 |
 |
The clinking sound is my 5 cents worth hitting the floor. Someone in this group said, a while ago, "what does it matter if it's a placebo, if it works?" From a pragmatic point of view, that's true. Magnets may work or not, but as far as some people are concerned, they definitely do. Wheat grass juice may work or not. I'd be the last person to discourage anyone from using anything which offers relief. However, where a causal relationship between the treatment and its effects is not obvious, I'd also be the first to encourage people to look for other possibilities. So, for example, I now take Enada first thing every morning, and it seems to be making a difference, but I also drink a half pint of water with it, which I never did before, and maybe that alone is making the difference. How will I know? Well, at some point I'll knock off the Enada and keep taking the water and see what changes. Ideally, someone would slip in some chalk tablets so I wasn't even aware that I had stopped getting Enada. With a bed full of magnets, it sounds to me like a substantial change of sleeping arrangements. The ideal test would be for someone to surreptitiously replace the magnets with similar sized bricks and see if anything else changes. I think we all cling to placebos because, like Linus' blanket, they give us comfort and hope. We are frightened to look too critically in case the effect goes away. But we may be missing something important. Behind the placebo there may be a real effect which we are not giving due credit for, and therefore which we cannot replicate and pass on to others. So hang in there with your snake oils and charm bracelets, if they work for you that's great! But please be brave enough to look behind the scenes and consider if something else may be waiting to be discovered, maybe even the real cause for why magnets work! Alf Adelaide, Australia 50 <1 48