Scientific Investigation
There have been a number of studies of qi, especially in the sense used by traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture. These studies have often been problematic, and are hard to compare to each other, as they lack a common nomenclature. Some studies claim to have been able to measure qi, or the effects of manipulating qi, such as through acupuncture, but the proposed existence of qi has also been questioned within the scientific community.
A United States National Institutes of Health consensus statement on acupuncture in 1997 noted that concepts such as qi "are difficult to reconcile with contemporary biomedical information." In 2007 "Network", a newsletter discussing "topics of interest to cancer patients" and published by the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, published an article covering the concepts by which qi is believed to work and research into possible benefits for cancer patients. A review of clinical trials investigating the use of internal qigong for pain management found no convincing evidence that it was effective.
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“I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly but surely destroy their fortifications. And the importance of scientific method in modern practical life—always growing and increasing—is the guarantee for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper and lower classes, the former of whom especially are the strength of the priests.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)