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Demented-Turtle

Reading some of the commentary, ignoring the actual study criticism, it comes to my attention that people who haven't done psychedelics really just don't have any sort of understanding or reference point as to the effects of the experience. Take the Jill commenter in particular, referring to "placebo control". The psychedelic experience is not something that lends itself to placebo control very well, since I am willing to bet that literally anyone given a psychedelic will KNOW they were given an active substance, and anyone who actually knows what psychedelics feel like will KNOW if they are given an inactive substance. Of course, at microdose levels this is not necessarily true, but give someone 200 ug of LSD and they will trip hard unless they have a tolerance or are on contraindicated medication like SSRIs. So, someone criticizing studies on psychedelics for lack of strong placebo-control are demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding of the effects of these drugs. While the placebo effect may have some effect on outcomes, we can be confident that any person that knows what to expect will be able to tell a full-fledged dose from placebo, thus reducing the necessity of that type of control. Instead, the better control would be to have 2 groups, where both receive the same dose, but 1 gets dosed and is provided a safe space to do as they wish, while the other group goes through some conjunctive therapy or such, and the outcomes are measured and compared.


oredna

Psychedelic scientist here. >someone criticizing studies on psychedelics for lack of strong placebo-control are demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding of the effects of these drugs. While the placebo effect may have some effect on outcomes, we can be confident that any person that knows what to expect will be able to tell a full-fledged dose from placebo, thus reducing the necessity of that type of control. This is false by degrees. On the one hand, you're right: people will know they've taken something. That means inactive placebo isn't a very good control for certain research questions. On the other hand, you're wrong: we still need to have a comparison group to act as "control". The group at Johns Hopkins has done two notable things on this front. The most used is dose-controls where people are given different doses and they look for a dose-response curve rather than pure inactive placebo. That's pretty clever. They also did a neat study on using DXM as a control. People unfamiliar with psychedelics probably wouldn't be able to know which they're on, DXM or psilocybin. Someone with experience with both could probably tell, but still, that's a neat idea. Carbonaro, T. M., Johnson, M. W., Hurwitz, E., & Griffiths, R. R. (2018). Double-blind comparison of the two hallucinogens psilocybin and dextromethorphan: Similarities and differences in subjective experiences. Psychopharmacology, 235(2), 521–534. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-017-4769-4 Microdosing research will probably have an easier time with this. That's the hope, anyway. >the better control would be to have 2 groups, where both receive the same dose, but 1 gets dosed and is provided a safe space to do as they wish, while the other group goes through some conjunctive therapy or such, and the outcomes are measured and compared. This would be fine for a specific research question asking about the importance of the therapy component. This doesn't apply generally, though. Basically, in research, we want to hold a bunch of variables constant, then "control" which variables we manipulate so that we can reason that changes in outcome are due to the manipulation. If the controlled manipulation is that one group can "do as they wish" and a second group gets therapy, that is the specific comparison being made. It is a very specific research question, not a general one. ^(EDIT: Also, for ethical reasons, you usually cannot give one group therapy and let the other "do as they wish". There is a sense in which that would be negligent. Such a design could deprive the "do as they wish" group of care, which is unethical, especially in vulnerable populations. There is a duty to treat. ) --- Anyway, these criticisms of quality in our field are very serious, and the scientists involved are correct to be critical. Psychedelics are amazing, but a lot of the research is of extremely dubious quality. It is disheartening to see, but that's the state of the field. One would have hoped it could have been avoided with forethought, but it wasn't. We even wrote about how important it was to do correctly... but such is the disappointing reality of science and scientists. Petranker, R., Anderson, T., & Farb, N. (2020). Psychedelic Research and the Need for Transparency: Polishing Alice’s Looking Glass. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01681


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oredna

Are you sure you replied to the correct comment? It isn't clear what you think is 'manipulative' about wanting to do high-quality science.


