A very helpful debunking of homeopathy by James Randi:
Best comment award goes to Julian (#48):
If homeopathy were real, then it could be applied in reverse. I could create poisons with which to kill people simply by repeatedly diluting real medicines in water, then giving said dilution to my victim. And the best part: it would be completely untraceable! Brilliant!
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120 Comments
Very good video. James Randi deserved global recognition.
We’d better hope that the scam artists don’t get hold of a few molecules of Randi. Why, at a dillution of the 1500th power, they could turn us all into suckers.
This is a pretty old, and I would say staid, argument against homeopathy. I sincerely don’t know whether any homeopathic remedies are effective, but it’s a feat of intellectual laziness to be convinced that homeopathy can’t work based on an argument that relies on the laws of chemistry while wholly ignoring the underlying principles of atomic physics. Yes, chemistry cannot be used to explain the mechanism of action. But in science you cannot prove a negative. That is to say, we don’t know how it works does not equal it can’t work. If you want to dig a little deeper, I think you will find there are several scientific theories to explain how these solutions may be changed by the process of dilution and agitation. You may even come across some of the experimental work that has been done in physics labs to confirm the possibility that those theories are right. That doesn’t prove that homeopathy does work, it only highlights one possible mechanism of action based on physics. I’m all for debunking loony, baseless ideas, but the arguments made in this video comprise the trappings of scientific principles, not a true understanding of them.
@Joel: Well the is no evidence that it does work and no reason that it should work – so that’s good enough reason to believe it doesn’t work.
Can’t you just use your own brains and come up with the solutions for yourself? Don’t pull the “proving negatives” here. Can you prove that my homeopathy pills don’t make me a gorilla in the night? THEY ARE DOING IT FOR THE MONEY! Don’t make everything so hard.
This was ment to JOEL.
Sure, you can believe that it doesn’t work, but you can’t prove that it doesn’t work. That’s what the video erroneously purports to do. It’s just a bad precedent. Look at acupuncture. There is no modern medicine explanation for how it works, yet clinical studies suggest that it does have efficacy.
@Joel: Trial after trial has shown that it doesn’t work and there is no reason that it should work – exactly what more proof do you want that it doesn’t work? With reference to acupuncture there is some evidence with respect to mild pain relief but it’s not entirely convincing.
If the premise behind homeopathy was valid, then every single drop of water in the world would be the cure for every single disease known to man. Its inescapable, not to mention blatantly ridiculous.
I thought Quinnine was a homeopathic remedy one of the only effective treatments for malaria for many decades.
Doesn’t homeopathic mean “responds like”? The medicine creates the same response as the sickness but somehow helps the symptoms.
On a darker or funnier note; According to this video, tap water must be a hoeopathic remedy, because of the trace amounts of drugs and bacteria contained within.
Quinine was the preferred treatment for malaria for centuries. Only, it’s not a homeopathic remedy – it’s an ordinary drug. If it was a homeopathic remedy, the recommended adult dose would be 10^-150 parts per 10ml instead of 600mg. Notice how one isn’t even an accurate method of measurement? (chemical content of homeopathic remedies is ~0 picograms, with an infinitesimal probability of getting exactly one molecule of active chemical).
@Aor: Yes but it would so much more difficult to sell tap water at £10 for 100ml. You’re not going to make much money that way!
@Joel:
Even if there were some kind of physical, rather than chemical reaction at play in homeopathics, the effect should be reflected in the statistics if it actually worked.
Until there are any credible, peer-reviewed, double-blind experiments showing homeopathics to be more effective than placebos, there’s really no reason to give credence to hypotheses about the way it supposedly works. Why bother researching the effect when there is no effect?
@trj: “Until there are …” surely that should be “If there where …”?
@Jabster:
Well, you can regard it as an invitation for homeopath “scientists” to actually someday conduct such controlled experiments (rather than putting the burden on regular scientists and then whine about their own perceived martyr status when “big pharma” shows homeopathics having no effect).
I never said that it does work or you should believe it works. I only argued that it is a bastardization of science to pretend that you can prove it doesn’t work. Scientists develop theories about mechanisms of action, not mechanisms of inaction.
@Joel: Perhaps you could explain to us how to disprove something like homeopathy. It seems to me the proof must be on someone to prove their claim — it is impossible to completely disprove something.
@Joel: As I’ve posted before trial upon trial prove that it doesn’t work – can you please explain what evidence you expect to satisfy the claim that it doesn’t work?
Homeopathy works, plain and simple. Just follow the money. It must work and very well, or medical doctors wouldn’t have run all the homeopaths out of business in the 19th century. Educate yourselves: read some histories of homeopathy in the U.S., and stop talking out of your anuses. If it didn’t work, no one would have given a hoot about who was practicing it.
@Susan: It’s almost like you’ve never heard of the placebo effect!
If it worked so well, doctors would be selling it, not “running it out of business.” There is big money in effective remedies.
Where are the scientific studies showing how it works “plain and simple.” Did you even watch this video? Give a bottle of homeopathic sleeping medicine without telling the person and see what happens — sure, they’ll go to sleep just like normal, but give them a bottle of real sleeping medicine w/o telling them and they’ll fall over in a few minutes. One works, one doesn’t.
@Susan: Yes, that’s a good theory. Just follow the money. That must be why the medical doctors ran all the charlatans selling peach pit extract cancer cures out of business.
Obviously peaches cure cancer or “no one would have give a hoot…”
@Joel
You can’t prove a negative? Can you prove that?
@Susan: Your argument is nothing but the fallacy of appeal to conspiracy. “It must work and very well, or medical doctors wouldn’t have run all the homeopaths out of business in the 19th century.” Or maybe they weren’t run out of business but went out of business because the medical doctors gave better results. You assume that they were run out of business. You assume that its because of money yet forget that consumers love cheaper services. If homeopathy worked and was cheaper than medicine then people would have gone to them and not doctors. Lastly is your assumption that if it didn’t work people wouldn’t care about it. This is incorrect because people care when they or a loved one are given treatments that do not work and don’t improve their condition. Read this, http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html
Well your logic is flawed, do you always swim up the stream?
@KAL
Joel is right. It’s bad logic. Stop the ignorance.
Well said Joel (comment 3)
So many people think that they understand the scientific method and so few do. It can never prove a theory correct, only lend support to it. It can only prove that a theory does not work if that theory is clearly expressed in a falsifiable manner. So yes homeopathy can be proven not to work with the known laws of chemistry (barring in mind that said laws could, although unlikely, be over turned by new evidence) It says nothing about other physical processes.
Did you hear about the guy who forgot to take his homeopathic remedy? He died of an overdose…
Joel, you are wrong. There is a medical explanation of why acupuncture works. It is not a mystery. We know what occurs in the body when you stick a needle in it. There are all types of responses via neuronal pathways in direct response to the injury and the response to the pain. There is a chemical and biologic response to pain and injury. Medicine does not dispute this. This is why in clinical studies involving parenteral medications, the placebo effect is greater than what you find in studies of oral drugs. And we can prove that medications don’t work. That is exactly what clinical trials show. Any medication that has no clinical effect based on the drug will show results only as good or even less than the placebo group. Homeopathy fails this test every time. It is the marketing of placebo. Any homeopathic remedy when studied will show no greater benefit than doing nothing or doing something with a placebo. Therefor it is bunk. But it is a large business and they will fight these findings to protect their business.
I know Homeopathy works.
I have been cured of quite a few problems by homeopathy then by allopathic medication.
I have seen that for similar other patients.
the doctor should be truly knowledgeable and it will work. It is a medical science.
Most of criticism is because of ignorance.
Homeopathy works!!!
It has been proven to work and the Queen of England has her own homeopathic doctor that treats her with homeopathics.
Cheerio!
