Eli5: how are treatments like acupuncture, kinetic tape and homeopathy still a thing, if scientific studies disproving their effectiveness are publicly available to everyone and doctors?
In: Biology
Ok, so this is a weirder one than you think. How people get things wrong in “that way” rears its head in other ways. Take your question: why do people incorrectly and irrationally declare things as disproved by science when they aren’t?
Like you confidently declared 3 categories bunk. But the first one you mention is scientifically studied and validated as real, evidence based medicine. You lumped acupuncture in with homeopathy. Why would you do that? Science validates the medical efficacy of acupuncture, even if its mechanisms are mysterious and may be as simple as “stimulating pain receptors with needles excites the brain to heal the body better”. Or whatever other reason it can work.
We don’t know why you thought acupuncture is in the same realm of fake as homeopathy. A small amount of scholarly research would have prevented you from making this error. But you have a bias, for whatever reason.
Similarly, other people come to their biases in all kinds of ways. Some because placebos do sometimes heal, and people want to believe it’s mechanistically medicine. Or, someone has better knowledge than the mainstream on one topic and so are willing to believe fake things contrary to the mainstream on another topic. Some people are just contrarians. Some people need these things to maintain their religions. Some people just never paid any attention. Some people can’t weight, rank, and compare categories. A lot of people have been failed by the medical establishment and come up with all kinds of theories in response.
People are wrong about known things for all kinds of reasons, confidently wrong. The existence of doctors not believing in homeopathy won’t deter loads of folks from swearing by it. Nor will the studied efficacy of acupuncture stop many people from prejudging it to be fake.
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