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Suddenly Debating Homeopathy: How Does This Shit Happen?

Posted: 2012-01-17 06:31pm
by Chirios
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
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.
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.
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'.
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.
The balance of probability is that homoeopathy cannot cure disease. There is no scientific evidence to show that it does.
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.
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.
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.

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.
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.
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.

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.
Take note that Bishop Wright assured his sons that men could never fly.
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.
I've no faith in the words 'never' or 'can't',
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.
and, though I may disagree with it, I do not label an idea different from my own as 'ridiculous'.
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.

Have I covered most of the persons points, or have I missed anything?

Re: Suddenly Debating Homeopathy: How Does This Shit Happen?

Posted: 2012-01-17 07:16pm
by Spoonist
You are missing the money angle. Its not useless because its a huge industry for some people. Its only for its claims that its useless, not for making a big profit from the exploitation of people's want for a quick fix and their ability to believe anything.

Re: Suddenly Debating Homeopathy: How Does This Shit Happen?

Posted: 2012-01-17 08:52pm
by Psawhn
I think I'll just discuss the poor logic of this statement.
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.
Homeopathic remedies have exactly the same efficacy as a placebo, because that is the mechanism by which it "works."
Funny thing is, though, the placebo effect actually works on real medicine, too. (My Source: The whole 5 minutes are interesting, but he talks about the muscle relaxant starting at 3:30 and 4:45 for what I'm quoting in particular). People who take muscle relaxant and were told they had muscle relaxant had higher blood levels of that relaxant (and, I assume, felt stronger effects) than any other group in that study.

Which means that it's stupid to take a placebo deliberately even though it still "works." If I had the choice to try to help someone by either giving them a sugar pill and telling them it'll cure their headache or giving them pain reliever and telling them it'll cure their headache, then in 99% of the cases I'd be daft to give them the sugar pill. (And of course I wouldn't knowingly use a sugar pill for my own headache; I doubt giving myself a homeopathic pain kill would work because I don't believe it'll work.)

And, like Spoonist's comment, this argument is only relevant if your definition of efficacy is "curing/alleviating ailments." If your criteria for making "an effective homeopathic remedy" is "effective at making me rich" then it's very effective, particularly because the manufacturing costs of sugar pills and saline solution is much cheaper than the real deal, so you can pocket the difference.

Re: Suddenly Debating Homeopathy: How Does This Shit Happen?

Posted: 2012-01-17 09:00pm
by Chirios
His response:
The placebo effect is real. Ask any long-in-service GP.

You are lecturing me in elementary chemistry. I've researched and written articles about homoeopathy. My access to journals not readily available to the public gives me a bit of knowledge in such matters. I am, after all, a journalist, a reporter, and reporters write stories about all sorts of things. All you say is old stuff.

In school I was taught that science was around long before the middle of the 19th Century. Apparently you are more learnéd in the history of science than I. The need for obstetric asepsis was not generally recognised until late in the 19th century. Is that when science was invented?

About the same time that science was invented, if your statement about puerperal fever is correct, physicists were in general agreement that they had a clear understanding of how the universe works. The suggestion was made in the U.S. that the Patent Office ought to be closed because everything that could be invented had already been invented.

Then came the Special Theory of Relativitly. Then the General Theory. Then quantum theory and chaos theory and string theory and all of the other new ideas built on discoveries made over the past century, discoveries that have radically changed the way we view the universe. Most of what I learned about electricity as a youngster was wrong. You mention EMF. It dosen't work the way you apparently think it does. You need an update there. There are some remarkable new ideas.

So when you talk about sub-molecular chemistry are you absolutely certain you are on firm ground? Are you absolutely certain that there can not be something operating in that region that we have yet to discover, and that perhaps the anecdotal evidence that appears to support homoeopathy may in fact be pointing to something we do not yet understand? I'm not saying there is something, but are you saying there should be no further investigation?

We don't know how the universe works. We can observe the orbits of planets and work out mechanical formulas that allow us to navigate around our back garden and land on the rock at our doorstep, but do we have any firm idea about what's going on at the extreme limit of our physical vision? Closer to home, explain why chlorophyll is green. Why is there gravity? One of the sayings popular when I was in school was, the wider the diameter of knowledge, the greater the circumference of ignorance.

