David Hamilton

[Farsight]

I think you are as you don't seem to have much of a grasp of what you're talking about.

Not so. This however is true of you.

In researching the role of attitude regarding chronic or potentially fatal illnesses, researchers do take into account the role of optimism or 'positive thinking'. However, they recognise that there are different levels of optimism. Optimism is considered as a useful coping mechanism when it comes to such illnesses (i.e. it's not a cure) but there's 'realistic optimism' and there's 'unrealistic optimism' that are recognised.

No problem. But this does omit the people who didn't get ill.

Unrealistic optimism is where patients veer into magical thinking and it can do more harm than good.

No problem. People who put their trust in homeopathy as opposed to antibiotics can certainly do more harm than good. But when antibiotics are not applicable, and you have a man who walks after he's been written off, was that unrealistic optimism? That optimism, and that determination, and that unwillingness to roll over and die was patently realistic.

What I'm seeing with your argument is that you're failing to separate realistic optimism from unrealistic optimism. Once you start believing that you can think yourself better you can be in danger of making some very poor decisions. Look at the people who think they can take control of or cure their cancer with alternative remedies and 'positive thinking' - they have a tendency to die... of cancer.

I'm separating it. What I'm seeing in your argument is a touting of the line that says a person's mental condition can have no effect upon his well-being. The evidence says otherwise. This is why there's such a thing as patient care. We don't just give them the drugs and turn a blind eye if they don't get fed and have to lie in their own shit for days. Do we? Ah, it seems we do. But hey, that doesn't matter, let's ignore all that and wave/particle duality and spend our time savaging some ex-drug-company guy who has seen at first hand the power of the placebo, or positive thinking, or whatever you want to call it.

See my last post. You've provided links but no actual evidence.

Geddoutofit.

Individual differences! We aren't all identical so some can survive certain diseases whereas other can't.

Just physical differences? You know the answer is no.

But the answer isn't "because 40% were thinking positively".

I didn't say it was.

Here's a question you ought to consider: why is it that when people think negatively they still survive their cancer (or whatever)?

Because the body is still a machine that tries to survive.

If you have a hypothesis that explains why 'positive thinkers' survive life-threatening conditions your hypothesis also needs to account for the positive thinkers who die and the negative thinkers who survive. Otherwise you're just cherry-picking positive thinkers who survive and ignoring the rest. See: Confirmation Bias.

Don't preach to me about confirmation bias, you guys do it all the time, just like you dismiss evidence that doesn't match your conviction. You'll doubtless think that this woman is fooling herself. But she isn't. You are.

[DrS]

You'll doubtless think that this woman is fooling herself. But she isn't. You are.

Doesn't it say that she received chemotherapy and that when that was effective in reducing her tumour, it was removed by surgery?

[Pebble]

Wise up Pebble, stop kidding yourself. This is the real world, a seething mess of vested interest. Do the research.

So let's consider your claim - research is imperfect and does not give unequivocally positive, unbiased results all the time! Who is not living in the real world here? Why not have a look at the first page of your search - glucosamine features in more than 50% of the trials mentioned - no one in the medical community would be surprised at this. I have already addressed the nature of trials, and why one expects to get trials where even an effective agent may give negative results. if you cannot get your head around why this is, then you can never contribute sensibly to debates on this issue.

People get better when you talk nice and give them chalk pills than when you don't. You might wish to label it as something other than positive thinking, but it's mental not physical.

Nope - that is one aspect of the placebo effect, it is much more complicated than that. Further, no one has shown a beneficial effect of the placebo effect on the underlying pathobiology of disease, only with the ability to deal with the symptoms and physiological responses under autonomic control. Dealing more successfully with symptoms can indeed influence survival - in a palliative fashion, not curatively. This is where you have left reality behind in your assertions.

As an example - relaxation techniques can be used to lower blood pressure, no one has been able to show that such lowering of blood pressure can reduce the liklihood of stroke, kidney failure or heart attack. However, medicines despite producing less blood pressure lowering (average 5/3mmHg) are effective in this respect.

[Janot]

there's clear evidence that electrons and protons and thus people really are made of waves.

And here is clear evidence that you have not the slightest idea what you are talking about. It just sounds nice. You are not David Hamilton by any chance are you?

Explain to me, with relevant equations, the statement "electrons are made of waves". Oh, and don't just provide a link to somewhere which you would like to be able to understand - produce Schroedinger's equation yourself, and explain in your own words the interpretation of it when applied to an electron. Or a proton. Or a banana. Your choice.

[Pebble]

Here you go Farsight, I don't agree with all the deductions by the authors, but it is a pretty good round up of the effect of 'expectations' on response - or as we call it here the placebo effect. Quite distinct you will note from the 'power of positive thinking', though clearly some overlap since expecting the best can be regarded as positive thinking. However, the point is that expectations need to be induced by appropriate cues, it is not a simple as optimist good, pessimist bad.

http://www.annals.org/content/136/6/471.full

[Croydon Bob]

You are not David Hamilton by any chance are you?

Nope. he's definitely John “Dickhead” Duffield, the bloke who knows nothing about physics.

And now we know he doesn’t understand biology either.

Care to have a crack at chemistry John?