Talk:Acupressure

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Contents 1 Otzi 2 NPOV? 3 Puff removal 4 Copying 5 EBM summary in lead 6 revert explanation - monthly statement 7 Merge 8 Category:Pseudoscience

[edit] Otzi

The otzi tattoos with acupressure are all speculation. Not all of the points on him are equivalent to the meridian system. Further, no one knows as to their function - decorative vs. relgious (warding off evil) vs. medical. To state that the Otzi mummy possessed parasites and arthritis is pointless, as thousands of years ago, everyone had arthritis, parasites, and disease. Kennethtennyson 23:45, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV?

-- There is no discussion in this article of the efficacy of acupressure, nor any links to peer-reviewed studies of same. ONe science based criticism of acupuncture/acupressure can be found at the National Council Against Health Fraud's web site: http://www.ncahf.org/pp/acu.html —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.4.219.2 (talk • contribs) 18:25, 22 February 2006.

[edit] Puff removal

I disagree on the statement removal. (I was the one who added it) I wanted to say that 'even if the whole theory of Acupressure is complete bunk that doesn't mean you can't still enjoy it.' Don't you think that is a worthy statement? In the sense of, the article need not to be entirely about the science, and the merits of said science, of Acupressure theory. MaxMangel 12:30, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, acupressure is a belief system. Partititioners and patients believe it works regardless whether it is scientifically sound. Write the article in such a way that it does not claim any scientific facts. Just state what the unproven theory is. Wikipedia has many articles on religions, no one needs to proof the existence of the Almighty as long as you say it is a belief, not a fact. Why can't this article written the same way too? Kowloonese 23:45, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copying

http://www.crystalinks.com/acupressure.html It seems that this page is word-for-word the same as this Wikipedia page. Should someone contact the person who owns that page?

[edit] EBM summary in lead

I don't agree with the first clause of this sentence: "With the exception of a disputed study on the P6 point, acupressure has not been proved to the scientific standards of evidence-based medicine (cf. Cochrane Collaboration)." First, it's not a matter of one but a collection of studies in meta-analysis. Second, there is little or no dispute among EBM reviewers Cochrane and Bandolier. One author in SRAM, run by a notoriously biased gang, disagrees. That disagreement doesn't constitute "hot debate" among EBM reviewers. I changed it to "With the exception of stimulation of the P6 point for nausea, acupressure has not been proved to the scientific standards of evidence-based medicine (cf. Cochrane Collaboration)." Jim Butler 09:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Following the lead section garnered consensus in acupuncture, I've now changed the lead here to say: Whether acupressure is efficacious or a placebo is subject to scientific research. There is no scientific consensus over whether or not evidence supports efficacy. Reviews of existing clinical trials have been conducted by the Cochrane Collaboration and Bandolier according to the protocols of evidence-based medicine; for most conditions they have concluded a lack of effectiveness or lack of well-conducted clinical trials. The stuff on P6 and low back pain follows after a paragraph or two. -Jim Butler 21:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Jim, this is unacceptable. Please see [points 8 and 9 of my Editing principles for Pseudoscience articles in wikipedia]. Also, my understanding, perhaps mistaken, is that acupressure is a western adaptation. Please cite a ref for it being TCM. I've checked my Cochrane and Bandolier stuff. As far as I can see the best result is that one in four adults have reduced early post-operative reduction of nausea, not vomiting. Pls remind me of other relevant studies. Your continued disparagement of sources you don't like is not helpful. If you want to attack the ideas, by all means do so, but don't label people a notoriously biased gang. You should know better. It's also not based on the same principles (if we are taling sticking needles into people), it's based on the same theories. I'll try to limit my edits on the rest until we have consensus if we can achieve it. I've also borrowed some words from acupunture about paradigms. If they are unacceptable we can come up with something else. Mccready 10:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Noticed I'd missed this from earlier, so: On the bias of authors associated with the NCAHF, please see my comments on my talk page[1]. On acupressure and TCM, As I mentioned below, what we refer to as acupressure is one form of tuina. It's taught in TCM programs in China and elsewhere, and many American schools include some training in it. Hope we'll see you back soon Kevin and the above is just for the record. cheers, Jim Butler^(talk) 06:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] revert explanation - monthly statement

