1. Summarize the situation in your own words.
The article Placebos are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers are Desperate to Know Why. from Wired Magzine explains the growing strength of the placebo effect within medical research studies in recent years, and the pharmaceutical industry's frustration with their hinderance in clinical trials. The article attributes the increasing efficacy of the placebo effect to basic psychology and external factors such as the media and advertising.
2. What AOK and WOK are involved?
Some areas of knowledge involved in the situation include the natural sciences and psychology. While the natural sciences involve a drug's interaction with the body to treat a disease or condition, the subject of psychology pertains to the brain's response of merely taking a pill and how it affects the way someone feels. The ways of knowing that are associated with this situation are perception, reason, and emotion. When someone takes a pill, reason tells him that it contains certain ingredients that should help treat a disease or condition. Similarly, emotion and perception plays a role. As the picture to the side depicts, certain characteristics of a pill such as color or brand can alter one's opinion about the drug's actual efficacy. A person can also use sensual perception to tell wheter or not he or she feels better.
3. What issues or ideas are related to this situation?
An important idea related to this situation is a drug's efficacy at actually treating a condition versus the psychological effect of taking a pill that may make a person feel better.
4. What is the "Knowledge Problem"?
In this situation, the Knowledge Problem is that a person has no way of knowing whether or not a drug or pill is truly effective at treating a disease or condition. Your perception cannot tell you whether or not a drug is chemically effective. It can only tell you how you feel.
5. State the Knowledge Issue.
To what extent does reason and emotion affect one's knowledge and awareness of his or her actual health?
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