These are my homeopathic books. Needless to say I have an abiding interest in this subject. Perhaps another time, when the vibes are less hostile, that story can be told. It’s hard to conceive all the information contained within these pages is mass hallucination, unicorn farts, and utter bunk.
I don’t practice homeopathy anymore actively, for me the deal-breaker was encountering the disdain, abuse, mocking harassment, even legal threats from those who choose to thwart and crush rather than consider possibilities and positives.
This form, arose initially as a more humane way of treatment- in contrast to bleedings, leeches, mercury infusions, venesections and the like…and developed through rigorous application and widespread usage over more than two centuries.
I’ve got to wonder if it’s indeed so bankrupt, so bogus, how did this medicine become embraced widely in India, as well as Europe, all the Americas, Oceania, in fact everywhere its seeds have blown?
Sure, doing NOTHING except
Sure, doing NOTHING except causing a placebo effect is likely less bad than bleedings… After all, its just water.
The reason it caught on? Well, the same reason that any number of popular but ultimately factually incorrect systems of medicine over the centuries caught on. Homeopathy just hasn’t died out yet. Hopefully it will soon.
Why did Hippocratic medicine with its four humours catch on when it is obviously bogus? The answer is the same as for homeopathy.
The 5 element stuff from traditional Chinese medicine has been around for millennia. Still wrong.
The number of people who believe in something, and the number of years that the idea has existed to be believed in says NOTHING about whether it is true.
The majority of the population once thought the sun revolved around the earth. We only confirmed as recently as 1923 that other galaxies existed. Prior to that, the entire population could have been certain that our galaxy was all that there was in the cosmos, and they would STILL be wrong.
Homeopathy has failed every test applied to it.
Millions around the world believe in faith healing.
Faith healing has failed every test applied to it.
At some point its time to acknowledge an idea is wrong and does not comport with reality, abandon it and move on.
This is *ESPECIALLY* true for medical systems where real harm can be and is caused by erroneous beliefs that have been proven false and are not compatible with reality.
Highway
How do you explain placebo effect in successful treatment with animals? And in pediatric uses, in infants and toddlers?
All the “expendables”; shamanism, acupuncture, homeopathy.. have stories of success. If they have failed every test, why is there so much supportive testimony?
–
I look at it this way…You like judo.. Aikido not so much..Capoeira even less. You like R&B..Country not so much, Disco even less…Isn’t there room enough for all?
“Isn't there room enough for all?”
While the question is directed to homeopathy it has a broader context.
The delineation between you, spinoza, and eschmitt is so stark that you two could represent a more fully formed “two sides of a coin.” Not to be taken literally, of course.
However, the question you ask, “Isn’t there room enough for all,” should be taken literally, and, one that can be answered, minimally as a binary, because of its philosophical leaning.
Historically, clearly there is not room enough for all, I am sorry to say. “Isn’t there room enough for all?” applies against most or all strata of engagements between humans. The exclusionary human impact events are so intense presently and ubiquitous that the philosophy behind the question breaks down.
If the answer is yes and no, it would depend on the circumstances. In the case of homeopathy, the answer would have to be yes because all things considered for the “human potential” to try and improve its lot are valid by virtue of common practice over a long period of time.
That is not to say that eschmitt’s axiom “The number of people who believe in something, and the number of years that the idea has existed to be believed in says nothing about whether it is true” doesn’t stand. It stands because it is the most rational and logical application to what is clearly a questionable therapy, regardless of it “potential.”
Cite studies that show a
Please cite studies that show a placebo effect in animals and infants.
Off the top of my head, I’m guessing that since the animals and infants can’t report releif of symptoms themselves, their caregiver likely did the reporting.
If the caregiver did not know the treatment was a placebo, then the placebo effect was likely in the mind of the caregiver. Meaning they *reported* an improvement, regardless of whether there actually was one.
But, cite your source and I’ll take a look.
Sure, there are stories of alien abduction as well. Groups of people not necessarily known to each other even show great similarity in their accounts.
Doesn’t mean any of them got abducted by aliens.
Personal testimony, personal experience, anecdotal accounts are all notoriously unreliable. Thats why physical evidence always trumps eyewitness testimony in court.
That is WHY we have rigorous, controlled double-blind experiments. And homeopathy fails them every time.
They still have so much supportive testimony because people such as yourself are scientifically illiterate and the placebo effect works on probably everyone.
No, there isn’t enough room for all.
Some things are just plain wrong and no amount of warm fuzzy woo is going to change that.
For example:
Claim: Water can have memory.
That claim is either true or false. Water either can have memory, or it can not.
