I guess it's time to give Sift Bot some synthetic oil, natural just seems to do weird shit to his circuits.

"if people were better educated, yes, anybody could gain the benefits of the healing effect" -- that's a fairly optimistic view, not born out by evidence. In fact, there's significant variability in the individual sensitivity to the placebo effect, and evidence that this variability is driven by genetics.

Here's a relevant quote from "The placebo response in human evolution" Medical Hypotheses (2005) 64, 414–416
"Being the ‘‘enhanced CNS–body interactions/placebo sensitivity’’ a biological trait, it was and is susceptible to bear genetic polymorphisms and suffer spontaneous mutations; this would explain the well known interindividual variation in the response to placebo [27]"

The bottom line is that some individuals may be responding to placebos like homeopathy not because of their "mindset" and "ignorance of science", but because they are genetically wired that way

As far as the potential harm to science and "real" medicine, I find that such concerns are overly paranoid. If a homeopathic medicine doesn't treat someone's pain, they will likely switch to a synthetic substance, so in the end, the best pain-killer wins.

Randi never says that it harms science/medicine, his objection is that homeopathic medicine is based on deception. However, I contend that it's "benign deception", and may result in an improved quality of life to people with proper genes.

The real debate is not whether people healing themselves through self-deception harms science, but what the doctors should do about it.

Consider the two scenarios:

1. An old lady comes to the doctor's office asking to renew her prescription for a tonic, which she says did wonders for her back. The doctor knows the tonic has no active ingredients, should he renew?

2. The doctor has recently learned that fake brain surgery that which actually just drills holes in the skull but does no brain manipulation has a significant benefit to Parkinson sufferers. However for the benefit to occur, the person has to think that real surgery took place. Should the doctor recommend this procedure? Should they charge the cost of full surgery in order to enhance the "expectation effect"?

Both examples are real situations faced by doctors I came across when doing some research on this. The first case seems to be pretty clear cut -- tonics have no harmful effects, and are cheap to boot, so most doctors would renew. The second case is much more controversial, especially if they charge for the full procedure.

weird, worked for me.... might need to stop using natural oil in sifty, his manual calls for synthetic.

from wikipedia:

It has also recently been discovered that the mucus excreted by the hagfish is unique in that it includes strong, threadlike fibres similar to spider silk. What is interesting about hagfish slime is that it is fibre-reinforced. No other slime secretion known is reinforced with fibres in the way Hagfish slime is. The fibres are about as fine as spider silk (averaging two micrometres), but can be twelve centimetres long. When the coiled fibres leave the Hagfishes' 'slime' gland, they unravel quickly to their full length without tangling. Research continues into potential uses for this or a similar synthetic gel or of the included fibres. Some possibilities include new biodegradable polymers, space-filling gels, and as a means of stopping blood flow in accident victims and surgery patients.

Rembar, go back to the video and listen at about 3:22. He says "the amygdala says this is not a safe place for birth... and the process of labour shuts down voluntarily until a safe haven can be found to birth"

He doesn't say the amygdala shuts down, but the process of labour does. He is absolutely correct in saying this, because when a woman experiences fear in labour, adrenalin neutralises oxytocin, which causes contractions to come to a screeching halt.

Later he says "the amygdala shuts down the system", meaning the system of birth and the interplay of hormones that I just described.

I have also been involved in many births, as a doula, and a brief stint as a trainee midwife and as a mother. I can tell you from my experience in all of these situations, that when a woman is afraid, her labour is sabotaged.

I can also tell you from my experience of birthing in a hospital, that hospitals can make a woman terrified. Routine procedures like putting an IV insert into her wrist upon arrival "just in case you need to have a caesarian" do nothing to send a positive message that she is going to be able to deliver with ease.

Telling a woman that her baby is in fetal distress because "It's not moving enough (prior to the onset of established labour), and telling her that "If you don't get it out today, chances are it will have an apgar score of 4 or less and its survival will be compromised" is using absolutely disgraceful fear tactics and is the kind of lies women are told, to get them to agree to hospital procedures like inducing labour at 10 days past the due date.