@Joe: It’s Placebo and anecdote. But don’t worry about actually researching things or being skeptical — just believe everything everyone tells you! By the way, bigfoot lives in my backyard, I’ve been abducted 20x by aliens, and my arm grew back through acupuncture.
Sorry Sytemic, you are misinformed as well. We don’t need to show how it works chemically (because we can’t) but we can study to see if it has actual clinical benefit for patients. And in those studies, it fails to show any benefit. By homeopathic purveyors (like we see here) live on the false claim that any positive outcome is proof that it works but fail miserable at the concept that correlation does not equal causation. I can give 1000 people who are suffering from an infection a dose of cheerios and I guarantee one of them will be “cured” faster than the others. To that person, the cheerios cured their illness but the reality is, we all know that the cheerios had nothing to do with the cure, only the perception of one. This is the basis of homeopathy. One positive patient outcome = it works. But they discount the reality that if compared clinically, their cure will give similar outcomes as doing nothing at all. So in effect, their therapy equals doing nothing at all, only they can’t sell doing nothing. It is a scam and has always been one and feeds off those who have little or no understanding of medicine and how to measure true benefits of medications. Every homeopathy sales pitch begins with “but I know a guy who was cured by X therapy or it worked on me”. That is the definition of bad medicine and bad science.
You’ll never be able to convince people homeopathy is fake, even if you tested it before their eyes they would come back with “it’s the vibrations”, which is something that can’t be measured. I guess the phrase “watered down” is a good thing, remind me never to go to a bar owned by a homeopathic doctor.
Homeopathy is up there with Chiropractors and magnet therapy, all of it used by con artists.
One good thing about being a homeopathic doctor, since it’s nothing but water he won’t need malpractice insurance since it’s impossible to poison anyone.
HI All, some interesting points here…I provide funding to healthcare businesses…thought I would throw in..
Some of you who take a hard line on homeopathy may want to do a bit of research on ‘quantum weirdness’ and non-linear reality. Anyone who categorically dismisses the existence or truth of phenomena that appears to occur now and then but is untenable to physical study and specifically empiricism – you have no credibility – and should hold your peace. The fact is that there is no black and no white in this reality. Black is the combination of many elements that create the illusion of blackness; white is of course similar in its reflection of all color (there is no white). Gray – shades of grey – this is all of life – all of scientific study – nothing can truly be proven – only observed many times over. Prior to the mid 20th century, only 2 physical forces were known – gravity and EM. The 20th century brought us an understanding of the weak and strong interaction or atomic forces. Our understanding of physical laws doubled in its complexity less than 100 years ago. Do not make the mistake of believing that Western medicine is the end all. It is much more likely that it is a point on the trajectory.
Acupuncture appears to work on a system of energy that defies the conventional scientific inquiry. The same can be said of other indigenous healthcare systems such as Ayurveda, the medicine of the Huna, and other cultures. The placebo effect largely suggests that people, each of us has power to change ourselves based on what we feel and/or believe. It is also the case that some people treated with a Western intervention, e.g. pharmaceutical, recover, others get worse, others remain unchanged. No medicine is 100% effective – you and I seem to have a lot of odd ability to heal or change ourselves via our intentions, beliefs, and other yet to be defined factors. This is non-debatable – please don’t – look at the data – we are not machines – we are machines with a really complex operating system that can do some fairly undefined, uncontrolled things.
In non-linear reality wherein we look at chaos theory, quantum physics, string-theory, and similar constructs, we find systems that appear to hold merit but may defy conventional laws and logic. There are some well known examples that all of you can research – such as cellular memory in heart/lung transplant recipients. This has been studied and does appear to exist (specific memory post receipt of donor organs). Is it a physically determined memory or something energetic – time will tell. Several countries, the US and Russia included have studied how to manipulate reality – which is what homeopathy does if it in fact works – it spreads information faster than appears normal in a chemical/cellular environment. Look to Russian biologists Vladimir Poponin, Peter Gariaev for their work on the ‘DNA Phantom Effect.’ See the US Army’s work published in 1993 in ‘Advances’ on DNA research – Cleve Backster was a principal. In physics – see the ‘double slit experiment’ and the Univ of Geneva Switzerland experiments dealing with split photons – see Malcolm Browne ‘Signal Travels Farther and Faster Than Light” – Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. These experiments are extremely significant – they show us proven examples of non-linear / violating observations that crush conventional 3D reality.
The point of this is not whether homeopothy actually works or not. It is rather the principle that reality may be more complex than how we have come to understand what we observe in a physically deterministic view. If you have 1 valid experiment that shows that the speed of light can be broken – 1 experiment that shows that information can travel in what appears to be an interdimensional way – 1 experiment that disproves a limited view of 3D reality – well then 3D reality is incomplete. That’s the point.
Most people are too afraid to actually uncover the deeper truths of this universe (certainly we might take baby steps…just learn more than our textbooks tell us). Hell half of America believes that the earth is 6000 years old (okay maybe not half – but many). Science is showing us that things may be a bit more interesting than we initially expected. The consequence of the quantum weirdness data is the theory that information appears to be able to leave this reality and re-emerge at a different physical location very quickly – transcending the known laws of physics. We know that the human body can heal itself of many disease states – we don’t really know why healing occurs in some and not in others. Look at the biologists who speak at Ted.com for some great lectures.
Life is complex. Don’t fool yourselves to think that the West and our disease-based care system has figured it out. Keep searching, doing your investigation, and for God’s sake – don’t discount all of humanity’s history in meditation, naturopathic, and non-Pfizer produced remedies. Going all the way 1 way or the other is the problem – find the neutral / central point. Sometimes the simple solution is the one that works – sometimes we need a particle accelerator and robotic MIS surgery. Homeopathy is but 1 piece of a puzzle that is unraveling – watch what happens in the coming 20 years in science – we will find that whether or not the principles of homeopathy are sound – science will show that energetic, deeper systems become the new grounds of research and discovery. We will find, hopefully, the forces that underlie why cancer develops…what the causation of physical phenomena may be…lots to be explored.
Joel: It has repeatedly shown no greater effect than a placebo in double-blind trials. That is proof that it doesn’t work. Then you demand that we seek bogus mechanisms of action for something that doesn’t do anything in the first place?
Susan: I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
@Marcus: Who’s discounting non-western based systems. A medical trial is a medical trial and doesn’t somehow show bias to where the thoughts originated from. Take homoeopathy a western invention but trials show that it’s rubbish.
@Adam: The sole reason for the ’scientific’ explanation is that it sounds better and that means people have more faith in it which means – yep you guessed it more money. What surprises me is how these charlatans are legally allowed to sell such rubbish.
Marcus, that is nothing but jargon. The use of homeopathy is the treatment of disease and no matter what terminology or creepy scientific terms you use to try to explain how it works, we can most certainly measure whether these types of therapies actual have benefit. Whether it uses vibrations or quantum mechanics makes no difference.It is used to cure illness and that it something we can most certainly measure. How it does it, is irrelevant to whether it works or not. And indeed despite hundreds of studies, it fails to show clinical benefit. That is the reality. You can wrap it up in whatever scientific terminology or mystery you want, but the outcomes are not there. And it is sold solely to produce outcomes. We don’t need to understand anything other than when it comes down to if it actual works or not, it clearly fails on every level. That is no mystery. Your argument is the equivalent of someone who is selling a new type of car with a brand new propulsion system but the car never moves or gets anyone anywhere. But you would argue that we can’t say this car sucks because we don’t understand its mysterious and misunderstood new propulsion system. Uh yes we can. It doesn’t work and fails to deliver the product it is selling (movement). Why it does not move is irrelevant as is the mystery behind how the new engine supposedly works.
“I only argued that it is a bastardization of science to pretend that you can prove it doesn’t work.”
You obviously don’t understand how science works.