If homeopathy says it can, and science says it cannot. They can not both be right. One is right, one is wrong.
One is interested in properly testing claims to determine reality, the other promotes obfuscation and nonsense and misinformation.
There is NOT room for all.
Stirred, not Shaken
Links that deal with the Unesco Conference on “Water Memory” by “scientifically illiterate” Professor Luc Montagnier, Nobel Prize in Medicine.
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/SHS/pdf/programme_biology_oct2014.pdf
peer reviewed paper – http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/306/1/012007/meta
On a personal front, not that this substantiates anything, but as a point of interest: I’m a graduate the New England School of Homeopathy, a post-graduate program founded and run by Paul Herscu ND and his wife Amy Rothenberg ND. I attended the program in 1995, along with about one hundred and fifty others. The main focus of the year-and-a-half-long course was the study of remedies from the Materia Media, and honing skills in case taking and analysis in the classical mode. This approach is generally known as Constitutional Homeopathy. The school’s main teacher, Dr. Herscu, imparted a practical as well as philosophical framework throughout, alongside references from his clinical experience. At the time of the course, he had already published his landmark book, ‘The Homeopathic Treatment of Children, and was esteemed worldwide as a leading practitioner of pediatric homeopathy.
Concerning your request from above, I won’t be providing any links to study of placebo effect in animals and children, the onus of that is on you, as that was your clever extrapolation on my initial question, which presumed Homeopathic Remedies were the efficacious agents. It seems reasonable to suppose the reporting of amelioration and relief from symptoms was corroborated by veterinarians and medical practitioners involved with the cases.
For the curious, a link to a leading US FDA approved Homeopathic pharmacy- includes much on production and background http://hahnemannlabs.com/index.html
We’re still left with the question: why so many established Doctors, Pharmacists, Physicists and Health Specialists play along with the great sham? Are they hoodwinked, all such ignoramuses? Or might they have had a glimpse of the value. Could it be that your binary equation is a false one? Could it be that the answers to this riddle simply inhabit a realm similar to Dark Matter, evident but not yet fully understood?
Sad to see a nobel winner go
Sad to see a nobel winner go so far off the rails. The consensus is that he’s fallen into quackery and woo. Reminds me of the guy who set off the anti-vac disaster with his bullshit paper. Tremendous damage done…
So, once again rather than anyone credible, the homeopaths put forward a contender for the ignobel prize…
The paper you linked appears to be a proceeding from a conference which is NOT peer reviewed, though it is published in a journal that claims to be peer-reviewed. So, thats a bit of a misunderstanding there.
He later published a paper on the subject in an obscure journal which did claim it was peer reviewed. However the date between submission and publishing was less than week. That means whatever peer review it underwent wasn’t particularly scientifically rigorous and can be considered suspect.
The general consensus is that his experiment, which claims to have “teleported” dna using EM waves between test tubes, was likely a result of contamination of the second tube. The rest of it is pretty much made up and has no evidence to back it. (Whenever you see “Personal communication” cited, be wary…)
His results have not been duplicated by ANY other experiment and are contrary to all known physics and chemistry.
Therefore his findings are not considered scientifically valid.
As for your “training”, I’m sorry you wasted your time and money on nonsense.
“Concerning your request from above, I won’t be providing any links to study of placebo effect in animals and children, the onus of that is on you, as that was your clever extrapolation on my initial question, which presumed Homeopathic Remedies were the efficacious agents. It seems reasonable to suppose the reporting of amelioration and relief from symptoms was corroborated by veterinarians and medical practitioners involved with the cases.”
Lol, fail. Textbook shifting of the burden of proof. We won’t be “supposing” anything unless you cite evidence.
You claimed: “How do you explain placebo effect in successful treatment with animals? And in pediatric uses, in infants and toddlers?”
I do not yet accept that there has been evidence of a placebo effect in animals, infants and toddlers. You have provided no such evidence. Therefore you have the burden of proof.
In anticipation of a pile of bullshit, I suggested the possibility of a fundamental flaw wherein the caregiver would be reporting effects and that caregiver may not be “blind” in a given experiment.
I have no need to explain a phenomenon that has not yet been demonstrated to have occurred. Therefore your attempt to shift the burden of proof to me is rejected.
If this is a demonstration of you excercising rigorous critical thinking and reasoning, no wonder you’ve bought into nonsense wholesale.
The FDA regulates homeopathic “remedies” similarly to OTC supplements and the like, wherein they only need to actually contain what they claim to contain. They do not make any statements on efficacy.
After all, its just water. Water is FDA approved!
