Suddenly Debating Homeopathy: How Does This Shit Happen?
Posted: 2012-01-17 06:31pm
This was in a thread titled: Does Homoeopathy Work?
Homoeopath: As to its efficacy, homoeopathy has too many respected adherents to be written off as useless, and too little scientific backing to be accepted at face value.
Chirios: That's not how it works.
Homeopathy does not work. It has never worked. More importantly, it is physically impossible for homeopathy to work. Do not, I repeat, do NOT take homeopathic medicine in lieu of taking actual medicine.
Homoeopath: Perhaps you might care to explain how " homoeopathy having too many respected adherents to be written off as useless" is not how it works.
Put another way, saying that ""homoeopathy having too many respected adherents to be written off as useless" is not how it works" is a meaningless remark.
Chirios: Whether or not something is works is not dependent on how many people believe that it does. Science is science, chemistry is chemistry, physics is physics and saying that homoeopathy should be accepted because there are people who believe in it is ridiculous.
Homoeopath1 Chirios - You highlighted only the first half of my statement. The two halves are of equal importance. Please read the entire statement and see how the ideas balance.
Please note that I did not say its claims should be accepted, but only that homoeopathy should not be discarded as useless. Homoeopathy has at least the usefulness of the sugar pill or the saline injection. You also overlooked, I believe, the word 'respected'.
The balance of probability is that homoeopathy cannot cure disease. There is no scientific evidence to show that it does.
But do remember that there was a time when there was no scientific evidence to show that surgeons washing their hands could reduce the number of deaths from puerperal fever, and the idea of infection was rejected as nonsense.
Too many of us suffer from the 'we have arrived' syndrome, believing that current ideas are final. My doctor assured me, and showed me the scientific evidence, gathered from scans and blood tests, that I would not live three months without the battery of anti-stroke medication he prescribed. That was nine years ago. Recently I've learned that my self-prescribed dose of one gramme of aspirin per day can, in many cases, be as effective as anything else.
Take note that Bishop Wright assured his sons that men could never fly.
I've no faith in the words 'never' or 'can't', and, though I may disagree with it, I do not label an idea different from my own as 'ridiculous'.
Chirios Originally Posted by garza
There are two problems with what this process that you realise right off the bat. 1) Molecules are constantly moving. The rate at which they move is determined by their temperature. The only way to stop this movement is by reducing the temperature of the molecule to absolute zero. Which means that even if the water molecules retained a memory of whatever molecule was diluted into the solution such a memory would disappear almost instantaneously due to the random movement of the molecules. 2) As has been previously stated, chemistry requires the formation of electronic bonds between molecules/atoms. Without such a bond there is no chemistry, and therefore no effect on the body. So even if a space was created between the water molecules that corresponded to the dimensions of the chemical, there would be no reaction with the molecules in the body. In other words, a vacuum that is shaped roughly the same as a molecule of sulfer will have no more effect on the human body than a vacuum shaped roughly like Tony Blair would make someone want to invade the Middle East. 3) The extent to which homoeopaths dilute the water is to such an extent that there is no active ingredient left in the solution. Which means that it's no different to properly sanitised tap water.
And if you think I'm wrong about this: look at the recent faster than light neutrino's thing. A huge, monumental statement has been made, but it was made with evidence, and no experiment has been conducted which falsifies the evidence. The people are most likely wrong about faster than light neutrino's, but the scientific community hasn't ostracised them because they have evidence for their claim. Not to mention that they haven't been rude about the whole thing, simply saying: we have a funny result that we can't explain except to accept it at face value.
As for what happened to you, you got lucky. There's a term mathematicians use called "variance". In any probabilistic situation there will be some people who hit a certain number and some people who don't. There are other explanations but frankly that would be delving waay too deep into your personal life to explain.
Have I covered most of the persons points, or have I missed anything?
Homoeopath: As to its efficacy, homoeopathy has too many respected adherents to be written off as useless, and too little scientific backing to be accepted at face value.
Chirios: That's not how it works.
Homeopathy does not work. It has never worked. More importantly, it is physically impossible for homeopathy to work. Do not, I repeat, do NOT take homeopathic medicine in lieu of taking actual medicine.
Homoeopath: Perhaps you might care to explain how " homoeopathy having too many respected adherents to be written off as useless" is not how it works.
Put another way, saying that ""homoeopathy having too many respected adherents to be written off as useless" is not how it works" is a meaningless remark.
Chirios: Whether or not something is works is not dependent on how many people believe that it does. Science is science, chemistry is chemistry, physics is physics and saying that homoeopathy should be accepted because there are people who believe in it is ridiculous.
Homoeopath1 Chirios - You highlighted only the first half of my statement. The two halves are of equal importance. Please read the entire statement and see how the ideas balance.
Please note that I did not say its claims should be accepted, but only that homoeopathy should not be discarded as useless. Homoeopathy has at least the usefulness of the sugar pill or the saline injection. You also overlooked, I believe, the word 'respected'.
The balance of probability is that homoeopathy cannot cure disease. There is no scientific evidence to show that it does.
But do remember that there was a time when there was no scientific evidence to show that surgeons washing their hands could reduce the number of deaths from puerperal fever, and the idea of infection was rejected as nonsense.
Too many of us suffer from the 'we have arrived' syndrome, believing that current ideas are final. My doctor assured me, and showed me the scientific evidence, gathered from scans and blood tests, that I would not live three months without the battery of anti-stroke medication he prescribed. That was nine years ago. Recently I've learned that my self-prescribed dose of one gramme of aspirin per day can, in many cases, be as effective as anything else.
