Steven Novella

Quotes

• “Placebo effects (plural) are mostly reporting bias, regression to the mean, investment justification, researcher bias, and other sources of self-deception. They are transient, and significant only for subjective symptoms where reporting bias can play a major role. Studies have shown, in fact, that there is no significant "healing" that occurs due to placebo effects — no objective biological improvement.”
• “I think the Internet is the biggest classroom we have.”
• “There's a host of scams that are evolving all the time.”
• “The thing about herbs is that there is nothing supernatural or implausible about the fact that any particular herb can have a medicinal effect. But the truth of the matter is that herbs are drugs. There's nothing magical about them. The fact that they are "natural" is irrelevant — it's meaningless. They are drugs. They are drugs that have not been purified, identified, … and quantified. … Probably for most plants … there are hundreds of chemicals in there with varying degrees of potency.”
• “I will never be convinced by any anecdotal report, ever, especially if something extremely unlikely or unusual. Memory is not a reliable piece of data.”
• “The inability to explain something doesn't mean that it is inexplicable. … Always consider the simplest things first. … The inability to explain it doesn't mean that it has to be something fantastical or alien, or that it's unexplainable.”

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