9 ms·

Homeopathy for politicians

moultano 16y ago
As much as I like comics as a form, I'm not sure the images add much here. I may have preferred to read this as just straight text. (Though maybe I wouldn't have read to the end in that case?)
- shadowsun7 16y ago
  The images provide visual stimulation. I probably wouldn't have finished it had it not been for the format. This is an incredibly smart way of spreading information (and I think quite a number of people understand this - Google, after all, used comics to explain Chrome when it was first released).
celoyd 16y ago
I basically agree with this, but I can’t help thinking it would be stronger if it were softer in places. For example, I couldn’t say that “for homeopathy to be effective, it would have to work in violation of the principles of biology, chemistry, and physics” actually means. Surely it would be just as damning and clearer to say that it can’t beat a placebo in well-designed tests. Likewise, “Its devotees don’t concern themselves with evidence” is awfully broad. I think some of them do, they just aren’t very good at it. There’s no need to call people stupid when you can show they believe something false. Quibbles, really. I look forward to seeing more things like this.
- avar 16y ago
  The first example wouldn't be the same. There's a big difference between it being a theoretical impossibility, and something that sounds like we just haven't tested it enough. Proponents of homeopathy like to confuse the issue by citing some of their own badly done studies. Explaining to the layman that proving the efficacy of homeopathy would earn you a Nobel Price in physics helps to bring some context to that.
  - celoyd 16y ago
    Heh. What is that difference? Philosophers of science would love to know. If homeopathy failed to conform to accepted theory but consistently beat placebos in a wide variety of good clinical trials, it would be good medicine; if it worked in theory but not in tissue, it would not be. Theory is generally constrained by observation. Homeopathy is wrong because it doesn’t work. Conceivably it could have turned out to work in some way that violated previous medical understanding. Lots of things have done this – it’s one of the main ways understanding is refined. Besides which, as far as I know (which is not far) there is no fundamental principle of biology, chemistry, or physics that it breaks. It just so happens that water molecules and immune systems don’t work the way homeopathy would need them to. While you could see this in terms of a violation of principles (in the same way that you can rewrite any false math theorem to 1 = 0 if you work hard enough), that doesn’t seem like a very productive perspective to me. But I’m not a doctor, biologist, chemist, or physicist, so I guess it could be.
    - avar 16y ago
      You can't run faster than the speed of light, i.e. it isn't just for lack of trying. Explaining things in those terms to the layman helps them to understand the issues. There's a large chasm between things that might potentially work, and things that couldn't even work in theory. Homeopathy is squarely in the latter category. The whole concept of water memory is pseudoscientific nonesense. Note that they're not just claiming that water has some special effect on the human immune system. They're claiming that molecules are capable of transmitting and retaining information in a manner that violates our understanding of chemistry and physics.
      - celoyd 16y ago
        I think we mostly agree and are arguing mainly over interpretation. There's a large chasm between things that might potentially work, and things that couldn't even work in theory. Can you characterize this chasm? I think that there’s a fairly continuous range of possibility. When we say that “theory” precludes something, we might mean any of a variety of kinds and strengths of theories. It is a very strong theory that you cannot accelerate at the speed of light. Is there something as strong saying that water categorically cannot preserve information of that kind? I suspect the theories there are more statistical and harder to test. Mind you, I believe those theories. For one thing, the idea of water memory violates my intuitions about entropy. But it seems incautious to see it as a violation of principle. This kind of thinking tends too far in the direction of thinking that airplanes violate gravity, or that there could be no brown dwarf orbiting the sun because that would “violate our theory of how the solar system works”, etc. – scientism, not science. Of course, as I said, I have no special knowledge here. Maybe water memory is categorically rather than empirically impossible. If this is so, I’d be interested to learn why.
- crpatino 16y ago
  Regarding "for homeopathy to be effective...", this statement shows a very XIX century preconceived idea about the human body: We are just machines. We have learned a great deal more since then. Biologic systems are complex by nature and show emergent properties that cannot be explained by the sum of its components. By example, there is a strong bias in the comic against the effectiveness of placebos. It assumes that "letting the disease run its course" is roughly equivalent to taking a placebo. It has been shown far from truth in double blind test, at least in the case of mild conditions; placebos do work, that's why we have the "placebo effect" meme in the first place. In that sense, homeopathy might be working just as advertised: Triggering the body's own natural healing capacity. The theory behind it may be convoluted and borderline magical... but this should not invalidate it on itself. Of course alternative healing should not be used instead mainstream western medicine for severe problems like cancer or such. However, in a country with basically no public health system, people should have access to any option that would not put them one blink away from financial disaster.
Alex3917 16y ago
How is it that he equates herbal medicine with homeopathic medicine? The two don't have anything in common.
- michael_dorfman 16y ago