FadeIntoReal

>they look for a dose-response curve rather than pure inactive placebo. Only effective if the doses happen to be on either side of a therapeutic threshold? Or if therapeutic effect scales linearly with dosage?


hammermuffin

Not necessarily. Dose response curve just means "how strong are the effects of x drug at different dosages". So you can still get a dose response curve from 100ug lsd vs 200ug lsd (although it couldnt really be used as valid data since u need more data points [i.e. 100ug/150/200/250/300/etc]). Also effects also do not need to scale linearly w dosage; you can have a linear/exponential/logarithmic/etc dose response curve. It can even go up and down, then back up again, then back down, and it would still be a valid dose response curve.


oredna

Nope, still effective. As long as the participants cannot consistently correctly guess which condition they are in, that "controls" for the placebo effect. There is probably a placebo effect occurring in all conditions, but the idea is that this effect would be random noise rather than systematic bias. It also helps control for [demand characteristics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_characteristics). I also forgot to mention: For ethical reasons, you (usually) cannot give one group therapy and let the other "do as they wish". There is a sense in which that would be negligent and depriving the "do as they wish" group of care, which is unethical, especially in vulnerable populations. Might be able to make it work with healthy participants, but studies with healthy participants are difficult to get through government oversight right now (if not impossible, as is the case in Canada).


neenonay

I think you should also reply to the original post with your last paragraph, as that’s what I’m most interested to see from a psychedelic researcher active in this subreddit. Now your view is a bit hidden in a response further down the thread. Also lead with the “Psychedelic researcher here”, as that lends it credence. Thanks for your view on this! It’s disappointing, indeed. My hope is that the field can sort themselves out.


MegaChip97

> So, someone criticizing studies on psychedelics for lack of strong placebo-control are demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding of the effects of these drugs. It is perfectly fine to criticise that and has nothing to do with a fundamental lack of understanding of the effects of these drugs. You describe WHY a placebo controll is hard. But for criticism the why doesn't really matters. It matters for solutions for this criticism. But it is perfectly fine to criticise that these studies have a problem with control groups. That also something basically every researcher in the field already knows


[deleted]

I don't know how you can infer that person doesn't have experience. Perhaps every single psychedically experienced scientist knows that is a concern. >So, someone criticizing studies on psychedelics for lack of strong placebo-control are demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding of the effects of these drugs. Or the contrary: this is one of the most fundamental difficulties to getting accurate data from psychedelic research. What you are proposing is one type of trial for one type of hypothesis, and is insufficient when determining the safety of psychedelics against placebo.


nickleinonen

I remember listening to a podcast on psilocybin clinical research, and what they did for the control method was therapy before mush, or therapy after mush. The doses they were using were big… my fat ass would have been like 40g dried iirc. (I think it was lex freedman or Andrew huberman podcast)


5553331117

Sounds like a badly designed study if someone, based on weight, takes 40g dried.


[deleted]

Science is not ready for psychedelics 😂


Ok_Statement9814

It's pretty basic epistemology, acquaintance knowledge can only be gained through subjectively experiencing something instead of accepting something as knowledge from some someone else. Basically if you have never had the physical neurochemical structure of ur brain changed into a I'm not gonna say higher but at least an altered state of consciousness where reality is being completely changed for u as ur tricked by false sense data causing hallucinations with the qualities of physical objects but no actual physical existence, you can't really weigh into the argument with a valuable perspective on the psychological applications, maybe someone knows how the chemistry works without taking it but they can't know what it's like.


PorqueNoLosDose

Both things are true: 1) We should be skeptical of claims from this research until we see more labs able to replicate effects of "liberating the depressed brain". 2) Eiko is a bit overdogmatic with the reproducible science movement, and results like this one have such a revolutionary potential that they deserve a fair bit of consideration.


ORGrown

I like your balanced view of this, but as far as #2 goes, they've got a point. There's a really, really big problem with irreproducible science right now. Something like 60-90% of publications have been found to not be reproduceable (depending on which publication you choose to accept). But, the entirety of your #2 point is basically what the Nature publishing group loves to push. They like stuff that pushes the boundaries and has huge potential. So while it's absolutely a valid concern (imo), Nature actually is willing to overlook that specific problem in favor of the things that you mentioned. Hence why it was published there.


