User talk:76.171.132.146

December 2022
 Anonymous users from this IP address have been blocked from editing from certain pages (Talk:Acupuncture) for a period of 2 weeks for disruptive edits. If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page:. Drmies (talk) 02:07, 17 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Your block completely violates blocking policy. The talk page I have been blocked from is overrun by biased editors who are disregarding Wikipedia guidelines. They are unable to respond to valid source material and instead, share unpublished, unreviewed hit pieces by one author as their only line of counterargument. They are proponents of misinformation and are trolling this page from being written accurately. When I mentioned that they did not have a tone of neutrality and that I would be requesting a dispute, you blocked me, which violates blocking policy. 76.171.132.146 (talk) 02:20, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

76.171.132.146 (talk) 02:17, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Acupuncture Discussion
The editors were notified of this discussion on the Acupuncture talk page, but @drmies deleted the comment when they blocked me. The appeal to be unblocked was paused in lieu of this discussion. So clearly, closing this dispute while also holding the block appeal process is not allowing for change. I also requested that the sources used that are either blogs, only vaguely mention acupuncture, or have theses that are opposite what they were being cited as sources for be removed as sources from the Acupuncture page. To state that there is consensus on wikipedia that acupuncture is not effective is not the same thing as it being classified as quackery or pseudoscientific. It also does not justify the use of mediocre source material as citations. Further @Robert McClenon, to make the statement that "there is a consensus in Wikipedia that acupuncture is not medically effective" is problematic, given Wikipedia editors have therefore reached a conclusion about acupuncture that is directly opposite the mainstream medical consensus AND only use blogs as their source material to justify this consensus? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.171.132.146 (talk) 17:44, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I have moved your most recent comments at DRN inside the archival brackets, and also copied them here. I have moved them inside the archival brackets so as not to confuse the bot that archives the discussions, and have moved them here so that I can respond, but will respond within 48 hours because I want to verify that what I am posting is correct.

Notification of other users of a DRN filing, like a filing at any noticeboard, should be on the user talk page. Notice somewhere else is not sufficient. However, even if you have provided proper notice, the case would have been closed, because DRN is not the forum for a block appeal. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:10, 19 December 2022 (UTC)


 * @Robert McClenon Thank you for moving my comments to the appropriate location. I filed the dispute resolution not as an unblock request, but with the intention of disputing issue with both the content on the acupuncture page and the poor quality of the sources cited as evidence. I have been separately appealing my block in the appropriate location, which as you can see above, was paused until the dispute had been resolved. As I stated, my notification to the editors of the dispute was made on the talk page for Acupuncture, which @Drmies deleted prior to blocking me. If there is consensus that acupuncture is not medically effective, I need sources that provide evidence for this consensus that are not blogs or misstatements. The most recent citation being discussed on this talk page by @Hob Gadling (citation 17 on acupuncture page) is https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/systematic-review-of-systematic-reviews-of-acupuncture/ <--- this is a blog co-founded by David Gorski and not a credible source. Sharing anything self-published by David Gorski or published on his blog is biased and has conflict of interest, given he is an oncologist who is outspoken against complementary medicine. Rather than the meta-analyses I shared that demonstrate high confidence that acupuncture is beneficial for headaches, migraines and chronic pain, this biased blog is the only source used to justify the claim on on the acupuncture page that states "The conclusions of trials and systematic reviews of acupuncture generally provide no good evidence of benefit, which suggests that it is not an effective method of healthcare." Please review citations 4-8 (the sources used for proof that acupuncture is classifiable as quackery or pseudoscientific) as they too are all blogs, vaguely mention acupuncture or have a thesis that is counter to the claim that acupuncture is pseudoscience. None of these sources comply with MEDRS. Source 7 clearly states "Although >40 disorders have been recognized by the World Health Organization as conditions that can benefit from acupuncture treatment, many within the field of science view acupuncture as “quackery” and “pseudoscience,” and its effect as “theatrical placebo.” It seems somewhat naive to totally condemn the practice of acupuncture, while accepting orthodox medicine as the basis for treating all medical conditions. Herein, we describe evidence supporting the thesis that acupuncture, as part of anesthesia practice, can provide clinically meaningful benefits for patients." <--- This clearly cannot be cited as evidence for acupuncture as quackery or pseudoscience. On this talk page, before I was banned, I cited sources from the VA, NIH, 2 recent meta-analyses in reputable scientific journals, landing pages from major US hospitals including John Hopkins and the Cleveland Clinic and the WHO, who all discuss the scientific confidence that acupuncture is of medical benefit. It does not get more "mainstream medicine" than the sources I shared. The editors on this page took issue with all of my sources, sharing biased judgments and their only citations that back their counterarguments come from blogs. I also suggested that a more neutral perspective would be to acknowledge that the literature needs further research, but to call it pseudoscientific or classifiable as quackery is entirely false. Medicare now covers acupuncture. Most health insurance companies now cover acupuncture. MDs and DOs train in acupuncture and have an American Academy of Medical Acupuncture: https://medicalacupuncture.org. I am here as a proponent for cleaning this page up from bias, misinformation, misclassification and the use of inferior sources as references. 76.171.132.146 (talk) 23:49, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * You pinged me, I don't know why, and I'll be brief--two things. First of all, "I need sources..."--but this isn't about you. These articles aren't written to somehow convince you of this or that; they are here to present the accepted information on a certain topic. Second, I just can't read/comprehend what you write: it's kind of like run-on was elevated to the level of the paragraph. If you were to start by properly paragraphing, you might gain a readership. Hint: The breeze served us admirably. Drmies (talk) 01:00, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Note, also for the next admin: I reverted the IP's edits on Wikipedia talk:Dispute resolution noticeboard, where they were saying the same thing as here, rehashing what was already turned down at DRN. Drmies (talk) 01:05, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @drmies I pinged you because you blocked me from the acupuncture talk page and deleted my comment where I stated I would be taking this discussion to DRN. Now you deleted my edit on DRN. Please do not delete my contributions again. 
 * When I speak about "I", as stated above, I am advocating for cleaning this page up from bias, misinformation, misclassification and the use of inferior sources as references.
 * You respond with an excuse that I am not punctuating to your liking, rather than responding to content. Moving forward, I am requesting for you to be civil and to respond in a meaningful way rather than through condescension or bullying. Otherwise, it seems to me that you are only here to incite a battle or silence me, rather than respond to concerns regarding the content on this page.  76.171.132.146 (talk) 03:19, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Robert McClenon 48 hours have passed, I would appreciate your follow up on this. 76.171.132.146 (talk) 17:31, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Your post is too long, difficult to read, and punctuating it with paragraph breaks really would make it easier to read. There is discussion at the fringe theory noticeboard.  Robert McClenon (talk) 17:33, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes. We are biased.
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once wrote:

Wikipedia's policies ... are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.

What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse". It isn't.

So yes, we are biased.


 * We are biased towards science, and biased against pseudoscience.
 * We are biased towards astronomy, and biased against astrology.
 * We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy.
 * We are biased towards mathematics, and biased against numerology.
 * We are biased towards medicine, and biased against homeopathy.
 * We are biased towards venipuncture, and biased against acupuncture.
 * We are biased towards solar energy, and biased against esoteric energy.
 * We are biased towards actual conspiracies and biased against conspiracy theories.
 * We are biased towards cargo planes, and biased against cargo cults.
 * We are biased towards vaccination, and biased against vaccine hesitancy.
 * We are biased towards magnetic resonance imaging, and biased against magnetic therapy.
 * We are biased towards crops, and biased against crop circles.
 * We are biased towards laundry detergent, and biased against laundry balls.
 * We are biased towards augmentative and alternative communication, and biased against facilitated communication.
 * We are biased towards water treatment, and biased against magnetic water treatment.
 * We are biased towards mercury in saturated calomel electrodes, and biased against mercury in quack medicines.
 * We are biased towards blood transfusions, and biased against blood letting.
 * We are biased towards electromagnetic fields, and biased against microlepton fields.
 * We are biased towards evolution and an old Earth, and biased against young Earth creationism.
 * We are biased towards holocaust studies, and biased against holocaust denial.
 * We are biased towards an (approximately) spherical earth, and biased against a flat earth.
 * We are biased towards the sociology of race, and biased against scientific racism.
 * We are biased towards the scientific consensus on climate change, and biased against global warming conspiracy theories.
 * We are biased towards the existence of Jesus and biased against the existence of Santa Claus.
 * We are biased towards geology, and biased against flood geology.
 * We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in double-blind clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon preying on the gullible.
 * We are biased towards astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against ancient astronauts.
 * We are biased towards psychology, and biased against phrenology.
 * We are biased towards Mendelism, and biased against Lysenkoism.