  Actually, they do. Most homeopathic remedies are just dilute herbal remedies-- note that it's fairly rare for homeopathic remedies to be "strong" (i.e., weakly diluted) enough to be completely inert. In other words, much of the time, what you are getting when you buy a homeopathic remedy at the local pharmacy is actually just an incredibly weak herbal preparation.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    The homeopathic stuff is small/non-existant doses of herbs that cause some ailment. A herbal remedy would be a measurable dose of something intended to cure the ailment. The latter may be woolly and untested feelgood hippy claptrap, but it's a lot less theoretically incoherent.
    - Alex3917 16y ago
      "The latter may be woolly and untested feelgood hippy claptrap" You seriously think that no one has ever tested the efficacy of herbs?
      - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
        Do you know what you call herbal medicine that's been proved to work?
        Alex3917 16y ago
        Herbal medicine.
chmike 16y ago
I disagree with this popular beleifs. No one managed to explain with a scientific proof what happens in Benvenist experiences. It is mainly beliefs and assumptions that bias the data analysis. Experimental data points undoubtly to EM effects in water. This is the only way, using rational and actual science, to explain what has been observed. And ther is at least one possible explanation proposed by my father, physicist, that explains how it could. How the activity could be reccorded and reinjected in inactive water, the oscillations in activity during the dillution process, why shaking is needed, etc. He presented his explanation at a conference on Homeopathy in France last year. He is a theorist and his theory should be tested experimentally. None of the people present conducted these experiences. There are still a lot of strange and unexplained effects in water. One scientist who reported such effects he saw in his experiments on EM effects was forced by the scientific community to pull back and say it was mistakes. I don't remember his name. I think he was german. It happened well before Benvenist discovery. This happens just because the data didn't fit to common beleif and assumptions. The editor of Nature was a strong disbeleiver, maybe not as agressive as Randi. The real problem here is that these people behavior has nothing to do with pur science research process as it should be. They forged themselves a model of how things works and any data that doesn't fit the model must be an error. Calling back into question the model is out of question for them. I've seen this behavior on many occasion. This is not scientific and rational.
- DaveChild 16y ago
  All lovely. Of course, in homeopatic "treatments", the water is allowed to evaporate away on a sugar pill. So does sugar have magic memory too?
  - chmike 16y ago
    There are two problems in your comment. First you assume, apparently without room for doubt, that the sugar pill contains absolutely no water. Second you assume that the activity is due to some element of fixed quantity. Beside I don't see any reference to homeopathy in my comment. I only referred to Benveniste experiences which involved only water. The sugar pill may contain water and contribute to stabilize the active and stable water molecule patterns. Even if there is only few of them, they may replicate themselves and amplify the activity with the same process occurring during the dilution and shaking process. The theory suggest that the structures are aggregates of water molecule with ionic bound ruptures and rebinding at different locations. The oscillations yields a stable structure. This explains why very low EM frequencies are detected in active water. They are generated by the big structure oscillations. Recording the EM oscillations and replaying them in an inactive water, may induce the same ionic oscillations and the formation of the same patterns. It is also commonly assumed that the activity is due to the chemical molecule itself. But if the molecule is polarized, the polarized water molecules will surround it and extend the polarization zone. The biological interaction could then be due to the water envelope around the molecule. The induced polarization would then have a particular shape. The structure can be stabilized by electron movements in the structure across water molecules. By growing the structure would sort of take a print of the chemical molecule behaving like a sort of crystal seed. Shaking water would break the cluster and generate new crystal seeds, but made only of water molecules. This would of course work only for particular type of chemical molecules and activity. Water behaves then like an amplifier and replicating system which could in some case have alternating negative and positive prints of the molecule or active structures. This would be easy to test, but my father doesn't have the required apparatus and the time because he works on many other subjects. He is close to 80 years now. Believe what you want. All I want to say is that the way Benveniste discovery was handled has nothing to do with science. The referenced comic is just an amplifying replication of the mishandling.
a_believer 16y ago
