Creation, materialism and the placebo effect

There are many reasons to doubt the Materialist explanation of the universe. The placebo effect is just one of these.

Quotes and comments;

A. 'Patients given antidepressants in the clinical trials we analysed showed substantial, clinically meaningful improvement. But so did those given placebos, and the difference between the drug response and the placebo response was not great. The question is not whether antidepressants work, but why they work. Is it because the chemical in the pill specifically targets depression, or is it because of the placebo effect?

- I maintain the placebo effect disproves materialism. I haven't seen a materialist explanation that makes sense, or deals with the data.

B. 'They can make people feel sick, and they can make them feel better. Placebo effects are part of a broader phenomenon – the power of suggestion to change how people feel, how they behave, and even their physiology.' p.102

- The materialist has to explain to us how a 'suggestion' (an immaterial or spiritual entity) can affect the brain and the mind.

C. 'In his seminal article on the ‘pharmacology of placebos’, Wolf described a number of experimental demonstrations of the ability of a placebo to reverse the effects of an active medication.

- I'm just a layman, but doesn't this indicate the mind (spirit) is more powerful than matter (brain). I don't know how you explain this in terms of strict materialism. (It only goes to show that human beings are 'infinitely' more complex than any of the standards academic or scientific models of man.)

D. 'Physicians do not sysematically prescribe placebos to their patients. Hence they have no way of comparing the effects of the drugs they prescribe to placebos. When they prescribe a treatment and it works, their natural tendency is to attribute the cure to the treatment. But there are thousands of treatments that
have worked in clinical practice throughout history. Powdered stone worked. So did lizard’s blood and crocodile dung, and pig’s teeth and dolphin’s genitalia and frog’s sperm. [1.]

- Isn't this evidence that it's a mistake to treat human beings as if they were mere clumps of matter? Doesn't this suggest we'd be better off to treat people as the spiritual beings Christianity claims they are?

Notes;
1. The emperor's new drugs - Irving Kirsch/p.56
2. 'Because of the power of the placebo effect, almost anything that is believed in seems to work for some types of medical problems. That is why the late Arthur K. Shapiro described the history of medicine as largely the history of the placebo effect. It is also why clinical experience alone cannot tell us whether a particular
physical substance is an effective treatment. [1.]
- Can we say medicine made so little progress for so long because of the placebo effect?
3. 'Studies of the placebo effect reveal that, all else being equal, taking placebo pills four times per day is more effective than taking them only twice a day; brand-name placebos are more effective than placebos presented as generic drugs; placebo injections are more effective than placebo pills; and more expensive placebos are better than cheaper ones. p.110
- The materialist is going to have to give us an explanation for this. I don't see how he's going to do it.
4. 'Placebos can yield substantial clinical benefit that can last for months or even years. p.113