Talk:Chiropractic

Controversy Section

It seems a great deal is spent trying to discredit it as pseudoscience up top making the article top heavy. I think one or two sentences at the start, but then most of that could be moved to the Controversy section. That would make the article flow better and not sound like the admin has a lawsuit out against Chiropractors. 2603:7000:A700:4EB9:7903:D13:814B:9296 (talk) 11:48, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree this article needs a lot of work to update it to the world of 2025. It's been on my "to do" list for a long long time, but I don't currently have the familiarity with the RSes to know precisely how to improve the article. Given enough time, I will fix it myself, but I hope someone improves it first.

Yes, it's background is fully pseudoscience and yes, many practitioners may still be unscrupulous. But an ever-increasing proportion of chiropractors reject the primordial pseudoscience and practice therapeutic massage, manual therapy, and physical therapy.

Warning vulnerable readers of potentially unscrupulous practitioners has to be our first duty, but the current incarnation of the article really doesn't get the nuance right. Millions of people do get drug-free pain relief from pain by seeing chiropractors, who are approved by nearly all mainstream western healthcare systems. Manual therapy has quantifiable improvements in, say, range of motion, for reasons that are well-understood by mainstream science.

Contrast this article with, say, Yoga as exercise or even something as esoteric as Psychoanalysis.

So, yes reader, this article needs work and I apologize on Wikipedia's behalf that it's not better. It's easy to spot when something is broken, but it's not so easy to figure out how to actually fix it. Feoffer (talk) 13:07, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

I can’t agree entirely with this statement, “Warning vulnerable readers of potentially unscrupulous practitioners has to be our first duty,” I don’t think think Wikipedia has that duty at all. Mostly because that’s an impossible to task, to try to predict unscrupulous practice habits.

Rather I think the primary duty is simply to inform and as a result you may disarm potentially unscrupulous practicioners. But ultimately it is each persons’ choice and Wikipedia has no moral obligation in the slightest. 2603:7000:A700:4EB9:54B3:D414:E9D0:E1E0 (talk) 20:29, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, I don't meant to suggest anything beyond our "duty to inform". But we have to have an articles that can teach a random ten year old, in Fairbanks Alaska or rural Africa, that the word Chiropractor is not, by itself, any guarantee of standardized care.

But I say all this as some trying to agree with you. In the US alone, 35 million Americans get chiro care each year -- it may not be scientific, but neither is it placebo! Feoffer (talk) 00:22, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I don’t care if you are “trying” to agree with me we are having an intelligent discussion we can disagree it’s fine.

But I just think you are taking up some sort of moral position that is not only unnecessary but impossible.

I simply disagree that Wikipedia has some sort of moral obligation to hypothetical ten year olds. I feel that’s a distraction as opposed to just writing an encyclopedic entry. 2603:7000:A700:4EB9:9D70:36A2:DA6A:22ED (talk) 12:43, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I've been watching this discussion, and I think the important thing is to keep the information on the page consistent with what WP:MEDRS requires. Whether that's a moral imperative or just editing according to community consensus, it's the way Wikipedia does these things. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:09, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

How can we improve this article

I've had family members who have joint dysfunction who benefitted from seeing Chiros, and I've been a sort of amateur Chiro myself to some uncles with "bad backs". I don't know precisely how to make this article better, but I wish I did. Lots of people get drug-free pain relief from "back cracks", it's not scientific, but it does work. But I also have seen deeply unscrupulous practitioners who would probably milk clients for every penny if you gave them the cance. So this is a hard article, but I wish there was a better article. Just as one random example, I'm not sure how much the "straights and mixers" discussion is relevant to modern readers, I think it's more about who sided with B.J. Palmer in the 1930s and paid dues to him. (But I honestly don't know, I haven't read up on this.) Feoffer (talk) 11:41, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Physical therapy works. Chiropractic often has that as a component and adds woo. It's the woo which makes Chiropractic what it is. There's also quite a bit of history to cover. Bon courage (talk) 11:47, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

I know lots of Chiros still are woo, and that's why this is such a hard topic. Bad chiros are INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS, vultures who would prey upon the ignorant and illiterate people. But GOOD chiros are really awesome people who just fix joint dysfunction and never pretend to do anything more. I realize this is an incredibly hard article to get right and we SHOULD lean in favor of warning readers of the dangers of the bad ones.

