April 11, 2008

Maybe Not Explicable, but Effective

To the Editor:

R. Barker Bausell grumpily objects to spending hundreds of millions of dollars to test the effectiveness of "alternative" therapies ("Placebo Effect," The Chronicle Review, March 14). After all, if advocates have no scientific rationale for them, why should we waste money investigating them?

There are two reasons. First, whatever the irrationality of the practitioners' explanation, a therapy may work anyway. After all, one of the first things a discoverer does is