Don't pin it on me!

Here's an interesting piece on acupuncture, it's a summary of some 3000 scientific studies into the efficacy of this ancient pain control technique, as is fairly common with ritualistic procedures like this the conclusion is that from a medical point of view acupuncture is bunkum. No doubt the anti-evidence brigade will appeal to the mysteries of the ancients thinking this makes their lives a little more interesting and the practitioners (i.e. those that make a living from such shamanism) will be lobbing around accusations of closed mindedness, it all follows a fairly fixed pattern, that's the problem with fans of irrationality and superstition, they're really hard to pin down.