It is not up to the scientist to prove the negative. It is up to the one making the claim to rove it. Homeopaths have tried and tried and tried and tried to prove their claims, and have failed and failed and failed and failed. Therefore, the only reasonable conclusion is “it doesn’t work.”
Susan, when did the homeoquacks go out of business? They’re still out there, all over the place, and their bottles of magic water are available at most drug stores.
To those who insist it works – please, by all means, keep using it, preferably before you breed.
A fool and his money were lucky to get together in the first place.
@Marcus, Susan, Joe and other quacks
Too many tests showed that homeopathy doesn’t work. It clearly doesn’t.
And Randy has also put the money where his mouth is.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathy.shtml
http://www.randi.org/joom/challenge-info.html
So, after 10 years, why has no one claimed the money if homeopathy works?
Because it doesn’t, regardless of what the bunch of crazies believe in.
Sam, I see the point of your analogy, but it is not quite the same. It would be closer to the actual situation if the car worked for some people, and didn’t work for others. Is it based on the driver’s belief that it works? Maybe. Does it work? Yep – but only for them.
Quantum physics seems to be the panacea for backing up claims on how something “impossible” works, but that may just be the case – quantum physics describes interactions that have a probability of occurring, and some things seem so unlikely we deem them impossible. What changes that probability? Does the intent of the scientists doing the double blind experiment decrease the effect on the outcome? Does the intent of the patient to be cured by homeopathic remedies increase the effect? In that case, a double blind study would be completely ineffective; the researchers’ bias (even though they don’t know which patients receive the treatment) coupled with the lack of intention by the patients to be cured makes it obvious what the outcome will be.
There is an interesting book (well, some parts are interesting, it is actually quite a boring read sans the experiments) called Science Adventures With Real Magic. The researchers “imprinted” an electronic pulse device with the intention to raise the pH of all samples in the room, then measured the results over the course of several years. They found out very soon that some experimenters had a very neutralizing effect while others would more rapidly increase the pH level. To counteract the human effect, they only entered the room to measure pH levels every two weeks. The experiment also tried decreasing pH with success. Most interestingly, they found that as the experiment was repeated around the world by independent research, the pH rose/fell faster AND to higher levels than before. Could the collective “thought inertia” behind the experiment be collapsing the experimental wave-function into more and more probable existences?
It doesn’t seem that far fetched with the very likely notion that our thoughts have an effect, however minute, on consensus reality. It reminds me of how characters in Philip K. Dick’s novel Ubik either had a psi-ability or psi-neutralizing ones. James Randi is probably the latter.
Joel, science can most certainly prove negatives. Such as “it is impossible that (under regular conditions) one can use fire to freeze liquid water.”
@torteya: But that doesn’t disprove it — it just means your test didn’t produce certain results. Maybe you didn’t set things up right. Maybe you didn’t wave your hands over the water. Maybe you didn’t will it hard enough. Maybe you didn’t pray long enough. Maybe you didn’t use hot or cold enough fire. Maybe your philogaster didn’t discombobulate the antimotesis of the synchomatic subjector. There’s always a way out for believers, and they’ll find it and cling to it.
If someone insists fire can freeze water, they are the ones that must prove it. If someone says that the “antithesis” of the disease must be diluted 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times, then they are the ones that have to prove it.
@ Joy Ripple – 27
Yes, the Queen DOES subscribe to homeopathy. She is not, to my knowledge however, a scientist and is as potentially gullible as the next sovereign. She is also the head of the Church of England and has, therefore, a proven track record in believing the unbelievable. I’m not entirely sure why you consider ‘consumption by monarch’ to be the acid test in terms of medicine but it seems, at best, a rather anorexic argument in favour of it’s authenticity.
Homeopathic “medicine” is, by any logical, reasonable and/or scientific standpoint, complete cobblers.
Cheerio!
Actual results may vary:
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/homeopathy/#a1
“Homeopaths have tried and tried and tried and tried to prove their claims, and have failed and failed and failed and failed. Therefore, the only reasonable conclusion is “it doesn’t work.””
Regarding clinical trials on homeopathy’s effectiveness…
http://altmed.creighton.edu/Homeopathy/science/efficacy.htm
This site claims that homeopathy is no better than placebo, but this is only based on the “tightly controlled studies” that they deemed worthy of including. You’ll notice that most of their requirements for tight control actually throw in more variables related to the consciousness of participants. They admit that the studies done by homeopathic and alternative medicine literature overwhelmingly support a positive outcome.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1825800
Out of 105 trials – 81 positives.
I don’t expect anyone with a hardened bias towards alternative medicine to readily change their minds, but the evidence is mounting that matter is not primary, consciousness is, and the effect this will have on the scientific establishment is yet to be seen.
Oh fer X’s sake. You’re arguing the wrong point.
Joel is in fact correct in stating that it’s logically impossible to prove a negative. But that’s missing the point.
Here’s the way it works (this is called “science”, kids)
First, you start with a proposition, say, that homeopathy is effective. Then you propose a mechanism/model to explain HOW it works. Then you can test and validate or not validate.
The testing must be rigorous – i.e., empirically based and reproducible. To analyze the data you collect during the test, one standardly uses the method of the Null Hypothesis. In this case, the null hypothesis would be that homeopathy does NOT work. You do the analysis and find, sometimes to one’s surprise, that the data disprove your null hypothesis. In other cases, the data does not disprove the null hypothesis. That’s why good scientific method doesn’t claim ability to disprove negatives.
If you’re really interested, check out Karl Popper.
The only model/mechanism I can see for homeopathy being effective is one that has been around for a LONG time. In hermeneuti tradition, it’s called the principle of contagion. Most folks nowadays just refer to it with one word: magic.
given that there is absolutely no evidence FOR the efficacy, it is then incumbent upon you (or whoever) to suggest a mechanism or propose a model that DOES explain how it works. That model can then be tested and validated or not.
Ah, the rallying cry of the conspiracy nuts: “Follow the money”.
Who exactly is making big money on selling homeopathic products? Or are any of the homeopaths giving their products away for free out of altruism? Anyone? Thought not. Even though they certainly must be cheap to manufacture.
Follow the money indeed.
oops – disregard that last “paragraph” -bad cut and paste on my part when I changed my tack
Homeopathy may work, may not, I don’t know (and really do not care) but I found this video quite irritating to me as a scientist. It is very unfair and full of little dirty tricks. Examples:
1) The speaker makes fun of the “law of similars”. The word “law”, perhaps, is too strong, but it is conceivable that if some substance affects a certain part of the body, it can become a cure for deceases located there. At least the chances for that are much higher than for a substance that does not affect that part of the body at all.
2) High-school chemistry does not explain efficacy of the extreme dilutions. So what? Many phenomena cannot be explained by it.
If homeopathy were real, then it could be applied in reverse. I could create poisons with which to kill people simply by repeatedly diluting real medicines in water, then giving said dilution to my victim. And the best part: it would be completely untraceable! Brilliant!
@7thDirection (43):
> “This site claims that homeopathy is no better than placebo, but this is only based on the “tightly controlled studies” that they deemed worthy of including. You’ll notice that most of their requirements for tight control actually throw in more variables related to the consciousness of participants.”
Quite the opposite, they reduce the number of variables through stricter control.
> “They admit that the studies done by homeopathic and alternative medicine literature overwhelmingly support a positive outcome.”
I fail to see where they admit such a thing.
> “Out of 105 trials – 81 positives.”
Yes, and as the article says, most of them of poor quality, and no overall conclusion can be drawn because of this. That is hardly evidence of any efficacy.
Homeopathic medicines do work, but not because of any chemical used in them. They work due to the placebo effect. People believe they will do X, and their own mind produces the effect. This is a well known, and fairly well studied, phenomenon.
