Prior plausibility is a scientific standard of evidence which requires scientific processes to explain their mechanism of operation in clear, basic and well-established scientific terms. In other words, all the repeatable scientific evidence that has led up to a new idea or process can be used to describe the new process.
For example, during the search for the Higgs boson sub-atomic particle, the science of quantum mechanics and the mathematics of sub-atomic particle relationships could be used to predict the presence of the Higgs particle and it was eventually discovered. The evidence for evolution by natural selection rested upon the millennial old practice of selective breeding of plants and animals and the Cell Theory (“All cells come from other cells”, Virchow, 1855…i.e. rather than from spontaneous generation).
On the other hand, if you are a “Therapeutic Touch” (TT) practitioner and explain that you can manipulate the invisible and immeasurable healing forces around the body (“Use the Force, Luke”), you are not adhering to the scientific standard of prior plausibility. “Therapeutic Touch is based on the fantasy idea that human beings are energy in the form of a field.” (http://therapeutic-touch.org/what-is-tt/history-of-tt/).
Nice whimsical idea and pretty sounding words but…no evidence. There is nothing in mathematics, physics chemistry or biology to support such a fantastic explanation. Further, when a 9 year old with a piece of cardboard (Emily Rosa) can prove you wrong, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNoRxCRJ-Y0) and get published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), you are no longer in the real world of scientific prior plausibility.
Prior plausibility can also be thought of as an extension of the concept of “Occam’s Razor” (the razor being a way to shave away unnecessary assumptions). William of Occam, (1287 – 1347), a Franciscan monk, philosopher and logician described this process many times in his writings and the usual colloquial expression is, “Given several explanations (hypotheses) of a process or event, the one with the fewest assumptions is usually worthy of further investigation.” This scientific standard results in a drive toward simplicity in explaining scientific concepts.
So what happens if you don’t use the scientific standard of prior plausibility and the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions? What happens is that, with any process involving human beings, false positive, placebo effects are reliably generated. Even carefully structured scientific research studies will give the erroneous impression that a process exists even when it is pure fantasy. Here’s how this corruption of the scientific method works:
If plain water is given to test subjects with claims/deceptions that the water has magical energy in it or is “special”, “smart”, “real” or homeopathic and will heal what ails you, balance your energy, improve mental acuity and provide immune system support, etc, a percentage of the test subjects (about 30%) will report temporary improvement depending upon the extent of the “magical energy” narrative/deception told to them and the theatrics of the process of administrating the water.
These false positive placebo results would then lead one to believe that plain water has all these “magical” benefits and that this magical energy actually exists in the magical water. But the “energy” doesn’t exist: it’s just plain water. The invisible energy has been assumed to exist because of the placebo results made up in the mind of the test subjects. More and more faulty research can be accumulated in this manner, building a large body of false positive “evidence” which will then be used to claim that the effect or energy exists and that the process is valid.
Prior plausibility demands that research proves the existence of an effect before attempting to measure the results of that effect or all the research will end up measuring are placebo “results”. Since placebos don’t do anything (tiny bits of sugar, water, Reiki hand waving, needles, burning plants, magical oils, pills and potions, etc, don’t do anything) all you measure is reports of improvement, made up in the mind of the subject who has been misinformed, intentionally or unintentionally, into thinking that the specific placebo theatrics produce a real world effect. They don’t.
This faulty research process, which is used to claim the existence of all cultural, belief based placebos like therapeutic touch, acupuncture, reiki, homeopathy, etc, is cleverly called Tooth Fairy Science by Harriet Hall, M.D. ( http://skepdic.com/toothfairyscience.html ).
Dr. Hall states that anyone could convince themselves that the Tooth Fairy is real if all we did was measure Tooth Fairy “effects ” (how much money, what denominations, how frequent, etc)…before determining whether or not the Tooth Fairy actually exists.
What the Therapeutic Touch people, and all the other practitioners of Vitalism (energy medicine, acupuncture, homeopathy, chi, yin, yang, chakras, etc), have done is to skip this important first step in establishing scientific evidence: they have failed to prove that this “vital energy/force” exists. Instead, they all claim the ubiquitous placebo effect as particular and proprietary to their brand of placebo theatrics. It is not.
The placebo effect is generated in the mind of the patient during any therapeutic interaction. By not understanding how research works, placebo practitioners have fooled themselves and their patients. It is necessary to establish the existence of a process using basic, well-established scientific concepts before attempting to measure the effects of that process, otherwise false positive results will always corrupt the research investigation.
These unscientific and misinformed health practitioners (including some M.D.’s and medical centers who endorse these practices) don’t seem to understand how scientific methodology and research can be corrupted by skipping this critical first step in the scientific examination of evidence.
Everything from bloodletting to magnets to the various vitalistic energy medicine practices to sticking pins in invisible body parts to giving people plain water and sugar as magical healing pills and potions has been claimed to be therapeutic. Deceiving patients, whether by intention or ignorance, and using the placebo effect as treatment, when it is not treatment and cannot heal, is unethical.
In our modern day and age, one would think that established scientific methodology would protect us from these false positive results and the corruption of the scientific process. Most unfortunately, we continue to make these same mistakes, again and again, in each generation. Witness the journey of snake oil and quackery into first “alternative”, then “complementary and alternative”, then “integrative” and now “functional” medicine. All of these new titles are used to disguise the lack of scientific evidence for any type of “energy medicine” and to falsely maintain the placebo effect of all these particular “snake oils” as research based evidence. It is not.
Your high school math, physics, chemistry and biology courses introduced you to a worldwide methodology for examining evidence, asking questions and making rational decisions. That scientific information and the process of examining evidence is priceless. Using those basic laws, rules and relationships to examine new ideas and processes is the first test that a new idea must pass before being considered as scientifically plausible.
As the author of one of the most simple, yet profound, scientific statements (E = MC2), Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”.
Victor Dominocielo
Santa Barbara