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
You actually have the power to answer your own question. You are correct that kinetic tape does not work. How did you know that it does not work? Is it because you read the scientific studies and the balance of research and decide that it doesn’t work? Or do you just know people who you trust and who taught this to you, and you accepted it uncritically?
With the answer to that question in mind, consider that you’re incorrect about acupuncture. There’s a lot of evidence it does work! Here’s a thread from /r/medicine where a number of people [discuss the evidence](https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/s/WF4yWTLfcj). As right as you are about kinetic tape, you’re wrong about acupuncture.
People like to say that the people who believe in these homeopathic treatments don’t look at evidence. What’s worth considering is that the people who understand these things *also* don’t look at the evidence. Including you! (And me!) Instead, we tend to listen to recommendations from people we trust. Personally, I know many doctors and have many experiences that leads me to trust them. But these experiences are not things like “I quizzed them on anatomy and verified their expertise,” they are things like “my half brother is a doctor” and “my doctors have always been kind and empathetic”. These are not rational and logical, they’re emotional. And by a similar token, I can empathize with those who *don’t* trust doctors for similarly irrational reasons. Maybe you should too.
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