In short, your attitude about your health situation has a direct affect on the outcome. If you are aggressively optimistic about your situation, your body responds by fighting harder. If you are apathetic, or negative, your body’s response isn’t as strong.
This isn’t terribly surprising. We already know the mind can induce the body to produce a whole variety of substances that have a large systemic effect, from nervous system depressants and stimulants to opiates. It is also well known that the mind can even alter the immune system – which is likely how these remedies work.
What we are seeing is the commercialization of ’sugar pills’ that depend on this effect for their efficacy. The pills just help with the suspension of disbelief.
Lennylk, I have a hard time believing you are a scientist based on your post. In what field are you educated?
All of homeopathy is based on lower concentrations having higher effects.. this is not merely contradictory to high school chemistry, but to all of science. Please, as a scientist.. give us an example where lowering the concentration of a chemical will result in increasing the effect of that chemical.
When you fail, will you come back and admit it?
TRJ, you totally missed my point – I am critiquing the very nature of how these studies are conducted. I said consciousness related variables, which are hardly accounted for in any version of clinical trials (I realize the double-blind is meant to help in administration-related behavior, but I’m talking about a more fundamental level). The “quality” spoke of is simply referring to how many of these strict guidelines they follow, which I am arguing have a residue of consciousness-related bias. Do the studies by the alternative medicine crew have bias as well? CERTAINLY. But the fact of the matter is that the studies done by people who believe in it, ‘prove’ it is more effective than placebo; the studies done by people who don’t ‘prove’ it’s the same as placebo.
The fact that there is a placebo effect at all shows how powerful consciousness bias really is.
to Aor:
Almost any medicine taken in high doses is a poison. Did you ever hear about overdose? Lowering the quantity from very high doses (lowering concentration, if you dissolve it in water) increases the effect of that medicine in the desired direction.
As for my scientific background: it is not related to chemistry. I am just upset by the way the whole story is presented in this video. The issues which were presented there as just silly are not silly at all and deserve more thoughtful discussion (for example, the law of similars). And pounding homeopathy in the dilution issue is somewhat unfair to me. As far as I understand not every homeopathic medicine is so strongly diluted.
@7thDirection:
> “…the fact of the matter is that the studies done by people who believe in it, ‘prove’ it is more effective than placebo; the studies done by people who don’t ‘prove’ it’s the same as placebo.”
To me, that does not indicate the power of consciousness, but the power of bias and sloppy experiments.
Your argument of consciouness having an effect (other than the placebo effect) does not follow from your sources. And anyway, since you can’t prove any effect in the first place, arguing about the nature of such an effect is moot.
My previous post to the one you’ve critiqued is more along the lines of consciousness-related activity, as I was following along Marcus and Sam’s train of thoughts. The book I’ve mentioned does catalog such an effect, and that’s what I was basing my post off of. The effect certainly exists.
You may not see the power of bias in tightly controlled clinical trials, but it is only of a different sort. It’s all relative.
Its all in the mind.
‘Medicine’ like this is simply psychiatry in tablet form.
Its already been proven though brain scans that a huge percentage of substance addiction is ‘dreamt’ up by the mind of the abuser.
It happens to most of us when we have a couple of drinks with friends and feel a little tipsy when in reality its not the alcohol taking hold, not at all. Its just our memory centres kicking in and creating the same chemical imbalance that our sub-conscious remembers from drinking sessions gone by.
Eventually of course, the booze wins out. But in the case of homoeopathy you’d need a few BILLION homoeopathic bottles of beer before any true physical and mental effects began to occur.
Lennylk, I believe you are purposely misinterpreting what I said. The chemical effect is based on the amount of chemical, not the inverse. This is nothing to do with overdoses (its the same effect, only its too much of the effect for your body to stand). Lowering the dose does not increase the effect, it lowers it to levels which your body can survive.
The entire basis of homeopathy rests on the extreme dilution of any supposed ‘cure.’ The serial dilution, followed by shaking, supposedly removes the bad effects and allows the good ones to remain. Oddly they never consider that a single plant next to a stream would imply that the entire stream contains the cure that one plant would posess, since the movement of the water is the same as shaking a vial. Patently ridiculous. Truly, nobody of scientific bent would believe these blatant falsehoods.
Again, based on your comments, I find it hard to believe that you have an education in science.
It is not a secret that our heart-mind can control our body and the physical world. Eventually, people will awake to this notion and cure themselves. The yogic sciences have been based on this idea for thousands of years. We’re living in the dark age of disbelief and skepticism.
Joel, you are trying to prove a negative, no matter how much lipstick you stick on the pig. Give it up. Homeopathy is a fake. Pure and simple. No one has ever proved it works, no matter how hard they try.
I know some people who believe in and use homeopathic treatments. One “homeopathic treament” is “Sports Gel” for dealing with muscle pains, and Sports Gel really works. I’ve seen it.
Placebo? I don’t think so. In this case, I think it works because it’s actually an *herbal* remedy. Screw all the 6X dilution nonsense. There are non-diluted plants in there, and those can have a genuine effect.
So, some treatments labeled “homeopathic” just confuse the issue further by being herbal remedies in disguise. Personally, I’m convinced that “true homeopathy” is just placebo.
mkjones: what you said about alcohol that’s very interesting. Could you please point me to the source of the information?
7thdirection. You missed my point. My analogy is spot on because homeopathy has never actually worked for anyone. They only thought it worked. We know now that it does nothing, studies have proved that over and over again. It is the equivalent of doing nothing. So no, the car never worked for anyone, although some may have been fooled into thinking it might have actual taken them somewhere, in actuality in never did. They walked with their own energy and thought the car drove them there.
lennylk,
“Almost any medicine taken in high doses is a poison. Did you ever hear about overdose? Lowering the quantity from very high doses (lowering concentration, if you dissolve it in water) increases the effect of that medicine in the desired direction.”
This is horrifically misleading. Lets deal with reality for a second. Every medication has a bell shaped curve when it comes to efficacy, safety and potency. Almost all medications fall under the following example. At extremely low doses (sound familiar) they show no efficacy. As you continue to increase their potency, they become more efficacious. Eventually you reach a dose of maximum efficacy. When you increase above this, the efficacy may not actually decrease but the side effects start to increase until you get to the point of a lethal dose. A extremely high lethal dose of anitbiotics is very efficacious but the side effects of the dose is what kills you. It still does its job by killing bacteria, you only take this to such an extreme that other factors make it deadly. So your premise is overty false. Decreasing a dose of a lethal medication does not make it more efficacious. It does not work better at what it is suppose to do (with some exceptions), it only decreases the negative results of having too much concentration of the product in your body. As you continue to decrease you reach the point of optimal efficacy and side effects. (which is much higher than any diluted homeopathic dose) As you continue to dilute below this optimal dose is begins its precipitous decline in efficacy. To the point that it no longer produces any effect at all. And even at this dose, it is well above the dose given through a homeopathic dose. Diluting it down further does not begin to increase this efficacy ever. No medication has ever been shown to be efficacious anywhere near the levels seen with these snake oil salesman. Homeopathic companies know this and that is why every contraption they sell claims zero side effects. Because just about every molecule when introduced into the body will produce some sort of side effect. The only way to guarantee no side effects, is to introduce no actual medication. And this is what homeopathy does. Homeopathy is the science/business of selling placebo as actual medication. Little do the patients know that they could have achieved the same results taking a placebo pill, a shot of water, eating 4 grapes while hanging upside down or keeping walnuts in their cheeks. They will all show the same efficacy through the placebo effect but only one is a multimillion dollar business trying to protect its future.
mkjones makes an important point with regards to alcohol and it shows the Achilles heel of homeopathy. If indeed diluting a drug to immeasurable potency still contains its efficacy/potency, then indeed a diluted dose of alcohol, to the point it has no alcohol in it, should produce inebriation when given. Does it with homeopathy? No. It does nothing. Don’t believe me. Have you local homeopathic physician dilute an antibiotic for you and inject it into your friend but tell him it is a vitamin B12 shot. Your friend will probably report that he feels better, has more energy or is invigorated. But why, anitibiotics don’t not produce these results? No they don’t but a vitamin shot will and you have just induced the placebo effect into your friend by telling him he is getting a B12 shot. This is the basis for the business. The doctor is the one who sets you up for the effect by informing you what it will do. He is priming you to be a placebo patient. Don’t believe me? Then go to your homeopathic physician and tell him to give you something, anything. But tell him to not tell you what it is for but to write it on a piece of paper. Don’t look at the paper until you have determined how you feel and what you perceive the drug was for. You will find you are always wrong on the guess. of course your doctor will not do this because he knows his role in pumping you for the effect. The same effect he could have achieved by giving you cheese and telling you it would control your high blood pressure, infection, flu or arthritis. Except you wouldn’t pay $30 for a piece of cheese.
