[Peace-discuss] A different debate: Diversion.

[Morton K.Brussel]

A  commentary by Robert L. Park:


3. ACUPUNCTURE: YOU DON'T HAVE TO KNOW WHERE THE RABBIT CAME
FROM
On TV's "Sex and the City" Charlotte, who was unable to
conceive, turned to acupuncture.  I read that in the Wall
Street Journal, but it didn't say whether it helped.  So I
turned to the experts on the WN staff.  Charlotte, they
assured me, ended up adopting.  I'm not surprised.  Of course,
even if she had become pregnant it wouldn't mean that
acupuncture helped.  You need a randomized, placebo-
controlled, double-blind study with good statistics to find
out what works and what doesn't.  And double-blind is hard to
do with needles.  But it wouldn't matter, I still wouldn't
believe it.  The trouble is it's silly.  Acupuncture, complete
with "meridians" that connect acupuncture points, and
moxibustion
http://www.aps.org/WN/WN98/wn111398.cfm , which applies heat
to the acupuncture points, predate vivisection by thousands of
years.  Well by 2004 they've looked: no features of our
anatomy correspond to any of this stuff.  They discovered
acupuncture before it was known that blood circulates, or that
germs cause disease.  But is there anything acupuncture
doesn't treat?  The Wednesday New York Times reported that
"acupuncture is moving toward the mainstream."  Mainstream
what?  When a stage magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, I
may not know where the rabbit came from, but I know it's not
magic.  It's not science either.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.