User talk:A1candidate/Archive 2

Did you mean to accept this edit to K-pop? It doesn't seem accurate to me, so I've reverted it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:27, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I believe this edit wasn't entirely inaccurate, since both versions of the translation are commonly used. The one I accepted seemed to be the prevailing version that stretches back to 2012, but I'm not an expert and it's really just a minor issue. -A1candidate (talk) 02:02, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd appreciate if you explained your reversal of one of my edits on

Hi there, I've created a new topic at the above Talk Page that you might wish to comment on. Best, ► Philg88 ◄ ^♦talk 05:17, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

True science is open to the possibility of being wrong. Religions, including homeopathy, are not. Guy (Help!) 00:13, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I am not an expert in homeopathy and I don't know much about the topic, but I tend towards the opinions of experts such as a nobel-prize winning scientist, rather than pseudoskeptics on Wikipedia. -A1candidate (talk) 00:21, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Your constant misuse of the term "pseudoskeptic" is very revealing. Those who push pseudoscience while claiming to be skeptics are the true pseudoskeptics, evidenced by the fact, among other red flags, that their skepticism is directed against mainstream science and not against junk science, pseudoscience, and quackery. Another red flag is when they defend other pseudoscience pushers, like the Nobel Prize winner, and the editor where you just left a barnstar. You are the real pseudoskeptic here, and one with a huge COI. As a professional acupuncturist, you should not be editing acupuncture and TCM subjects so boldly, if at all. --

talk

) 01:46, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Opposing hard evidence and jumping to conclusions are the hallmarks of pseudoskeptics. Do you have hard evidence to show that I'm a professional acupuncturist? No, you don't. If you do have hard evidence, please show it to all of us. Since you probably don't have hard evidence, you choose to jump to conclusions based on my editing patterns alone. What does that tell me about you? -A1candidate (talk) 02:22, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the star. Thinking of E Pound poem "The scientists are in terror and the European mind stops" I keep referring to the Aristotelian definition of logic as it can be seen in its modern crystallization in Alonzo Church work - totally unrelated to the modern "science" which by the way favored the "evidence" vs proof for ...practical reasons. Logic can convert one to a healthy agnosticism leaving space for future discoveries. Bright scientists have been criticized for experimenting with politically "incorrect" ideas for the sake of science and truth vs truism - which is easier to fight for and superficially win: takes less time and intellectual effort - no need to know pure mathematics just statistics and mainly no need for consistency and it looks cool. OMG I m trying to not say the "H" word and regarded as a violation of my ban--George1935 (talk) 04:17, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Your recent editing history shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.

To avoid being blocked, instead of reverting please consider using the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. See BRD for how this is done. You can post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection. You're at 2RR now. -- QuackGuru (talk) 04:24, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Violation of consensus

The previous discussion resulted in

why are people interested in meditation so aggressive! so crazy. anyway, as i put in my edit note, there already was an ongoing discussion about the edit. you didn't see it, i guess.Jytdog (talk) 20:07, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

My concerns have nothing to do with the actions of User:Nigelj, whom I believe is a fully competence editor. The issue I've raised is about a gross misrepresentation of the review that is not being discussed anywhere else on the talk page. -A1candidate (talk) 20:14, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

there was a text. it was changed by nigeli. i reverted, and opened a discussion. we were in discussion of that text. in the middle of it, nigeli re-reverted. alexbrn re-re-reverted and joined the discussion. you re-re-reverted, and didn't seem to know a discussion was going on. i reverted you and told you there was a discussion going on. you re-reverted and.. opened a new discussion? i really don't know what you are talking about, saying that the passage wasn't under discussion. i don't know why you edit-warred either. Jytdog (talk) 20:37, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Look Jytdog, I understand you may have issues with Nigelj, but the point I was trying to make is that there was a blatant effort (intentional or otherwise) to misrepresent the source by twisting its conclusion in a 180-degree fashion and this definitely needs to be highlighted. I appreciate that you've come to my talk page to discuss, but at this point, I suggest we move on and focus on improving the article instead. -A1candidate (talk) 23:07, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Gate control theory, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Dorsal horn (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Checking a source and finding that it does not support the text it is purported to support, is not original research. Rather the opposite, in fact. We certainly do not assert as fact, something which the source presents as a hypothesis. Guy (Help!) 11:24, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Content issues should be discussed at the relevant talk page, not here. Could you please participate in the discussion at Talk:Purinergic signalling? -A1candidate (talk) 18:10, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Please don't mass delete medrs compliant sources. Your edit summary does not give a valid reason to delete text and sources you don't like. QuackGuru (talk) 03:34, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

You need consensus before adding it. Iceman hypothesis is not supported by evidence. -A1candidate (talk) 09:26, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

You were previously warned about misrepresenting a source.[4][5][6]

You have not shown on the talk page what is the problem with all my edits.