hi jim, this is to give you the courtesy of explaining my revert. you said Many (probably most) practitioners don't take it literally). I don't accept this unsourced conclusion. "conceptual framework" gives it a grander cachet. It is a belief system. Your notions of when "science" began appear to be OR. So I've reverted that too. I have aboriginal friends who've lived in a continuous culture for at least 60,000 years. Their scientific knowledge of flora and fauna and their ability to think logically and scientifically about such things is nothing short of stunning. talk to any australian scientist whose ever had anything to do with aborigines in this regard and you're likely to hear the same remark. Pity that the whites have wiped out large bodies of knowledge. Mccready 04:15, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I edit lots of pseudoscience articles, among others, and wanted as a matter of courtesy to let editors here know where I am coming from. Please check my Editing principles for pseudoscience articles. I'm always keen to talk and try to reach consensus. Mccready 04:15, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi Kevin, thanks for the discussion (am copying all this to acupressure page). One of the things I truly appreciate about your edits here, even if I'm sometimes frustrated by them, is that they frequently make me think and dig more deeply into the issues we're discussing. I agree with your point about "scientific thinking" predating, and don't mind your reverting my edit on that. However, you need to come up with a better reason for using the term "belief system" in place of "principles" (or "ideas", etc.) It adds a gratuitous judgement about the attitudes of people who developed and used the system, some of whom may be as on-the-ball scientifically as your aboriginal friends. You want a source for practitioners not taking TCM as literal truth? Try Kaptchuk (Web, 1983 ed., pp. 34-35):

These ideas are cultural and speculative constructs that provide orientation and direction for the practical patient situation. There are few secrets of Oriental wisdom buried here. When presented outside the context of Chinese civilization, or of practical diagnosis and therapeutics, these ideas are fragmented and without great significance. The "truth" of these ideas lies in the way the physician can use them to treat real people with real complaints. They are valuable because they comprise a medical paradigm that makes possible the substantive discussion of "what is going on", thereby allowing the physician to diagnose patterns of disharmony. Through diagnosis and treatment the ideas are pragmatically tested and examined for validity, consistency, and truth.

Kaptchuk is a pretty well-known disseminator of TCM in the West, and his point goes to the heart of the issue of "belief". You may dismiss his take as apologetics, but in fact there some acupucturists (like me) who are comfortable with a fundamentally pragmatic view of TCM, and this is what Kaptchuk is getting at. (Philosophical tangent: have you read Rorty on pragmatism?) People who think along such lines are more interested in how TCM theory can help them achieve clinical goals than in whether or not to believe in it. For for a Taoist priest, TCM is likely a belief system, but not necessarily for others.

So why "go there"? I hope you don't make "belief system" your next pet lead-section riff. cheers, Jim Butler 08:16, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

How about speculative constructs? Mccready 12:02, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Or how about bullshit?  ;-) Seriously, what is wrong with the plainly descriptive term ideas? Jim Butler 13:51, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we owe it to the reader to let them know it's unscientific, based on a diff paradigm to what they might expect in health care. Ideas doesn't quite convey that. Mccready 14:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Howzabout the riff from TCM article (just added)? Jim Butler 14:44, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Consensus. Well done to us both. Bullshit might have been another option :-) Mccready 02:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

Yes - Hi Firestar - agree with merge. Acupressure is a subset of tuina; the latter also includes various massage and manupilative techniques (e.g., this link). So I'd think after merging that acupressure should redirect to tuina. Cheers, Jim Butler^(talk) 09:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Pseudoscience

There was some discussion recently at Category talk:Pseudoscience about when to use this cat. User:FeloniousMonk, an admin, said that NPOV explicitly allows for a topic to be categorized as pseudoscience when a majority of scientists believe that topic is pseudoscientific[2]. FM was rather adamant that this was a dead issue and, because it is part of WP:NPOV, non-negotiable[3]. I expressed some reservations about FM's conclusions, but was happy go along with what he said was existing consensus[4].

If FM is correct, then we can put a topic in Category:Pseudoscience if we can show that a majority of scientists believe it is pseudoscientific. The burden of evidence, per WP:V, is with those who wish the cat to remain. For notorious pseudosciences like intelligent design, that's easy: there are plenty of reliable sources stating scientific consensus. For acupressure, I don't know if such evidence exists. If it doesn't, then I don't see how we can use the cat. There are many scientifically dubious fields on which most scientists haven't voiced their opinions, and if WP:V won't let us use the cat, c'est la vie. But we can of course still say in the article that so-and-so says acupressure is pseudoscientific, for X and Y reasons.