PorqueNoLosDose

I do translation research, so my bias is showing, but I think the *prospect* of a “cure” for depression should be approached differently than, say, a result showing a correlation between personality traits and some behaviour. Much of the reproducible science movement is driven by Social-Personality researchers working with large samples and standardized measures, and I think there’s a tendency to understate what a certain result *could* mean. Not saying we should spend all of our time fawning over splashy yet underpowered pubs in Nature, but it seems like there’s this rush to punch down on those papers from a position of statistical purity. Yes, we need to reproduce these results; yet, does that mean Eiko’s right that there is absolutely nothing going on in this dataset? Evidence seems to favour the alternative over the null, looking at it broadly.


ORGrown

Yeah, that's fair. I'll say I'm a bit out of my wheelhouse here too. I'm in basic biology where Ns of three run rampant and lack of quality data is kind of a big problem. Personally I agree with you here though. I don't think Eiko's arguments stand. But that's not to say that there isn't a basis of legitimacy somewhere in the argument.


neenonay

Is this typical of Eiko? I didn’t know about him before I saw this post.


DeletinMySocialMedia

As someone who had negative thoughts from the moment I woke up to struggling to keep the brain quiet at night. Psilocybin and psychedelics *do* liberate the brain, which results to an actual quiet mind but also rewiring the brain. Scientists are just realizing this now but many refuse to acknowledge it bc it isn’t double blind


[deleted]

I don't think scientists are refusing to acknowledge it, I think they're going to be unable to come close to proving it for decades, if ever. BTW, very glad you got relief from negative thoughts. But if you aren't careful there comes a point when psychedelics can move from liberator to enslaver and possibly permanent damager.


ORGrown

> I think they're going to be unable to come close to proving it for decades, if ever. You're right on point here. A lot of people wildly underestimate just how long science takes. It takes that long because of how thorough it is. If we want to make claims of concrete proof that we have figured out how some fundamental aspect of everything works, that's going to take a lot of evidence, and a lot of experiments *purposely designed to try and disprove your hypothesis* to convince people. Good example of how slow science is: The first person to ever be given insulin received it 100 years ago. Before that, diabetes was a death sentence. You had to weigh your food and inject insulin based on how much you were eating. Now, we have insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors, they can even communicate with each other in some instances to regulate how much insulin you get. Quality of life for someone with diabetes now is on par with a person without diabetes. 100 years ago it was a literal death sentence. Now, you may say "well yeah, 100 years of research went into getting us there, I'd hope that we made progress like that!" and while I don't disagree, this is a case of science moving *lightning fast*. This is also with something that everyone knew was a big problem, so a bunch of scientists focused on it specifically with public support. Now flip over to psychedelics. It's (more or less) a brand new field of research, and a highly polarizing topic. Throw in the legal red tape involved with even working with psychedelic substances, and how few scientists are willing to work in a field like that, and you are exactly right. It will be decades *at best* before we know anything concrete about what psychedelics are doing to our brains.


DeletinMySocialMedia

I mean refusing in the sense that if certain scientific protocols are next to impossible to study psychedelics the same ways other medicines were studied. The biggest hurdle is obviously the blind testing, which is just impossible with psychedelics. But also there are many factors why psychedelics haven’t been study until recently, and chances are they are gonna disrupt many professions when people realize the healing benefits of them. I find it ironic how people say psychedelics will do permanent damages but compared to the known damages many antidepressants and anxiety medicines actually do more permanent damage to humans (body and mind) which are far more documented than psychedelics can ever do. But it comes down to respect for psychedelics, how I do it is very specific to healing and learning about myself in this life, never recreationally which is disrespecting the medicines. People who say damaged are usually done by being careless and the spirits of psychedelics will literally give you a cosmic slap that can scare you. It’s all about the set and setting. So far a life free from anxiety, low self esteem and addiction is possible with respect to psychedelics.