You claim "The Ice Man hypothesis is not supported by any scientific evidence."[7]

Your comment on the talk page is not correct according to the reliable source. The source does not say that it is a hypothesis that is not supported by any scientific evidence.

Your comment on the talk page suggests I added original research to the article but I did no such thing. I get the impression you did not read the full text and blindly reverted.

This is what the source says: "Bizarrely, the ‘Ice Man’, who lived in the Alps about 5000 years ago, displays tattoo marks on his body which correspond to acupuncture points. To some experts, this suggests that an acupuncture-like therapy was already used in Europe 5 millennia ago [15]."[8]

Please strike your misleading comments on the talk page and revert your edit. QuackGuru (talk) 16:12, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I believe that there are very good reasons to think that your recent edits on the above page would be seen by many if not most people as being of a tendentious and/or disruptive nature and also can be seen as being in violation of

If you think my behavior is problematic, feel free to lodge a complaint at

WP:AN/I. -A1candidate (talk

) 01:09, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

A1 thanks for your clarification. My comments on IDHT and TE may have been more strident than necessary. In objecting to a source being very specific and clear about the content being challenged is helpful. I realize this might have been understood by other editors based on a recent edit history. - - MrBill3 (talk) 04:57, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for leaving a message. It was a misunderstanding and I'm glad we have cleared it up. -A1candidate (talk) 07:50, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Hey man, I noticed you on the countering systemic bias talk page and saw your proposed edits on the acupuncture talk page! I've read through them and they look like excellent additions. Have you added any of those? If not, I'm willing to help out. Just let me know! LesVegas (talk) 16:38, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I've been active on the talk page and I'm still trying to discuss how to include these edits. Thanks for helping out, it's greatly appreciated. -A1candidate (talk) 18:50, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't take this kinda thing seriously and don't let it tax the ol' Liver-Spleen. I think most editors see through that sort of thing. "I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused" -- Elvis Costello .... cheers, Middle 8 (POV-pushing • COI) 03:03, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

P.S. -- Just remember, every minute you spend refuting a spurious objection is (a) a minute taken away from potentially productive contributions, and (b) a little more stress. It's baiting -- or has the effect of baiting. If you respond in a pointed, annoyed way, that's just a diff that will be used against you down the line.

We have a whole lot of reasonable editors who can see through tendentious behavior on the part of skeptic POV-pushers, but at the same time aren't going to proactively object to it. POV-pushers know this, and know their behavior will be tolerated as long as they seem to be "defending science". Bear in mind that one of the editors involved has said that he doesn't think WP:DR works, and that he thinks progress occurs only "when certain users are excluded from editing". You know there are double standards here behaviorally, so please, don't take the bait. Who cares if bullshit prevails in the short term? There are no deadlines. Be patient, take wikibreaks if stressed, take the high road. --Middle 8 (POV-pushing • COI) 03:33, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll take heed of your advice and I'll be careful -A1candidate (talk) 15:34, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Hello again A1candidate, I wanted to let you know I placed an POV tag on the acupuncture page and as part of the discussion I mentioned your "outstanding issues" on the page. I wanted to use the section on the talk page "Tags" as a means of resolving those issues and everyone else's issues as well. Anyway, stop on by whenever you get a chance! LesVegas (talk) 00:40, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/B.A.P - Live on earth until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Drmies (talk) 01:32, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Hey, just saw that you're back editing and wanted to let you know I added some of the things from your list of outstanding issues onto the page. They were removed by a couple of edit warriors without any real discussion, and I just now added them back in. As I said earlier, I would love to help you in your efforts to place this material into the article. You've worked hard on that and I don't think it's right for it to not be included. A little at a time, I think, and the best stuff should stick. LesVegas (talk) 00:32, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for helping out, it is greatly appreciated. -A1candidate (talk) 06:47, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Gangnam Style
Thank you, resident of the Earth, for quality articles such as

awesome Wikipedian

!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:33, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Just to save you making the same mistake again, Ullman was stated to be "not credible" by a judge, who rejected his testimony in its entirety.