So what is scientific consensus on whether acupressure is a pseudoscience? Damned if I know. Obviously the idea of the meridian system is based on Chinese metaphysics, but the efficacy of treating the actual acupoint is subject to scientific research, and (cf. article) some of it enters into EBM territory. The fact that the term "pseudoscience" is used in various ways[5] doesn't help either. Until someone can provide a good source meeting what FM says is WP's "majority of scientists" standard, I think removing the cat is justified. Thanks, Jim Butler^(talk) 16:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Just like people are not allowed to edit articles about themselves, I'm not sure how appropriate it is that you are trying to enforce your own conclusions - and then somehow treating that as if the text at the category page is an independant thing you can cite. So the admin made you conceed ground, but you are still doing the thing you wanted to do anyway - so forgive us if we take your 'enforcement' with a grain of salt.

You are throwing up barriers to using this category by defining the citable sources as small as possible - so that the only way we can define this as pseudoscientific is if a international study has been done on scientists beliefs on this category. That is a ridiculous assessment because it would require ninety-eight percent of the articles within the category to be removed. Intelligent design might be the only one left. Have you treated every other article in this category the same way? I believe the simple wide ranging opinion of those who are vocal about psuedoscientific subjects should serve as a reasonable form of citation. MaxMangel 13:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi MaxMangel. I've edited my comments down for the sake of brevity. Nutshell, I think that depopulating the category is a good idea, though not as drastically as FM's approach (taken literally) would, and not for the same reasons. (My citing previous discussion - meant as a courtesy to help others follow the thread.)

My concern is simply this: we should be careful about using categories when there are "grey" areas. With such topics, it's better to make the case for all sides in the article and refrain from using the cat tag. This is what WP:CG says, and seems to me to be entirely consistent with the letter and spirit of NPOV. Do you disagree?

I agree that the criticisms you mention are fine to cite in articles ("Carroll calls X pseudoscience for Y reasons"). I don't agree that they necessarily represent scientific consensus, or that their views suffice for categorization. You've offered no evidence as to how widely held their views are. Remember WP:V#Burden_of_evidence and WP:NPOV#Undue_weight. The latter says "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts."

If a viewpoint can't be shown to be a majority (even among scientists), why should we categorize something on that basis? Should WP let all significant minority views dictate categorizations? Can of worms. Thanks, Jim Butler^(talk) 23:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

have to agree with max. the fact that scientists don't have time to dismiss crap doesn't alter the fact that we can judge it to be crap. see discussion on my page. Mccready 15:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

See WP:CG and WP:V#Burden_of_evidence. Nice essay on your page but I missed the part about how it superseded WP policies.  ;-) BTW, welcome back.  :-) cheers, Jim Butler^(talk) 16:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

So come on then, where are the scientific papers from controlled trials in peer-reviewed journals demonstrating it is science? The burdon of proof is on those who follow this sort of stuff, not the other way round. — Dunc|☺ 21:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you in the habit of actually reading articles that you edit? Four reviews (three from highly respected EBM reviewers, e.g. Cochrane Collaboration) referenced in the article cite at least a dozen such trials[6][7][8][9]. Acupressure's efficacy is amenable to research, is being researched, and legitimate debate about it exists in the peer-reviewed mainstream literature. The view that it is pseudoscience is nonetheless still held by some. There is no indication of scientific consensus in either direction. I suspect a large number of scientists are simply unsure at this point.

The burden of evidence is on those who want an edit to remain. If I want to place this in "category:EBM" or some such thing, I bear the burden. If you want to place it in category:pseudoscience, you bear the burden, which you have not met.

Use of a cat endorses a POV. Removal of the cat endorses no POV. Discussion of significant POV's should be in the article, without a single POV unqualifiedly endorsed by a cat. Read WP:CG.