I am not a homeopath, studied science in school and college and I was against homeopathy as much as any of you are. But here are my experiences which have made a believer and a lay, part time practitioner for myself, my family and friends. I am also not knowledgeable enough to support basis of homeopathy and related things like water memory. I am posting my experiences about acute issues where a cure is expected in a matter of hours or days so it is quite clear if the disease has run its course or the medicine has worked. I have seen many infants and young kids get better immediately with the homeopathy use. I am not sure if the placebo effect can work on them. For the last 10 years my whole family (and many friends) are exclusively using homeopathy. So I think even if it placebo effect it is worth having. I know my limited experiences can't be a basis of any scientific proof. But the point I want to make is homeopathy works for me as "advertised" so I don't care what science or other people say about it. Have a look at these and let me know what it can be? Can placebo effect be so strong? 1. I was travelling and had severe back pain which resulted from sweeting in sun and then immediately going into a chilled place. Pain killers for 3 days could not subside it. My host, a lay practitioner, gave me a single homeopathy medicine, Rhustox 200, which cured me like a miracle. Please note I was a non-believer and I took this medicine in the most desperate conditions (traveling, deadlines etc.) This experience forced me to give a second thought and I started self-study and help from two homeopaths. 'Rhuxtox 200' is also a medicine for complaints from sprains and strains on body. Since then I have cured countless people for similar conditions. 2. Any pain from injury to soft tissues immediately subsides with 'Arnica 30' 1 or 2 doses in a matter of hour. Have given this medicine to people of all ages. 3. Cantheris 30 for burning in urine. 4. Belladona 30 for fever/head ache due to host sun or any pain/inflammation with redness of the affected part. 5. Cough. Phosphorus 30 cures most cases. 6. Most pains which aggravate with motion. Bryonia 30 helps. 7. General spasms/pains. Colocynthis 30 1 dose works miracle on kids as well as elders. Hardly need to give second dose.
- DaveChild 16y ago
  You are not qualified, in any way, to determine what, if anything, had an effect on you or on other people. You are not capable of telling if your back pain, for example, was cured by homeopathy or had run its course. And this is why anecdotes are not considered evidence. Anecdotes like yours are enough to warrant investigating to see if there is actually something going on. So people have - they have conducted trial and trial, and found homeopathy ineffective beyond any placebo effect. It has no plausible mechanism by which it could work. It has no statistically significant effect when tested. It is dangerous and kills people. Hopefully you will wake up and realise this before you choose a homeopathic "remedy" for something serious and end up dead.
a_believer 16y ago
I know there is a really strong bias against homeopathy here. I would suggest a thought experiment. Just for a moment think that homeopathy might have a grain of truth. And with this, ask how and why about its cures. This might help me to understand your point clearly.
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  ...except that you clearly don't want to understand the point, because the point -- no matter how it's presented -- is that homeopathy doesn't work, and it doesn't have even a grain of truth. And, I wouldn't say there's a strong bias against homeopathy here, so much as there's a strong bias in favor of 700 years of science of Things That Actually Work. (Thankfully; this isn't always the case on HN.)
  - a_believer 16y ago
    "except that you clearly don't want to understand the point". Don't be so cruel to me. Think about yourself. You don't believe anything which contradicts those 700 years of work. You don't believe that water can have a memory. You don't believe there is some sort of energy/frequency stored in water or sugar which cures us. Why? Because we cannot see it or prove it with any known scientific methods. Right? Well I was exactly like you. I got helped by homeopathy by chance and probably a "hacker" (as defined by Paul Buchheit) within me got curious if homeopathy is really works and is as miraculous as it claims? I spent time, took medicines myself and my volunteer friends and family. It is still hard to believe for me but it works and it looks more than placebo effect. I did not read it in a book. I actually experienced it. And my experience of 10 years tells it works.
daeken 16y ago
"Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works? Medicine." If only I knew where I heard this. Edit: I'm fairly certain it came from House or Penn and Teller's Bullshit. Can anyone say one way or another?
- davebert 16y ago
  Tim Minchin's 10 minute beat poem "Storm" has this line in it.
  - daeken 16y ago
    Hmm, very interesting. I've never read this, but it's entirely possible that the source I heard it from got it from there.
- DaveChild 16y ago
  It's from Tim Minchin, in his poem "Storm". It's on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk
- RK 16y ago
  I've always seen terms like alternative, complementary, or integrative medicine as akin to the terms creation science and intelligent design. Basically, designed to present a false dichotomy of equals with the legitimate paradigms.
- dkimball 16y ago
  On the other hand, it can take a long time for ideas to be accepted. Even Pasteur was a radical in his day; and I can't find him on Wikipedia, but there was a French doctor who introduced the idea of washing one's hands -- I think in carbolic acid? -- before delivering a child. This worked very well; but the doctors thought it was a nuisance and produced no benefit, and kicked him out. I'm not defending homeopathy, which I'm pretty deeply suspicious of; it _might_ merit further investigation, but homeopathic medicines certainly shouldn't be sold as medicines until they start performing a whole lot better than they have so far. I just want to point out that the medical field, and most scientific fields, are resistant to adopting new ideas even when those ideas do work. Another example of that slowness: post-traumatic stress disorder, which was only accepted by the APA in DSM-IV (1980) after a long struggle.
a_believer 16y ago
There is a compilation of clinical cases titled "Microdoses Megaresults" by a renowned Indian homeopathy doctor Diwan Harish Chand. It lists around 400 cases with complete histories of patients each spanning many years. It is a wonderful compilation in the sense that it first lists all complaints and test results of a patient and then follow up results after treatment by remedies. He has discussed why he selected a particular remedy and why it worked or not worked. This book serves as a good empirical evidence for me.