The "dysfuunction" blog post has previously been discussed. The errors were pointed out then. It's rare to find any propaganda for homeopathy that is not trailed on the talk page almost immediately, so it's always worth checking the archives. A more complete rebuttal can be found here, if you are interested. Guy (Help!) 12:21, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I base my assessment of Ullman on the quality of his arguments, not on his reputation. See Wikipedia:Assume good faith. If he makes strong arguments, a witch-hunt against homeopaths by fighters of pseudoscience isn't going to change my opinion. The way to persuade me is to try this out: Show me how his arguments in this specific post are flawed. Thanks. -A1candidate (talk) 14:15, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I also base my assessment on the quality of his arguments. Every single argument he advanced int hat rant, was provably false, mendacious, long-since reuted, distorted or in some other way unworthy. I am extremely familiar wiht the literature on hoemopathy. So is Ullman, which gives him even less excuse for querstionable tactics such as citing a 1997 review whose lead author has told him, to his face, in front of witnesses, that he should instead quote the 1999 re-analysis of the results. You may not like my opinions on SCAM, but in this instance opinion does not enter into it: I am objectively correct, Ullman is objectively wrong. And he knows it. And he keeps proselytising anyway. Which is why a Judge called hium "not credible".

I have no problem dealing with civil advocates of non-mainstream POV, I do have a problem with people whose judgment of evidence is incorrect, and who do nto change that judgment in the face of compelling evidence they are wrong. Read my blog post, I cite my sources and I also reference in many cases long-standing refutations and rebuttals of which Ullman was fully aware. He was banned for good reasons. Don't go down tha same path, please. Guy (Help!) 23:28, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm reading your posts and thinking about the entire issue. It's a complicated one. -A1candidate (talk) 01:43, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

What you are writing is totally false- Ullman refers to BOTH reviews. 1999 and 1997. How can you write such things? And you consider yourself credible Guy ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarioMarco2009 (talk • contribs) 19:19, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The point is that the 1999 re-analysis replaces the 1997 paper, but Ullman cites the result of the first and only nods to the second without acknowledging its full importance to the validity of the first. And while he alludes to the second paper, only the first is actually cited. He leads his reader direct to the conclusion he likes, with full citation and a link, but does not provide the necessary information for them to check his assertions on the rleevance of the later paper. He references Linde's critique of Shang, but not Shang's reply, which showed the critique to be wrong in important respects and stands as the last word in that debate in press. I could go on, but I have already line-by-lined Ullman's diatribe and A1candidate has read that and understands the problem. Ullman is a propagandist, his views are not reliable, and we're done with that. Guy (Help!) 11:21, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

The 1999 was NOT an original meta analysis- it was a qualification of the previous one and as such it is refereed by Ullman -- this is accurate. He says what the papers say The fact that a number of the new high-quality trials ... have negative results, and a recent update of our review for the most "original" subtype of homeopathy (classical or individualized homeopathy), seem to confirm the finding that more rigorous trials have less-promising results. It seems, therefore, likely that our meta-analysis at least overestimated the effects of homeopathic treatments This does not mean that they found that H= placebo as

wikipedia editors write in the article. It is pretty clear to every good faith observer. If I were Ullman I would cite Shangs response as well - I agree with you--but here in wikipedia you should not say that-- you and other editors you have done much worse things in a "neutral" article- you have edited out ALL criticisms to Shang even if there are published in reputable;e sources to create the false impression that every author says H= placebo. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 19:37, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Fact check on Homeopathy

MarioMarco2009:

UpToDate is a reliable clinical encyclopedia that I use and trust.