@Sam, some people think that the car worked, because they failed to realize the downhill :-)
BTW mkjones, what you are referring to is inebriation or feeling buzzed and has little to do with addiction. That is a whole different concept and has little to do with what you are trying to say. But I understand what you are saying. There have been studies done that show if you present a person with something they think is alcohol, they will report a feeling of inebriation upon consumption. It is also an example of the power of the mind, persuasion and placebo. The mind is indeed a powerful thing. Addiction on the other hand is the physical dependence on a particular substance. The body becomes accustomed to alcohol (or another drug) for normal function. which brings up another example of how homeopathy can be debunked. if you withdraw alcohol or heroin from an alcoholic or heroin addict, you will most likely induce withdrawal symptoms. Give a heroin addict or alcoholic a homeopathic concoction of these drugs and you will see the same withdrawal. This occurs because the drug is having no actual physical or chemical effect in the body, not positive or negative. No high, no buzz (only perhaps a psychosomatic one induced by the placebo effect I mentioned earlier), nothing. And the end result is withdrawal in the patient. Just like he received nothing.
For some real pseudo-science, check out http://www.robertphoenix
@Sam: Not entirely convinced that you would see the same withdrawal symptoms especially if you did some say some key hole “surgery” for this new wonder cure.
Folks this is the bottom line; “Reality goes at the speed of freewill choices”
You are “unique mind” in a fragile skin & bones transportation unit, mental mind maintenance is what keeps your unit functioning, though fear, myth & superstition can interfere with your maintenance program that will lead to looking to others for help in curbing disease and the untold thousands of mishaps that befall mankind if your not paying attention, always remember “fear is the master intellectual fraud”, getting beyond the fear boundary is an exercise in, not faith, not hope, not trust in an invisible God, but flat out knowing “you rule you” and all that makes you up as a mortal in the survival of the fittest world we find ourselves in.
That said, I will now dilute my six pack of Stinelager beer into fifty cases and throw a big block party as the world takes a finance dump because Wall Street greed-O-pathetic diluted the US dollar to near forty to one…to thin for my bank account to pulse on! I must now concentrate reality into a thick wad of money to buy one undiluted bottle of water to live another day.
Homeopathy has worked for me. As a child, I had a tonsils problem for a long time. Year after year I would get high temperatures (about 102C) and no “normal” (allopathic) medicine will solve the problem. The alternate was to undergo a procedure to remove the problem.
My parents got me to a homeopathic doctor and the medicines cured me in 6 months. I never had the problem since.
I think this argument goes on and on. Homeopathy works. My cold used to last over a week whenever I had it, but ever since I started taking Aconite and Rhustox, it goes away in a day. Our baby daughter was saved from so many trips to the doctor just because my wife’s father knows a lot about Homeopathic medicines. my neighbour had stones in his kidneys; they were removed by homoeopathic medicine instead of being operated upon. I have myself seen many types of ulcers being treated with homoeopathy. Telling me that homoeopathy doesn’t work would be like telling me that the sun doesn’t rise in the morning.
I think doctors and physicians who outrightly reject Homeopathy or conduct misdirected experiments just to prove its bunkum are doing a great disservice to humanity. The laws of science are constantly being broken these days. The recent Hedron collider may prove even Einstein’s theories wrong. So saying that Homeopathy doesn’t work just because it doesn’t satisfy some physical laws is really amateurish. And anyway when you conduct experiments just to prove that something is wrong often leads you to a wrong direction. Instead of trying to find why things shouldn’t work we should always focus on why things work and how they work and how we can make them better.
The placebo effect interferes in a very problematic way when evaluating the efficacy of homeopathic remedies. Double-blind tests mitigate this for the most part. But I’m thinking it must be possible to create an experiment where the placebo effect is not a factor at all.
How about testing the effects on a sample of bacteria? If homeopaths can agree that the cure to an infection consists of killing the bacteria which induce sickness, then it should be a simple matter of testing the homeopathic medicine on a population of bacteria.
Take a strain of some pathogenic bacterium, say streptococcus, grow it in a bunch of petri dishes, then apply the homoepatic medicine, watch the result and compare with the control group.
That ought to be a simple, reproducible, tightly controlled experiment. I’ve been looking for examples of such experiments but haven’t found any references. Does anyone know if such studies have been done?
Homoeopathy does not claim to cure disease.Homoeopathy cures the person so they will not have the disease.
Homoeopathy is not a placebo effect.I have successfully treated goats, dogs and chickens.Goats , dogs and chickens dont have the intellect to work out what they are being treated for and therefore the placebo effect is invalid.
Any test based on alopathic reasoning is also invalid.
An alopathic doctors aim is to treat and manage a disease.
The first rule of homoeopathy is to cure the patient.
@Amrit Hallan:
The laws of science are CONSTANTLY being broken “these days”??? No one is saying that homeopathic remedies breaks the laws of science…most likely it worked for you because you believed it would work, and scientists can’t adequately explain how the human mind works (similar to the placebo effect).
Also, it’s called the HADRON collider, and more than likely it will prove Einstein’s conjectures correct, rather than incorrect. In fact, the particle they’re looking for is the Higgs boson; these particles are described by Einstein and Bose statistics (hence boson).
Thus, give me some REAL examples how LAWS of science, not theories, are being broken constantly…I’d love to hear them.
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@ Joel
the reason it seems to work is the Placebo effect. if you give a two sick persons “medicine”, one real and one just water with some weird taste, both will improve, one because the medicine is working, and the other one because their body THINKS that the medicine is working. homeopathy is nothing but a placebo, theres no way soemthing that diluted can cure someone by non-psychological means.
While homoeopathy may be a placebo cure, it does not HURT the patient like psychiatry does.
What is Randi’s belief/stance on psychiatric medicine?
The average age of death of the seriously mentally ill has become worse over the last hundred years. There is no cure for mental illness, no lab test to measure how large the “brain chemical imbalance” is. And the patient is usually forced to take the “medicine” for their life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Lower_life_expectancy_in_people_with_serious_mental_illness
LINK
Antipsychotics are a 20 billion dollar a year business. With no advocates to speak for those forced to take the lifetime of brain damaging medicine. You have someone behaving stupid and you make them more stupid. It’s brilliant.
@knotdv8:
“Homoeopathy does not claim to cure disease.Homoeopathy cures the person so they will not have the disease.”
Nice twisting of words, but pretty meaningless. I’d love to hear the difference…in either case, the person will not have the disease.
“I have successfully treated goats, dogs and chickens.Goats , dogs and chickens dont have the intellect to work out what they are being treated for and therefore the placebo effect is invalid.”
Ok, so do you have any statistics to back that up? Or any Veterinarian Association that would back your claims?
-/\/\
I had no idea that homoeopathic medicine is actually sold in regular pharmacies in the United States. That is sad, really. Just like half the comments on this post.
