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TV Show "The Healer" (TLC Channel)

bilby said:
Thomas II said:
bilby said:
Not a guess; A logical deduction, based on his claims in his "paper" and on his website, plus my knowledge and understanding of basic science.

The guy remains a fraud regardless of how convincing or personable you think he is in his videos; regardless of how impressed anyone else might be by his purported feats; and regardless of what new evidence he presents. Further video anecdotes cannot possibly change the simple and easily deduced fact that he is full of shit, and it would be a waste of my time to watch these.

Your "argument" is equivalent to telling someone who has read Genesis and worked out that it cannot possibly describe reality that he is only guessing that The Bible is not a perfect and infallible guide to reality, because he can't know that unless he reads Deuteronomy.

It's not necessary to study everything produced by a bullshitter in order to know that they are bullshitting; Once they have demonstrated that they have zero connection with reality, it's game over.

Your grasp of epistemology here is worryingly poor. Guessing is no more a route to the truth than is watching video of people being impressed by a convincing fraudster.
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Bilby, you haven't seen the videos. :shrug:
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I am fully aware of this. What do they say that could possibly render all of modern science obsolete?
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Bilby, If you can, watch them, please...:) Then we can dissect them, if you want, but please watch them first.
 
Thomas II said:
bilby said:
I am fully aware of this. What do they say that could possibly render all of modern science obsolete?
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Bilby, If you can, watch them, please...:) Then we can dissect them, if you want, but please watch them first.
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I cannot. And I have no desire to waste my time on them, even if I could.

Do they present any evidence that does not appear on his website, or in his "paper"?

If he presents evidence, then you could summarize it here for me. If he presents a collection of testimonials, then you should be aware that such things are not evidence for anything other than his ability to persuade at least a handful of gullible people of his "powers"; and that ability is a prerequisite for this kind of con-man.
 
Video is inherently unimpressive. It requires far more time and bandwidth to convey the same information that can be better presented in written form; It doesn't lend itself to citations or references; And it can be manipulated to show anything.

I have watched very convincing video of aliens battling with lasers in outer space, but I don't go around believing that these videos are a reflection of something real.

If you can find a link to a written transcript than I will have a read through it. But I don't anticipate that it is likely to be any more credible than the written sources I linked to above, both of which are evidence of a very slick fraud that stand up poorly to any serious scrutiny.
 
Placebo affect has best results with pain relief.
 
Thomas II said:
Has anyone seen this show about a guy called Charlie Goldsmith, from Melbourne, Australia, who apparently can heal people free of charge? Possible? Not possible? What's the deal?
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It's certainly possible to heal people using techniques in the video, but it's adequately explained by known and proven phenomena, including suggestion, and the simple fact that sometimes illness goes away without treatment.

His techniques are very similar to other forms of energy healing woo:

Therapeutic Touch: http://www.skepdic.com/tt.html
Reiki: http://www.skepdic.com/reiki.html

...and just like those practices, Goldsmith's techniques have no basis in evidence.
 
Here are a couple of articles that do a far more thorough job of debunking this crap than I could be bothered to do:

https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/15/charlie-goldsmith-a-new-celebrity-quack/

Other forms of energy healing include a modality known as “healing touch” or “therapeutic touch.” These are misnomers, because therapeutic touch doesn’t actually involve touching, although it does involve the claim that its practitioners can manipulate an “energy field” around human beings to therapeutic effect, all without touching them. Indeed, it goes beyond that. Its practitioners claim to be able to detect illnesses and stimulate recuperative powers through their healing intention. Sadly, therapeutic touch is a form of woo that has become quite entrenched in nursing schools and in the nursing profession. It’s also a form of quackery that’s so quacky that even a 12-year-old girl, Emily Rosa, could devise a test to demonstrate that it’s quackery and get it published in JAMA.
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Emily Rosa's JAMA article concludes:
Therapeutic touch is grounded on the concept that people have an energy field that is readily detectable (and modifiable) by TT practitioners. However, this study found that 21 experienced practitioners, when blinded, were unable to tell which of their hands was in the experimenter's energy field. The mean correct score for the 28 sets of 10 tests was 4.4, which is close to what would be expected for random guessing.