This is how Wikipedia's homeopathy article fared when I compared it to UpToDate's article:

Fact Check: Wikipedia vs UpToDate

Issue of controversy Wikipedia (Homeopathy) UpToDate (http://www.uptodate.com/contents/homeopathy) Result of Fact Check Scientific status of Homeopathy Homeopathy is considered a pseudoscience Homeopathy is a pre-scientific practice N Failed: According to UpToDate, homeopathy was developed at a time when medicine was pre-scientific and frequently harmful. However, with the development of scientific medicine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, homeopathy became a fringe practice in the United States and only made a slight revival recently. Plausibility Homeopathy lacks biological plausibility, and its axioms are contradicted by scientific facts The concept of potentization violates basic scientific principles and defies logic Y Passed Water memory This concept is inconsistent with the current understanding of matter, and water memory has never been demonstrated to have any detectable effect, biological or otherwise. Much effort has been spent attempting to show that liquid water has “changeable structure” or “coherence patterns” that are somehow specified by that original substance Y Passed Jacques Benveniste experiment After investigating the findings and methodology of the experiment, the team found that the experiments were "statistically ill-controlled", "interpretation has been clouded by the exclusion of measurements in conflict with the claim" A famous 1988 investigation purported to demonstrate that dilutions of anti-IgE (up to 10120), compared to diluent, led to basophilic histamine release. The study was flawed, and the initial results could not be reproduced by independent research teams Y Passed Is Homeopathy better than placebo? No remedy has been proven to be more effective than placebo Current evidence finds that homeopathic remedies are no more effective than placebo Y Passed What about studies with positive results? Although some clinical trials produce positive results, systematic reviews reveal that this is because of chance, flawed research methods, and reporting bias “Positive” results of homeopathy are more likely to be due to bias and error than to specific effects of homeopathic preparations Y Passed

I would prefer it if the fighters of pseudoscience stop throwing around the "pseudoscience" label at everything they could grab their hands on, and there certainly are clear cases of dysfunction at Wikipedia's alternative medicine articles, but Homeopathy isn't one of them. -A1candidate (talk) 01:07, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Before I try to explain you - what is your relationship with math and logic- I m asking because you use the word logic here. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 15:10, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Mario, the assertion that potentization "defies logic" did not come from me, I'm simply quoting what UpToDate said. Perhaps it may be better for you to direct this question to the authors and editors of UpToDate. -A1candidate (talk) 15:37, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

it is complicated to explain why the above phrase makes no sense------ if you use the world logic in a scientific or mathematical concept and not in a coffee shop - so if you are curious look it up and you will see how shallow this argument is. Furthermore provided you have the curiosity to explore it yourself,- how you can justify to yourself that an encyclopedia article edits out all the criticisms against the only review that has clearly concluded that H= placebo and these criticisms are published in reputable sources ? Again if you have the intellectually curiosity to back it up to yourself - if you don't - just leave it alone. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 18:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

First, thank you again for understanding the Ullman issue. Your input helped close off a debate that was going nowhere.

Homeopathy is a very frequently discussed example of pseudoscience. However, there is a need to be clear: homeopathy itself is, as you say, a pre-scientific vitalist belief system. The pseudoscience is in the cottage industry of faux-scientific publications attempting to justify it in terms of modern scientific concepts and the practice of evidence-based medicine - however, this is a route set by Hahnemann himself, and his own publicatiosn were clearly intended to be scholarly and, as we would now characterise it, scientific. This was not the scientific Dark Ages, homeopathy was dreamed up towards the end of the Age of Enlightenment, a century and a half after the founding of the Royal Society and the emergence of empirical science from its predecessor, natural philosophy - the problem is that the scientific method had not, at that time, taken hold in medicine, to anything like the current extent. So it's not as clear cut as it might be.

Take a less contentious example for comparison. The original Fleischmann-Pons cold fusion experiments were not pseudoscience and were not pathological science. They weren't right, but a lot of science turns out not to be right when tested further. Fleischmann was not given to pseudoscience, and did not, as far as I can see, engage in it. Pons may well have engaged in pathological science, and a substantial group grew up who are also engaged in pathological science and pseudoscience, publishing papers in their own journals and discussing their findings with each other, in a classic walled garden. Jones, of Brigham Young, went the full pseudoscience when he fell in with the Truthers.

Another example: chiropractic is a practice which contains elelments of pseudoscience. Manipulation therapy is plausibly effective for musculoskeletal pain, but the concepts of innate and the chiropracxtic subluxation are nonsense, and the academic study of these things is pseudoscientific. Chiropractic is not pseudoscience as practiced by some, but the roots of it are pseudoscience because it was invented in an era when the scientific method was available, at least in outline, and no attempt was made to falsify the claims, only to provide "evidence" to support them. So chiro is a field rooted in pseudoscoence from which some legitimate elmenets have emerged, almost by accident.

