4 ms·
The placebo "effect" is not some magical effect that heals people, it's just a bias in reporting the results combined with a regression to the mean.
by heliumcraft 10y ago
The placebo "effect" is not some magical effect that heals people, it's just a bias in reporting the results combined with a regression to the mean.
- collyw 10y agoI could see it being a lot more than that. Its well known that stress worsens many conditions, so I see no reason that having "positive thoughts" wouldn't do the opposite.
- heliumcraft 10y agoA lot of the worsening/improvement is a perceived one. Also the point of doing double blind experiments with a placebo as the control is that if the new medication doesn't do better than a placebo then it effectively proves that it doesn't work.