I do not understand how people can argue that something that fails to have any effect in blind tests is effective. I can understand even less how people can argue that it is unscientific to think that it is ineffective because of its failure to hold up in tests like that.
You can babble however much you want about the possibility of some strange quantum effects that we do not understand. Of course that is possible. Anything is _possible_.
It is entirely possible that the entire world is just a figment of my imagination and that nothing exists; I am just imagining all of you people, and all other matter in the universe. Maybe I just have a mind that can make everything appear to function independently of my mind, even though it really doesn’t. Things _could_ work like that, all the evidence of the universe’s existence could just be a part of my delusion. You can’t disprove that I’m not imagining you. It is just not very useful to believe that.
And homeopathy could be effective despite any clear evidence. Maybe the effectiveness was somehow masked in every single scientifically sound test. But believing that it is effective because it _could be_, without any direct evidence to point to that conclusion, is just that. A belief.
@knotdv8:
> “Homoeopathy does not claim to cure disease.Homoeopathy cures the person so they will not have the disease.”
Funny, I could’ve sworn you can buy homeopathic medicine to cure all manner of diseases and ailments which you already suffer from, like, say, influenza, asthma, inflammation, bruises, depression.
But perhaps those are not REAL homeopathic drugs?
the video made me chuckle, i like his off-handed ridicule as a speaking style.
but i am not convinced by his hilarious attack on homeopathy. i’m duly skeptical, yes, and more so after watching his presentation.
but disproving an idea using the argument of “obviousness” isn’t convincing. while it seems obvious that something diluted to the point of non-existence would no longer be anything at all, there’s plenty of other things we agree on that aren’t obvious.
i accept that the earth hurtles through space at a million miles an hour even though the concept is absurd. i accept that the weed growing outside my window shares a common ancestor with me, although it boggles my mind. i accept that little pulses of electro-magnetic energy are responsible for these words going from my fingers to your screen, even though it is complex beyond my understanding.
so for me the jury is out on this one.
@ jabster. you keep singing about these clinical trials. do you have a citation? reference?
Surely, this is perception, the glass half full or empty. I was once told that if you do nothing for it, a cold will be with you for all of nine days, three coming, three with you and three going away, but if you properly medicate yourself, it will only be with you for a week and two days.
If you believe that a medicine is working for you, you seek out ways in which it has improved on your situation but not what it hasn’t done for you, you concentrate on, and find, only the positive. If you don’t believe it is doing you good, you will look for what is unchanged and will not look for areas of improvement, you concentrate on, and find, only the negative.
Such reports are, virtually, all anecdotal. The lack of rigorous, double blind studies is telling.
Marcus – I see you’ve got the old “quantum physics therefore telepathy” thing nailed. Just because we can’t explain everything doesn’t mean elves are real, or homeopathy works.
As far as our rich history of “non pfizer medicine”, that sounds like a call to return to the days of trepanation and cupping. We have been refining our knowledge for thousands of years, this appeal to the past is an appeal to old debunked superstition.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Interesting video, I work with an old man who is always rambling about homeopathy. He will also bring pages of homeopathic information on how to quit smoking for the smokers at work. I am almost looking forward to citing this man and his video when he begins to talk our ears off in the lunchroom about homeopathic “medicine”. Any positive results are surely the placebo effect in this field of medicine.
I feel this man’s opinion of dilution does not affect the vast majority of herbal medicine,
He is trying to equate Herbal medicine with quack stuff and build a case on it.
He is a spokesperson for codex alimentarius. (google video)
These products work for some people.
[Admin: Edited a bit of meanness out.]
markps2 – Quit reading the drivel that Scientology sends you. They are a bigger joke than psychiatry. Yea, psychiatry has some issues but to claim it does no good is so misinformed, it is scary. there are countless people who have had their lives improved drastically because of the work of a psychiatrists. hell, some would have killed themselves by now without them. And they will openly let you know that is the case. Scientology on the other hand, feeds of people with psychiatric disorders and uses the brainwashing technique of teaching you that psychiatry is bad, to keep you from seeking help and actually opening your eyes to the deception you are living in. Now that is pathetic.
@ron:
Seriously? It’s not herbal medicine, it’s homeopathic medicine he’s criticizing…BIG DIFFERENCE. Even the pharmaceuticals used by “regular” doctors are approximately 60-70% NATURAL products (compounds direct from nature), and the remainder are mostly synthesized analogues of natural products. I’m a chemist, I should know.
And many mainstream scientists would agree that some herbal medicines are entirely legit. But there certainly room for quackery, especially if the medicine isn’t evaluated by the FDA (that’s why many have the label “this is not intended to treat any illness” because they are only considered “dietary supplements”). One “medicine” that I think IS much maligned is marijuana, but that’s because most governments are retarded.
And I won’t disagree that large Pharm companies are deceptive and money-grubbing bastards.
But homeopathy really is not effective; and if you can find one real physicist in the world that can explain the mechanism for how it works, I’d be shocked. Concussion of a bottle does nothing. It’s unexplainable because it simply doesn’t work. One earlier poster said he seen it used to treat ulcers, but the body tends to heal ulcers on its own fairly well, and I’ve had quite a few. Most likely it was a change in diet (or cutting down on alcohol) that cured the ulcer, not some magic tincture with absolutely no medicine in it.
-/\/\
@mark
well said, however, you fail to respond to codex alimentarius.
Do you wish Herbal remedies to be labeled as poisons?
@Sam
“markps2 – Quit reading the drivel that Scientology sends you.”
I am not a Scientologist nor do I get any publications from Scientology.
Scientology is voluntary I believe, unlike the psychiatric hospital ward where the doors are locked.
E.C.T. damages peoples brains as a cure. If the patient can’t remember why they are depressed, they are not longer depressed. Trouble is the patient can lose the skills they have to work and live, and all the important memories of a life.
Antipsychotics cause brain damage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/health/research/16conv.html
“The big finding is that people with schizophrenia are losing brain tissue at a more rapid rate than healthy people of comparable age. Some are losing as much as 1 percent per year.”
The Nazis killed thousands of mentally ill/useless bread eaters and found no pathology , no brain changes or disease. This was before antipsychotics were “given” to schizophrenics.
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/163/1/27
@ ron (again):
Well, the reason I didn’t talk about the Codex Alimentarius is because that’s not part of the discussion…this is about homeopathy, which is just bunk.
But if you want me to comment on that, here goes.
From Wikipedia:
“The text does not seek to ban supplements, but to subject them to labeling and packaging requirements and to ensure that safety and efficacy are considered when determining the ingredient source.”
That doesn’t sound terrible, but it could be used to block supplements if lower level manufacturers wouldn’t be able to meet adequate requirements for labeling…testing may be expensive and not viable in poorer countries. That’s when big pharma could sweep in a have a field day.
But my main man, Ron Paul, as always, weighs in on the topic (from the Wikipedia article on Codex Alimentarius):
“Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul meanwhile has said that the Central American Free Trade Agreement “increases the possibility that Codex regulations will be imposed on the American public.”"
Now I know Ron Paul is against federally sanctioned regulations for the most part, except in cases like the Federal Reserve, where there’s no oversight basically at all. But that comment leads me to treat the Codex with some skepticism.
It’s a difficult thing to balance. When drugs and supplements were first available online from Canada (I’m in the U.S.), there was serious concern over drug safety. You can find plenty of articles online about the subject (esp. oxycontin and Viagra), but there was absolutely no control, and many drugs contained too little active ingredients, or even worse, too much. That can be a very, very bad thing.
On the other hand, I’m not a huge fan of recommended daily allowances set by the Codex, either, and many countries disagree as to what people really need. I for one think the requirement for Vitamin C is far too low (Linus Pauling, one of the better chemists of our time, was a HUGE advocate and pioneer in the area; he mega-dosed Vitamin C daily, which the human body can’t produce and can only partially recycle, and he lived to 94).