Osteopathy, by contrast, also has its roots in pseudoscience, but applied the scientific method and became legitimate, at least in the US.

Pseudoscience is a useful and informative category to describe a class of endeavour. The label "alternative medicine" is also helpful, due to Minchin's Law, but proponents of alternative medicine do not help us here in that they constantly try to rebrand it in order to avoid the obvious. Thus alt med became CAM (as if homeopathy is any less bogus because you consider it alongside massage and other valid complementary therapies) and now "integrative medicine" (as if homeopathy becomes any less refuted when you use it alongside valid therapies). In this we are actively hampered by the sources, since the quackademic medicine movement seems at present to be in the ascendent, to the point where even fatiuous nonsense like reiki and reflexology is offered with a straight face.

I would prefer to be clear about the differences between alternative medicine and the pseudoscience it inspires. This is not always easy in the context of an article like hoemopathy, most of whose content is concerned with the pseudoscience used in the rearguard action currently being fought. I do not know if, in ten years time, we will have the same problem, as there seems to be rising public awareness of its fraudulent nature and certainly in the UK and Australia it is suffering badly at the hands of reality-based reviews.

I's be wary of using the textbook you refer to: it's unlikely to be concerned with the demarcation issue and is more likely to simply describe the beliefs of homeopaths, not least because they have a tendency to go ballistic and protest when you say they are wrong, and the more evidence you provide the more ballistic they get. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia for the general reader and there are an enormous number of sources for the general reader that describe homeopathy as pseudoscience (just for starters [9], [10], [11], [12]), and it's also widely discussed in books on the subject of pseudoscience and the demarcatio issue, always coming down on the side of homeopathy being pseudoscience.

Query (Reposted from User talk:JzG)

• The
  PMID 23608661
  , "TM may be considered in clinical practice to lower BP". Is the AHA part of the SCAM industry?

• The
  PMID 24663230
  , "Clinicians might offer oral cannabis extract for spasticity symptoms and pain". Is the ANA engaging in quackery?

• The U.S.
  PMID 24395196
  , "Clinicians should be aware that meditation programs can result in small to moderate reductions of multiple negative dimensions of psychological stress." Is the AHRQ a lunatic charlatan?

• The
  PMID 25644617
  , "Clinicians may offer acupuncture, or refer to a clinician who can offer acupuncture, for patients with AR who are interested in nonpharmacologic therapy." Is the AAO-HNS an advocate of acupuncture?

More importantly, are the doctors following the guidelines of AHA, ANA, AHQR, and AAO-NHS believers in the SCAM industry and therefore enemies of the Declaraiton of Helsinki? -A1candidate 00:35, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• Your determination to validate the invalid is truly impressive. Feel free to point out the studies that show TM to have an effect distinct from non-spiritual relaxation therapy. Meditation is a form of relaxation therapy and is not alternative, nor is it exclusive to "ancient wisdom" from any particular part of the world. The evidence on acupuncture shows that there are no such things as meridians, no such thing as qi, that it doesn't matter where you put the needles, and it doesn't seem to matter if you even put the needles in. And that is my last word on the matter until the evidence changes. We don't change the universe by changing Wikipedia, we do things the other way round, so when compelling evidence arises that changes the scientific consensus view on the nonsensical nature of the core claims of acupuncture, then we will follow that evidence. Guy (Help!) 14:37, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Your determination to validate the invalid is truly impressive.

That is not my determination, but the consensus of the AHA, ANA, AHQR, and AAO-NHS.

Feel free to point out the studies that show TM to have an effect distinct from non-spiritual relaxation therapy.

I don't have to do so, because I did not claim that TM is distinct from from non-spiritual relaxation therapy. The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim.

Meditation is a form of relaxation therapy and is not alternative, nor is it exclusive to "ancient wisdom" from any particular part of the world

Meditation refers to the intentional change in the stage of consciousness (

National Center for SCAM

.

The evidence on acupuncture shows that there are no such things as meridians, no such thing as qi, that it doesn't matter where you put the needles, and it doesn't seem to matter if you even put the needles in. And that is my last word on the matter until the evidence changes

The evidence has never been changed: It has always been known that Adenosine A1 receptors mediate local anti-nociceptive effects of acupuncture (Goldman et al. 2010), a finding that has been replicated in humans (Takano et al. 2012) and reproduced by independent research groups (Hurt and Zylka 2012). It has also been reviewed and accepted by pharmacologists (Hill et al. 2014).