My amygdala serves me well in remembering these words, because the birth of my little girl was one of the most devastating days of my life. Not because she was in distress (she had apgars of 9 and 10), not because she was born with compromised well-being, she was perfectly healthy, but because birthing her was like going into battle.

We had to fight for the right to birth her naturally throughout the entire labour. Eight hours into established and difficult labour (because let me tell you, synthetic pitocin is no party. My cervix tore from the force of its unnaturally rapid dilation) the good doctor wanted to speed things up with an IV!

I'm happy to say that Dag was an amazing advocate for me, and we staved off the lions and did the rest of the labour naturally.

So, if you have any more questions about why hospitals are not a safe place to birth for the happy and healthy, just forward them to me, I'd be happy to tell you details of not-so-lucky women.

In reply to your comment:
“Deathcow, I'm not sure how closely you read into my previous comment, but I'm not talking about his conclusions. I agree to a large extent with his larger social and economic reasoning for why hospitals push women towards surgical procedures and chemically-induced contractions to speed up births. But that's no excuse for scientifically inaccurate claims. He's wrong. There's no two ways about it. Unless of course, in the middle of all those births, you witnessed some poor woman's amygdala shutting down and stopping her contractions in the middle of labor because a hospital setting scared her.”

Rembar, go back to the video and listen at about 3:22. He says "the amygdala says this is not a safe place for birth... and the process of labour shuts down voluntarily until a safe haven can be found to birth"

He doesn't say the amygdala shuts down, but the process of labour does. He is absolutely correct in saying this, because when a woman experiences fear in labour, adrenalin neutralises oxytocin, which causes contractions to come to a screeching halt.

Later he says "the amygdala shuts down the system", meaning the system of birth and the interplay of hormones that I just described.

I have also been involved in many births, as a doula, and a brief stint as a trainee midwife and as a mother. I can tell you from my experience in all of these situations, that when a woman is afraid, her labour is sabotaged.

I can also tell you from my experience of birthing in a hospital, that hospitals can make a woman terrified. Routine procedures like putting an IV insert into her wrist upon arrival "just in case you need to have a caesarian" do nothing to send a positive message that she is going to be able to deliver with ease.

Telling a woman that her baby is in fetal distress because "It's not moving enough (prior to the onset of established labour), and telling her that "If you don't get it out today, chances are it will have an apgar score of 4 or less and its survival will be compromised" is using absolutely disgraceful fear tactics and is the kind of lies women are told, to get them to agree to hospital procedures like inducing labour at 10 days past the due date.

My amygdala serves me well in remembering these words, because the birth of my little girl was one of the most devastating days of my life. Not because she was in distress (she had apgars of 9 and 10), not because she was born with compromised well-being, she was perfectly healthy, but because birthing her was like going into battle.

We had to fight for the right to birth her naturally throughout the entire labour. Eight hours into established and difficult labour (because let me tell you, synthetic prostaglandin is no party. My cervix tore from the force of its unnaturally rapid dilation) the good doctor wanted to speed things up with an IV of more oxytocin!

I'm happy to say that Dag was an amazing advocate for me, and we staved off the lions and did the rest of the labour naturally.

So, if you have any more questions about why hospitals are not a safe place to birth for the happy and healthy, just forward them to me, I'd be happy to tell you details of not-so-lucky women whose stories make mine look like a picnic.

You mean our celebrities aren't synthetic already? (5:22)

Is that a computer generated voice being used? Sentences sound extremely synthetic to me!

Where does this computer get its facts from? The Christian online wikipedia?!

This has got to be a parody...I can't believe anyone would think this, never-mind produce something so incredibly incorrect and laughably made (what's the music all about?)

Just watched the end: guess not!

"real commercial from 80s that sells synthetic (fake) cocaine"

Wicked pissah Boston/New England accent.