Quotes about Placebo

Producer, Scientist, Ethologist

Either it is true that a medicine works or it isn't. It cannot be false in the ordinary sense but true in some alternative sense. If a therapy or treatment is anything more than a placebo, properly conducted double-blind trials, statistically analyzed, will eventually bring it through with flying colours. Many candidates for recognition as orthodox medicines fail the test and are summarily dropped. The alternative label should not (though, alas, it does) provide immunity from the same fate.

Alternative - Atheism - Blindness - Colors - Failing - Fate - Flying - Immunity - Labeling - Medicine - Ordinary - Placebo - Recognition - Therapy - Trial

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Richard Dawkins

Producer, Scientist, Ethologist

It's known that stress gives rise to disease. It's also known that many diseases, especially stress-related diseases, can be cured by placebos - pills that have no medicinal effect, but people think they do, and so they do.

Disease - Effectiveness - Giving - Knowledge - People - Placebo - Stress - Thinking

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