peter green wrote:

>> I don't see where lying comes in here, or where there is a tricky moral
>> situation. 
> how do you convince someone that something works when you and they both
> know full well its a sugar tablet with no direct affect?

I'm not sure you really read my message. I never talked about a sugar
tablet. I never talked about something that does not have an effect. Does
"studying this effect and learning to be able to cause it directly without
the placebo workaround" ring a bell? 

Who says that the placebo effect is not a "direct effect"? What is a
"direct effect", what is not a "direct effect"? And what is so good about a
"direct effect", and what is so bad about its contrary (whatever that is --
an "indirect effect", maybe)? Maybe taking a drug is a quite indirect
effect, as opposed to directly influence your own body, you all by
yourself?

You also seemed to have switched from a "tricky moral situation" to a
completely different problem. The questions around this are difficult
enough without jumping all over the place. We probably get somewhere more
efficiently if we stick to one question until it's finished, then move on
to the next...

(Besides, you convince them the same way you convince someone to take a
drug that may make him sick for a few days: it seems like the best option
at the time to the patient. Nobody is forced to take any medication, or
undergo any type of treatment.)

Gerhard

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