MortalWombat

No, anecdotals count only the number of hits and either ignore or don't bother to count the number of misses, whereas controlled clinical trials record it all so that it can be quantified and compared to a placebo control in order to determine if the effect is statistically significant or not.

sentinel00

Someone who doesn't understand the difference between anecdote and research deserves to throw their money away on "chi" oriented excercises.

Please, all of you convinced that acupuncture works, I have a bridge I'd like to see ya.

Kinross

Actually I do know how it works, studied Organic Chem, Anatomy & Physiology, ect.

Corwin

No.... anecdotes can be either positive, negative, or both.

An anecdote is simply a report of an experience.

MortalWombat

Not really, because the anti-dandruff ingredient, whether it be salycilic acid, selenium sulfide, coal tar, etc., inhibits either the growth of the yeast that triggers excess skin cell growth, or directly inhibits excess skin cell turnover, whereas the washing of the hair removes 1)the oils that the yeast lives on and 2)loose skin cells that are shed. So you kill two birds with one stone.

MortalWombat

How many anecdotes have you seen quantified?

Corwin

That's the point. A study is a quantification of anecdotal reports, usually (preferably in fact) in large numbers.

Pseudonymph

I can't believe I've wasted this much time talking to people like this.

Are you going to so positivly tell me that my back, screwed up as it was, having not been fixed by surgery and medicine, was merely a state of mind I was in?

Then magically fixed by some bizare mind job after one session? (again you did state that it had no medical value)

MortalWombat

Let me ask you this: What would you say if someone said the exact same thing, only that they claimed it was because they prayed to Jesus?

Dr Rick

There is much more to a scientific study than just comparing the numbers of one result to another.

Properly designed and performed, a scientific study has sufficient rigour and statistical power to accurately estimate the effect that is being measured without bias or influence from confounding variables; a collection of anectodes, just summed against eachother does not, no matter its size.

Rick