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[Article] Not just smoke and feathers! - framing the effectiveness of shamanic medicine in terms of placebo effects alone does not do justice to the sophistication of shamanic practice (www.essentiafoundation.org)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/interestingshare@lemmy.zip
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cross-posted from: https://leminal.space/post/31736049

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[–] 2 points 9 months ago (8 children)

I know enough about various bullshit medicines to recognise the pattern. If they want to break out of it, they'll have to manage to prove themselves quite strongly before I go trust blindly some magic belief.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    What u define as proof if it's people saying they feel better? Are u saying they don't?

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

    I'm talking scientific protocol.

    Furthermore, people saying they feel better isn't enough.

    Most sect members will say that being a member is amazing, should we all join sects then? What is this absurdity to think that the subjective interpretation of people is what makes a medicine work?

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    How u objectively prove someone isn't feeling better when they say so?

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    I did not deny that they feel better. On the contrary, my point was exactly that they do feel better. And that it doesn't matter.

    If you have a cancer, and shaman healing makes you feel better, you'll still die.

    The scientific protocol allows to determine what is the source of the feeling, for example by comparing with placebo.

    Does shaman healing work better than someone doing fake shaman healing rituals? I doubt it, but bring up studies that prove me wrong and I'll be fine with it, at least to some extent.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 9 months ago* (3 children)

    why u bringing cancer into this? nobody's saying smoking some plant is gonna cure ur cancer. how u gonna know how people feel emotionally except to ask them?

    also i think u can google: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397594404_Shamanism_as_a_Clinical_Intervention_A_Scoping_Review shamanic healing helps with ptsd and chronic pain by literally changing ur heart rate variability and brain waves

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    So you're not reading what I'm writing, or not understanding it? A trial versus placebo allows you to test whether people feel better because of a practice, or just because they convinced themselves they feel better. If any dude that pretends to be a shaman has the same positive effect as an actual shaman, then shamanism is bullshit. It's as simple as it gets.

    The study you linked is basically just a summary of a bunch of papers that contain extremely small sample sizes (one person for most of them), no comparison with placebo, and the conclusion is "our sources are very unreliable, people's beliefs in shamanism matter heavily for it to work, and overall we can't be sure that it works, but it could be worth looking into". It means absolutely nothing at all, if anything, it means that it's unlikely that shamanism has anymore healing properties than any other magical belief.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    u asked for studies to prove u wrong & i gave u a 2025 review of 16 papers and now u move the goalposts because u don't like the results.

    it's mental health. if a ritual helps someone with ptsd and literally changes their heart rate and brain waves, it's working. hrv and gamma waves don't just 'convince themselves' to change. u can't say it's 'nothing' just because it's not a pill.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Yeah, sorry, by "study" I obviously meant "proper study"

    Then if they can't convince themselves, prove it by comparing with placebo. And if you can't, it's just another scam like homeopathy that goes "it works but you can't prove it through science", which is worthless.

    All of this is just basic scientific protocol, I did not move anything, I said from the start that it needs to be proven scientifically.

    Also, the study you linked, as I already said, concludes that it is absolutely not proof of anything, and that beliefs matter a lot it in (so people don't convince themselves, but yet their beliefs affect the results?)

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