Death and needles

Deadpool '09
Entry: get it in before 31/1/09.
Remember: Choose 10 people who will not make it through the year. The younger the better.
Check here for points details.

News flash
Wow, knock me over with a feather! Studies continue to confirm that it doesn't matter where you stick needles into your body, traditional acupuncture spots or not, there is an anelgesic effect. This is most likely due to a strong placebo effect.

Now any rational person might begin questioning that maybe the underlying theory of traditional acupuncture maybe wrong. If it doesn't matter where the needles are, maybe there are no meridians in the human body. Of course, we have never found these, nor any signs of Qi, the magical life force. However, we get comments like the following from the above article -

"She said the success of "fake" acupuncture was due to a strong placebo response from sticking a needle in the body."

Let's see, the results from fake points are exactly the same as from real points, yet the effect from the fake points are a placebo response but the real points aren't. But you can't tell the difference. No meridians found, no Qi found, the same effect. Wouldn't you think it's all a placebo response? Occam slaps palm against forehead.