Natsu 16y ago
The worst part about this is that they're out there selling this crap. I went to the pharmacy in Wal-Mart a while back for some eye drops because my allergies were acting up. I was in a bit of a hurry, so I just grabbed one. Fortunately, I read the label. Sure enough, the damned things were homeopathic eye drops (AKA water) with some undefined "apis" extracted from bees. I looked up their website, later. It claimed that their cures would "activate my immune system." Obviously, I put them back, but they were on the same damn shelf as the real medicine and in the pharmacy. Can you say "confusingly similar"? Yeah, they had a tiny label on them that said "homeopathic" without bothering to tell anyone what that means, or that the substance is nothing but bee crap heavily diluted with water. Now, let's review: allergies are caused by an overactive immune system. Their eye drops, which are often used to treat allergic problems, contain bee bits (which people can be highly, even lethally allergic to, making me hope they really do dilute it enough) and they claim that this will cure me "like a vaccine" by activating my already over-active immune system. Talk about a recipe for disaster. I was pissed off enough to send out a complaint, but I never got a reply.
- RK 16y ago
  Another thing to look for: I believe homeopathic remedies are not regulated the same way by the FDA as conventional drugs, so some medicines will even claim to be homeopathic when they "aren't" purely for regulatory (and possibly marketing) purposes. I think Cold-Eeze zinc lozenges fall into that category. There is nothing specifically homeopathic about them, but they say homeopathic on the label.
- a_believer 16y ago
  Yes, it is diluted enough (if it is a homeopathy medicine) that it won't harm you even if it is incorrectly selected remedy. Selecting the correct medicine for your allergy (or any other problem) is much more difficult in homeopathy. You need to take into account many factors. So selling off-the-shelf homeopathy medicines is probably going to make some money for the manufacturer but not cure you (from the point of view of a homeopath of course)
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
psyklic 16y ago
A LOT of products in the drugstore are based on pseudoscience. Products like Mederma (claims to reduce scars) sound scientific and are expensive ($30/tube), but Mederma is just a gel with some "botanical extract" that has been shown scientifically not to work. (They show before & after photos, but scars naturally look better on the same timescale.) Other products like Airborne (to prevent colds on airplanes) are just dietary supplements which likely do not do as they say. This product even says it is "invented by a mom" -- why should that be a selling point for a medical product? The list goes on and on.
a_believer 16y ago
(I could not reply directly to the comment, probably due to bleeding karma) "How do you explain that the supposed effects of homeopathy evaporate like the morning dew once they're placed in the setting of a double-blind scientific experiment with proper (well, in this case more) placebo controls?" To me, one thing is sure for me. It works. Proved many many times for the last 10 years. Now I am not really interested into running such tests mostly because I am not motivated enough (I am a programmer) and also because for myself I don't need any further proof for my own use.
- Robin_Message 16y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo As a simple experiment, could you put your most used homoeopathic remedy into a jar, and put pure water into another jar? They must be indistinguishable. Then, give them to someone you trust (and has no opinion either way on homoeopathy) to label A and B. They should record which of A and B is the real treatment, but not tell you. Then, when you get sick, roll a dice. If it's 1 or 2, use A. 3 or 4, use B. 5 or 6, use the homoeopathic remedy. Record how effective they are after each use. Ideally, generate a new pair of A and B after each treatment. Also, assume that if you get A or B, it won't work since it's been messed around with. After ten trials of each remedy, do the following. It'd be better if you didn't read this before doing it, but I want to commit to it, so I've ROT13'd it. Zngpu hc gur rssrpgvirarff bs rnpu gerngzrag jvgu jurgure vg jnf ubzrbcnguvp be abg. Sebz urer jr'er tbvat gb nffhzr N jnf nyjnlf cynva jngre naq O jnf ubzrbcnguvp (nf jnf P boivbhfyl). Abj sbe n gehgu gnoyr bs rssrpgvirarff (0 sbe abg rssrpgvir, 1 sbe rssrpgvir): N O P 0 1 1 Ubzrbcngul jbexf ba lbh 1 1 1 Lbh whfg trg orggre naq nffhzr gur zrqvpvar jbexf, be vg'f n cynprob 0 0 1 Vg'f n cynprob, naq lbh unir gb xabj lbh ner gnxvat vg
Nekojoe 16y ago
If you're interested in this blog post I suggest reading Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science - http://www.badscience.net/ http://www.badscience.net/ It covers the problems with homoeopathy in great depth and includes other similar alternative medicines, along with flaws in scientific studies promoting them and quackery in general. I highly recommend reading it. Not just to learn about the problems with these kind of treatments, but also the difficulties in creating unbiased scientific tests.
bh42 16y ago
Do homeopathy believers love vaccines? Or is a vaccine not diluted enough for them?
shabble 16y ago
Somewhere in my book collection is H2O - A biography of Water, by Phillip Ball, one of the Nature editors. The first half of the book is general background on the weirdness and uniqueness of water compared to other liquids of its class, but the latter part of the book is directly purely at explaining and dismissing a lot of the claims presented in Homeopathy. I'm not certain if he was directly involved with the disclaimers surrounding the original article, but it wouldn't surprise me, given the vehemence in his later writing. Amazon Link (hopefully non-referral, unless google has tricked me): http://www.amazon.co.uk/H2O-Biography-Water-Philip-Ball/dp/0753810921 http://www.amazon.co.uk/H2O-Biography-Water-Philip-Ball/dp/0...