If you can give me any source that states that the Codex would label herbal supplements as poisons, I’d certainly read it, but I can find nothing of the sort online.
In closing, I’m not saying I support everything Randi does carte blanche, but “believers” have had a nearly impossible time proving their case against him, because there’s a lot of hokum out there, and at least someone stands up to the BS. And I’m not saying that I support or don’t support the Codex. There needs to be some basic level of control, without limiting the individual’s freedom of choice, one thing that is sorely lacking in our “free” society.
Is that good enough for ya?
-/\/\
Wow, just point out to the homeopath-believers that the emperor has no clothes and suddenly you’ve got a runaway thread on your hands. Heh.
I find it laughable how many times in this thread the purveyors of woo have demanded that someone else disprove the extraordinary thing they are hoping to convince the world exists. As many others have pointed out, that’s simply not the way the game is played, folks.
If this homeopathy thing really works, as you say it does, then present some evidence and tell the world the methodology whereby they can replicate it on their own. No special pleading, please, about how your effect is different from all other effects known to science in that it can’t be verified via blinded, controlled experiments.
I don’t suggest that your proposed methodology match any of the standard claims of homeopathy either, because every time they’ve been subjected to scrutiny by non-biased individuals running properly controlled and blinded experiments, they haven’t fared very well (failure to reject the null can, indeed, be a bitch).
I certainly think it would be neat if it turned out to be true, but so far the evidence simply isn’t in your court. Therefore, don’t get your feelings hurt when folks choose not to take your word for it. Instead, go out and do the work necessary to convince the skeptics. I know that involves doing work, thinking critically, and being honest, but trying new things can be fun! :)
A number of people in this thread make the same mistake.
For example, Zabimaru writes: “I do not understand how people can argue that something that fails to have any effect in blind tests is effective.”
It’s not so. Is doesn’t fail to have any effect. It is very effective, otherwise people wouldn’t buy it.
Blind tests are not about having no effect; they are about having no advantage over placebo.
And homeopathy fails to be more effective than placebo. Because it is placebo. Very good, expensive and working placebo.
Another thing to keep in mind: placebo, while working just because of psychological effect, causes real chemical changes in the body (or rather – our brain makes those changes). For example, it was shown that patients taking placebo against Parkinson disease show an increase in brain dopamine (source: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/293/5532/1164?ijkey=4fa25edf416d73da1788927cf7739bd232838f8d&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha).
It amazes me that so many people are so knowledgeable about a subject that they know nothing about.
If you are really interested in the subject read “Organon of medicine” by Sammuel Hahnemann or “Homoeopathy explained by J.H.Clarke.
It amazes me that people claim books by homeopaths would give a fair view of its efficacy. Its like asking the pope to justify catholicism and then taking his word for it.
Privet, you claim that these homeopathic remedies are very effective. Please provide the rational people with evidence to back up this spurious position. Peer reviewed journals, etc. And by `peer review`I do not mean `reviewed by people who blindly accept homeopathy and ignore the scientific method.`
Rational thought is the route to progress. Homeopathy is magic, it requires that virtually all of chemistry (and thus physics) is absolutely wrong.
There it is, in a nutshell. If you believe in homeopathy you do not believe in chemistry and physics because they contradict each other in critical ways. Don`t give us any of that `quantum`crap, its just a trick used by people who want to profit by tricking others.
Anyone claiming to have proof of homeopathy should present that proof, and provide some explanation why the person who proved it did not win the nobel prize for medicine, since it would be a breakthrough of such magnitude that we could cure a vast amount of the worlds problems using this magic.
If all you have is fantasies, then stand up and admit it. Attempts to avoid the issue and deceive can only lead to rational people calling your bluff, and yours has been called.
Aor, seems you don’t understand what is placebo-effect. Notice the word “effect”.
Also, your main mistake: you assume that people are rational. No, people are irrational, and – predictably irrational. And the believe in homeopathy is another confirmation of this. This is how things are, this is the world we are living in. Watch this video for some education: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZv–sm9XXU
P.S. A shorter video by Dan Ariely “Why Do Placebos Work?” with a very good explanation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHBwHVbUwig
The reason for the ’shaking’ is to ensure proper dispersion, we can now extract single molecules to create the desired potency, or dilution. If you do not suffer from the condition that the product is created for, you will feel no effect, it will not balance the un-balanced within you as you are not imbalanced…this is why you could down as many sleeping pills as you want and not get dozy. The reason they have warnings on the lable is because it is the law..do you realize that every bag or can or tin of peanuts is labled with a warning ‘may contain nuts’. I could go on, however it is a very convincing video if you are not aware, if you listen to what you are told, and don’t look towards what is not explained.
@ Mark
I totally agree that the push from big pharma to limit and control herbal medicine is nothing more than thier desire to have all profits spent on medicine come into thier coffers.
If something you can grow in your backyard that is as effective as a pharmaceutical pill you don’t need to go to the pharmacy.
Just one more example of how the uber corporations want to demonize anything they can’t make uber money from, such as growing sage brush for alchohol fuels that is about 10 times more efficient than corn and needs NO water or chemical fertilizers to grow. Large sugar beets is another example which no one eats for food(these are not the small table beets).
The government pays farmers millions of dollars every year to NOT plant millions of acres of land. The food shortage is not caused by alternative fuels. It’s an oil co. lie!
The increase in food prices is caused by the increase in transportation costs- ala petroleum.
There are millions of bushels of corn rotting in silos right now.
Last year the U.S. had a corn surplus.
Damn I wish there was anything to homeopathy. If homeopathy worked, it’d totally change the business of liquor stores.
@Joel and Sam:
I may be coming in late here, but have you read Orac’s recent take on the “studies” done on acupuncture?
Here’s another perspective: Via Neurologica Blog
Anyway …
So according to the pro-homeopathy voices here, it works because:
a) It’s all in your mind.
b) It hasn’t been proven not to.
c) The vegetables help.
d) The “atomic vibrations” cure ya.
e) Homepathic medicines exploit interdimensional powers to break the laws of chemistry.
Thought that should be ” … break the laws of physics.” Because when you have only an atom of something in solution, the laws of chemistry are no longer needed.
f) Xenu/psychiatrists/doctors supposedly hate it.
g) People buy it (and do they ever).
h) It takes you back through time to when you were well.
Okay, I made that last one up, but it’s every bit as rational as the other rationalizations here.
I really like Marcus’ term for it: “Non-linear reality” … that’s a great phrase.
However, I find that the word “balderdash” has a certain poetic elegance.
Privet, I am well aware of the placebo effect. It changes nothing… homeopathy still is magic. It defies the laws of nature, it defies centuries of experimentation, and cannot be backed up by testing. Rather than saying homeopathy is effective, I would say it is exactly as effective as waving a carved stick over a persons head or praying.
Aor,
I completely agree with the statement that homeopathy is magic.
And agree it’s not scientifically proven medicine and should not be presented as such.
I just don’t think it’s that different from the rest of the consumer society goods. When you go to a supermarket, you buy legends, myths, not chemicals or nutrients.
Example: person A purchases brand-name aspirin for $10, because more expensive drugs are better drugs. Person B buys $5 no-name aspirin, (because she knows aspirin is aspirin, no matter what) and $5 homeopathy.
They get home and successfully apply the remedies. Everyone is happy, placebo-effect or not.
Now, each one spent $5 on chemicals and $5 on a something that works purely because of the psychological effect. Now, do you think the case A is really better than case B?
Another example. Homeopathy is not sold in drug stores or drug departments (at least in, the US). Instead, it’s sold in stores like Whole Foods, in the supplements aisle. Look at those shelves. Hundreds of nice bottles and boxes, each promises wonders. Now, most of the other remedies sold there where never positively blind-tested by any serious medical organization. Even worse. Those that were earlier tested and considered a good thing, were found not-working or even harmful later (example: vitamins).