Of course, the doctrines of the Chuch of Pseudoskepticsm mandate that "All SCAM experiments resemble the Jacques Benveniste experiment" and must be flawed. That is why their believers readily cling onto everything Church leader

Cochrane Collaboration. (Cochrane Reviews: The Food Babe of Medicine?

)

Edzard Ernst, a true defender of science and courageous skeptic, cited the Goldman et al. 2010 experiment in the Textbook of Pain in Chapter 43 and page 605 of the book. Ernst wrote: "Our understanding of how acupuncture might work has grown (Zhao 2008, Goldman et al 2010) but is still far from complete."

David Gorski, leader of the Church of Pseudoskepticsm and managing editor of the pseudoscientific Bible of "Science-based Medicine", wrote in a commentary in Nature Reviews Cancer that the same study cited by Ernst has nothing to do with acupuncture. (Gorski 2014)

You may not like my opinions on the Chuch of Pseudoskepticsm, but in this instance opinion does not enter into it: Ernst has objectively cited the Goldman study to support the notion that our understanding of how acupuncture might work has grown, but Gorski cited the same study as an example of an experiment that is "over-interpreted and/or have little relevance to humans", despite Takano et al. 2012 replicating the same experiment in humans and Gorski ignoring it altogether. I am now reminded of the name of a quack who cherry picks studies that fit his own beliefs just like Gorski does: Dana Ullman, the pseudo-evidence-based homeopath.

I may not agree with everything that Ernst says, but his criticism of acupuncture (and probably homeopathy) on his blog has validity and the questions he asks are entirely reasonable. "Science-based Medicine", on the other hand, is a pseudoscientific Bible owned by the leaders of the Church of Pseudoskepticsm. They attack the most reputable scientific journals including the NEJM and they attempted to destroy the foundations of evidence-based medicine by discrediting the Cochrane Reviews. The most striking evidence that the Church of Pseudoskepticsm is a cult movement rests on the fact that they indoctrinate their believers to believe everything they say and reject everything from the medical community. Please, realize that this is a cult and don't go down their path.

If you ignore everything else I say, please at least answer this question: Who is correct? Ernst or Gorski? The Goldman study cannot be irrelevant to acupuncture (as claimed by Gorski) and still be cited as evidence of how acupuncture might work (as Ernst does). Either Ernst is right and Gorski is wrong, or Gorski is right and Ernst is wrong. -A1candidate 19:06, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello A1. I see that you've shown interest in the research on the effect of TM on blood pressure. Wondered if you saw a new meta-analysis that just came out.[13] TimidGuy (talk) 20:12, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

This seems to be a good source that expands upon the findings of AHA, albeit with limitations as the authors stated. -A1candidate 20:25, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

BTW, if you've got a PMID it's best to use this tool to generate the ref, as it bakes it into a MEDMOS-approved format!

Leave that to the bots. -A1candidate 15:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think they'll touch refs that are already hand-populated with fields (or at least not MEDMOS them)?

COI

15:53, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm writing this here instead of on the article Talk page, because it is not about the article. Going forward, please do not make arguments based on sources that you haven't read and cannot even classify. There is too much smoke and not enough light in that article without that. Thanks Jytdog (talk) 18:38, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

See Talk:G. Edward Griffin -A1candidate 20:35, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi! I just had to comment on this, especially "...one cannot claim effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) until an RCT has been performed." There's truth to that - but, if you'll pardon me, that's a very black-and-white distinction. Potential therapies are dropped from consideration at earlier stages of the process all the time, because they aren't considered promising. Since RCTs are so expensive, there has to be at least some reason we think the test will work before we can do it. If a potential therapy doesn't reach that level, then perhaps we can't say anything with extreme confidence, but we can say that the likelihood of it working was low enough (in the clinical and scientific judgement of the investigators) that nobody wanted to spend their funding on it. And of course, on the flip side, you probably know that RCTs can easily be done poorly, so even when there are many RCTs, it's quite possible to have no useful results at all.