To our knowledge, no other objective, quantitative study involving more than a few TT practitioners has been published, and no well-designed study demonstrates any health benefit from TT. These facts, together with our experimental findings, suggest that TT claims are groundless and that further use of TT by health professionals is unjustified.
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https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/hopelessly-devoted-to-woo-tlc-and-forbes-bring-us-yet-another-celebrity-healer/

I challenged Goldsmith during a lengthy discussion on Twitter, and he reassured me that his intentions are purely altruistic. He denies financial motivation and simply wants to prove to the world that his gift is real so that science might take the phenomenon seriously. He only wants to help reduce the pain and suffering of others. He has been treating patients for years and, according to Goldsmith, he only went public in order to help entice researchers to do the studies.

I am skeptical of his motivation. History has, time and time again, revealed that believers in highly implausible and unproven therapies don’t really care what the science says. Typically the studies end up having such poor methodology that a positive result is assured, and when proper studies fail to find a true effect, they are ignored. Regardless of the outcome, proponents can point to the fact that studies were even done in the first place as evidence of their pet remedy’s legitimacy.

It is abundantly clear that Goldsmith has already decided that he has the ability to cure people through energy healing. He didn’t notice something odd and then look to science to determine if it was true. He noticed something was odd and then did it to people with real medical problems for years before agreeing to star in a television program highlighting it. In my opinion, the research angle is just marketing and I’m embarrassed for NYU.
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Perhaps Goldsmith actually believes his own bullshit - there's no law that says that fraudsters cannot be gullible enough to delude themselves. But that doesn't make it any less bullshit.
 
Thomas II said:



I don't know what Charlie believes, bullshit or otherwise, but some people seem to benefit from his healing, or so they seem to show in this video.
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And some, that beleives, doesnt get proper medication and suffers badly...
 
Thomas II said:
Juma said:
Thomas II said:



I don't know what Charlie believes, bullshit or otherwise, but some people seem to benefit from his healing, or so they seem to show in this video.
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And some, that beleives, doesnt get proper medication and suffers badly...
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Juma, where do you get that? :shrug:
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It's a commonplace, and fairly obvious and predictable, result of quackery.
It took me two seconds to find this using Google; it is one of "About 631,000 results" if you Google 'dangers of alternative medicine': http://edzardernst.com/2014/09/the-biggest-danger-of-alternative-medicine/

The authors report the cases of two middle-aged women suffering from malignant breast masses. The patients experienced serious complications in response to self-prescribed use of alternative medicine practices to treat their condition in lieu of evidence-based medical treatments. In both cases, the use and/or inappropriate application of alternative medical approaches promoted the progression of malignant fungating lesions in the breast. The first patient sought medical assistance upon development of a fungating lesion, 7∼8 cm in diameter and involving 1/3 of the breast, with a palpable mass of 5×6 cm immediately beneath the wound. The second patient sought medical assistance after developing of a wide, bleeding, ulcerous area with patchy necrotic tissue that comprised 2/3 of the breast and had a 10×6 cm palpable mass under the affected area.

The authors argue that the use of some non-evidence-based medical treatments as complementary to evidence-based medical treatments may benefit the patient on an emotional level; however, this strategy should be used with caution, as the non-evidence-based therapies may cause physical harm or even counteract the evidence-based treatment.

...even a seemingly harmless but ineffective therapy can become positively life-threatening, if it is used as an alternative to an effective treatment.
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Uh, there's this article thingy: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/ho...forbes-bring-us-yet-another-celebrity-healer/

I confess to not reading it except for the last paragraph:
It is abundantly clear that Goldsmith has already decided that he has the ability to cure people through energy healing. He didn’t notice something odd and then look to science to determine if it was true. He noticed something was odd and then did it to people with real medical problems for years before agreeing to star in a television program highlighting it. In my opinion, the research angle is just marketing and I’m embarrassed for NYU.
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There's so much woo out there I chose to refrain.
 
