[quote]Zen warrior wrote:
It’s what bugs me most about today’s scientist: if they don’t know the how and/or why, then it’s just so much bs wrapped in fur.[/quote]
Not knowing the how and/or why has nothing to do with it. If there is an effect, it should be objectively observable in studies. That we couldn’t explain it has nothing to do with it. If an effect was shown, then we could study the phenomena until we understood it.
The current problem is that no properly conducted study of homeopathy has ever shown any effect. The results from the test groups are always statistically identical to the control groups. So there’s no how and/or why to explain, there is nothing going on.
[quote]Halfback wrote:
Isn’t it annoying when people justify everything by saying: “It has it’s place”? Not just in medicine but in training too.
It either works or it doesn’t, and if it does not stand up to rigorous hypothesis testing, then it doesn’t.
I am not someone who is close minded about alternative medicine. Some traditional herbal remedies as well as treatments like acupuncture have been backed by reasonable scientific evidence in recent years. However, when the evidence clearly says that something does not work, it is time for the followers of those disciplines to be open minded also![/quote]
Sorry, if I was bit offensive on this topic, but it annoys me and similar claims appear way too often in training advice also:
i) It has its place
ii) It worked for me/my athletes, so all the studies you quote are useless compared to our experience
-Everything has it’s place. Sometimes that place is the rubbish bin.
-Thats great that it worked for you, but if this effect cannot be replicated in thousands of controlled studies (random variance aside), then how the hell am I supposed to replicate it in my patients/athletes?
[quote]pookie wrote:
Now, maybe the cold water did numb her throat a little and maybe the water, by hydrating her, lessened the soreness. There probably was some kind of minor effect, but I firmly believe that whatever effect there was, was magnified by her belief that daddy’s “special medecine” would help her sore throat.
[/quote]
And the fact that she’d had real cough medicine before hand!
Let’s not foget that the finding is homeopathy is no better than a placebo. A placebo does have an effect, and in certain cases I think it is sufficient. If you don’t believe it, look how many people report increased performance when taking BS supps. If popping a sugar pill is what it takes for a person to break through a plateau, then give them sugar pills. Similarly, for non-life threatening medical problems, I say go for the placebos first, they may work.
For the sake of this thread can we please seperate homeopathy as its own entity and alternative medicine as another. Nutritional therapy combined with external detoxification has cured every ailment that I have personally seen at the clinic I work at including cancer. Many of these cases had exhausted their options with allopathic medicine and were sent home to die basically.
I personally think homeopathy does not compare with the nutritional technology we are working with and based on some of the research seems to be an unproven modality.
Although I think I’d rather have placebo effect than the death effect like many of our modern medicine miracles like Vioxx, calcium channel blockers, Celebrex, etc
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Many alternatives to modern medicine are not homeopathic. Some of the alternatives may have benefit. Some may not.[/quote]
It’s been my experience though, that many Alternative Medecine practicionners don’t mind lumping everything together. As long as it’s not conventional medecine, they’ll recommend it.
For example, many chiropractor will tell you that any ailment you might have is due to a misalignment of some vertebra somewhere. Asthma? Ulcers? Halitosis? all can be cured with a bunch of repeat visits.
It’s that aspect of AM that puts off a lot of people. No method will be effective for everything. Why can’t they just stick to what they can really do, and recommend other treatments when they know that they won’t be able to help with a condition? Simple honesty would do much to increase the public perception of AM instead of having “faithfuls” who believe everything based on anectdotal evidence and the rest who view the whole thing with skepticism.
Of course, such honesty wouldn’t be possible for the real quacks. Unless you regulate those away, the endless supply of suckers will keep them in business indefinitely.
[quote]Miserere wrote:
It will never end, Pookie. It’s not like those idiot humans will suddenly develop common sense tomorrow.[/quote]
Well, wufwuggy has admitted looking at homeopathy with a more critical eye since the last thread, so all hope is not lost.
It’s been my experience that many people are completely unaware of the quack nature of homeopathic medecine. They assumed that if you can buy it at the drugstore, then it’s regulated like all the other drugs. Maybe they’ll keep buying it (people cling stubbornly to the rightness of their past decisions…), but at least they’ll be aware of the facts.