Also, as a related point, I would add that the vast majority of drugs never show any benefit (millions are screened on a regular basis), so a compound about which there is no initial information is a priori much more likely to be ineffective, because of an extremely low prior probability. So when you say "If you think amygdalin is ineffective, the only way to convince the medical community would be to do an RCT" - I suppose that's technically true, but it's a very unusual way to put it, because the burden of evidence is for showing effectiveness, not for showing ineffectiveness. That is, the default is "Unless you show otherwise, there's no reason to think this one compound isn't one of the millions that failed rather than one of the few that succeed." Sunrise (talk) 06:17, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello, you're correct to say that many therapies are dropped at earlier stages, and in the case of amygdalin, the case reports of dangerous effects should also be taken into considertaion, but ultimately, this is something for the ethics committee to decide. The a priori argument doesn't work here because amygdalin seems to have shown some effects in laboratory or animal studies (correct me if I'm wrong). The default statement for laetrile is "There is no evidence to support the effectiveness of laetrile", not "Laetrile is demonstrably ineffective". -A1candidate 11:24, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. :-) I don't know much about the specifics of this example; I've just been watching the discussion at the Griffin article. The a priori statement is meant to be a general principle that addresses your own general principles! One of the main problems is that some effects are always expected even for ineffective treatments, just because of how p-values and standard errors work - and that's not even considering things like publication bias. It's easily possible that given a study that reports positive pre-clinical results, e.g. in mice, it could still be more likely than not to be false (in probabilistic terms, it might move you from a 0.0001% initial chance of effectiveness to a 0.001% chance). These problems can even be captured by meta-analyses, e.g. if they don't do a funnel plot, and is a major problem in the field of meta-analysis evaluation, because often it's simply impossible to account for the (typically positive) bias in the underlying data.

On the specific example, I agree that "There is no evidence" is typically the correct formulation, though I would add that sometimes people may use that term loosely as a shorthand for "no good evidence." Or even "ineffective" (though not "demonstrably ineffective"), because after a certain point, absence of evidence becomes evidence of absence. Sunrise (talk) 18:11, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• The best way to avoid misinterpretation of the p-values would be to enforce the reporting of the effect size of the intervention. For example, if laetrile had no clinical effects on cancer outcomes and the null hypothesis is indeed true, one would then report the effect size as close or near to zero. This may help to prevent awkward statements such as "The effect of XYZ alternative treatment was shown to be statistically significant (because p < 0.05) but not clinically meaningful".
• To eliminate publication bias, one should first ensure that all future trials are registered in a central database before they are allowed to proceed any further (cf Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre). This way, even if the trial investigators do not publish their negative results, the relevant researchers could still be tracked down by those conducting a meta-analysis in order to recover the missing unpublished data.
• I understand that some people may think that "no evidence" and "ineffective" are equivalent, but that is not how evidence-based medicine works. As for "absence of evidence" being taken as "evidence of absence", one might as well categorize all future untested treatments as ineffective, because the evidence for all untested treatments has been lacking since the dawn of humanity. We don't assume inefficacy when there are no clinical trials to support inefficieny. You may wish to read the categories of evidence in clinical decision making.
• It is important to fight pseudoscience. However, it is even more important to stay true to the principles of evidence-based medicine while doing so.

-A1candidate 15:06, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

You're attributing statements to me that I haven't made, so please read my comments more carefully. :-) (Also, part of the reason this reply is longer is that I'm trying to account for that!)

• On effect size, your comment seems to be a misunderstanding of the analysis works. Effect sizes are not tied to p-values - they only affect how much statistical power you need in order to detect a relationship. Large but nonsignificant effect sizes (or even large and significant ones) are relatively easy to come by, even when the null hypothesis is true. It becomes easier as the size of the literature increases and as the sample size in each study decreases. More rigorously, if X has no effect on outcomes, then we expect (in the absence of other factors) that the reported effect sizes will take on a normal distribution with mean 0, but this says nothing about the standard error.

• On publication bias, the reality is that trials are generally not registered, so what could (and hopefully will) be done doesn't affect the quality of the data we have now. I mentioned it only as an example - it's one of several types of bias that I could have used to illustrate the point. I agree that Bad Pharma is a great book though!

