NeuroLogica Blog

>The barrier of entry to biology is artificially high due to all sorts of reasons, mostly regulatory.
Considering the nature of the placebo affect and the difference between feeling better and being better, I am skeptical of pulling down many of the barriers to DIY biology. Forgive me if I am misunderstanding and making a straw-man here, but we already have therapies that do not work, such as acupuncture or a wide range of So Called Alternative Medicines. "Stem cell" treatments that are outright fraud already exist [0,1]. My fear is that this will be replicated with CRISPR technology. Personally, I would like treatments that work and am skeptical that the market could decide what's best (I don't think this is the argument that you are making, but I want to address it nonetheless). The CRISPR babies that I believe you were referring to are an example of needing regulations. One rogue doctor made changes to their genome that are not preventative. This was incredibly shoddy work that should not be applauded [6].
I would also argue that the barrier is not artificially high. Doing biological research is incredibly difficult. Unlike with your analogy to Tesla, people can die from treatments [2]. Additionally,with CRISPR there are off target affects that need to be understood before wide scale use [3]. There is great promise in biotech [4,5]. However, the consequence are not just billion dollar explosions, but lives. I may be over dramatizing, but I think a careful approach is…

From the article: "Kaptchuk . . . doesn’t argue that you can simply 'think yourself better.' 'Sham treatment won’t shrink tumors or cure viruses,' he says."

That's an honest statement and an important point, because many publications with Kaptchuk's name on them are overinterpreted to reach the conclusion that there is a "real" placebo effect that can actually cure disease. In fact, there is no strong evidence of that at all.

This issue has come up often enough on Hacker News that I have gathered some links that are helpful for understanding what placebo effects are all about. Some of these online links cite quite a few useful scholarly publications.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/michael-specter-on-the-placebo-effect/

"In other words, the best research we have strongly suggests that placebo effects are illusions, not real physiological effects. The possible exception to this are the subjective symptoms of pain and nausea, where the placebo effects are highly variable and may be due to subjective reporting."

Numerous press releases on the Web point to publications co-authored by Ted Kaptchuk, the main person profiled in the article kindly submitted here. Although Kaptchuk has the academic title of an associate professor of medicine, he has no medical training or credentials or clinical experience in independently verified patient…

Dr. Steven Novella on brainwave entrainment, from 2008:

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/brainwave-entrainment-and-marketing-pseudoscience/

"That is generally where the science ends and the pseudoscience begins. A number of companies and individuals have then extrapolated from the phenomenon of entrainment to claim that altering the brain waves changes the actual functioning of the brain. There is no theoretical or empirical basis for this, however. Entrainment is a temporary effect on the synchronization of neuronal firing – it does not improve or increase brain functioning, it does not change the hardwiring, nor does it cure any neurological disorder. There is no compelling evidence for any effect beyond the period of entrainment itself."

I do like the "Cyberpunk" atmosphere of some of the music. But their other claims require some extraordinary evidence.

For example, does this impart any more benefit than me listening to my favorite working music whilst working? It doesn't seem to. But I haven't had a chance to sift through their supposed "180 studies"

I think you're thinking this is more likely to be an honest attempt at a medical treatment, with the goal of furthering scientific and medical knowledge. I think that is extraordinarily unlikely. I think it is more likely that this is a scam.

My reasons are that (as others have pointed out), one does not start medical trials on humans; I am unaware of any plausible reason for why this would help in the first place (stem cells are not magic); they apparently did not follow proper protocols for eye treatments (start with one eye instead of both); the women were clearly not informed of the risks; and finally, this was a paid treatment.

For more, see these two blog posts I pointed out in another comment: http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/alzheimers-and-stem-cells/ and http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/more-stem-cell-quackery/

The skeptical movement subscribes to critical thinking, empiricism, and applying the scientific model to find answers. To say that skeptics don't believe in climate change is very untrue.

This is contrasted to denialism which denies claims out of hand. This is not based on scientific data, but gut feeling or motivated reasoning.

Dr. Ichikawa is thus describing denialism in his tweets.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeptical_movement

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism

edit: Here is an article on the distinction from one of the strongest figures in the skeptical movement, Steven Novella. It even focuses on the topic of climate change.

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/skeptic-vs-denier/

A great example of moving the goal post.

Go down the list, as each on is stricken off the supporters will say "it was never about X, it was always about Y".

I'm constantly hearing about how organic food is: Healthier, tastier, or better for the environment. The scientific literature just doesn't hold up with any of those claims. [1]

On top of that, if there was some aspect of organic food that actually did make it better for the environment, then let's just use that with normal farming. Why create an arbitrary new category of food based on a fallacy? [2]

[1] http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/organic-food-pesticides-and-cancer/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature