reiki
terrasig | June 8, 2009Yet another hat tip this morning to anjou, a regular reader, commenter, and human RSS feed on all things cancer and alternative medicine (not to mention turning me on to Vanessa Hidary, the "Hebrew Mamita" spoken-word artist).
Last night anjou brought to me a superb AP Impact article, Alternative medicine goes mainstream, from medical writer Marilynn Marchione. I know that AP has been skewered as of late by various science bloggers but this particular article by Marchione is one of the best treatments I have seen in the last two years regarding the truth behind the alternative medicine…
palmd | April 13, 2009One of the common themes in biology and medicine is the feeling that somehow there must be more. Creationist cults simply know that life must be more than matter, and mind-body dualists (which includes most alternative medicine advocates) are certain that humans are more than an "ugly bag of mostly water" (sorry for the geek reference). If you can stick with me here, I'll explain to you a bit of the history surrounding this fallacy.
Most of us intuitively feel that we are both a body and a person. In every day life, it makes a certain operational sense to think of our "mind" as being…
oracknows | April 13, 2009Nearly two weeks ago, P.Z. Myers mentioned a story that would normally have provoked a post by me. Specifically, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had issued a warning against the use of reiki as being unscientific, unproven, and, worse, "dangerous to Christian spiritual health." Unfortunately, this story came out right before Autism Awareness Month and the all out spring offensive by antivaccinationists fronted by Jenny McCarthy, along with all the nonsense that entails, and my attention rapidly got sidetracked. The reason I've come back to it is that I recently learned that defenders…
palmd | March 30, 2009This war taking place in our nation's medical schools and academic medical centers. Orac at Respectful Insolence has been tracking this trend, as have those of us writing at Science-Based Medicine. It is a war between those who feel that medicine should continue to be based on science and those who want to integrate faith-based practices. The model for this war is not that of pedagogical disputes or funding scuffles. More than anything else, it resembles a religious war.
The basic story goes like this: medical schools are in charge of educating future doctors. Individual hospitals are…
palmd | March 25, 2009Whatever you think of its political reporting, no other mainstream media outlet can bring the stupid like the Huffington Post, especially with regards to medical reporting. Its most famous contributors include antivaccinationists like David Kirby and Robert Kennedy, Jr., and kumbaya therapy wackaloon Deepak Chopra.
Now they bring us an article by some dude I've never heard of with a title that should have him laughed out of any legitimate scientific institution: "The Science of Distant Healing". This is one stupid article.
First of all, who the hell is this guy? According to his bio:
Dr.…
oracknows | March 13, 2009Khaaaaan!
No, wait a minute. I mean: Nooooooo!
No place is safe from the invasion of quackademic medicine. No place. As you will soon see.
As you know, I've documented the infiltration of pseudoscientific and outright antiscientific woo into institutions that really should know better, namely academic medical institutions. Specifically, over a year ago, I created the Academic Woo Aggregator, a list of medical schools and academic medical centers that have embraced "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or, as it's more commonly known these days, "integrative medicine" (IM). Of course…
palmd | March 11, 2009It's not like we haven't had this discussion before. I have, on previous blogs, written about the fantasy that is reiki, as have my colleagues. In fact, the very same colleague turned me on to a recent news piece out of Cleveland. Here's my problem with reiki---it's bullshit, pure and simple.
"But how can you be so dismissive?," a credulous reader might ask. My answer comes in two parts.
Absurdist ridiculousity
OK, so I made up that phrase---which is exactly what I have in common with the founder of reiki. In 1922 Mikao Usui (JSG) fasted on a mountaintop in Japan and "received" the…