Reply With QuoteI think this is a relevant post:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=156
I wish I could remember, and credit, the person who observed that "the best mis-information has a kernel of truth."
There's a debate on the Times Higher Education site regarding homeopathy here: Times
As always the comments that follow the article are usually the best read.
Scientific randomised controlled trials show that homeopathy doesn't work. Hardly surprising when there's no ingredients in them.
Of course, with homeopathy and the mindset that goes with it, things are never that simple.
You see. Homeopathy works. All you need to do is abandon scientific methods and reasoning and find a new way of looking at it!
Simple really.
Just call scientists the "new fundamentalists" and call for a "paradigm shift" (how original) and the crazy belief system that is homeopathy all becomes reality.
.
I think this is a relevant post:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=156
I wish I could remember, and credit, the person who observed that "the best mis-information has a kernel of truth."
"you can't test homeopathy!"
Do you make claims that you can cure people?
"yes"
Then it can be tested.
"but these papers show it has an effect"
So a minute ago you said you can't test homeopathy, now you say you can? Furthermore, every paper you cite has been examined by impartial referees and almost all in their own conclusions, state that the controls were not tight and further research needs to be done to verify the findings.
"but the referees are paid shills of big pharma"
And you deny that you don't have a vested interest in homeopathy, to show that it 'works'?
"but my friend took arnica 100C for this condition and got better"
Anecdotes are part and parcel of observer bias and the placebo effect, they can't be trusted - you need to conduct properly controlled scientific tests.
"you can't test homeopathy!"
ad nauseum......
The speed of light, expressed in FFF Units, is 1.8 mega-furlongs per micro-fortnight, or approximately 1.8 terafurlongs per fortnight.
Gravity makes the heart grow heavier.
Any use of this product, in any manner whatsoever, will increase the amount of disorder in the universe. Although no liability is implied herein, the consumer is warned that this process will lead to the heat death of the universe.
vbloke, nice parody.
I wish it were...Originally Posted by JJM
The speed of light, expressed in FFF Units, is 1.8 mega-furlongs per micro-fortnight, or approximately 1.8 terafurlongs per fortnight.
Gravity makes the heart grow heavier.
Any use of this product, in any manner whatsoever, will increase the amount of disorder in the universe. Although no liability is implied herein, the consumer is warned that this process will lead to the heat death of the universe.
Excellent Parody Vbloke. I can't help thinking that some of the posts following that Times Higher Article were created by some kind of random woo-quote generator, for example:
That is a classic of its genre. Posted more in sadness than anger, slight sneer at a person with a real job and then it's straight into a full on attack on "the conventional scientific framework" amid claims of "New frontiers" and "paradigm shifts" all of which surely would be happening if it wasn't for those pesky "ivory tower" people actually doing research and insisting on facts.What is particularly disappointing is that a so-called Professor of Complementary Medicines is so stuck in the contemporary conventional scientific framework when it comes to evaluating CAM. CAM presents exciting frontiers to be explored, new understandings of how human beings function and a paradigm shift in the way we think about health, disease and treating it. Sitting in an ivory tower analysing research papers from a conventional framework will not prevent a new understanding from taking its place but it is probably slowing it down.
If people who don't believe in God don't go to church, mosque or temple ,by the same token, I think that people who don't believe in medicine shouldn't go to hospitals. This would have a marvellous effect on waiting lists and ultimately have an equally fine effect on the gene pool.
It's win-win all the way!
"Expect the Inquisition..."
@vbloke
A few other of my favourites:
The problem is that you are too close-minded to understand!
If it's all placebo how come it works on my dog?
Being asked for evidence again and again is getting rather repetitive; why don't you prove it doesn't work!
Thinking that by saying that "there are lots of things which science doesn't know" they are attacking the scientific method.
Use of the word 'rational' as a derogatory term.
And as a qualified homeopath, if my memory is correct, vbloke is better qualified to write a parody than most.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear
bright, until you hear them speak.
@bindeweed
"And as a qualified homeopath"
BSc or MSc?
aaaaaaaah!?!
Somewhere, vbloke described the homeopathic training course he went on - typical that I can't find it. But I do seem to remember that he said no medical knowledge was required or training given on the course. I don't think it was to degree level, but as it is unregulated, anyone can set themselves up anyway.
I'm thinking of setting myself up as a homeopathic crystal-healing feng-shuiist - you dangle crystals that aren't there, and shake em about, but just a tiny little bit. Worth a try!
Oh. Forgot to add - you also develop the ability to take money from the gullible. Makes sense to me.
Last edited by bindeweede; 2nd July 2008 at 10:49 PM. Reason: Added comment.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear
bright, until you hear them speak.
Bindeweede, it doesn't surprise me at all (that no medical knowledge is needed not that vbloke went on one of the courses)
My mother was a homoeopath. I know exactly how it works. Essentially there's a big book of things. You have to ask about all manner of irrelevant things like sleeping habits, what sort of taste they have in their mouth, what sort of food they eat etc. Almost all of which is not logically related to what they've come to you to see you about.
Then you look up all their answers in the big book and different remedies, like Nux Vom, Arnica etc, are given a score for each of the things they've told you. Then at the end you just tot up the scores and the little sugar pills with the highest score win. It's quite handy for them because they get to say they're being holistic, rather than requiring any medical knowledge to enable directed questioning, and of course because the remedies are tailor made to that particular patient, rather than disease specific, they can ignore some of the negative studies.
When we got our first home computer there was a computer program which you just clicked on all the "symptoms" and it gave the scores. No skill involved and it took about 5 minutes; I did a few to help her when I was 11!
Oh, and I got to help making up the pills too. Big bags of sugar pills poured into paper chutes to fill little brown bottles. Then a drop of liquid from the stock and a good shake. There was no way any of it got to the bottom. Of course I soon realised that didn't matter.
and just remembered. When I used to get given them for a headache or such like but it didn't get better the answer was that homoeopathic remedies often made things get worse before they got better!
It's actually quite clever the hoops they jump through in order to square a circle.
Of course not - you only need to get it on one of them and "grafting" will take care of the rest.
"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield
I keep getting this terrible feeling of deja woo.
How come the dog doesn't tell you that it feels better?
"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield
I keep getting this terrible feeling of deja woo.
That's ridiculous; don't be so silly. If the dog could talk he would know he was getting a remedy and my argument would be stupid. Duh!
Because the poor innocent b'stard who should have owners who know better doesn't feel better?
Sorry, dogs + homeopathy = Very angry MischiefMonkey.
A 'pet' hate if you'll excuse the pun. I'm currently arguing against an anti-vax pro-homeopathic 'person' on a Crestie forum. She/he/it is extolling the virtue of Pat Mckay, who thinks that Vaccines cause AIDS, vaccines don't work (so how come vaccines have eradicated Small Pox and nearly eradicated Polio - GLOBALLY) and homeopathy offers a treatment for parvo - try telling the imbecile, nosode-giving owner of those poor Bull Terriers in Kent who died from Parvo earlier this year. Six out of seven died, puppies and Dam dying a horrible death, only the stud survived.
/deep breath
"We all like going to sleep. One day we will go to sleep without having to set the alarm." Drut. RIP.
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