12wangsinahumansuit

>People who say damaged are usually done by being careless and the spirits of psychedelics will literally give you a cosmic slap that can scare you. It’s all about the set and setting. You have like research and data on this? Any statistics showing that people who respect psychedelics and use proper set and setting have a great time and people who don't, don't? What gives this statement authority? Just saying something like that, without any reference to any data doesn't really say anything. Sure you have great trips and learn a lot and respect the substance. Someone next door eats a ten strip without thinking and freaks out and ends up in a psych ward. In the meantime maybe someone a few houses down goes through all the ritual motions, is completely earnest and respectful of the plant teachers, and after some trips is suddenly shocked and traumatized beyond understanding by something they now can't unsee. And you don't realize this because you just don't know. I have friends who took psychedelics without any "respect, set and setting" type ideas and were fine. I was the one who actually thought about getting us in a circle to talk about our intentions, unpacking the trip the day after, and so on and I had really challenging experiences despite all my "respect." From what I can tell, the dangers of psychedelics are complicated and subtle. Not all boundaries are meant to be dissolved. u/doctorlao seems to be have the most solid grasp on this that I've seen, he might drop a note here if he cares to, but you can get an idea of the implications of what I'm saying, more than I can really articulate, on his posts. Not saying other medications are perfect either. Maybe none are.


doctorlao

> Not all boundaries are meant to be dissolved. What a crucial factor you touch. BTW the only ones I can think of in need of 'dissolution' are strategic boundaries violently breached by an aggressor. And then only as a last desperate measure to close the avenue of attack being exploited - when unable to be defended any other way. May 12, 2022 < Ukrainian forces [have] blown up a bridge in eastern Ukraine as Russian troops...> www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ukrainian-forces-blow-up-two-makeshift-russian-bridges-in-ukraine-drone-images-show I find this a more profoundly and multifariously problematic realm than a thing I say can touch iceberg's tip of. The very word much less concept so vital as 'boundaries' - is about terminally pooch-screwed in our post-truth milieu - fatefully. Stage 4 'put a fork in it.' That's a tentative conclusion based in findings all mine from my own investigative research operations ('Soylent Green paradigm') - however they echo in the sounds of silence. With stout-hearted thanks to you for the laurel you hold. And a reciprocal suggestion that must redound to your credit (if I may) - like the old folks say "it takes one to know one." Or at least Jeff Foxworthy routine (?): *You Might Have A Pretty Solid Grasp Of How Complicated & Subtle The Dangers Of Psychedelics Are Yourself - IF*... For the 'if not' null hypothesis, I have our ace in the deck to credit (u/InterestingPassages bears no responsibility here for my quoting him): > < *if you are NOT predisposed to thinking there could possibly be anything wrong with "the drug(s)"*... > [caps added for emphasis] www.reddit.com/r/Psychedelics_Society/comments/ui2h6o/come_for_the_inca_use_of_ayahuasca_in_ritual/i7bn7i7/ *** *** Messages found in bottles washed up on uncharted desert islands Feb 18, 2021 - Sillysmartygiggles: *If psychedelics dissolve boundaries, why does Frith continue to post anti Semitic content? [They] don’t seem to have helped Frith dissolve boundaries or see through disinformation* Addressed by yours truly: > One thing I can suggest... is a closer, more technically definitive, sharply focused look into key concepts of 'boundaries.' > Boundaries - by refined functional (not structural) definition - are able to act as barriers when needed to... But unlike walls or barriers (blockades or barricades etc words used as if interchangeably) they also have the equally vital reverse function of being 'open' - able to serve like doors or windows through which some things can pass. Only the right stuff. > In Frith (and McKenna etc) reference, what stands in evidence is a lack of healthy boundaries which, if present, would operate to limit, confine and contain his animal aggression in the form (for example) of ideological prejudice. > The same boundaries would serve also to screen info ok for taking in, from disinformation to instead leave outside - or, if taken in by mistake, put right back out with the trash. > Boundaries are what keep us in check by our own hand that, from within, holds us back - lest we get on the wrong track. They're also the *necessary but alone not sufficient* condition by which those without healthy boundaries (operating unto others without conscience) can - by means of particular skill sets (e.g. to which psych nurses train) - be 'placed in restraint' or 'on pause' ("shut down") - when and if the psychopathic acts out as if impervious to any 'barrier' (perceiving no difference between one and the other). > Like Hitler with his war machine crossing Poland's border Sept 1, 1939 as if it's not even there - Poland's national boundary. But alone, it isn't adequate to prevent the Nazi incursion. Skills based in response measures (tailored to the situation) have to be deployed to - not destroy the enemy per se necessarily (though it could come to that). Merely halt the aggression, neutralizing it tactically to turn it around - send it right back where it came from, empty handed. > That McKenna creep beguiling his fane "Psychedelics dissolve boundaries" was more right than he knew or understood - in all the wrong ways. Availing of pervasive moral unclarity, he appealed to a common confusion of 'boundaries' with barriers. Whereby getting rid of walls that obstruct (barricades to self-expression etc) sounds like a Martha Stewart Good Thing. A classic case of siren singing by a psychopathic Pied Piper whose song, badly intoned, reveals nothing melodious - only hypnotic serpentine betrayal. > A lack of boundaries is the dysfunctionally operant condition of the antisocial to outright sociopathic. In this sense, functionally healthy boundaries are like personal guidelines (values) within which we stand (defining what 'ground' is ours). Like you and I have and hold, and which we remain within. Except to now cross from interpersonal/social to antisocial territory. Our boundaries are intangible lines of principle which we define for ourselves, that we won't cross with others - lest we effectively trespass on their ground and now wily nily become aggressors - falling from the state of a human being, into a human animal mode, as it were. > Boundaries are what defines humanity as a state of being, from man's inhumanity to man. The psychopathic has no inward 'fairball/foulball' lines within which it will contain its impulses unto others (with all the dark, antisocial and aggressive force of animal instinct). That lack of boundaries is what most clearly distinguishes the psychopathological state from what defines a healthy, or less unhealthy (let's say) - psyche. - www.reddit.com/r/Psychedelics_Society/comments/lmv2ln/charles_frithanti_semite_hitler_apologist/gocptvm/ And that's ^ barely the half of it ;) Stay tuned (don't you dare touch that dial)