Please undo your revert. Please take the time to read articles and discussion before reverting. In the spirit of good science, please look at the evidence before defending a preordained conclusion. thanks, Jim Butler^(talk) 23:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Just added a section on criticism as pseudoscience. Never let it be said I don't write for the enemy. NPOV is great, but not the POVish category:pseudoscience in this case. Jim Butler^(talk) 09:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

With regards to your quote "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts." - yes, that is no problem. I can do exactly what the quote asks for. But, you are saying, "oh, finding lots of opinions by widely accepted reference texts isn't enough evidence to show it is a majority view" essentially the opposite of the meaning of the sentence you are quoting. The entire point of the above quote is to escape this rigmoral of debate by making the process easier of showing what is a majority view - looking to widely accepted reference texts and seeing what they say with regards to the issue. Widely accepted reference texts on the subject of pseudoscience treat accupressure as pseudoscience - this is enough evidence to demonstrait it as a majority view according to the wikipedia policy you yourself are quoting. It's all very plain English really. I trust you will do the right thing and revert the article. MaxMangel 07:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Max, didn't see your comments until today. Which reference texts specifically are you speaking of? Can you show that these texts represent the consensus of the scientific community? Please show me a text that is widely-accepted as reporting scientific consensus on the subject of acupuncture's efficacy, or acupressure's efficacy, or whether these are pseudoscientific and why. Carroll's SkepDic or Randi's essays are preaching to the choir; they can be taken as representing a "hard skeptical" viewpoint, but not necessarily a majority. Given that there is scientific evidence for acupressure's efficacy, using cat:pseudosci is misleading to the reader. What is wrong with the simple NPOV approach of just presenting the different POV's and arguments in the article, without using categories to endorse any single POV? Thanks, Jim Butler^(talk) 02:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I conceed that avoiding the tag and simply discussing all the issues in the article is a viable path, but that is not what is under debate here - that is simply an escape route if no compromise can be found. What is under debate is whether the majority of scientists view acupressure as psuedoscientific and whether that can be verified such that the tag can be attached. Your attempts to change the topic from this is not appropriate.

Now, just have a look at how many qualifiers you put into your requirements for the things I can cite. This is exactly what I'm talking about - now your asking I produce a citation that defines acupressure as psuedoscientific BUT I'm not allowed to cite people who deal primarily in defining and discussing psuedoscientific topics because...because...why? Because then I'd have easy access to a citation...

Like I've said before, on the one hand you demand citation, on the other you try to make sure that there is nothing and nobody who can possibly be cited. Which instutuition that deals primarily with discussing psuedoscience does meet your lofty criteria? You tell me. How about CSICOP then? Or is that one too "hard skeptic" as well? --MaxMangel 06:06, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

MM, you might assume a little more good faith here. The fact that we don't agree doesn't mean one of us is being disingenuous. Here's why I think that cat:pseudoscience is problematic under both WP:V and NPOV.

On WP:V: Popular literature, and literature by advocacy groups, can't by default be presumed to represent either popular or scientific consensus. That should be pretty obvious. Please read the relevant section of WP:RS. There is nothing wrong with writing primarily about pseudoscientific topics. There is also nothing wrong with asking for whom such authors speak, and how you are sure of this. Just because someone is a well-known skeptic doesn't mean that everything he says represents scientific consensus. Penn and Teller are well-known for their TV show Bullshit!, and on one episode they dismissed scientific consensus on global warming[10].

Please tell me specifically which text(s) you had in mind for citation, and why you think they represent scientific consensus. Or do you really want to say that scientific consensus doesn't matter here? That would be a pretty ironic stance to take on pseudoscience.  :-)

On NPOV, my concerns about the POVishness of using some categories echo WP:CG, and I think it's completely appropriate to point that out. There is no compromise between having something be in a cat or not, so citing relevant WP guidelines and appealing to NPOV seems to make perfect sense. Maybe you could clarify whether or not you disagree with WP:CG on this issue.

I acknowledge that are some good arguments for acupressure's TCM theory being pseudoscientific, cf. the article. One can also find in peer-reviewed literature good arguments for its efficacy. One can also find plenty of studies showing that its claims are testable, and that they're taken seriously enough by scientists to be subject to testing. Given that situation, I argue that using cat:pseudoscience is inaccurate, one-sided and misleading to the reader. Thanks, Jim Butler^(talk) 07:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I conceed defeat. I'm not prepared to put in more time and effort(and money) into research only to be told that this source or that quote is quite good enough to satisfy all the criteria you've established and get led into an endless debate. Your arguments are obviously not entirely without merit. Anyway, well done. MaxMangel 06:19, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Max, thanks. I think there is merit on both sides. Hopefully the article can convey that in an NPOV way. best regards, Jim Butler^(talk) 06:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)