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Futile acupuncture debate 

 •  • by Paul Ingraham
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Weekly nuggets of pain science news and insight, usually 100-300 words, with the occasional longer post. The blog is the “director’s commentary” on the core content of PainScience.com: a library of major articles and books about common painful problems and popular treatments. See the blog archives or updates for the whole site.

I know who I think won this acupuncture debate, but of course none of the arguments will convince anyone who has already made up their minds. There just aren’t many fence-sitters left on this topic. My commenting on it is just “virtue signalling,”?Virtue signalling is the conspicuous expression of moral values done primarily with the intent of enhancing standing within a social group. Next time you post to social media, ask yourself: “Am I virtue signalling? And so what if I am? flying the Team Science flag.

Dr. David Colquhoun acerbically tweeted about this paper: “Just more manufactured doubt from quacks (as used by tobacco industry). Why does BMJ do this so often?” Completely agree. I think the BMJ is just perpetuating what is now closer to a manufactroversy than a legit controversy.

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