For those not quite up to date on their French, here’s a quick summary.
A 68 year old naturopath is on trial for criminal neglect causing death.
In 1994, she recommended to a diabetic 12 year old to stop taking her insulin and to use a solution made from beet sugar instead. The 12 year old died a few days later.
(The naturopath was previously condemned to 3 years of jail; this is a re-trial)
Update: Hmm. Just noticed that the link is dated 2004… I’ll try to find the right one and update. Anyway, even I year late, the news still illustrates the point about AM trying to cure everything.
[quote]pookie wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Many alternatives to modern medicine are not homeopathic. Some of the alternatives may have benefit. Some may not.
It’s been my experience though, that many Alternative Medecine practicionners don’t mind lumping everything together. As long as it’s not conventional medecine, they’ll recommend it.
For example, many chiropractor will tell you that any ailment you might have is due to a misalignment of some vertebra somewhere. Asthma? Ulcers? Halitosis? all can be cured with a bunch of repeat visits.
It’s that aspect of AM that puts off a lot of people. No method will be effective for everything. Why can’t they just stick to what they can really do, and recommend other treatments when they know that they won’t be able to help with a condition? Simple honesty would do much to increase the public perception of AM instead of having “faithfuls” who believe everything based on anectdotal evidence and the rest who view the whole thing with skepticism.
Of course, such honesty wouldn’t be possible for the real quacks. Unless you regulate those away, the endless supply of suckers will keep them in business indefinitely.
[/quote]
It seems to me that everything you have stated in this post could easily be referred to western/allopathic medical doctors as well.
[quote]storey420 wrote:
It seems to me that everything you have stated in this post could easily be referred to western/allopathic medical doctors as well.[/quote]
I’ve heard doctors say that someone’s condition is beyond treadment and give estimates of how many months a person has to live. I’ve yet to see that from an AM practitionner; it seems they always have a solution.
[quote]pookie wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Many alternatives to modern medicine are not homeopathic. Some of the alternatives may have benefit. Some may not.
It’s been my experience though, that many Alternative Medecine practicionners don’t mind lumping everything together. As long as it’s not conventional medecine, they’ll recommend it.
For example, many chiropractor will tell you that any ailment you might have is due to a misalignment of some vertebra somewhere. Asthma? Ulcers? Halitosis? all can be cured with a bunch of repeat visits.
It’s that aspect of AM that puts off a lot of people. No method will be effective for everything. Why can’t they just stick to what they can really do, and recommend other treatments when they know that they won’t be able to help with a condition? Simple honesty would do much to increase the public perception of AM instead of having “faithfuls” who believe everything based on anectdotal evidence and the rest who view the whole thing with skepticism.
Of course, such honesty wouldn’t be possible for the real quacks. Unless you regulate those away, the endless supply of suckers will keep them in business indefinitely.
[/quote]
The premises of homeopathy are obviously flawed, but oftentimes in the history of science, flawed premises served as models to understand and experiment on a concept not yet understood.
Yes, but sometimes crap is crap.
That dilution increases potency actually contradicts everything we know about chemistry. You don’t “underdose” on drugs, you overdose. If you want to poison someone, you don’t dilute the poison for more effect, you increase the dose.
If dilution actually increased potency, you’d probably die from drinking a glass of water. Just think of everything that’s dumped into the water supply; from human waste to old medecines to industrial garbage. Filtering wouldn’t help, as homeopathy states that the water molecules have memory and actually “remember” contact with this or that substance. That’s how, they claim, a vial containing only water can have an effect. The pure water “remembers” the properties of whatever it was in contact with. So any random glass of water should “remember” enough substances to kill an elephant. But they don’t.
Great scam if you can pull it off, though.[/quote]
Exactly. All it takes to see through these sort of things is a bit of common sense. Can dilluting something until you have slightly impure water be effective? Probably not. Can the stars and planets influence my daily life? Probably not again. Can the psychic talk to the dead? Once again, probably not. Although you can’t really prove these things “aren’t” happening, a little common sense goes a long way. The simplest answer is usually correct, and the simplest answer for these is that a.Homeopathy=fraud b.Astrology=fraud and c.Pyschics=fraud.
