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Comment by burlesona | Hacker News Reader

This is a good observation. I think that “it works but we don’t know why” is appealing to a small slice of well-educated people who are comfortable with complexity and the limits of knowledge, but otherwise off-putting.

For most people I think that “it works but we don’t know why,” translates to “it doesn’t really work.” Thus a fake explanation adds credibility and believability. And if it does work, then people feel reassured and confident in the fake explanation.

It’s all pretty tricky human psychology though.

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> I think that “it works but we don’t know why” is appealing to a small slice of well-educated people who are comfortable with complexity and the limits of knowledge, but otherwise off-putting.

Really? So a limited number of intellectual elite are the only people capable of accepting faith-based arguments?

> It’s all pretty tricky human psychology though.

Indeed.

Seems like the opposite of a faith-based argument to say “It works but we don’t know why.” Wouldn’t a faith-based argument typically specify the “why” without evidence. To me what GP is describing sounds more like science in that it wouldn’t be making unjustified claims.

Is this specific to medicine? In physics it’s perfectly ok to say “ here is an observation which can’t be explained with our current knowledge “. See dark matter and dark energy.

The story of Ignaz Semmelweis seems to indicate that medicine is different from physics in that aspect.

Laypeople don't believe in dark matter yet. They're skeptical and expecting something with a clearer expectation. Physicists and yourself can accept dark energy because you are in the "small slice of well-educated people who are comfortable with complexity and the limits of knowledge".

Placebo effects are very real and any drugs efficacy will include some placebo effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Placebo-controlled_stu...

That’s another thing I wonder about. What’s so wrong about the placebo effect? If it makes people feel better we should embrace it. I think a lot of things like yoga work because they are done in positive environments by positive people. Whereas a lot of regular medicine is performed in pretty negative circumstances. So the same treatment may not work in a doctors office but it may work in a yoga studio.

The problem isn't the placebo effect per se. Nor with it's application as a treatment. It's with misleading people as to what is actually helping them. For example selling magical crystals to adjust your aura. I don't know about studies and evidence specific to yoga, but would suspect it's benefits are a combination of real and placebo. Thus it isn't all placebo effect as there is a foundation of actual therapeutic benefit.

I think a more compelling and generally true version is "We know that this works, but we don't know exactly how it works yet."

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