I gotta say, I didn't expect the world of homeopathy to say "Alright, you caught us, we're full of shit", but I did perhaps expect some reflection, some semblance of introspection, some effort on their part to even try to understand why the scientific community thinks they are full of it.
Nope, in fact just the opposite. Check this out, from George Vithoulkas, Homeopath Extraordinaire: He issued a challenge to the sceptic's in response to the 1023 campaign.
I propose the remedy to be Alumina 200C ( a dilution far beyond the Avogadro number) and I promise them that in the end of 60 days a considerable number of them (up to 10% or more) will be suffering with slight to severe constipation.
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.
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You need to find 40 sceptics for this experiment.
So, what you are saying Georgie, is that after 2 month of drinking a little water, every day (doesnt mattere how much apparently according to him, 4 people will have anything from "slight" to "severe" constipation.
Why not claim "slight" to "severe" itching? Or "slight" to "severe" dry mouth?
Constipation is the most common gastrointestinal complaint that there is. 1.5% of people complain they are constipated "most" or "all of the time". So how many people have "slight" constipation?
Why just 10% Georgie? Why doesn't you magic water affect 50% or 100%? If I give a real drug, say morphine it has some effect on almost 100% of the people. Why does your magic water only affect people in the same percentage as your would expect anyway? How will you measure "slight" constipation?
More importantly George, if the skeptics did perform your clearly ridiculous test, and show that water performed exactly as you would expect water to perform, would you then come out and say "oops, looks like I was wrong"? What are the ramifications to you if your test was performed?
As far as I can tell, looks like you just want to waste people's time.
Logging you in...
David Colquhoun · 787 weeks ago
Techskeptic 69p · 787 weeks ago
Even placebo, which is a very complicated and unpredictable effect, is more than just believing it must work (or not work). But Georgie has claimed success for the normal occurrence rate of constipation, placebo or no placebo. Pathetic.
anonymous coward · 787 weeks ago
Every day, after my second double shot espresso. Kicks off a nice little gastro-colic reflex.
Never suffer from constipation unless I have a severe enough cold to take codeine several days in a row, and I can counteract that with a little chilli.
So, I meet his one stool a day criteria, and he hasn’t said I can’t take any other drugs, and he hasn’t said I need to alter my diet.
Surely there are 40 more people like me, so we can deliver him a 0% success rate?
Melissa Burch · 787 weeks ago
And if conventional health care is so great, why are so many NOT being 'cured'?
Come on, can't there be room for BOTH conventional AND alternative? Some people believe in 'energy' and some in 'materials', both should have the right to choose what they feel is best for them.
Why the hysteria from the so-called 'scientifc' community?
BronzeDog 46p · 784 weeks ago
2. What, you expect us to have achieved a utopian state with a cure for everything? Research takes time, and we've been steadily chipping away at what we can, making progress. Sorry if it doesn't often work out like what the movies or the media would have you believe. Not all progress comes in the form of a inspirational bolt from the blue.
3. If it worked, it wouldn't need the euphemism "alternative" to sell. What do you call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.
4. "Energy" as you're using it is pretty vague and unlikely to exist. Unlike navel gazers, scientists are constrained by the limits reality puts on us. As for materialism, get with the program: Science is a monist system that doesn't draw artificial lines in the sand. Methodological naturalism is inherently expansive enough to deal with anything that has an effect. Artificially labeling stuff as "supernatural" or other nonsense words is a form of defeatism: It typically involves labeling something as unknowable before we even try.
5. People die from quackery. People die of preventable problems when they choose quackery over real, proven medicine. People waste money on useless treatments that give false hope. Quacks treat innocent people in the market place as if they were their private guinea pigs without informed consent. We hate fraud, whether intentional or not, for good reason: People get hurt. We don't like it when people get hurt. It's that simple.
brandon · 708 weeks ago
Techskeptic 69p · 787 weeks ago
But sticking with healthcare..
The great thing about checking if a procedure or medicine works better than placebo (the standard practice), is that you get the placebo effect plus the improvment from the actual medicine! Why would you nto want something that actually works? Why would you spend 100 dollars for chirpractic for back pain (which it does work for) when an aspirin has been shown to have the exact same efficacy?
Further, placebo works best by deception. The lie may be intentional from the practitioner to the patient, or it may be a lie told to ones self, or the self delusion of the practitioner, in all cases when you dont control your experimentation, you are setting yourself up for lying to yourself and then passing those lies to a patient who is relying on you.
Lying is not 100% of the placebo effect (i.e. you can tell a believer that it is in fact a placebo, and it will still work, but it works less well and for fewer people), but it is still a significant portion of it, healthcare by lying is not a practice that I think we should be endorsing. It's that exact same procedure followed by conmen and criminals, this is not a practice that our respected doctors should be engaged in (even though many do).
Shall we re-introduce bloodletting? lobotomies? Shall we endorse faith healings? This is the same placebo that homeopathy and acupuncture rely on.
Finally, placebo effect varies widely from person to person. So does actual medicine, but rarely do we have a medicine go from working not at all for some people, to full reco
Further, placebo works well for some things, namely depression and pain, but its terrible for actual infection, clogged arteries and a number of health problems. Meanwhile we have homeopaths claiming that water is good for AIDS and malaria.
Yeah, homeopathy could get along with actual science if they tested their claim for truthfulness (same for all CAM). Water doesnt make an HIV virus disappear. Water doesn't make a malaria parasite go poof. Instead CAM thinks its OK to skip the clinical trials, and just go ahead and rely on placebo.
The one point you have is that there are many medicines and procedures that are used in medicine that are in fact, no better than placebo. This is true. But at least there is a mechanism, a reporting system, an acceptance of the method, to route these out and move to the next thing. hundreds of drugs are rejected every year by the FDa because they do not show efficacy better than placebo (or show such a small efficacy that the risks associated witht he drug do not outweigh the benefit). How many CAM methods and products get rejected due to failure to show efficacy?
No one is saying that people cant have homeopathy. the argument is and has always been, should the government play for it. If something doesnt work any better than placebo, why pay for more placebo? That is the debate, not whether ot not you can or cant have it. No one is taking away your choice.
Materials are verifiable, tangible, efficacy is testable. The made up "healing energy" that no one can see, no one can measure (despite being able to measure virtually every other form of energy), but some how CAM artists just "know" it exists, is kind of a silly proposition, don't you think?
Techskeptic 69p · 787 weeks ago
And here you are claiming, without any reasonable amount of checking, that magic water, water with memory that can not be demonstrated, with energy that cant be seen, that is diluted down to the point where it must have remembered all the fecal matter that particular water also encountered along the way...this water you think can heal swine flu, flu, and other serious ailments.
You fool yourself by a simple logical fallacy, "return to the mean". People have immune systems. Most people get better all by themselves. But giving them magic water, having their immune systems do the job it always does, and then claiming that it was the magic water.. you dont see the obtuseness of this practice?
Autism?!?
Eczema? (go check that link, you may want to take that down)
Herpies? you are claiming magic water makes a virus disappear?
Infertility?
This is a disgusting list you have on your website. Why is it that whenever homeopathy is tested, it utterly fails to treat disease (but does as well as placebo when the outcome is simply "feeling better" as opposed to actually getting better). When I read this list, I see the same speech from con artists about being able to make you rich.
I truly hope you take a moment to get past your own testamonials and all the stuff your echo chamber has placed in your head and take a lesson from Edzard Ernst....check that what you say is actually true.
Yakaru · 787 weeks ago
tabletpcunion · 716 weeks ago