We are a thousand years away from having the kind of knowledge that will allow you or I to say, 'this is how Ohm's Law works', or to be able to explain centrifugal force. Can you explain any of the four fundamental forces? Not the effects - the causes. Neither can anyone else. We don't knock rocks together to make fire, so we believe we have arrived at a high level of knowledge. We haven't. We are children playing in a sandbox.

There was nothing physically stopping the building of an airplane at any time in history. All that was needed was knowledge and the correct cultural environment. The Bishop said God would not allow men to fly. That idea has stopped many things from happening. One of the brothers, I believe it was Wilbur, finally took the Bishop for an airplane ride. In an earlier century he might have had them burnt at the stake.

And yes, I am certain I have no faith in 'never' and 'can't'. They are not reliable. By not reliable I mean they are subject to being undone. The don't work 100 percent of the time. They are only fully trusted by people who prefer to see why something can't be done instead of exploring whether it can be done.

I'm not debating any theories. Frankly I don't believe any of the claims of homoeopathy, and I suspect, given your posts, that I've studied it far more closely than you have. It's a fascinating idea that dosen't work. There are masses of anecdotal evidence with nothing solid.

But, then, the same can be said of many theories. Take Ohm's Law, for example. All we have is anecdotal evidence. I apply one Volt across one Ohm and observe a current flow of one Ampere. I do it again and get the same result. That's not proof. Explain for me why this happens, and offer proof that it can never happen any other way.

You would do well to subscribe to the Journal of Analytical Science and Technology, which is open source and has some very good articles from time to time, though they can be of uneven quality. It's a new journal just started in 2010 in Korea. I also recommend Nature and Science. These three are not overly technical, available, I believe, to anyone, and you should find them interesting and informative. The higher level journals can be difficult to subscribe to.

Re: Suddenly Debating Homeopathy: How Does This Shit Happen?

Posted: 2012-01-17 09:58pm
by Chirios
My response
I never said it wasn't, but, where there is no effect beyond the placebo then it isn't an endorsement of your drug, since a similar effect could be found with almost anything.
You are lecturing me in elementary chemistry. I've researched and written articles about homoeopathy. My access to journals not readily available to the public gives me a bit of knowledge in such matters. I am, after all, a journalist, a reporter, and reporters write stories about all sorts of things. All you say is old stuff.
Of course I'm lecturing you in elementary chemistry, because the elementary chemistry of homoeopathy is wrong.
In school I was taught that science was around long before the middle of the 19th Century. Apparently you are more learnéd in the history of science than I. The need for obstetric asepsis was not generally recognised until late in the 19th century. Is that when science was invented?
Granted, that was an error. I got my timelines confused.
About the same time that science was invented, if your statement about puerperal fever is correct, physicists were in general agreement that they had a clear understanding of how the universe works. The suggestion was made in the U.S. that the Patent Office ought to be closed because everything that could be invented had already been invented.
They very much were not. There were many problems in physics that people pointed out. They also did not have an answer to those problems, but they believed that they would find them out. It's just that the finding out of said answer was more complicated than they believed.
Then came the Special Theory of Relativitly. Then the General Theory. Then quantum theory and chaos theory and string theory and all of the other new ideas built on discoveries made over the past century, discoveries that have radically changed the way we view the universe. Most of what I learned about electricity as a youngster was wrong. You mention EMF. It dosen't work the way you apparently think it does. You need an update there. There are some remarkable new ideas.
You don't know what you're talking about and now you're just inventing things. Chemistry works by forming electromagnetic bonds, that's what chemistry is, you take away that and you don't have chemistry. I'm not sure what exactly you mean when you say: most of what I learned about electricity as a younger was wrong. So what? Even if that were true, and I highly doubt that it is given how basic science is at the primary and secondary school levels, that has nothing to do with the fact that chemistry works by forming electromagnetic bonds.
So when you talk about sub-molecular chemistry are you absolutely certain you are on firm ground? Are you absolutely certain that there can not be something operating in that region that we have yet to discover, and that perhaps the anecdotal evidence that appears to support homoeopathy may in fact be pointing to something we do not yet understand? I'm not saying there is something, but are you saying there should be no further investigation?
There has been the investigation and it has been shown to be wrong. And yes, I am absolutely certain that chemistry works by the electromagnetic force.
We don't know how the universe works. We can observe the orbits of planets and work out mechanical formulas that allow us to navigate around our back garden and land on the rock at our doorstep, but do we have any firm idea about what's going on at the extreme limit of our physical vision? Closer to home, explain why chlorophyll is green. Why is there gravity? One of the sayings popular when I was in school was, the wider the diameter of knowledge, the greater the circumference of ignorance.
Yeah, the more you know, the more you realise you don't know, but the very first part of that sentence presupposes that you know things. As for your other statements, chlorophyll is green because of the way the molecule absorbs light. Chlorophyll absorbs light mainly in the blue and red ends of the light spectrum, therefore chlorophyll appears green. I don't know why gravity exists, though the most common explanation is the Higgs Boson which has not been confirmed to exist or not.
We are a thousand years away from having the kind of knowledge that will allow you or I to say, 'this is how Ohm's Law works', or to be able to explain centrifugal force. Can you explain any of the four fundamental forces? Not the effects - the causes. Neither can anyone else. We don't knock rocks together to make fire, so we believe we have arrived at a high level of knowledge. We haven't. We are children playing in a sandbox.
We very much are not thousands of years away from either explaining how Ohm's law works or explaining centrifugal force. There are explanations for the four fundamental forces. You're projecting your own ignorance onto the scientific establishment.
There was nothing physically stopping the building of an airplane at any time in history. All that was needed was knowledge and the correct cultural environment. The Bishop said God would not allow men to fly. That idea has stopped many things from happening. One of the brothers, I believe it was Wilbur, finally took the Bishop for an airplane ride. In an earlier century he might have had them burnt at the stake.
...

