I don't in the slightest doubt that the placebo effect
works for certain folks. Several treatments have
demonstrated this: accupuncture, sugar pills, and
massage.
The snake oil that gets me is statements of the form:
"If you eat a low fat diet you reduce your
chances of getting cancer by 20%"
I cannot image how one would undertake to find out if
this statement is true or untrue. One might examine
the probability that a high fat diet and cancer occur in
the same person, but the fact that they occur in the
same person does not constitute a causal chain!
It may be that persons with a high genetic risk for
also like "hog jowl". The medical statistics people
claim that they can separate the causal from the
coincidental but I have my doubts. WBN
Barlow Newbolt
Department of Physics and Engineering
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, VA 24450
Young man if I could remember the names of all of
these particles I would have become a botanist
Enrico Fermi
Telephone and Phone Mail: 540-463-8881
Fax: 540-463-8884
e-mail: NewboltW@madison.acad.wlu.edu