Starship Asterisk*

geckzilla wrote:

Beyond wrote:Although I've tried a few different things that were guaranteed to work, but did absolutely nothing, like a placebo.

That's the opposite of a placebo.

Beyond wrote:
A placebo, in and of itself, is nothing.

Ann wrote:

Beyond wrote:
A placebo, in and of itself, is nothing.

A placebo is something that works because the human mind expects it to. I have read (and don't ask me to back it up with a source) that if a doctor believes in the treatment he or she prescribes for the patient, then the treatment works better. If the doctor feels doubtful about the treatment, then the patient doesn't respond to it so well. The placebo effect in this case comes from the doctor.

Ann

Beyond wrote:

geckzilla wrote:The burden of proof does not lie with me. You are the one making the extraordinary claim.

It's not an extraordinary claim to me. And I'm not trying to prove it to you or anyone else.

Beyond wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

Beyond wrote:I used the word usually, because one time i didn't catch it fast enough and it took a couple of days to get rid of it. My sinus' like to drip a lot, unless the weather is really dry, so the cold was able to 'sneak up' on me. Thus the term usually was used to be technically correct.

Classic selection bias.

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "classic selection bias", but seeing as how I've never had a failure in eliminating a cold with it, how could there be any "selection bias"? Normally, (another key word?) i would ascribe "classic selection bias" to being city slicker talk, but you live out in the country up on a mountain, so i suppose I'd have to refer to it as high altitude effect.

Beyond wrote:

geckzilla wrote:

Beyond wrote:Although I've tried a few different things that were guaranteed to work, but did absolutely nothing, like a placebo.

That's the opposite of a placebo.

A placebo is not designed to do anything. However, it sometimes causes production of some extraordinary results from the human that receives it, even though there's no way that the ingredients of the placebo could cause it to happen. A placebo, in and of itself, is nothing.

Beyond wrote:I've never had a failure in eliminating a cold with it

wonderboy wrote:Beyond drinks it and his colds go away, we know this because it happens.

wonderboy wrote:However, in your example, you are the colloidal silver that gets the job done!!!

owlice wrote:
ETA=edited to add

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirichlet_eta_function wrote:
Dirichlet eta function

<<In the area of analytic number theory, the Dirichlet eta function is defined by the following Dirichlet series, which converges for any complex number having real part > 0:



This Dirichlet series is the alternating sum corresponding to the Dirichlet series expansion of the Riemann zeta function, ζ(s) — and for this reason the Dirichlet eta function is also known as the alternating zeta function, also denoted ζ*(s). The following simple relation holds:



While the Dirichlet series expansion for the eta function is convergent only for any complex number s with real part > 0, it is Abel summable for any complex number. This serves to define the eta function as an entire function (and the above relation then shows the zeta function is meromorphic with a simple pole at s = 1, and perhaps poles at the other zeros of the factor.>>