As much as I like comics as a form, I'm not sure the images add much here. I may have preferred to read this as just straight text. (Though maybe I wouldn't have read to the end in that case?)

shadowsun7 16y ago
The images provide visual stimulation. I probably wouldn't have finished it had it not been for the format. This is an incredibly smart way of spreading information (and I think quite a number of people understand this - Google, after all, used comics to explain Chrome when it was first released).

celoyd 16y ago

I basically agree with this, but I can’t help thinking it would be stronger if it were softer in places. For example, I couldn’t say that “for homeopathy to be effective, it would have to work in violation of the principles of biology, chemistry, and physics” actually means. Surely it would be just as damning and clearer to say that it can’t beat a placebo in well-designed tests. Likewise, “Its devotees don’t concern themselves with evidence” is awfully broad. I think some of them do, they just aren’t very good at it. There’s no need to call people stupid when you can show they believe something false. Quibbles, really. I look forward to seeing more things like this.

avar 16y ago
The first example wouldn't be the same. There's a big difference between it being a theoretical impossibility, and something that sounds like we just haven't tested it enough. Proponents of homeopathy like to confuse the issue by citing some of their own badly done studies. Explaining to the layman that proving the efficacy of homeopathy would earn you a Nobel Price in physics helps to bring some context to that.
- celoyd 16y ago
  Heh. What is that difference? Philosophers of science would love to know. If homeopathy failed to conform to accepted theory but consistently beat placebos in a wide variety of good clinical trials, it would be good medicine; if it worked in theory but not in tissue, it would not be. Theory is generally constrained by observation. Homeopathy is wrong because it doesn’t work. Conceivably it could have turned out to work in some way that violated previous medical understanding. Lots of things have done this – it’s one of the main ways understanding is refined. Besides which, as far as I know (which is not far) there is no fundamental principle of biology, chemistry, or physics that it breaks. It just so happens that water molecules and immune systems don’t work the way homeopathy would need them to. While you could see this in terms of a violation of principles (in the same way that you can rewrite any false math theorem to 1 = 0 if you work hard enough), that doesn’t seem like a very productive perspective to me. But I’m not a doctor, biologist, chemist, or physicist, so I guess it could be.
  - avar 16y ago
    You can't run faster than the speed of light, i.e. it isn't just for lack of trying. Explaining things in those terms to the layman helps them to understand the issues. There's a large chasm between things that might potentially work, and things that couldn't even work in theory. Homeopathy is squarely in the latter category. The whole concept of water memory is pseudoscientific nonesense. Note that they're not just claiming that water has some special effect on the human immune system. They're claiming that molecules are capable of transmitting and retaining information in a manner that violates our understanding of chemistry and physics.
    - celoyd 16y ago
      I think we mostly agree and are arguing mainly over interpretation. There's a large chasm between things that might potentially work, and things that couldn't even work in theory. Can you characterize this chasm? I think that there’s a fairly continuous range of possibility. When we say that “theory” precludes something, we might mean any of a variety of kinds and strengths of theories. It is a very strong theory that you cannot accelerate at the speed of light. Is there something as strong saying that water categorically cannot preserve information of that kind? I suspect the theories there are more statistical and harder to test. Mind you, I believe those theories. For one thing, the idea of water memory violates my intuitions about entropy. But it seems incautious to see it as a violation of principle. This kind of thinking tends too far in the direction of thinking that airplanes violate gravity, or that there could be no brown dwarf orbiting the sun because that would “violate our theory of how the solar system works”, etc. – scientism, not science. Of course, as I said, I have no special knowledge here. Maybe water memory is categorically rather than empirically impossible. If this is so, I’d be interested to learn why.
crpatino 16y ago
Regarding "for homeopathy to be effective...", this statement shows a very XIX century preconceived idea about the human body: We are just machines. We have learned a great deal more since then. Biologic systems are complex by nature and show emergent properties that cannot be explained by the sum of its components. By example, there is a strong bias in the comic against the effectiveness of placebos. It assumes that "letting the disease run its course" is roughly equivalent to taking a placebo. It has been shown far from truth in double blind test, at least in the case of mild conditions; placebos do work, that's why we have the "placebo effect" meme in the first place. In that sense, homeopathy might be working just as advertised: Triggering the body's own natural healing capacity. The theory behind it may be convoluted and borderline magical... but this should not invalidate it on itself. Of course alternative healing should not be used instead mainstream western medicine for severe problems like cancer or such. However, in a country with basically no public health system, people should have access to any option that would not put them one blink away from financial disaster.