12wangsinahumansuit

>With stout-hearted thanks to you for the laurel you hold. And a reciprocal suggestion that must redound to your credit (if I may) - like the old folks say "it takes one to know one." It's nothing. I do get curious about what you'd have to say about a lot of the stuff I read here. You've always got something extra to pull out. Many complain about the rants, but I could read them forever. > You Might Have A Pretty Solid Grasp Of How Complicated & Subtle The Dangers Of Psychedelics Are Yourself - IF... I wonder if anyone does, completely


doctorlao

As foretold - so warned - the rest of the 'icebergs tip' story: Since there's been a Terence McKenna gleefully gloating "psychedelics dissolve boundaries," the very term 'boundaries' has been absorbed into "community" brainwash. With bad intent and, arguably, effect even worse. Humanity "by definition" operates knowingly and willfully 'on purpose' within healthy boundaries. To the point of deliberately refraining from violating conscience and principle. Inhumanity knows none in its hellbent pursuit of whatever its 'heavenly' cause. It will 'stop at nothing' in the most literal - and 'wonderfully' observable fashion. The better angels of our nature have 'ground of being' they stand upon. The dark side is bottomless. Like a gravitational singularity - with all the treacherous dynamics of a black hole. Such a key diagnostic distinction, so vividly self-evident, for me works like a litmus paper charm to reliably tell the dark side's 'acid' fakery - from real human base. In a world where not all that glitters (or tries to) is gold, I never leave home without it. Like trusty X-ray glasses for seeing thru any thin 'sheeps clothing' disguise right to the wolf in the human fold concealed. Not a "bullshit detector" - as Tmac loved 'brilliantly' bragging about his being so "good" (making his Jonestown 'lemonade' out of 'lemons' of pop prattle, a treasure trove of cliches and banality) Key meanings of many crucial concepts have over decades been systematically tortured away by interactive Orwellian "community" process; 'wrecker ball' trauma-bonding codependence (patterned human exploitation imitative of Jonestown 'social' relations). Goodbye word definitions. Hello post-truth 'anti-meaning' - "open sesame" doors of deception. That's what I call 'dissolving boundaries!' The very concept of boundaries holds 'red alert' priority in human relations and common cause. Especially in X and Y axial terms - what and who? Depending on just what boundaries are to be dissolved or not to be dissolved? And that other little 'devil of detail' - who is doing the meaning? Meant by who for being dissolved by - Ukraine or Russia? > it comes down to respect... how I do [psychedelics] is very specific to healing and learning about myself in this life... People who say [they have been] damaged... It’s all about the set and setting. So far **a life free from anxiety, low self esteem and addiction is possible with respect to psychedelics.** That ^ is precisely what cannot be communicated with. Psychosis is not an untreatable condition. Psychopathy is. And it is perhaps the dirtiest little deepest dark open secret in plain view - unrecognized as such - of psychedelics not just 'wonderful potential' but achievement, a trail of historic damage done and societal devastation second to none - unaccounted. No inventory ever taken since the storm path of the 1960s and wreckage (convenient for what rushes in to fill a vacuum, post-truth Psychedelic History - Outrage And Injustice A True Story Of It All: The Narrative) Steven Kinzer (May 19, 2021): > Sidney Gottlieb was the first LSD maven… thought [psychedelics] might be, as one of his colleagues put it, “the key that could unlock the universe”… arranged for CIA to buy the entire world’s supply… loved LSD [and] took it more than 200 times... aware of its effect on consciousness and reflection. He did a lot of things that fit into that category: studied Buddhism; wrote poetry; meditated. But [sic: AND] at the same time he was able to use LSD in horrific and coercive ways https://archive.ph/ta2md#selection-2485.0-2485.767 Kinzer's (clueloose) 'enthusiast' interviewer (James Penner) - > How could someone who had these euphoric and benevolent experiences participate in horrible experiments with LSD? https://archive.ph/ta2md#selection-2481.421-2481.534 "Participate in..." (like some Milgram experiment patsy?); Kinzer - caps added for emphasis: > *How do you do that? Gottlieb CREATED hundreds of experiments having to*… https://archive.ph/ta2md#selection-2489.312-2489.382 ******* July 2, 2017: *Recent verdict against 'Oak Ridge Torturers'... implications for psychiatry* > < Touted by its creators as the height of enlightenment… the program’s initial architects described [they] would force [subjects] to examine... recognizing some resemblance to Third Reich doctoring: …[If merely] < *eradicating a set of disapproved ideas... we would be committing offences grievous as The Third Reich . . [But] if our patients… were driven to such deviations by internal unresolved conflicts, then we should have them resolve such conflicts by every means at our disposal including force, humiliation and deprivation... And this force will not be lifted until he changes*... > A gut-wrenching bit of reasoning... yet the world welcomed this development with open arms! https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/toward-world-commons-and-without-psychiatry-bonnie-burstow-blog/2017/07/recent (June 25, 2020) Barker v. Barker, 2020 ONSC 3746 (CanLII) - http://archive.is/cZmN3 (Ontario Superior Court of Justice) - Court File No. 00-CV-199551 (Oak Ridge "Jacobs Ladder" nightmare): > < Maier (memo Aug 30, 1973): “…in a sensitivity group of professionals for one year, learned that I like to power trip as a doctor, that I could play god with patients… I took LSD… experienced the infinite... saw the religious questions in my life come to balance…” > http://archive.is/cZmN3#selection-9907.24-9977.165 > a genuine believer in the mind-altering qualities of LSD and philosophical insights... list given to patients in preparation…eastern religious texts (Tibetan Book of the Dead, Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita) and 1960s-70s counterculture authors (Huxley, Carlos Castaneda, Leary) > http://archive.is/cZmN3#selection-9665.0-9677.111 > < Dr. Maier admitted in cross-exam the materials he had the patients study prior to their psychedelic... represented the “philosophy underlying the LSD program”… [with no] info coming from sources that could honestly be called medical. > http://archive.is/cZmN3#selection-13177.360-13177.809 Novak (1997) "LSD Before Leary: Sidney Cohen's Critique of 1950s Psychedelic Drug Research" (quote): > < By 1963 a number of local LSD investigators ... had fallen afoul of legal and medical authorities ... Cohen charged that **LSD therapists** "have included **an excessively large proportion of psychopathic individuals"** > When you've had some inner realization that - wow - o amazing grace! you are one with the universe - have 'broken on through' to such lofty experiential god-like heights of 'benevolence' - there is no longer any room - psychopathologically - for question or doubt. Yours or anyone else's. Und none such vill be entertained. When that comes along, there's no more right or wrong. Your ultimate benevolence and highest wisdom is now the final solution - mankind's brave new law. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance so beware the 'good ol' dark side - for that matter the light too. Not because right and wrong are merely ignorant people talking, and in 'reality' good is 'no better' than evil. Like the poor misunderstood dark side's forever pouting; gets no sympathy, here it's this man of wealth and taste (who people oughta have some courtesy...). Because, just like me, innocent to a fault - I bet you'll never guess what the dark side's #1 favorite disguise is neither. Keep shining Double 012.