• Absence of evidence is evidence of absence after a certain point; future untested treatments are not categorized as ineffective, which is how you seem to have interpreted my statement. The statement can be proven rather easily using probability theory - e.g. see the quote in the lead of Evidence of absence, and a longer description that might be helpful is here. Briefly, the limit is when you would expect evidence to have been found that was not. The correct statement about future untested treatments is that if you select any individual one of them, you will estimate a high probability of ineffectiveness - suppose 0.001% of tested treatments are typically found to work, then you estimate a 0.001% chance in the absence of further information. Or equivalently, out of any 1000 such treatments, on average we will find that one of them works. I don't think anyone thinks that "no evidence" and "ineffective" are equivalent.

• I'm not sure what you intend by your final point. I don't think of anything in terms of "fighting pseudoscience" (besides, that way lies
  WP:BATTLE). The principles of EBM aren't immutable and aren't perfect - they're used because they're a good approximation of scientific reasoning, and likewise the reasoning that is used in practice is an approximation of these principles. For example, if we could reason perfectly, we would never use a significance level and only ever report the exact p-value. Likewise, as with any scientific tool, it can be unintentionally misused when the user doesn't understand the exact mechanics that are taking place behind the scenes, e.g. use of statistical tests in cases when they aren't valid is another major factor contributing to bias in the literature. Of course, that doesn't mean EBM isn't better than what came before! Or, to be more precise, what we now call EBM is a codification of what were already best practices for several decades, and the best practices continue to evolve - e.g. one aspect of current best practice is to consult with a statistician regularly when designing a trial, but it doesn't seem widespread yet given that I still hear reminders at research talks at least a few times per year. Sunrise (talk
  ) 04:39, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

• While a P value can inform the reader whether an effect exists, the P value will not reveal the size of the effect. In reporting and interpreting studies, both the substantive significance (effect size) and statistical significance (P value) are essential results to be reported. (
  PMID 23997866
  )

• I glanced through the Wikipedia article on Evidence of absence, and what I can say is that at least in the case of amydalin, it does not fall under the category of evidence of absence but rather, a simple absence of evidence (e.g. no careful research has been done). The quote by Irving Copi is a logical fallicy: Just because something could be discovered does not mean it will be discovered. There are many reasons for non-discovery such as technical restrictions, financial difficulties, or no research interest.

• The "fighting pseudoscience" statement is not directed against you, so please don't take it personally. It is for those editors who truly see this place as a battleground. Those are the same editors who insist that "no evidence" and "ineffective" are equivalent.

-A1candidate 13:53, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

• For the third point, the quote is from a widely used introductory logic textbook - it's not fallacious. It's an expression of modus tollens, for which the formal statement is: 1) if A, then B; 2) not B; 3) therefore, not A. The same logic applies to scientific evidence, except we reason inductively: 1) if A, then B is more likely; 2) not B; 3) therefore, A is less likely.

I don't like being this blunt, but you don't have a full understanding of how medical statistical analysis works. This isn't meant personally (just as I didn't take your comment on pseudoscience personally!) - I think it's an important subject, because it isn't taught rigorously in medical and biomedical courses even at top-tier medical schools. I'm happy to discuss with you further if you're willing to learn, but I probably won't respond again unless it seems likely to be productive. Sunrise (talk) 22:19, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• I never said that p-values are tied to effect sizes. Rather, I'm in favor of banning the reporting of P-values because only effect sizes matter.
• The statement in the second point is merely a suggestion to avoid the problem of publication bias that you mentioned.
• "1) If laetrile is effective, then its effects must have been discovered; 2) No effects have been discovered; 3) Therefore, not effective." If you still can't see the logical fallacy in the statement above, then you're right - you don't have to respond.

-A1candidate 20:04, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

The responses to each of these points are either contained within or directly implied by my previous comment. Again, let me know if you think we can proceed. Sunrise (talk) 08:49, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see anything preventing us from proceeding, other than your unwillingness to accept the logical fallacy of your argument. -A1candidate 00:43, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

What was that about? Please consult

The way you phrased your comment was highly inflammatory, unlikely to resolve the conflict and certainly viewed by the other party as a form of harassment. You're of course free to communicate with Astme, but you should do so in a civil manner -A1candidate 19:11, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

Pursuant to section 3a of

A1, I noticed you restored this material to the article and water to thank you for that. It used to be on there, but someone removed it. Do you happen to know who or how it got removed? LesVegas (talk) 01:08, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

The person who removed it happens to be the one hounding me above. See [14] -A1candidate 08:16, 10 May 2015 (UTC)