Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
to Why we do what we do Mini. I'm your
host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are a
psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans and
(00:24):
non human animals do. And this is a mini which
means it's short. They were joining us for the first time,
then welcome. I hope that you enjoy what you hear
in this discussion. It's a short discussion that's like fifteen
minutes or less, is the hope. At least that's the goal.
And then you get to go on with your day.
And yeah, so humans, non human animals, we talk about
the things they do. This is a little bit of
(00:45):
a follow up in a way. So we did a
full length a while back on chiropractic medicine or care
or whatever you want to call it, and we try
to be as skeptical and as charitable as possible in
unpacking chiropractic interventions. And there is a huge contingent of
(01:11):
chiropractors who fall very firmly into the camp of pseudoscience, bulls, ineffective,
lion snake oil crap. Yeah, there does seem to be
a contingent of chiropractic practitioners who are very interested in
medicine and what chiropractic can do from a medical perspective
(01:36):
to actually be effective and be experimentally shown to do
its thing. And that's out there too. So I think
I'm jumping the gun here. If you're joining us for
the first time, welcome. I hope you like what you
hear in this discussion. If you're coming back, then welcome.
I hope that you hear you like what you hear
in this discussion. If you like to support us, you
can leave us a writing and interview, like subscribe, join
us on Patreon. I'll talk more about that at the
(01:56):
end of this discussion. I jumped into this so fast.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Huh to go? Did I messed that?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
All up?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
's do it? Okay?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
No, No, you're good because I think we're I think
this is one of those ones that we feel pretty
passionate about.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
We feel passionate, and I want to say I want
to try and give the benefit of the doubt, but
also maintain scientific rigor, like that's what most important is
Like we're doing we take the scientific perspective. Now, chiropractic
for humans, as I mentioned, is plagued by a schism
field primarily dominated by pseudoscientists who make absurd, unfalsifiable, unverifiable
(02:29):
claims that are utter nonsense and based on nothing, and
they are liars and frauds and hucksters and snake oil salesmen,
and they shouldn't be trusted. Yeah, now that's not all
of them, that's just the majority of them.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Right now, we did a full length in which we
unpack the history, research, and current understanding of chiropractical practitioners
and ended with a general call to action for more
and better research.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
So, with little evidence that this is actually effective for humans, like,
that's where we're at, it's hard to imagine how optimistic
we should be about how well this will work with
non human animals. And actually, I take that back, it's
not hard to imagine at all. We should not be
optimistic about that perspective, right and we'll talk more about why.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
So let's start with the obvious problem that bipedal humans
and quadrupedal humans are animals. Quadrapedal humans is a very
different experience, quadrupedal animals having different vertebrate set from one another.
They're just very different, and even vertebrate quadictripeds do not
all have the same spines, So assuming that you can
simply translate one form of intervention directly onto another animal
(03:34):
is already absurd and arguably quite dangerous.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, it's like the reason that a veterinarian does not
also just jump into a surgery room and know exactly
what to do to perform surgery in a human and
a human surgeon does not automatically jump into an animal
and know and think that they can do exactly the
same thing to do the human as they do with
an animal, because their biology is a little bit different.
(03:59):
Going to look for different things, you might expect different things,
you might have different diagnoses. There's overlap, for sure. Like
we all have a common ancestor we all evolve from.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Things that we do have in common. We generally have
pretty similar organs inside our body that have pretty similar functions. Sure,
but they're different enough that you really need specialized training
to be able to do one of those things well
and to understand what you're doing and.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
How you're doing it.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
And like even among veterinarians, they'll have specialty like people
who primarily do horses who primarily do cats, or dogs
who primarily do snakes or birds like they have specialties
because again unique specialized biology that tell you something different,
So you need to know that those things are different.
So another thing to understand here is in the extent
to which chiropractic works in humans, which is already taking
(04:51):
a pretty significant leap. In most of the cases we
have seen. If there is an effect, it's probably a
placebo effect in many of them. However, there's some examples
in which there may be some other things, Like we
saw that there does seem to be better performance on
some back pain issues, and there seems to be some
like things that it can be helpful for. It's not nothing,
(05:13):
just a little bit limited.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
What it will not do. What chiropractic will never do
is cure your cold, cure your cancer, cure your broken hand,
cure your cavities. Despite what they may claim that it
will do any and all of those things. It'll do
your taxes for you, it'll fill up your car with gas,
it'll do anything. It won't do those things they claim
that it'll do.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
None of those.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Things, right, what it will most likely do is play
an ad for you.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, all right, we're back. So we were describing that
like in humans, this is already questionable. In the extent
to which it does exist. It seems to be a
bit at placebo, although there are some there does seem
to be some applications that maybe have real tangible benefits
(05:56):
for some back pain.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Nevertheless, we ended our full length the way we it.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
We'll state again here that there are likely some good
skeptical practitioners who believe or have found some utility in
these interventions and would advocate for more and better research
as we did, to find the limits and effective procedures
that will facilitate a effective intervention that will get some
kind of benefit out of what they do. And I
(06:21):
applaud their decision to try and join the scientific community.
I hope it works out. I think that they can
find a way to do those things if they're using
scientific method So there are going to be some of
those people out there.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
So the next problem is the primary ingredient in chiropractics,
which is subblexation, which is a spinal misalignment. If you
go to a chiropractor, they will identify sublixation, no matter
what you're there for and whether or not there's any
evidence for this, it is their bread and butter. Unfortunately,
there's no concrete evidence that this exists. It does not
appear on X rays and does not pinch nerves, and
(06:56):
they've been trying to pin it down for over a
century and as a quicker Subilization is a real term
for a real condition in orthopedic medicine, but it's been
co opted by chiropractors to make them sound scienz Yeah. Essentially,
what it is is it's a partial dislocation where the
joint or whatever soft like whatever bone connections have been
like stretched or or misaligned, and then they returned to
(07:19):
some degree and there might be an injury as a.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Result of it.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
In orthopedic medicine. Yes, that's that's the real example of this.