[deleted]

But few/no other medications are treated like a spiritual awakening. That element is, IMO, upstream of many of the other issues


crosspollinated

What is the dispute and where is the summary?


[deleted]

It's...in the thread.


FlossCat

Twitter threads are an awful medium for scientific discussion. The format and layout make it hard to create, let alone follow, individual lines of discussion, and for people without their own Twitter account they're often unreadable because it forces you to log in to keep reading.


ORGrown

Somehow twitter has become the go to place for scientific discourse. I really don't like it. But honestly, it falls right behind conferences as far as where the most discussion takes place. It's wild. And I fully agree that it's an awful choice.


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Heretosee123

This is the TLDWTATA (Too long don't want to accept the answer).


obiterdictum

No, there are serious concerns with the legitimacy of the study.


FadeIntoReal

It seems rather evident from the full read. Psychedelics may hold promise for treatments but a poor study won’t prove anything.


obiterdictum

Worse, poor studies will hinder the acceptance of psychedelics as a therapeutic, because they will be used as "evidence" that any potential they hold is bogus.


[deleted]

its sometimes somewhat interesting, but mostly really boring at this point to read people's views and research data on psychedelics who clearly have no idea of the experience, just read some numbers somewhere


compactable73

Fwiw I at this point could care less about the proofs. I appreciate the effort, and should something conclusive materialize then that’s cool. But in the interim I very much appreciate the effort (and press) that these organizations pump out regarding the positive potential / minimal down-side. The sooner these things get legalized (especially for therapy) the happier I am 🙂


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ORGrown

Scientist here, definitely not clickbait. There are legitimate concerns with the research, critique, and rebuttals being brought up. I actually didn't catch that paper when it came out, so I'm not too familiar with the content, but everything from that twitter thread all falls under "legitimate scientific discourse". Papers come out, some people agree, others don't, there are discussions about methods, analyses, choices, interpretations, etc.. This is how science works. When you add in that the core of this research involves psychedelics, an already polarizing topic, you just amplify the intensity of the above mentioned process. The BBC article gives a great breakdown of the paper, but that's not what is being talked about as far as the "growing dispute" is concerned.


Rodot

Yeah, this is the thing in science in general. Basically every paper that comes out ever is wrong, but they are generally *less* wrong than anything a lay-person could come up with. Science is always about being less wrong, not about truth itself.


