People who swam naked in ice water reported feeling "cold", but 95% could identify if they were in the treatment group. We'll never know if it's the placebo effect or not!
You can't do double-blind psychedelics trials. Researchers should stop wasting their time trying.
That is not basic science. Randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trials are the gold standard of trials. Doesn't mean they're the only option. And, frankly, trials aren't that great as far as science goes. Physics seems to get by without them.
And "prove"? What does that mean? (Big epistemology rabbit hole).
I'll make the same point I did in my other comment more literally. I have a hypothesis that giving a 5k jog, three times a week to sedentary but otherwise healthy individuals will lower resting heart rate. I get my study population and randomize between treatment and control. Treatment does the running program for six weeks. Control does nothing.
Treatment has a mean reduction in resting heart rate of 4 bpm. p = 0.01. n = 200.
Have I proven anything? Do you think this was placebo? If it was debated if jogging reduced resting heart rate, was this study useful?
If a substance can reliably produce a strong placebo effect that helps a lot of people with minimal serious side effects, probably just start offering/administering it anyway!
Doing science that answers just that question would be valuable on its own. Knowing why/how it helps would be nice, but if it definitely helps…
If you can reliably solve the problem by doing that then why not.
I guess saying “this is just a sugar pill but it might help” and “this is a psychoactive substance that might make you trip a bit but also seems to measurably help some people though we’re not sure if it’s just a placebo” might have different placebo effects. Or maybe it actually works and it’s just hard to know.
The point is if it measurably works better than other substances, including definite placebos, why not use it?
We should want the outcome with sufficiently high probability and within whatever risk tolerance we define. Not the outcome in a way that satisfies a specific group of scientists. That’s not to criticise the scientists or their science, it’s important to do it, and knowing is better than not, but not knowing everything shouldn’t necessarily stop us if the risk/reward is there.
How on earth can you control for that? The only thing that comes to mind is holotropic breathwork, which reportedly brings about similar experiences without introducing a drug. That…might constitute an informative study, now that I write it out loud.
Possibly. But until you can control for it, you'll never know if it's real or just a placebo effect.