gjm comments on Rationality Quotes Thread November 2015 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: elharo 02 November 2015 12:30PM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 19 November 2015 08:09:08PM 0 points [-]

Acupuncture is on the list. I even thought about something different.

Comment author: gjm 20 November 2015 01:03:34AM *  0 points [-]

I'm pretty sure I've seen you say positive things about chiropractic before, so my guess is that that's what you have in mind. There's e.g. this from Cochrane, which is less than a ringing endorsement but can be described without actual dishonesty as "say[ing] it can produce positive medical effects".

[EDITED to add: isn't "chiropractic" a horrible word? It surely ought to be "chiropractice" or "chiropraxis" depending on how pretentiously classicist one wants to be. Perhaps it's no worse than "physic" or "arithmetic", but it always feels wrong to me.]

Comment author: ChristianKl 20 November 2015 06:38:14PM 0 points [-]

There's a huge difference between grantic that a process has significant positive clinical effects and recommending the process.

To the extend that the first is true, I don't think it makes sense to argue that chiropractic is bad pseudoscience. To recommend it you have to compare it's advantges and disadvantages to other forms of treatment and I don't claim that it regularly wins out when you do that.