I seldom care whether something that works for me personally is a placebo or not. If I can harness the power of my brain with a sugar pill, excellent. The place

I seldom care whether something that works for me personally is a placebo or not. If I can harness the power of my brain with a sugar pill, excellent. The placebo effect is powerful, and was the basis of a lot of medicine before the 20th century. Where it does matter, obviously, is science, which is the only tool we have to come up with solutions that are better than placebo. But "better than placebo" is a fairly high standard[1]. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19246102 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19246102: "The placebo effect accounted for 68% of the effect in the drug groups. Whereas clinical trials need to control the placebo effect, clinical practice should attempt to use its full power."