Beer With Straw said:
Uh, there's this article thingy: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/ho...forbes-bring-us-yet-another-celebrity-healer/

I confess to not reading it except for the last paragraph:
It is abundantly clear that Goldsmith has already decided that he has the ability to cure people through energy healing. He didn’t notice something odd and then look to science to determine if it was true. He noticed something was odd and then did it to people with real medical problems for years before agreeing to star in a television program highlighting it. In my opinion, the research angle is just marketing and I’m embarrassed for NYU.
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There's so much woo out there I chose to refrain.
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So are you saying that those people in the TV show were all faking it? Is that it? And the doctors too? :confused:

BTW, have there been any follow ups with the people claiming to be "healed"? Are they still "healed" after some time or does it fade away?
 
Thomas II said:
I could have never guessed that these people were all lying as you guys are saying...I'm really curious to know the truth...because to me they seem to be very sincere...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5082593/The-Healer-cures-toddler-s-chronic-pain-just-touch.html
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People don't have to be lying to make counterfactual claims. They just need to have been fooled.

No doubt they believe; but belief isn't evidence. If it was, the Christians would be right that Christ was the messiah, and simultaneously the Jews would be right that he wasn't.

If you want to find out what is true, then you cannot find out by asking people what they believe.

The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'evidence'.

The placebo effect is real. EM is not.
 
A meta-analysis of controlled trials of hypnosis that show suggestion helps to alleviate pain.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3113537/

Several controlled trials have demonstrated that hypnosis is an efficacious treatment for chronic pain. However, less attention has been given to the specific procedures and suggestions used in hypnotic treatments in research. The goal of this review was to address the issue of differences in the content of hypnotic suggestions, including pain management suggestions, non-pain related suggestions, and posthypnotic suggestions, in the context of published clinical trials of hypnosis for chronic pain management. This review focused on the types of suggestions used in twenty five studies comparing hypnosis to active treatments (e.g., relaxation, biofeedback), non-treatment control groups (e.g., standard care/wait-list control, supportive attention), or both in adult populations with various chronic pain conditions. Overall, these studies found hypnosis to be more effective than non-treatment control groups and similarly effective when compared to active treatments on pain-related outcomes when either pain-related suggestions or non-pain related suggestions were used. However, for studies that included both pain-specific and non-pain related suggestions, hypnosis was found to be superior to active treatments on a variety of pain-related outcomes.
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Charlie's "gift" is likely nothing more than a talent for suggestion, even if he doesn't realise it.


bilby said:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/hopelessly-devoted-to-woo-tlc-and-forbes-bring-us-yet-another-celebrity-healer/
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He denies financial motivation and simply wants to prove to the world that his gift is real so that science might take the phenomenon seriously. He only wants to help reduce the pain and suffering of others. He has been treating patients for years and, according to Goldsmith, he only went public in order to help entice researchers to do the studies.
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Researchers are way ahead of you, Charlie.
 
Thomas II said:
Beer With Straw said:
Uh, there's this article thingy: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/ho...forbes-bring-us-yet-another-celebrity-healer/

I confess to not reading it except for the last paragraph:
It is abundantly clear that Goldsmith has already decided that he has the ability to cure people through energy healing. He didn’t notice something odd and then look to science to determine if it was true. He noticed something was odd and then did it to people with real medical problems for years before agreeing to star in a television program highlighting it. In my opinion, the research angle is just marketing and I’m embarrassed for NYU.
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There's so much woo out there I chose to refrain.
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So are you saying that those people in the TV show were all faking it? Is that it? And the doctors too? :confused:

BTW, have there been any follow ups with the people claiming to be "healed"? Are they still "healed" after some time or does it fade away?
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I can't say they were lying. I refrained from watching any of it because there's a myriad of unscientific crap out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IPpya4CL-c
 
Thomas II said:
bilby said:
No, I haven't seen those videos;
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Ok, bilby. So noted that your guess is that he's a fraud.

Has anyone else seen the videos, or am I the only one here who has watched the show?
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I understand where you are coming from, but honestly, asking a person to watch for something based on science on TLC is like linking to a YouTube video about how 9/11 was an inside job. If this guy were legit, the first time we heard of him wouldn't be through TLC.

Much like with 9/11 CTs, after a while it gets old to debunk scams. If he can cure something testable, he needs to prove it. The FDA doesn't do testing to disprove the viability of a drug, the drug maker needs to prove it works.
 
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