Homeopathy still doesn't work

[Jasper]

I just reread the article- who are these skeptics?  Skeptics of what, exactly?

Plz halp I don't get it.

[Rumckle]

I'm assuming they are using "skeptics" as a catch all phrase for people who know actual science disagree with their claims.

[Iason Ouabache]

A Skeptic is someone who doesn't think that water is magical:

http://www.naturalnews.com/028019_skeptics_thinking.html

One such skeptic accused me of being a quack because he said that I believe "water is magical." Was that supposed to be an insult? I do think water is magical!

I think pregnancy is magical. Human consciousness is magical. Plant life is magical. And water is at the very top of the list of magical substances with amazing, miraculous properties, many of which have yet to be discovered.

Think about it: Water expands when it freezes (almost everything else shrinks). Water is both a solvent and a lubricant. Water is almost impervious to compression. Water can flow upwards, against gravity, into small cracks and crevices. Water is made up of two gases, each of which is a combustible fuel on its own. Do I think water is magical? You bet I do!

I also think magnetism is magical. And gravity. And quantum physics. There isn't a single scientist or skeptic alive today who truly understands magnetism or gravity. Sure, they can mathematically model it. They can describe it and observe it, but they don't understand it. Mass warps the very fabric of reality and causes two objects to magically attract each other? Seriously? That's about as magical as it gets.

Also, Dr. Steven Novella did a really looooong blog post about this:

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1506

[Reginald Ret]

A Skeptic is someone who doesn't think that water is magical:

http://www.naturalnews.com/028019_skeptics_thinking.html

One such skeptic accused me of being a quack because he said that I believe "water is magical." Was that supposed to be an insult? I do think water is magical!

I think pregnancy is magical. Human consciousness is magical. Plant life is magical. And water is at the very top of the list of magical substances with amazing, miraculous properties, many of which have yet to be discovered.

Think about it: Water expands when it freezes (almost everything else shrinks). Water is both a solvent and a lubricant. Water is almost impervious to compression. Water can flow upwards, against gravity, into small cracks and crevices. Water is made up of two gases, each of which is a combustible fuel on its own. Do I think water is magical? You bet I do!

I also think magnetism is magical. And gravity. And quantum physics. There isn't a single scientist or skeptic alive today who truly understands magnetism or gravity. Sure, they can mathematically model it. They can describe it and observe it, but they don't understand it. Mass warps the very fabric of reality and causes two objects to magically attract each other? Seriously? That's about as magical as it gets.

Also, Dr. Steven Novella did a really looooong blog post about this:

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1506

Ngggggg *twitch *twitch

[MMIX]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8489019.stm

Homeopathy sceptics have staged a mass "overdose" of homeopathic remedies, in a bid to prove they have no effect.

Protesters ate whole bottles of tablets at branches of Boots in places such as Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, London, Leicester, Edinburgh and Birmingham.

They have asked the pharmacy chain to stop selling the remedies, which they call "scientifically absurd".

The Society of Homeopaths called it a "stunt". Boots said it followed industry guidelines on homeopathy.

From 2005 to 2008 the NHS spent almost £12m on homeopathic treatments, according to a 2009 Freedom Of Information request by Channel 4 News.

I am conflicted on this issue. I feel like I ought to fall in line with the arguments against homeopathy but my own personal experience is that following a course of treatment at the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital [an NHS Hospital] my daughter's intractable and extremely distressing eczema healed. How do 3 year olds react to placebos? Was she 'cured' or 'fooled'?

I await the results of this mass overdose with interest and a wry smile . . .

[Iason Ouabache]

I heard that several people drowned and one or two went into a diabetic coma. 

[Requia ☣]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8489019.stm

Homeopathy sceptics have staged a mass "overdose" of homeopathic remedies, in a bid to prove they have no effect.

Protesters ate whole bottles of tablets at branches of Boots in places such as Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, London, Leicester, Edinburgh and Birmingham.

They have asked the pharmacy chain to stop selling the remedies, which they call "scientifically absurd".

The Society of Homeopaths called it a "stunt". Boots said it followed industry guidelines on homeopathy.

From 2005 to 2008 the NHS spent almost £12m on homeopathic treatments, according to a 2009 Freedom Of Information request by Channel 4 News.

I am conflicted on this issue. I feel like I ought to fall in line with the arguments against homeopathy but my own personal experience is that following a course of treatment at the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital [an NHS Hospital] my daughter's intractable and extremely distressing eczema healed. How do 3 year olds react to placebos? Was she 'cured' or 'fooled'?

I await the results of this mass overdose with interest and a wry smile . . .

There are, iirc, two branches of homeopathy.  The stuff thats just water, and the stuff thats actually just a very dilute chemical, which falls under the class of alternative medicine that might actually work (and also might have horrible side effects, bunch of people lost their sense of smell to one).

[Reginald Ret]

PROTIP:
'safe and effective' is contradictory.

[Kai]

I'm not sure what all I want to say here, except that the only molecules that have memory are organics within living things, nucleic acids and proteins, and that these epigenetic changes are highly important in development. There are no other molecules I am aware of that "remember".

And while my sig has a quote from Loren Eisley containing both the words "magic" and "water", what it really means is that he is at awe with the ability of water to allow and augment living things, and that the diversity of life on this planet would be impossible without it. The physical, aesthetic, and spiritual qualities of water need not include pseudoscience to be majestic and wonderful.

[Iason Ouabache]

PZ Myers on homeopathy:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/02/ums_open_shame_the_center_for.php

Which always raises a question in my mind: if homeopathy is so difficult to assess using those reductionist techniques of modern science and medicine, how the hell do homeopaths know they work? That's one of the fundamental principles of science, that you can't just get by on assertions — you have to be able to explain how you know something, and homeopaths can't. They just pluck some magical association out of their butt and prescribe it...and then after the fact, they claim that it works for their patients. But if it actually works for their patients, then it would be amenable to clinical trials.

They can't claim that it works, and simultaneously that it doesn't work when examined rigorously.

Even when they're trying to argue that there is evidence for homeopathy, they always seem to begin with a lot of waffling about how science can't really examine their discipline.

   Homeopathy is not a modality or therapy, but an entire system of medicine, with its own paradigm of understanding health and illness. That paradigm directs the process of evaluation and treatment. Therefore, in order to accurately assess the effectiveness of the intervention, researchers need to design studies that are congruent with the way homeopathy is practiced clinically.

    This means that the gold-standard, biomedical research model for drug interventions (one disease or symptom, one drug, double-blind, placebo-controlled, prospective trial) is not an ideal research process for homeopathy.

That kind of noise just enrages me. I want to grab that person by the collar and demand, "Well, then, asshole, how do you know your magic pills work?"

I know. They use wishful thinking, instead. In a description of a weak study that showed a small improvement of homeopathic remedies over placebos, they get to write "Homeopaths felt clinically had they been able to prescribe the individually matched remedy to each case, the recovery rate expected would have been as high as 90%". Well, sure, and if they'd been following my magic procedure of hopping up and down on one foot while taking their pills, I believe the recovery rate would have been 105%, therefore proving the effectiveness of monopedosaltopathy.