But they sort of like they call what they do
or what they identify as a problem sublixation, even though
they can't actually show they can't find on an X ray,
they can't show you what it is, they can't pinpoint it.
They basically just said, like this is a real term.
We're going to say it because it is a real term.
We want to say it in a way that is
(07:41):
not real, right, And that's okay because we get to
call the shots because we decided that we don't need
a regulating body of professionals. What we need is a
panel of lobbyists, which is what they got. Sure, Okay,
so I think you probably see at this point where
we're going with this. If your imaginary problem doesn't exist,
then the cure that you provide it only works because
you can convince your patient that it works. And if
(08:03):
that's the case, what hope does this have to work
on a non human animal with no detectable language. So
it's like, if the only way this works is because
there's a placebo effect, you tell them that it's medicine,
they believe you, then why is this going to work
with animals? It will not, It will not.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
The measures that yield positive results tend to be subjective.
People answering that they think, maybe it looks like there
is more mobility, but nothing is measured, nothing confirmed, no
diagnosis with changes and symptoms.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, so there's like people will say, like, I took
my dog to the dog chiropractor. Now my dog looks better,
even though there's no there's no assessment, there's no actual measurement,
there's no data to say this. They just say, I
want to believe that this is true. Therefore true, Right,
that's what you get. Once more, Again, I will concede.
It's possible that there are some forms of back manipulation
(08:51):
that result in some amounts of less pain in some instances.
But again there's just there's not scientific research here. There's
nothing that demonstrates how this works and how to guide
practitioners in successfully implementing it. There have been studies where
the journals that are very pro chiropractor find pro results
and the ones that are not don't. And it's like
it's so mixed, right that it's like, how do I
(09:13):
square those two things? One of you has an agenda
and the other one doesn't. So I'm inclined to believe
the person who doesn't, right, because they're just trying to
figure out what's going on, right, and they're telling me
nothing works here exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Now, you might ask what's the harm, like why not
take my dog to chiropractic? Well, for one thing, these
interventions aren't Usually they're usually not cheap. You're going to
be paying one hundreds of dollars to accomplish a little
to nothing. But it can get worse than that. Because
the spine is a very sensitive and important part of
your body, and also for non human vertebrates, and damage
to the spine can cause strokes, paralysis, and even death.
(09:48):
And that's a pretty high cost attempting something with a
high likelihood like this, it will likely fail, so it
will not be helpful, it will only be harmful and
your increasing risk.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, it's like, are you willing to die for something
that probably wasn't.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Gonna work anyway?
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Right?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
The answer should be nor are you willing to sacrifice
your animal's life for something that probably wasn't gonna work anyway?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The answer should be no. Right putting out there, Okay,
all right.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Again, although there are more skeptical chiropractors out there, most
of them tend to fall most of the chiropractors tend
to fall in the fringe anti science camp. So this
is another part of the harm here. As you go
to them, they're gonna recommend other pseudosciences such as acupuncture
and homeopathy. They're going to recommend against effective medical procedures
such as vaccinations and surgery, even when it is clearly warranted.
(10:38):
So I don't know how to help you identify who
are the quacks and who are the people who are
legitimately trying to do good work. But if they tell
you not to get vaccinations, or they tell you that
your dog who clearly needs surgery, or your pet, whatever
your pet is, who clearly need surgery, does not need surgery,
run away from that person.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah. I had a chiropractor, a functional chiropractor one time
tell me that he could cure autism with chiropractics, and
I should I knew right then and there that he
was alone.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
So get out of there. That person's crazy and wrong.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
We were marketing and the person was like, oh, you
don't need to do ABA therapy. You are like, I'll
just just send them here, and I was like, okay,
So until the research says otherwise, it is best to
keep your pet away from chiropractics and from chiropractors in general,
because there's just it's just not a thing. It's just
it's just not there's no evidence, and you're putting your
animal at a necessary risk.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Maybe someday there will be, hopefully there will be, but
until there is, just don't just don't.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That doesn't recommendation.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Let until there is there is not.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, that exactly beautiful, yep, that's right, that should be
a shirt until there is there is not excellent. Well,
on that note, I don't know how it could end
it better than that. I'll do our closing out parts
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(11:59):
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Speaker 2 (12:07):
That's all good.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And you can go tell a friend have them subscribe,
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You get early episodes, bonus content, ad free episodes, and
I'll read your name among the list of wonderful, awesome, perfect,
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(12:30):
us over there, but if you'd like to tell us
your thoughts on this, you can email us directly info
at wwdwwdpodcast dot com. And if you're someone who's going
to come yell at us about how amazing chiropractic is
and how we got everything wrong, then I mean I
can't stop you, but I'm also.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Not going to read email. But yeah, you're right if
that brings you joy. Otherwise, we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
If you have other constructive feedback to say, if you've
got some things to add to this or some other
other ways we can further shut down the pseudosciences, We're
happy to hear those as well.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
To my team of people. Thank you for recording with
me today.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Shane, Hey, anytime, is there anything you'd liked out or
that I forgot before we close this out?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Not today?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Thank you all for listening. This is Abraham and it's Shane.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
We're bye. You've been listening to Why we do what
we do. You can learn more about this and other
episodes by going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening,
and we hope you have an awesome day