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Isn’t that a simplistic way of looking at a problem? We know homeopathy works. Millions of people around the world have been healed by homeopathy. We don’t kno

Isn’t that a simplistic way of looking at a problem? We know homeopathy works. Millions of people around the world have been healed by homeopathy. We don’t know HOW it works as it doesn’t pass the current scientific method scrutiny.(pseudoscience acc to Popperian method) I know it works because I have cured(not ‘healed’ in a hippy dippy happy sense)acute and chronic conditions for humans, animals and birds. To me, that is evidence. Evidence Based Medicine is aggregation of a limited population based sample size. Homeopathy is symptom based treatment of an individual. They are entirely different concepts.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> We know homeopathy works We actually don't know that, and have pretty strong reason to suspect that it can’t compared to whatever the diluent used is, because homeopathy literally involves no treatment at all. > Millions of people around the world have been healed by homeopathy That's, at best, unproven. (If you are confusing homeopathy with the broader category of holistic/traditional/alternative medicine, that may explain part of the error; some of that stuff, despite the absence of scientific basis, clearly works, and discovering how is an important aspect of modern medical science.)
- jelliclesfarm 5y ago
  - olliej 5y ago
    Provide a double blinded study with a statistically valid sample size that demonstrates the homeopathy works. What we knows is that at the dilutions proposed there is none of the original chemicals present. even if they were present, we know that the chemicals involved have at best minimal involvement with human biology. And we also know, through many many double blinded studies that people are bad at correlating events. If you have a cold and you apply your homeopathic mix, and get better, that means literally nothing. It doesn’t matter how “immediate” the effect is. Because you don’t know if you were already getting better. Even better is that this human behavior reinforces itself: after day 1 it doesn’t work, so you take it the next, and then the next,etc until you’re better. Homeopaths will claim that the homeopathy therefore worked. Here is the very simple thing you have to do. Find an illness you can treat with homeopathy. Get 10 thousand people with that illness into your study. Have one half of them use plain water, the other use the homeopathy. If homeopathy works, you will see a difference. Saying people “know” homeopathy works is like doctors “knew” you had to keep pus in the body. Like people knew you didn’t need to wash your hands before surgery. Then someone actually studied outcomes, and behold the outcomes match we now know. Those outcomes also match our understanding of basic biology and physics. Every homeopath knows that proving homeopathy works is a trivial exercise. That is why they don’t do any studies. Because it would show that they’re snake oil preying on desperate people.
    - jelliclesfarm 5y ago
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Here is the very simple thing you have to do. Find an illness you can treat with homeopathy. Get 10 thousand people with that illness into your study. Have one half of them use plain water, the other use the homeopathy. But homeopathy is plain water, unless the notional process isn't followed correctly.
      - jelliclesfarm 5y ago
        most replies against homeopathy are just expressions of childish bullying. no one is engaging in a straight forward respectful debate or discussion. demanding the million dollar clinical trials and studies controlled by gatekeepers while peppering the whole mess with condescending comments is petty and intellectually lazy. but it's still funny to read the same old repeated lines again and again for years and years while millions continue to benefit from pennies worth of healing medicine. to each their own. good health to all. thanks for the engagement.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > demanding the million dollar clinical trials and studies controlled by gatekeepers Studies, including by friendly investigators have been done, fairly extensively. Not only is it clear why homeopathy shouldn't be able to work, it's also clear that it doesn't beyond placebo effect; not only do most studies show this, but meta-analysis shows that contrary findings and their apparent strength are directly tied to weaknesses of the studies involved. > millions continue to benefit from pennies worth of healing medicine. Just saying this repeatedly doesn't make it true.
        jelliclesfarm 5y ago
        > Studies, including by friendly investigators have been done, fairly extensively. Not only is it clear why homeopathy shouldn't be able to work, it's also clear that it doesn't beyond placebo effect; not only do most studies show this, but meta-analysis shows that contrary findings and their apparent strength are directly tied to weaknesses of the studies involved. Links? All of them? ETA: https://www.hri-research.org/2021/12/rachel-roberts-promotes-evidence-base-in-germany/ https://www.hri-research.org/2021/12/rachel-roberts-promotes... https://youtu.be/oACBheCzE9U https://youtu.be/oACBheCzE9U Etc. I don’t have to dig up stuff to reply to lazy responses when those interested can do so themselves. The quality of the discussion here on HN on this topic has been very disheartening to me and it’s simply mud slinging. I had hoped for a more rigorous and scientific discussion. The hostility..I find that interesting. I think we are done here. Have a nice day.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    "Perhaps this is best discussed amongst a subset of people who have undergone some kind of homeopathic treatment and can compare it with allopathic treatment for the same condition they sought treatment for..o" Yes, we have done that over and over, and we've found that Homeopathy doesn't work.
    - jelliclesfarm 5y ago
      Who is ‘we’? Ok. Thanks for your thoughts.
      - jollybean 5y ago