But I don't feel like the current article is that good at helping readers distinguish responsible practitioners from snake oil salesmen. It just feels like a really old and dated article that's a little in denial of the modern reality that millions of people get some measure of drug-free pain relief from 'back cracks'.

But also, it's easy for me to sit back and thrown stones and say "this article should better". I don't honestly know how it should be better. Feoffer (talk) 12:18, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

It's not Wikipedia's role to act as a consumer guide or give medical advice. All we can do is summarise what decent sources are saying, giving due consideration to this being one of the WP:FRINGESUBJECTS. Bon courage (talk) 12:21, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you, I just, as a reader, wish the article was better but honestly don't know how to improve it right now. But just off the top of my head, do 21st century readers really benefit from Straights and Mixers? Aren't they just some BJ Palmer franchise thing? Aren't both of them FRINGE, compared to 21st century practitioners? Shouldn't the article be more about scrupulous vs unscrupulous? Not some antiquated thing?

But again, I'm first to admit I don't know what I'm talking about. I have NOT read up on the RSes on Chiropractic, this is just me talking as a reader. Feoffer (talk) 12:31, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Chiropractic is WP:FRINGE today. There is a rich history to the topic which also needs to be covered. I don't really know what to say: are there some great sources on this topic which have been missed? Perhaps a push to GA could be worth it? Bon courage (talk) 12:34, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

I appreciate that this isn't the kind of POV-pushing from woo-proponents that we usually get, so thank you for acknowledging that we should not oversell this. In order to be encyclopedic, I think it's good to include odd stuff from the history of the topic, so I don't think we should remove things because they no longer get used. I don't know whether there might be some more recent high-quality sources that distinguish between unscrupulous and otherwise, but I'd be willing to consider such additions. (Emphasis on high-quality.) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:19, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. My concerns about straight and mixers is more about what we don't cover. Is that still a distinction Chiros make in 2025? I honestly don't know. Were one side or the other more scrupulous than the other according the truly high-quality 2025 sources? I don't know.

My instinct, having studied a lot of early 20th century new religious movements, is that "Mixers" was a term made by BJ Palmer to stigmatize the people who didn't pay him a franchise fee? but I don't know that true.

The article really should reflect that, in some nations at least, it has a genuine benefit, even if patients would be better of getting that treatment from a science-based provider. By analogy, I think of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which is not at all scientific but is still promoted by mainstream sources and does have a measure of benefit. (but with effect sizes on the magnitude of chicken soup). But in 2025, Chiro isn't exactly homeopathy, it's covered by mainstream medical insurance programs in a lot of nations as a way to prevent opioid use for musculoskeletal pain. Our current article makes it seem as if the admittedly pseudoscientific practice is utterly without value, but millions of readers know firsthand that it has SOME merit, even if it's tainted with gobs of dangerous pseudoscience. Feoffer (talk) 13:05, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Found some answers. Feoffer (talk) 11:41, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Evidence based chiro as a section

Quackwatch classifies modern chiros as falling into three groups: "evidence based chiropractors, traditional straight chiropractors, and super straight chiropractors." I recently made a bold creation of a heading for the evidence-based group, and it was reverted as a little too bold, which I completely understand. What would people think about creating such a section? I admit that we have to be very careful here, as getting it wrong could have real health consequences for readers. My background is history of folklore and religion, I know very little about chiropractic after the 1920s. Feoffer (talk) 09:05, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for being gracious about this, I appreciate it. As the editor who reverted, I stated my primary concerns in my edit summary: [1]. Beyond what I said in my edit summary, I'd really like to know what other editors think about this. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:59, 10 May 2025 (UTC)