There were lots of things physically stopping the building of a plane before the brothers built one but that's not the point. When I said physical, I meant in nature. Other things flew, therefore flying was possible.
But, then, the same can be said of many theories. Take Ohm's Law, for example. All we have is anecdotal evidence. I apply one Volt across one Ohm and observe a current flow of one Ampere. I do it again and get the same result. That's not proof. Explain for me why this happens, and offer proof that it can never happen any other way.
That isn't anecdotal evidence, it's an observation. It's like saying the sun is yellow. That's why it's Ohm's Law, not Ohm's Theory. And the fact that you don't seem to understand the difference suggests to me you know a lot less about science than you claim to. You also don't seem to know what proof means. It is proof, because you have observed it exists and you can show that to other people who will get the exact same result. What you mean is it isn't an explanation. Which is why it's Ohm's Law, not Ohm's Theory.
You would do well to subscribe to the Journal of Analytical Science and Technology, which is open source and has some very good articles from time to time, though they can be of uneven quality. It's a new journal just started in 2010 in Korea. I also recommend Nature and Science. These three are not overly technical, available, I believe, to anyone, and you should find them interesting and informative. The higher level journals can be difficult to subscribe to.
Yeah, okay.

Re: Suddenly Debating Homeopathy: How Does This Shit Happen?

Posted: 2012-01-17 10:19pm
by madd0ct0r
Since neither of you seem to think homeopathy works, what exactly are you debating?

Re: Suddenly Debating Homeopathy: How Does This Shit Happen?

Posted: 2012-01-17 10:30pm
by Chirios
madd0ct0r wrote:Since neither of you seem to think homeopathy works, what exactly are you debating?
Just the general errors of science he's been spouting and I've been correcting. His statements about how both sides are equally valid and how there is a need for more research. There isn't, the research is done, but he keeps trying to say things like: "the wider the diameter of knowledge, the greater the circumference of ignorance"; which suggests to me that he's one of these people that doesn't actually believe in knowledge and is trying to project his own ignorance onto the rest of us. Which is bad, because when I say that vaccines work or that homoeopathy doesn't, people who read something like that will be like: "well, how can you really know anything. They imprisoned Galileo you know"

Re: Suddenly Debating Homeopathy: How Does This Shit Happen?

Posted: 2012-01-18 06:02am
by mr friendly guy
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.
This is a rhetorical trick. I once had some idiot who tried to argue Ancient Indian civilisations had nuclear capability based on allegedly higher than baseline radiation in that area. He uses a similar rhetorical trick. He basically wants to argue for it, but doesn't want to come out and say it, in effect he wants his cake and wants to eat it as well.

They do this by using phrases like "highly suspicious", or "I think the radiation is less likely to be naturally occurring", but when you confront them to provide evidence for this ancient civilisation, they will just say I think it needs further investigation, and I didn't say ancient civilisation had nuclear technology. This despite the fact that to not be naturally occurring means artificial, ie for the radiation to be occurring and not be natural means some humans must have done it.