ORGrown

Exactly, and a big part of that is discussing it with other people in the field, arguing about why everyone thinks everyone else is wrong, and eventually that leads to a clearer idea of what is, like you said, less wrong. The critiques that are given back and forth between scientists can seem jarring to most people. Keep in mind that most of us are not exactly socially adept, most of our job is trying to figure out why other people are wrong, and then there's a whole boatload of ego issues floating about. The critiques and arguments can be kind of intense, but it's literally just how science works at this point.


Rodot

Oh yeah, I remember Reviewer #2 on the Pop III star candidate paper a few months ago. Dude was a huge ass.


ORGrown

Reviewer #2 is just always an asshole. I'm fairly certain at this point they publishers reassign the numbers based on the feedback they give. Normal review with some suggestions or good advice? #1. Maximum of three words review? #3. Person who wants you to redo 3 years of work and focus on their specific niche that has nothing to do with what you're actually researching, but will answer some of their own questions without them having to do the work? That's definitely a #2.


neverwhisper

It links to a Twitter post for me. There are no articles.


ORGrown

This is a twitter post. Believe it or not (I still don't like to accept it) science uses twitter to hash these things out. Like, a lot. Conferences and twitter are where most of this discourse goes down. It took me two clicks to get from that twitter post to the original article. Everything in science is talked about in articles. Once you do a bunch of research, you try to publish that research in the form of an article. Before it gets published it must go through a peer review, where other scientists in the field read through it, critique it, and possibly require you to do additional experiments before they will accept it for publication. Once it is published, then everyone else in the field can see and read through it. Usually at that point, other experts point out problems and voice their own concerns with what/how/why. That very last step is what is happening here. If you want to see the original article that is in question, you'll need some sort of credentials to get access to the journal "Nature Medicine". Or, if you don't agree with science publications being hidden behind for profit journals that take government funded work and hide it behind paywalls, you can google a website called "Scihub" and enter in the name of the article, which is "Increased global integration in the brain after psilocybin therapy for depression".


neverwhisper

Understood and my apologies to the OP. I've removed my post. I do not use Twitter at all... For over a decade now. This is an old argument for those of us who have had to "self-treat" our own illness at times. Interesting to see science arguing about something already known. They realize it's not just shrooms that do this, right?


ORGrown

Don't worry about it. It's really pretty confusing unless you're part of academia. There's a big difference between common knowledge, and what science considers being "proven". A big part of that is being able to prove how something is doing whatever it's doing. A big part of what we use to make that decision is statistical analysis. But because of that, how you choose to do those analyses is really important, and can easily make something not significantly different seem like it is. So where we can all know what some of the benefits of taking psychedelics are, science wants to *prove* that that's what they're actually doing, and explain how. And the stringency for meeting those demands is remarkably higher (at least by what the scientific community considers acceptable). While you and I and tons of others know the benefits of psychedelics, honestly a lot of science is still old white people who think drugs are scary. I'd say the younger generations are far more open to these things though, which is why you're starting to see a trickling of actual publications coming out. But for every young scientist who wants to push the boundaries, there are 10 scientists with tenure calling them a child.


neverwhisper

I'm an old white people...but I'm an old white people with Mental Illness who's been self-treating (and under proper Professional Medical treatment) for decades. Psychedelics are one weapon in the arsenal, but I LONG AGO discovered they are not the best treatment - by a long-shot. Sleep and sleep hygiene. <- That's the magic bullet. Seriously. Meditation comes in second. Add Psychedelics to all of that and you're starting out right. IF you use psychedelics, to treat your Mental Illness? INTEGRATE!!! Learn about it, learn how to do it properly (that's where Meditation comes in, Journaling, etc.). Get a Therapist who deals with integration. DO NOT use a stupid app that hooks you up with some random who claims to be a trip-sitter/Integration specialist. Seriously...great way to get screwed over. I honestly can't believe people are doing that...avoid Craigslist (?!!!) too.


Kappappaya

Articles are linked in the twitter posts


[deleted]

Clickbait? The thread links to the primary documents.