dragonwriter 5y ago

> We know homeopathy works We actually don't know that, and have pretty strong reason to suspect that it can’t compared to whatever the diluent used is, because homeopathy literally involves no treatment at all. > Millions of people around the world have been healed by homeopathy That's, at best, unproven. (If you are confusing homeopathy with the broader category of holistic/traditional/alternative medicine, that may explain part of the error; some of that stuff, despite the absence of scientific basis, clearly works, and discovering how is an important aspect of modern medical science.)

jelliclesfarm 5y ago
- olliej 5y ago
  Provide a double blinded study with a statistically valid sample size that demonstrates the homeopathy works. What we knows is that at the dilutions proposed there is none of the original chemicals present. even if they were present, we know that the chemicals involved have at best minimal involvement with human biology. And we also know, through many many double blinded studies that people are bad at correlating events. If you have a cold and you apply your homeopathic mix, and get better, that means literally nothing. It doesn’t matter how “immediate” the effect is. Because you don’t know if you were already getting better. Even better is that this human behavior reinforces itself: after day 1 it doesn’t work, so you take it the next, and then the next,etc until you’re better. Homeopaths will claim that the homeopathy therefore worked. Here is the very simple thing you have to do. Find an illness you can treat with homeopathy. Get 10 thousand people with that illness into your study. Have one half of them use plain water, the other use the homeopathy. If homeopathy works, you will see a difference. Saying people “know” homeopathy works is like doctors “knew” you had to keep pus in the body. Like people knew you didn’t need to wash your hands before surgery. Then someone actually studied outcomes, and behold the outcomes match we now know. Those outcomes also match our understanding of basic biology and physics. Every homeopath knows that proving homeopathy works is a trivial exercise. That is why they don’t do any studies. Because it would show that they’re snake oil preying on desperate people.
  - jelliclesfarm 5y ago
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Here is the very simple thing you have to do. Find an illness you can treat with homeopathy. Get 10 thousand people with that illness into your study. Have one half of them use plain water, the other use the homeopathy. But homeopathy is plain water, unless the notional process isn't followed correctly.
    - jelliclesfarm 5y ago
      most replies against homeopathy are just expressions of childish bullying. no one is engaging in a straight forward respectful debate or discussion. demanding the million dollar clinical trials and studies controlled by gatekeepers while peppering the whole mess with condescending comments is petty and intellectually lazy. but it's still funny to read the same old repeated lines again and again for years and years while millions continue to benefit from pennies worth of healing medicine. to each their own. good health to all. thanks for the engagement.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > demanding the million dollar clinical trials and studies controlled by gatekeepers Studies, including by friendly investigators have been done, fairly extensively. Not only is it clear why homeopathy shouldn't be able to work, it's also clear that it doesn't beyond placebo effect; not only do most studies show this, but meta-analysis shows that contrary findings and their apparent strength are directly tied to weaknesses of the studies involved. > millions continue to benefit from pennies worth of healing medicine. Just saying this repeatedly doesn't make it true.
        jelliclesfarm 5y ago
        > Studies, including by friendly investigators have been done, fairly extensively. Not only is it clear why homeopathy shouldn't be able to work, it's also clear that it doesn't beyond placebo effect; not only do most studies show this, but meta-analysis shows that contrary findings and their apparent strength are directly tied to weaknesses of the studies involved. Links? All of them? ETA: https://www.hri-research.org/2021/12/rachel-roberts-promotes-evidence-base-in-germany/ https://www.hri-research.org/2021/12/rachel-roberts-promotes... https://youtu.be/oACBheCzE9U https://youtu.be/oACBheCzE9U Etc. I don’t have to dig up stuff to reply to lazy responses when those interested can do so themselves. The quality of the discussion here on HN on this topic has been very disheartening to me and it’s simply mud slinging. I had hoped for a more rigorous and scientific discussion. The hostility..I find that interesting. I think we are done here. Have a nice day.
- jollybean 5y ago
  "Perhaps this is best discussed amongst a subset of people who have undergone some kind of homeopathic treatment and can compare it with allopathic treatment for the same condition they sought treatment for..o" Yes, we have done that over and over, and we've found that Homeopathy doesn't work.
  - jelliclesfarm 5y ago
    Who is ‘we’? Ok. Thanks for your thoughts.
    - jollybean 5y ago