Be honest. Does the study make sense to me?

by melch890 on 2012-03-05 10:19:47

Body & Mind

Be Honest. Does Studying Make My Butt Look Big? By Maia Szalavitz | @maiasz | December 13, 2010 | + Tweet

Courtesy John C. McLachlan / BMJ

Are you sitting down? A British researcher has proposed a new form of reflexology—one based on the idea that sensations from the body are mapped onto the buttocks, much like they are in the brain, where they can more easily be manipulated for therapeutic purposes (more details on Time.com: Want to Eat Less? Imagine Eating More).

In an article published in the BMJ, John McLachlan, a professor of medical education at Durham University in the UK, explains: "Recently, following my studies on the development of human embryos, I discovered a new version of reflexology, which maps a homunculus represented in the human body, located on the buttock area. The homunculus is inverted, so that the head is represented in the lower position, the left buttock corresponds to the right side of the body, and the lateral surface is represented inside. As with reflexology, the 'map' responds to needling, as in acupuncture, and to gentle suction, such as cupping. In my studies, the responses are stronger and of greater therapeutic value than those of auricular fibrillation or classic reflexology. In some cases, the map can be used for diagnostic purposes."

A "homunculus" (from the Latin for "little man") is a kind of map or model of the human body used in neuroanatomy to show where particular sensory or motor experiences are represented in the brain. For example, in the sensory homunculus, large areas of the brain are devoted to the hands, feet, tongue (and in NSFW versions, the genitals); due to their heightened sensitivity, these parts of the body take up relatively more "real estate" in the brain.

By contrast, McLachlan's homunculus maps the body onto the rear end. The researcher submitted the above paragraph as part of a proposal to present his findings at the International Conference on Integrative Medicine in Jerusalem. But McLachlan— as you might have guessed—is not really a proponent of reflexology or homeopathy or similar practices. Inspired by physicist Alan Sokal—who in 1996 published a paper containing bogus scientific claims and demolished the credibility of the cultural studies journal that published it without recognizing the errors—McLachlan wanted to see if proponents of alternative medicine would be able to think critically and reject his absurd and unproven idea of a homunculus mapped entirely on the hand.

Writes McLachlan: "Although I resisted the temptation to make an analogy with the mappings of phrenology, it was still in my mind, and the reference to gentle suction might have been taken by a skeptical reader to refer to the notion of kissing the point of credulity." Despite this, the paper was accepted, and McLachlan was invited to give a talk at the conference. To be fair, unlike Sokal's hoax, which survived the entire peer-review process without being detected as a parody, McLachlan's paper was reviewed only in summary form by a conference committee. It’s possible that had it been submitted to the more rigorous review process of an actual alternative medicine journal, it would have been detected and rejected.

Nevertheless, the absurdity of the paper and its acceptance should give pause for reflection. It's one thing to study ancient therapies—some of which are still poorly understood and may have potential utility in certain circumstances—but it's another to suspend all critical judgment. On the other hand, I'm sure a butt massage would feel pretty nice, and one gets images of beautiful pleasure regions lighting up on brain scans. And I’m sure researchers wouldn’t have lacked for volunteers to participate in a study to determine whether having one's butt kissed improves mental well-being.