Alex3917 16y ago

How is it that he equates herbal medicine with homeopathic medicine? The two don't have anything in common.

michael_dorfman 16y ago
Actually, they do. Most homeopathic remedies are just dilute herbal remedies-- note that it's fairly rare for homeopathic remedies to be "strong" (i.e., weakly diluted) enough to be completely inert. In other words, much of the time, what you are getting when you buy a homeopathic remedy at the local pharmacy is actually just an incredibly weak herbal preparation.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  The homeopathic stuff is small/non-existant doses of herbs that cause some ailment. A herbal remedy would be a measurable dose of something intended to cure the ailment. The latter may be woolly and untested feelgood hippy claptrap, but it's a lot less theoretically incoherent.
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    "The latter may be woolly and untested feelgood hippy claptrap" You seriously think that no one has ever tested the efficacy of herbs?
    - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
      Do you know what you call herbal medicine that's been proved to work?
      - Alex3917 16y ago
        Herbal medicine.

chmike 16y ago

I disagree with this popular beleifs. No one managed to explain with a scientific proof what happens in Benvenist experiences. It is mainly beliefs and assumptions that bias the data analysis. Experimental data points undoubtly to EM effects in water. This is the only way, using rational and actual science, to explain what has been observed. And ther is at least one possible explanation proposed by my father, physicist, that explains how it could. How the activity could be reccorded and reinjected in inactive water, the oscillations in activity during the dillution process, why shaking is needed, etc. He presented his explanation at a conference on Homeopathy in France last year. He is a theorist and his theory should be tested experimentally. None of the people present conducted these experiences. There are still a lot of strange and unexplained effects in water. One scientist who reported such effects he saw in his experiments on EM effects was forced by the scientific community to pull back and say it was mistakes. I don't remember his name. I think he was german. It happened well before Benvenist discovery. This happens just because the data didn't fit to common beleif and assumptions. The editor of Nature was a strong disbeleiver, maybe not as agressive as Randi. The real problem here is that these people behavior has nothing to do with pur science research process as it should be. They forged themselves a model of how things works and any data that doesn't fit the model must be an error. Calling back into question the model is out of question for them. I've seen this behavior on many occasion. This is not scientific and rational.

DaveChild 16y ago
All lovely. Of course, in homeopatic "treatments", the water is allowed to evaporate away on a sugar pill. So does sugar have magic memory too?
- chmike 16y ago
  There are two problems in your comment. First you assume, apparently without room for doubt, that the sugar pill contains absolutely no water. Second you assume that the activity is due to some element of fixed quantity. Beside I don't see any reference to homeopathy in my comment. I only referred to Benveniste experiences which involved only water. The sugar pill may contain water and contribute to stabilize the active and stable water molecule patterns. Even if there is only few of them, they may replicate themselves and amplify the activity with the same process occurring during the dilution and shaking process. The theory suggest that the structures are aggregates of water molecule with ionic bound ruptures and rebinding at different locations. The oscillations yields a stable structure. This explains why very low EM frequencies are detected in active water. They are generated by the big structure oscillations. Recording the EM oscillations and replaying them in an inactive water, may induce the same ionic oscillations and the formation of the same patterns. It is also commonly assumed that the activity is due to the chemical molecule itself. But if the molecule is polarized, the polarized water molecules will surround it and extend the polarization zone. The biological interaction could then be due to the water envelope around the molecule. The induced polarization would then have a particular shape. The structure can be stabilized by electron movements in the structure across water molecules. By growing the structure would sort of take a print of the chemical molecule behaving like a sort of crystal seed. Shaking water would break the cluster and generate new crystal seeds, but made only of water molecules. This would of course work only for particular type of chemical molecules and activity. Water behaves then like an amplifier and replicating system which could in some case have alternating negative and positive prints of the molecule or active structures. This would be easy to test, but my father doesn't have the required apparatus and the time because he works on many other subjects. He is close to 80 years now. Believe what you want. All I want to say is that the way Benveniste discovery was handled has nothing to do with science. The referenced comic is just an amplifying replication of the mishandling.

a_believer 16y ago

I am not a homeopath, studied science in school and college and I was against homeopathy as much as any of you are. But here are my experiences which have made a believer and a lay, part time practitioner for myself, my family and friends. I am also not knowledgeable enough to support basis of homeopathy and related things like water memory. I am posting my experiences about acute issues where a cure is expected in a matter of hours or days so it is quite clear if the disease has run its course or the medicine has worked. I have seen many infants and young kids get better immediately with the homeopathy use. I am not sure if the placebo effect can work on them. For the last 10 years my whole family (and many friends) are exclusively using homeopathy. So I think even if it placebo effect it is worth having. I know my limited experiences can't be a basis of any scientific proof. But the point I want to make is homeopathy works for me as "advertised" so I don't care what science or other people say about it. Have a look at these and let me know what it can be? Can placebo effect be so strong? 1. I was travelling and had severe back pain which resulted from sweeting in sun and then immediately going into a chilled place. Pain killers for 3 days could not subside it. My host, a lay practitioner, gave me a single homeopathy medicine, Rhustox 200, which cured me like a miracle. Please note I was a non-believer and I took this medicine in the most desperate conditions (traveling, deadlines etc.) This experience forced me to give a second thought and I started self-study and help from two homeopaths. 'Rhuxtox 200' is also a medicine for complaints from sprains and strains on body. Since then I have cured countless people for similar conditions. 2. Any pain from injury to soft tissues immediately subsides with 'Arnica 30' 1 or 2 doses in a matter of hour. Have given this medicine to people of all ages. 3. Cantheris 30 for burning in urine. 4. Belladona 30 for fever/head ache due to host sun or any pain/inflammation with redness of the affected part. 5. Cough. Phosphorus 30 cures most cases. 6. Most pains which aggravate with motion. Bryonia 30 helps. 7. General spasms/pains. Colocynthis 30 1 dose works miracle on kids as well as elders. Hardly need to give second dose.