And we are not going to change. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:32, 20 December 2022 (UTC)


 * @TgeorgescuWould you like to engage in a content dispute discussion over this? What is your stance on statements in Wikipedia that only have low quality evidence to support them? The acupuncture page only uses low quality evidence to support its claims. If theses biases are as mainstream as you believe them to be, sharing high quality evidence should be easy. Please see MEDRS regarding the use of blogs as source material when referring to what is of medical benefit. Please refrain from further comments like "lunatic charlatans" or comments that can be read as racist, like what you posted on the DRN. 76.171.132.146 (talk) 07:55, 20 December 2022 (UTC)


 * It's an objective fact that Comrade Mao played a cynical trick by promoting TCM&mdash;this has very much to do with the objective historical reality, race is just accidental detail inside that story. Mao's position upon TCM: TCM for thee, but not for me, i.e. he didn't believe his own lies. The ordinary Chinese citizens were victims of such an ideology vs. reality conflict. If they confessed the reality, they got sent to reeducation camps. No wonder that they praised the benefits of the anesthesia through acupuncture, because the alternative to doing that was the reeducation camp. We're WP:NOTDUMB. Accusing us of racism is not your get out of jail free card. Race has no bearing upon the lack of empirical effectiveness of acupuncture. We don't know how the Chinese political police thinks about speaking ill of acupuncture, so Chinese citizens are not free to express criticism as long as the Constitution of China says that TCM is protected and propagated by the state. China wants to become world's number 1 scientific power. But the progress of science cannot really take place without having a substantial freedom of speech. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:09, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi @Tgeorgescu. It seems there are different conversations being had. You are deviating into opinions on "Mao's position upon TCM". Acupuncture has a long history that predates Mao and has widespread influence beyond China. It has been adopted by Western healthcare pracitioners, including by MDs, DOs and PTs, as a modality to benefit conditions like chronic pain.
 * The request is for the use of high quality source material regarding the scientific efficacy of acupuncture. High quality evidence that demonstrates that acupuncture is beneficial and that there is mainstream medical consensus as such has been provided. The page as it is written now, uses low quality (non peer-reviewed blogs rather than academic journals) as its source to justify the claim that acupuncture is not beneficial or that is classifiable as quackery. Jvsthere (talk) 17:36, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * When fundamentalists of Marxism-Leninism embrace Ancient superstition you know that something is fishy. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:55, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Given the number of high quality sources shared that demonstrate acupuncture has medical benefit, it is against wikipedia policy to be classified as WP:PS. Since it is an active body of scientific literature, it would be more appropriately classified as questionable science. It also goes against wikipedia policy to cite a blog that is not peer-reviewed as a meta-analysis. These are my concerns. Jvsthere (talk) 19:23, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * You don't get to decide which are the WP:RULES we should follow.
 * Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 19:25, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Slatersteven I propose edits to the line "The conclusions of trials and systematic reviews of acupuncture generally provide no good evidence of benefit, which suggests that it is not an effective method of healthcare.". As @Endwisestates on the talk page, there need to be peer-reviewed MEDRS sources to make such overarching claims on the literature.
 * I am proposing a statement more similar to what is published on Mount Sinai hospital's page on acupuncture: "In 1997, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) formally recognized acupuncture as a mainstream medicine healing option with a statement documenting the procedure's safety and efficacy for treating a range of health conditions...There are hundreds of clinical studies on the benefits of acupuncture. Many of these clinical studies were performed in China. Acupuncture has been used successfully in the treatment of conditions ranging from musculoskeletal problems (back pain, neck pain, and others) to nausea, migraine headache, anxiety, and insomnia."
 * I also think it important to share the CDC recommendations for acupuncture for the management of chronic pain to minimize opioid use (per MEDRS, CDC recommendations are highest quality sources). In this summary of recommendations, it states "The American College of Physicians (ACP) recommends nonpharmacologic treatment with superficial heat, massage, acupuncture, or spinal manipulation as a cornerstone of treatment for acute low back pain. ACP and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) suggest acupressure to improve pain and function and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation to reduce pain in patients with acute musculoskeletal injuries." The CDC also recommends physicians to prescribe acupuncture in the treatment of low back pain, neck pain, and fibromyalgia. Here is a NYT article summarizing these guidelines.
 * Given these sources demonstrate that the CDC, ACP and AAFP all recommend acupuncture, how can this page accurately classify acupuncture as quackery, pseudoscientific or not acknowledged by mainstream medicine? Jvsthere (talk) 03:10, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Given these sources demonstrate that the CDC, ACP and AAFP all recommend acupuncture, how can this page accurately classify acupuncture as quackery, pseudoscientific or not acknowledged by mainstream medicine? Jvsthere (talk) 03:10, 21 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has its own rules. Take time to learn our rules. You don't get to dictate how we do things around here. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:31, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Tgeorgescu I have read through the rules. I am sharing a high quality source per MEDRS with recently published CDC guidelines that recommend physicians prescribe acupuncture for a number of conditions in lieu of opioids. How am I dictating anything if I am simply providing sources and asking questions? Please assume good will. Jvsthere (talk) 18:28, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Out-of-date sources are not useful when we have recent ones describing the state of research (TL;DR no good evidence overall, suggestive that acu doesn't work). We mention those CDC guidelines: yes if somebody has a stiff neck, prescribing a harmless placebo is preferable to putting them on the morphine train. That is hardly surprising. Bon courage (talk) 13:20, 23 December 2022 (UTC)