Speed the 150-year-old tortoise dies at San Diego Zoo

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17. It is unethical for physicians to prescribe placebos.

The reason? Because a placebo is, scientifically, a null effect, in other words the same as doing nothing. But the placebo effect seems to help in non-specific symptoms, like the mere symptoms of life. Pain certainly is one of them. As are many others. But placebo medicine cannot cure disease.

It takes scientific methodology to determine which modalities are useful and which are not. The null hypothesis is doing nothing other than a physician/patient interaction, in other words a placebo. When all one has is a null hypothesis, one has nothing.

Acupuncture is rubbish.