DaveChild 16y ago
You are not qualified, in any way, to determine what, if anything, had an effect on you or on other people. You are not capable of telling if your back pain, for example, was cured by homeopathy or had run its course. And this is why anecdotes are not considered evidence. Anecdotes like yours are enough to warrant investigating to see if there is actually something going on. So people have - they have conducted trial and trial, and found homeopathy ineffective beyond any placebo effect. It has no plausible mechanism by which it could work. It has no statistically significant effect when tested. It is dangerous and kills people. Hopefully you will wake up and realise this before you choose a homeopathic "remedy" for something serious and end up dead.

a_believer 16y ago

I know there is a really strong bias against homeopathy here. I would suggest a thought experiment. Just for a moment think that homeopathy might have a grain of truth. And with this, ask how and why about its cures. This might help me to understand your point clearly.

thaumaturgy 16y ago
...except that you clearly don't want to understand the point, because the point -- no matter how it's presented -- is that homeopathy doesn't work, and it doesn't have even a grain of truth. And, I wouldn't say there's a strong bias against homeopathy here, so much as there's a strong bias in favor of 700 years of science of Things That Actually Work. (Thankfully; this isn't always the case on HN.)
- a_believer 16y ago
  "except that you clearly don't want to understand the point". Don't be so cruel to me. Think about yourself. You don't believe anything which contradicts those 700 years of work. You don't believe that water can have a memory. You don't believe there is some sort of energy/frequency stored in water or sugar which cures us. Why? Because we cannot see it or prove it with any known scientific methods. Right? Well I was exactly like you. I got helped by homeopathy by chance and probably a "hacker" (as defined by Paul Buchheit) within me got curious if homeopathy is really works and is as miraculous as it claims? I spent time, took medicines myself and my volunteer friends and family. It is still hard to believe for me but it works and it looks more than placebo effect. I did not read it in a book. I actually experienced it. And my experience of 10 years tells it works.

daeken 16y ago

"Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works? Medicine." If only I knew where I heard this. Edit: I'm fairly certain it came from House or Penn and Teller's Bullshit. Can anyone say one way or another?

davebert 16y ago
Tim Minchin's 10 minute beat poem "Storm" has this line in it.
- daeken 16y ago
  Hmm, very interesting. I've never read this, but it's entirely possible that the source I heard it from got it from there.
DaveChild 16y ago
It's from Tim Minchin, in his poem "Storm". It's on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk
RK 16y ago
I've always seen terms like alternative, complementary, or integrative medicine as akin to the terms creation science and intelligent design. Basically, designed to present a false dichotomy of equals with the legitimate paradigms.
dkimball 16y ago
On the other hand, it can take a long time for ideas to be accepted. Even Pasteur was a radical in his day; and I can't find him on Wikipedia, but there was a French doctor who introduced the idea of washing one's hands -- I think in carbolic acid? -- before delivering a child. This worked very well; but the doctors thought it was a nuisance and produced no benefit, and kicked him out. I'm not defending homeopathy, which I'm pretty deeply suspicious of; it _might_ merit further investigation, but homeopathic medicines certainly shouldn't be sold as medicines until they start performing a whole lot better than they have so far. I just want to point out that the medical field, and most scientific fields, are resistant to adopting new ideas even when those ideas do work. Another example of that slowness: post-traumatic stress disorder, which was only accepted by the APA in DSM-IV (1980) after a long struggle.

a_believer 16y ago

There is a compilation of clinical cases titled "Microdoses Megaresults" by a renowned Indian homeopathy doctor Diwan Harish Chand. It lists around 400 cases with complete histories of patients each spanning many years. It is a wonderful compilation in the sense that it first lists all complaints and test results of a patient and then follow up results after treatment by remedies. He has discussed why he selected a particular remedy and why it worked or not worked. This book serves as a good empirical evidence for me.

