Placebo Wikipedia Article and Reference Fraud

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

Just read the article which claims reference 4 proves this however after reading reference 4 (https://web.archive.org/web/2020052...e-effects/clinical-trials/placebo-effect.html) I couldn't find any proof for this claim.

 

It is very common for the reference to not match the claim or for it to be true but lying in overall effect.

One Wesseley paper had a reference for a claim that all presentations of CFS are the same so there is no need to match participants. The reference was to a paper which said patients should be put into sub categories!

Another time there was a reference to a paper to support the claim brain studies showed that there was no difference between the findings for people with ME and controls in a certain part of the brain. This was true. But the paper was about difference found in another part of the brain! If they had read the paper be for using it as a reference they would have known that, so did they lie?

 

Looking through the history I think that's just an editing error. I passed on the info to someone who might know someone who'll be interested in correcting the article. With Wiki I reckon genuine error outruns intentional malice at least a 100:1

 

Yikes. Weaker than homeopathic hot-dog water sauce.

Literally the premise behind "lie detectors". Yeah, "lie detectors" don't exist either. Also very likely the same design for the Scientology "Thetan"-detecting machine. Lewd thoughts can lead to blood flowing somewhere and thinking about delicious food will get the stomach growling. So what? It's hard to process the mediocrity of this belief system and how it's believed nearly universally.

Literally nothing but "may be" and "could be", the rest being vague attributions with many alternative explanations or suspicious anecdotes. The placebo/nocebo is truly the last great professional belief system, magical thinking is very hard to let go.