Yep and if the EAT was different to EQT... IIRC the research indicates that fancy placebos work better than less fancy placebos... so this would only start having credibility if the patients were blinded to treatment type... (either by knowledge only or by knowledge AND actually not seeing the treatment... e.g. like sham acupuncture - same needles, but not in the magick places - the effects of these are far less different in the body of lit IIRC)
Posted by: DoubtingT
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March 2, 2011 11:03 PM
Nerd of Redhead, #79:
When you wake, check Emily Rosa on Wikipedia. Because she was nine years old she was able to persuade a lot of subjects to let themselves be tested for their ability to sense the "human energy field." They failed and Emily became the youngest person ever to publish a research paper in a major medical journal.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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March 2, 2011 11:03 PM
algegarble:
Mom? Mom, is that you? (I would have thought that you'd come up with a better 'nym, but oh well.)
You know, we also haven't been able to measure the benefits of acupuncture, homeopathic pills, Vodoun rituals, those stupid power bracelets, urine drinking, magnets, Breathe Right strips, herbal remedies, faith healing, etc etc etc. Does that mean we have to take those claims seriously as well?
Posted by: Amphiox, OM
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March 2, 2011 11:17 PM
Posted by: laughingmn
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March 3, 2011 12:25 AM
#58
"Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked."
Posted by: Leel
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March 3, 2011 8:21 AM
1) 3:25 Leif's mother works for the practitioner; 'he started following her around there at four years old'.
Mystery about where the kid got this nonsense from, why he's a student at such a young age and why aren't his parents doing something to discourage his woo is hereby cleared up.
2) 4:23 The reporter: 'Chun-yi's wife has cancer, a year ago diagnosed... she would not live for even a few weeks. She's still alive today, so... they say it works. It doesn't cure cancer but maybe can prolong your life.'
The female news presenter then speculates that the positive mind-set 'could be enough, alone, in a battle like that.'
The only good thing about this warm validation of woo is that they weren't so deluded as to claim QI GONG CURES CANCER!!!!111!1!!
And while I'm not going to deny a cancer patient anything makes them feel better, claims like that on even a local television station are going to make some people in need to serious medical treatment to reject it, in favour of ineffective and potentially lethal woo.
Posted by: Q.E.D
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March 3, 2011 8:44 AM
Algegarble @ 39
I've got some exceptionally powerful Reiki you might be interested in purchasing
Posted by: Q.E.D
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March 3, 2011 9:16 AM
Algegarble @ 39
Actually, to be fair I have some empathy for your experience of qigong because I had a similar experience.
Last year I trained in Aikido with one of Japan's leading practitioners. when he threw me, I honestly felt like space and time had collapsed behind me before I hit the mat astonishingly hard. I have been training for over 5 years and never felt anything like it. I don't believe in ki but in that moment, it was easy to believe that ki was at work.
I then remembered that this man had spent 40 years doing nothing but Aikido, almost every day of his life. He was merely technically brilliant at what he does.
With apologies to Arthur C Clark "any sufficiently advanced Aikido is indistinguishable from ki"
Posted by: Don
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March 3, 2011 11:31 AM
QED @88, I emphatically concur, having had the pleasure/pain of working out with a high-ranking black belt in judo. Reach out and push him, it's like pushing a tree trunk. Then he does this little squinty thing with his eyes, and nothing else I could see, next thing I'm on the floor looking at the lights. Indistinguishable from magic.
Posted by: Don
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March 3, 2011 11:34 AM
Oh, and regarding the reporter who colluded in exploiting this child: there are times when I wish I believed in Hell.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlw4oH0l6k2YD0NCQUeu7nC2owgujUl77U
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March 3, 2011 1:34 PM
QED: My aikido sensei would lead us through qigong exercises before training every class, She would demonstrate various ki exercises common in aikido, including "heavy body", in which the practiioner makes him/herself too heavy to lift.(1) She came in to class one day looking confused and somewhat sad, and explained that she had done this at home, but found it impossible to make her bathroom scales register a heavier or lighter weight. (Kudos for honesty, sensei!)
Mark Chen, taiji master, in his book says that chi(2) is just "good body mechanics".
(1) The heaviest person I've ever carried was a slightly-built girl who had gotten drunk for the first time, and couldn't climb down the ladder from the hayloft. Completely limp bodies just... weigh more than others.
(2) chi or qi (Chinese) = ki (Japanese)
Posted by: Warm Little Pond
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March 3, 2011 9:58 PM
I actually found the abstract for the "study" that supposedly validated Qigong as a method of relieving pain. I blogged about it here:
http://warmlittlepond.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/fox-news-and-ancient-chinese-wisdom/
Posted by: Shiloh
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March 3, 2011 11:07 PM
I tend to believe that there is nothing to qigong, but would like to know what sort of study convinced the Mayo Clinic that it might be authentic.
Posted by: Shiloh
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March 3, 2011 11:17 PM
Looks like Primate may have found the answer. So much for the Mayo Clinic study. Doesn't seem to be a valid study.
Posted by: Marcio G.
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March 4, 2011 1:16 AM
"...Master Chunyi Lin, who studied the art for more than 30 years..." That's 30 years well spend... lolThis may be in Leif's future:
James Randi exposes James Hydrick
That's only wishful thinking. I do not claim to have psychic powers! lol
Posted by: Q.E.D
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March 4, 2011 6:26 AM
@ 91
Yep. The Shihan's top student is 5 foot 4 inch woman who can't weigh more that 120 lbs but has taken countless thousands of breakfalls from the big man, is seriously hard, and a bit terrifying. She wore one of those idiot powerband bracelets.
For perhaps the first time in my life, I kept my skepticism to myself!
Posted by: maxdwolf
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March 4, 2011 5:27 PM
The May clinic not only did a poorly designed study, they make money off the woo.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/patienteducation-rst/taichi.html
I find this much more disturbing than the faux news story.
Posted by: PTW
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March 4, 2011 7:11 PM
@56:
Local Faux affiliates are not beholden to Faux National for this sort of story. It was local fluff. Of course, that doesn't mean national would not have rolled around in it like a pig in good, mucky mud.
Posted by: linda.and.rosa
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March 6, 2011 3:08 PM
I think the really significant thing about Randi's TT test was that some 50 of the leading nurse proponents were sent letters inviting them to go for the $1M prize. None responded.
Emily Rosa is my daughter; she was raised as a skeptic. She wanted to find out for herself if nurses using Therapeutic Touch could really feel something. She had seen them demonstrating TT and she was intrigued that they seemed so sure of their ability. Her experiment in JAMA:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/279/13/1005.full.pdf
With a thorough literature search, plus Emily's statistically significant findings, JAMA editors thought it was justified to make this significant statement at the end of her paper:
"To our knowledge, no other objective,
quantitative study involving more than
a few TT practitioners has been published,
and no well-designed study demonstrates
any health benefit from TT.
These facts, together with our experimental
findings, suggest that TT claims
are groundless and that further use of
TTbyhealth professionals is unjustified."
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 6, 2011 3:13 PM
Thanks Linda.And.Rosa. Downloaded your file and copied the link for future use. Great work.
Posted by: maintainer
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July 31, 2011 4:05 AM
@spaceboyzach #2
>The kid is obviously deluded. Wizards don't get healing spells!
>Clerics and druids get the healing spells.
And bards, don't leave out the bards!