Natsu 16y ago

The worst part about this is that they're out there selling this crap. I went to the pharmacy in Wal-Mart a while back for some eye drops because my allergies were acting up. I was in a bit of a hurry, so I just grabbed one. Fortunately, I read the label. Sure enough, the damned things were homeopathic eye drops (AKA water) with some undefined "apis" extracted from bees. I looked up their website, later. It claimed that their cures would "activate my immune system." Obviously, I put them back, but they were on the same damn shelf as the real medicine and in the pharmacy. Can you say "confusingly similar"? Yeah, they had a tiny label on them that said "homeopathic" without bothering to tell anyone what that means, or that the substance is nothing but bee crap heavily diluted with water. Now, let's review: allergies are caused by an overactive immune system. Their eye drops, which are often used to treat allergic problems, contain bee bits (which people can be highly, even lethally allergic to, making me hope they really do dilute it enough) and they claim that this will cure me "like a vaccine" by activating my already over-active immune system. Talk about a recipe for disaster. I was pissed off enough to send out a complaint, but I never got a reply.

RK 16y ago
Another thing to look for: I believe homeopathic remedies are not regulated the same way by the FDA as conventional drugs, so some medicines will even claim to be homeopathic when they "aren't" purely for regulatory (and possibly marketing) purposes. I think Cold-Eeze zinc lozenges fall into that category. There is nothing specifically homeopathic about them, but they say homeopathic on the label.
a_believer 16y ago
Yes, it is diluted enough (if it is a homeopathy medicine) that it won't harm you even if it is incorrectly selected remedy. Selecting the correct medicine for your allergy (or any other problem) is much more difficult in homeopathy. You need to take into account many factors. So selling off-the-shelf homeopathy medicines is probably going to make some money for the manufacturer but not cure you (from the point of view of a homeopath of course)
- thaumaturgy 16y ago

psyklic 16y ago

A LOT of products in the drugstore are based on pseudoscience. Products like Mederma (claims to reduce scars) sound scientific and are expensive ($30/tube), but Mederma is just a gel with some "botanical extract" that has been shown scientifically not to work. (They show before & after photos, but scars naturally look better on the same timescale.) Other products like Airborne (to prevent colds on airplanes) are just dietary supplements which likely do not do as they say. This product even says it is "invented by a mom" -- why should that be a selling point for a medical product? The list goes on and on.

a_believer 16y ago

(I could not reply directly to the comment, probably due to bleeding karma) "How do you explain that the supposed effects of homeopathy evaporate like the morning dew once they're placed in the setting of a double-blind scientific experiment with proper (well, in this case more) placebo controls?" To me, one thing is sure for me. It works. Proved many many times for the last 10 years. Now I am not really interested into running such tests mostly because I am not motivated enough (I am a programmer) and also because for myself I don't need any further proof for my own use.

Robin_Message 16y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo As a simple experiment, could you put your most used homoeopathic remedy into a jar, and put pure water into another jar? They must be indistinguishable. Then, give them to someone you trust (and has no opinion either way on homoeopathy) to label A and B. They should record which of A and B is the real treatment, but not tell you. Then, when you get sick, roll a dice. If it's 1 or 2, use A. 3 or 4, use B. 5 or 6, use the homoeopathic remedy. Record how effective they are after each use. Ideally, generate a new pair of A and B after each treatment. Also, assume that if you get A or B, it won't work since it's been messed around with. After ten trials of each remedy, do the following. It'd be better if you didn't read this before doing it, but I want to commit to it, so I've ROT13'd it. Zngpu hc gur rssrpgvirarff bs rnpu gerngzrag jvgu jurgure vg jnf ubzrbcnguvp be abg. Sebz urer jr'er tbvat gb nffhzr N jnf nyjnlf cynva jngre naq O jnf ubzrbcnguvp (nf jnf P boivbhfyl). Abj sbe n gehgu gnoyr bs rssrpgvirarff (0 sbe abg rssrpgvir, 1 sbe rssrpgvir): N O P 0 1 1 Ubzrbcngul jbexf ba lbh 1 1 1 Lbh whfg trg orggre naq nffhzr gur zrqvpvar jbexf, be vg'f n cynprob 0 0 1 Vg'f n cynprob, naq lbh unir gb xabj lbh ner gnxvat vg

Nekojoe 16y ago

If you're interested in this blog post I suggest reading Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science - http://www.badscience.net/ http://www.badscience.net/ It covers the problems with homoeopathy in great depth and includes other similar alternative medicines, along with flaws in scientific studies promoting them and quackery in general. I highly recommend reading it. Not just to learn about the problems with these kind of treatments, but also the difficulties in creating unbiased scientific tests.

bh42 16y ago

Do homeopathy believers love vaccines? Or is a vaccine not diluted enough for them?

shabble 16y ago

Somewhere in my book collection is H2O - A biography of Water, by Phillip Ball, one of the Nature editors. The first half of the book is general background on the weirdness and uniqueness of water compared to other liquids of its class, but the latter part of the book is directly purely at explaining and dismissing a lot of the claims presented in Homeopathy. I'm not certain if he was directly involved with the disclaimers surrounding the original article, but it wouldn't surprise me, given the vehemence in his later writing. Amazon Link (hopefully non-referral, unless google has tricked me): http://www.amazon.co.uk/H2O-Biography-Water-Philip-Ball/dp/0753810921 http://www.amazon.co.uk/H2O-Biography-Water-Philip-Ball/dp/0...