In the above homeopathy case, he is doing the same thing. He is on hand saying that it has no evidence, but doing a Vicky Pollard with yeah but, no but,just you wait, we will get evidence hur hur. Now for me saying yeah its possible that homeopathy might get the evidence in the future is just stating all the possibilities. However this guy is clearly arguing for it, because he uses phrases like it should not be "written off as useless." As such he should be made to either back up his claim and not hide behind this rhetorical bullshit.

Also his analogy is retarded because the tools of scientific inquiry wasn't as great in those days (where people didn't wash their hands), while homeopathy has been subjected to more rigourous methods, like randomised control double blind trials. Like this one.

Re: Suddenly Debating Homeopathy: How Does This Shit Happen?

Posted: 2012-01-18 09:33am
by Spoonist
douche wrote:My access to journals not readily available to the public gives me a bit of knowledge in such matters.
Bullshit. Why would a journalist have a "secret" access? Most likely he is refering to homeopathic literature or stuff sponsored by them. Ask him for specifics - name a "journal" and the "knowledge" that journal gives that is not accessible eslewhere.
douche wrote:I am, after all, a journalist, a reporter, and reporters write stories about all sorts of things.
And usually get their facts wrong. This is intrinsic to journalism since a journalist can't be expected to be an expert on everything he reports about. Ask any expert in their field about media and articles and they can easily point out flaws in such articles. Especially when they are prone to the "human angle" as it is with most positive articles on homeopathy they rely on picking bias and subjective reasoning.
douche wrote:All you say is old stuff.
As is homeopathy. It relies on a medieval concepts for its main "theories" which was old already in Roman times. Anyone who believes in the progress of science shouldn't rely on Hippocrates for stealing ideas. Its basic claims has been thoroughly debunked several times over. So for you to bring it up and claim the other side say "old stuff" is ignorant and redundant.
douche wrote:The suggestion was made in the U.S. that the Patent Office ought to be closed because everything that could be invented had already been invented.
Myth debunked in 1940. Its because of lazy journalists like you that such myth get repeated still some SEVENTY years after proven wrong.
http://www.myoutbox.net/posass.htm
douche wrote:Then quantum theory and chaos theory and string theory and all of the other new ideas built on discoveries made over the past century, discoveries that have radically changed the way we view the universe.
All of which speaks for the continued lunacy of homeopathy since each iteration of scientific theory proves Samuel Hahnemann's claims wrong in new creative ways.
douche wrote:Are you absolutely certain that there can not be something operating in that region that we have yet to discover, and that perhaps the anecdotal evidence that appears to support homoeopathy may in fact be pointing to something we do not yet understand? I'm not saying there is something, but are you saying there should be no further investigation?
You have the scientific theory backwards.
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-f ... thod.shtml
A hypothesis results in claims. We then test those claims. If the claims fails the test the hypothesis is wrong and needs to be replaced.
Even while Samuel Hahnemann was alive those claims was put to the test and his hypothesis refuted. His fellow scammers throughout have tried to woowoo up new claims and those have also been proven false.
Thus any anecdotal evidence can not prove the basic hypothesis nor its claims since the basic premise is flawed, instead it shows that some other theory might answer those anecdotes. And lo and behold such a theory exists - placebo. With that we have a proven theory and a disproven theory, one which explains the "anecdotal evidence" and one which doesn't. Then we apply Occams.
We don't need to research further into homeopathy, we need to research further into placebo. If we in the future find something like what you are alluding to it will refine placebo, it can no longer help homepathy since its claims are false.
Add to that that germ theory and the case is closed.
Unfortunately clueless journos like you will help the scammers exploit the sick.
douche wrote:Can you explain any of the four fundamental forces? Not the effects - the causes.
Again a complete misunderstanding of science. You don't need to know how a car works to drive one. However if the car salesman claims that his brothers uncle put sugar in the tank and it doubled the mileage that is a test we can make. Same with science vs homeopathy.
douche wrote:The Bishop said God would not allow men to fly. That idea has stopped many things from happening. One of the brothers, I believe it was Wilbur, finally took the Bishop for an airplane ride.
Another myth based on the human angle repeated by lazy journos. The bishop in the Wright myth was their father, but in reality he supported them all the way and never uttered anything like that.
Instead its based on an aviation joke.
douche wrote:The higher level journals can be difficult to subscribe to.
This is just in - journo proves own ignorance of science - loses all claimed credibility.