Now, do you think the whole supplement section of Whole Foods should be destroyed?
Another example. Most of the low-fat products sold in supermarkets were shown to be rather harmful in a long run for the american health. At least, it was never proven scientifically that they are “healthy”. However, they still are advertised and sold everywhere. I’d consider this to be much more serious potential risk than rather harmless silly homeopathy.
@skiptex: The jury is not still out – the homoeopaths are the only one’s who are really disagree. A meta-analysis carried out and reported in The Lancet showed that it was no better than placebo although of course this caused outrage in the CAM camp who prefer the of use anecdotal and badly conducted trials for their “evidence”. Strangely enough the same people who clearly demonstrate that they lack even basic understanding of running a medical trial then try to criticise and smear someone who does and it’s all a stich up by big evil pharma anyway.
I’m pretty sure that the way placebos are supposed to work is that the patient is led to believe that he is taking a substance that actually has something in it designed to help with his problem. In homeopathy the homeopath will freely admit to his patient that there is no physical medicine in the pills he’s given. Telling the patient that only the vibrations of the original substance are all that are left in the pills will only sound like mumbo jumbo to any modern day person and not likely encourage a placebo effect. If anything, it would have the opposite effect.
The people seeking help from homeopathy have, more than likely, already been down the path of conventional medicine where I’m sure they were given powerful medicines by highly respected medical professionals who told them that these medicines would help them. So if any placebo effect should have taken place it should have taken place with the MD and not the homeopath. If the patient had a problem that could be solved with a placebo it should have been taken care of by the MD’s “powerful medication” and there would have been no need for a homeopath.
Kenster:
What you write makes sense. However, I think it’s not conscious but subconscious mind that makes our body respond to the placebo signals. It might be that the mumbo-jumbo science is more convincing to our irrational subconscious than the rational belief in power of chemicals.
By the way, in my family I have the exact story you describe. In 80-s, а very close relative had a chronic disease for many years. We tried everything, all the conventional medicine methods, some traditional medicine, herbs, everything – nothing helped. And then someone recommended homeopathy. We were both skeptical, but decided to try – there was nothing to lose (remember, no side effects! :)). Amazingly, it worked. Nobody expected it, but it worked. It’s been 20 years since then, and she is fine.
Note: she is a rational person with engineering degree, and she was skeptical about homeopathy. However, her subconscious (luckily) was not so educated and so the magic worked.
People, the question you should ask yourselves is what is the motivation behind a (quite funny and catchy) polemic like that?
Why is this guy on a crusade? Why do some people get so upset about other people using homeopathy?
The motivation he quickly brings in at the end of the talk – he is upset about quacks cheating and lying and taking advantage of the poor people in their needs – is directly followed by his lobbying for his “foundation”.
If he’s so concerned with protecting the public from cheaters and liars, I think there are more important areas of our society that need his attention: financial markets, for example?
Oh, I forgot: there’s big money in homeopathy, considering how expensive the treatment is to any other one…
I know it’s tempting to believe in scientific fact, gives one a feeling of security, right? I’m sorry to say it, but science is a discourse, a process carried and developed by the whole community of scientists, who don’t always agree with each other, nor with their predecessors or successors.
And that’s a good thing, keeping our society alive by people being smart, thinking independently and being critical of crusaders and demagogues.
@Melly:
> “science is a discourse, a process carried and developed by the whole community of scientists, who don’t always agree with each other, nor with their predecessors or successors.”
Very true, and it’s a good thing, as you say. However, the scientific method offers the basic tools for making qualified statements. Controlled experiments, reproducability, making predictions, statistical analysis of results – these are invaluable tools, but homeopathy cannot produce credible (ie. statistically significant) results when they are applied.
This leads me to concluding that homeopathy is bunk. If we can’t judge it by the scientific method, then, really, what is left? Anecdotes and unqualified opinions, that’s what, and homeopathy has those in abundance.
I have noticed numerous folks in this discussion equating homeopathy to the placebo effect. Rest assured, studies have shown that there is no difference between these two things. However, to then make the logical leap that homeopathy is “harmless” is entirely unwarranted.
People who are in need of medical attention need real treatments grounded in evidence-based research. Homeopathy absorbs the limited trust and funds of such people for a procedure that, at best, gives false hope and placebo … but at prices significantly higher than a sugar pill and a kind word. All too often, however, the damage is much greater.
The limited funds of these people should be spent on actual medicine, and their trust should be placed in procedures that have evidence (repeatable, demonstrable, and factual) backing them up.
If you would like to familiarize yourself with some of the bad things that are wrought in the name of homeopathy, you can begin by checking out whatstheharm.net. This is an online resource that catalogs the harm caused by various woo-woo beliefs and alternative medicine scams. Here’s the specific page accounting some the victims of homeopathy:
http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html
At current, homeopathy can be shown to have caused 3,254 deaths, 235,558 injuries, and over $455 million dollars in damage. That doesn’t seem very “harmless” to me.
@Baka: Have you got a link to those facts and figures and I’ve not seen anything quite as concrete as that. I suppose I’m just interested in seeing how reliable the evidence is.
Oh and I do agree with you basic premise – I mean what on earth are the NHS in the UK doing spending 10s of millions of pounds on this rubbish.
The figures Baka mentions are the totals of all the numerous categories listed by that site. Homeopathy specifically accounts for 434 deaths or injuries – again, according to the site.
Of course, if people use homeopathy or any other kind of useless healing as an alternative, rather than a supplement to conventional life-saving medicine, this kind of result is inevitable. Thankfully, few people are that phanatic in their delusions.
Whatever, but homeopathy is just like many other medical sciences, based on the faith of the patient and placebo effect. Our dear modern medical science is not omnipotent in healing even well known sicknesses unless you believe in it.
The placebo effect is what all medicines and all medical treatments are compared to. Treatments are evaluated on their performance compared to placebo. Its that simple. So, Joseph Smith.. that means that modern medical science works whether you believe in it or not. The efficacy is determined by comparison to placebo, which means (listen close, this is simple yet important) that even with the placebo effect removed from the equation, the medicine still works.
So its time to stop mentioning the placebo effect as if it were some secret flaw in the medical profession. Think of it as an added bonus…. you may have a slight increased chance of being cured based on the placebo effect, but that works across the board.. medicine, homeopathy, prayer, animal sacrifice, etc. In other words, stop pretending medicine is based on the placebo effect. It makes you look ignorant and possibly even deceptive.
http://www.freethunk.net/guestartists/evil-homeopathist.jpg
@Aor
Thanks for the cartoon and the freethunk website.
I shall have to peruse that.
The placebo effect is temporary and palliative.
So how did homeopathy cure so many people in the Cholera epidemic in 1854?
How did homeopathy save the lives of many from swamp fever in Cuba in 2007?
If water memory is so incredible, why is it held to be credible by Nobel Prize winner Brian Josephson?
Why do people favor the work of a magician of dubious ethical standards (backing out of a deal with Vithoulkas then blaming Vithoulkas for said failure) over the work of advanced physicists such as Conde, who concluded that water have a memory?
And why on earth is the argument “it’s just so obvious that water has no memory” repeated as if it’s actually worth saying? For the longest time, people concluded it was “just obvious” that germs didn’t exist.
I don’t have to believe in penicillin for it to work.
The mice’s faith
Effect of homeopathic medicines on transplanted tumors in mice
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18159975?ordinalpos=48&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Can the plants believe? :-)
Homeopathic treatment of Arabidopsis thaliana plants infected with Pseudomonas syringae.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19468651?ordinalpos=15&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
I haven’t seen yet the second “study”. A “pity” that the control groups of the first one have between 8 and 10 mices