Take note that Bishop Wright assured his sons that men could never fly.
I've no faith in the words 'never' or 'can't', and, though I may disagree with it, I do not label an idea different from my own as 'ridiculous'.
Chirios Originally Posted by garza
They don't balance. I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but your statement was an example of the golden mean fallacy, assuming that in any debate both sides have equal merit. They don't. Sometimes people are simply wrong.Chirios - You highlighted only the first half of my statement. The two halves are of equal importance. Please read the entire statement and see how the ideas balance.
I over looked the word respected because who is and who isn't respected is a subjective view. However, I can say with certainty that no chemist, physicist, biochemist or pharmacist who is respected in the scientific community has stated that there is evidence that homoeopathy works beyond the placebo. Now, if you take homoeopathic medicine along with actual medicine that's grand, but it needs to be stressed that homoeopathy does not work by the mechanisms that homoeopaths claim that it does and it cannot work by the mechanisms that homoeopaths claim it does.Please note that I did not say its claims should be accepted, but only that homoeopathy should not be discarded as useless. Homoeopathy has at least the usefulness of the sugar pill or the saline injection. You also overlooked, I believe, the word 'respected'.
It's not the balance of probability. It doesn't. And there are comprehensive scientific studies which say that, not to mention some two or three hundred years of chemistry and physics which say that it cannot.The balance of probability is that homoeopathy cannot cure disease. There is no scientific evidence to show that it does.
Of course there wasn't such evidence, because for the most part science hadn't been invented. And in those locations where the scientific method was invented (the Islamic world, Asia) being clean was well known to stop the spread of disease. But this is another fallacy, because it assumes that a statement has been made without evidence. The homoeopaths have been extremely helpful in stating exactly by what mechanisms they believe their medicine to work and by giving a very precise method to determine whether or not it works. However what they say overturns centuries of physics and chemistry.But do remember that there was a time when there was no scientific evidence to show that surgeons washing their hands could reduce the number of deaths from puerperal fever, and the idea of infection was rejected as nonsense.
There are two problems with what this process that you realise right off the bat. 1) Molecules are constantly moving. The rate at which they move is determined by their temperature. The only way to stop this movement is by reducing the temperature of the molecule to absolute zero. Which means that even if the water molecules retained a memory of whatever molecule was diluted into the solution such a memory would disappear almost instantaneously due to the random movement of the molecules. 2) As has been previously stated, chemistry requires the formation of electronic bonds between molecules/atoms. Without such a bond there is no chemistry, and therefore no effect on the body. So even if a space was created between the water molecules that corresponded to the dimensions of the chemical, there would be no reaction with the molecules in the body. In other words, a vacuum that is shaped roughly the same as a molecule of sulfer will have no more effect on the human body than a vacuum shaped roughly like Tony Blair would make someone want to invade the Middle East. 3) The extent to which homoeopaths dilute the water is to such an extent that there is no active ingredient left in the solution. Which means that it's no different to properly sanitised tap water.
It's not a we have arrived syndrome, it's knowledge. If I told you that the sky was a carpet you'd say: hold on, I've been on a plane, I've flown through the sky, it isn't a carpet. If I told a car mechanic that he could fuel an engine using vomit he'd look at me funny. Specialised knowledge leads to knowing what is and what isn't. This isn't to say that everything is known, just that some things are, and when someone states: we think that what you know isn't true, scientists respond: do you have any evidence for it? The person shows the evidence, an experiment (well, lots of experiments) are done, and it is shown that the person is right and or wrong. The same thing happened with homoeopathy, it's just that the homoeopaths ignored the science and therefore they are ridiculed.Too many of us suffer from the 'we have arrived' syndrome, believing that current ideas are final. My doctor assured me, and showed me the scientific evidence, gathered from scans and blood tests, that I would not live three months without the battery of anti-stroke medication he prescribed. That was nine years ago. Recently I've learned that my self-prescribed dose of one gramme of aspirin per day can, in many cases, be as effective as anything else.
And if you think I'm wrong about this: look at the recent faster than light neutrino's thing. A huge, monumental statement has been made, but it was made with evidence, and no experiment has been conducted which falsifies the evidence. The people are most likely wrong about faster than light neutrino's, but the scientific community hasn't ostracised them because they have evidence for their claim. Not to mention that they haven't been rude about the whole thing, simply saying: we have a funny result that we can't explain except to accept it at face value.
As for what happened to you, you got lucky. There's a term mathematicians use called "variance". In any probabilistic situation there will be some people who hit a certain number and some people who don't. There are other explanations but frankly that would be delving waay too deep into your personal life to explain.
Another false equivocation. There was nothing physically stopping the building of an airplane, it was just considered too difficult to do. There is something physically stopping homoeopathy from working, it's called the electromagnetic force, and it's one of the fundamental constants of the universe.Take note that Bishop Wright assured his sons that men could never fly.
Sure about that? What if I told you to jump off a building since you can fly? And I didn't give you a parachute. Or a jetpack. And I weighed you down with bricks.I've no faith in the words 'never' or 'can't',
It's not an idea, that's the problem. We aren't debating philosophy here, we're debating theories. Theories are based on facts, facts can be tested to check their truth, homoeopathy has been tested and it doesn't work. Some things are and some things aren't. The Sun is not made out of cheese, human beings are composed mostly of water, not silicone, and homoeopathy does not and cannot work.and, though I may disagree with it, I do not label an idea different from my own as 'ridiculous'.
Have I covered most of the persons points, or have I missed anything?