The FDA has also recently opened a comment period in preparation for considering whether to regulate homeopathy more stringently and to treat its remedies similarly to other actual medications, which would almost certainly crush the industry (about damned time).
As for why so many established X Y and Z, well, the same reason I’ve said before. Because they are ignorant, mistaken, deceived, or deceivers.
If you think the laws of logic are somehow not absolute, you have certainly left the reservation and have delved into woo.
Water either has memory, or it does not.
Dilution of a substance either increases its potency, or it does not.
There is no middle ground. There can be a “We don’t know” but then any claims that we do know are false and unsupported and are therefore dishonest. It is also dishonest to claim “We don’t know” or to claim “I know better” when 99.9% of the evidence is against you.
If you can’t understand that or you are dishonestly attempting to obfuscate and confuse by claiming there is some middle ground when it comes to the logical absolutes then you are tacitly acknowledging you are full of shit and might as well own up to the fact that you are claiming 1+1=3 and that your quackery is based on such nonsense.
We don't fully understand everything
The placebo and nocebo effects are really interesting to me.
With placebos, a patient is given something that is 0% medicine, then told that it will work and it works. I got to review medical charts in a job at a hospital once, and could see just how many times patients said they were in pain and placebos were given. Almost always, the first request for a painkiller was to give a placebo and see if it worked. Often, it did. It didn’t work for everyone, but it satisfied most.
With nocebos, patients are given good medicine and told that it won’t work, and it doesn’t. The research on this is more recent. Why should medicine stop working just because someone doesn’t believe it will work?
Another brain-related situation that fascinates me is that we can surprise ourselves in dreams (or in creating something). It shouldn’t be possible that the author/creator is surprised. My brain is making up the dream. If I create a door in my dream, I should know what it leads to, right?
One form of therapy, all in the mind
Nocebo patients are not given good medicine and told it doesn’t work.
Placebo and nocebo are one form of therapy derived from giving a patient a placebo. It’s the patient’s reaction to “fake medicine” that determines whether the therapy results in a positive or negative effect.
A non-medicine Nocebo
One day, a number of us in an office decided to play a practical joke on a co-worker, a rather naive young guy.
Over the course of the morning, we each remarked that he wasn’t looking well.
By afternoon he was complaining of a headache and stomach pains and he went home early.
Another Nocebo Story
I was living in a town that was surrounded by mountains. TV reception was non-existent.
A number of us got together and purchased a dish antenna to pick up network feeds, which were not scrambled at the time.
We erected the dish in a field, and began stringing cable to bring us the signals.
No sooner was the dish in place, than a neighbor began complaining of symptoms: headaches, sleeplessness, nervousness and general irritability.
Her relatives confirmed these symptoms.
However, none of the electronics had been hooked up.
The dish was just a big piece of plastic sitting in a field.
Go figure.
Dreams - A replay of our experiences?
I can relate to your analogy of dreams and creativity. Your question – “If I create a door in my dream, I should know what it leads to, right?” is fascinating.
Possibly your intuitive sense would suggest that you do know, or will find what it leads to when you open the door.
Dreams, in part, are likely a distillation of our accumulated experiences in conscious life. Maybe instead of creating a dream, or dream sequences, they are a replay of our experiences? The creativity is how we organize (or edits) them.
Then there’s the issue that dreams are disposal of brain junk…
It won't work
“With nocebos, patients are given good medicine and told that it won’t work, and it doesn’t.”
It would be irresponsible medicine for a physician to give a medication and then tell the patient it won’t work.
More likely is the possibility that the patient comes up with the idea it won’t work independently.
There is another form of nocebo that is becoming common: “Wind Turbine Syndrome”
It’s a real disorder, with real symptoms, but it isn’t caused by the turbines themselves, rather by the victim’s belief that they are harmful.
Take Too
I took to homeopathy early on, something about it just seemed intuitively accurate to me. But I struggled with understanding and rationalizing it from a scientific perspective. Then, a while back, two friends’ infant was suffering from an ear infection. The little guy cried for three days straight, and antibiotics weren’t helping. Despite the objections of the father – another rational materialist – the mother brought the child to a homeopath. A remedy was administered and within minutes the child was calm, then asleep for the first time in days. A coincidence?
I have certainly had my successes and failures with homeopathy. It’s hit or miss, like almost every other healing modality I’ve known. As for the ‘placebo effect,’ I believe that the effect behind this derogatory term is essential in just about every act of healing. There are some great documentaries on this subject that have come out in the last 10 years.
My belief in homeopathy became firmly established when I read a medical report that studied the effect of homeopathic treatment on the Spanish Flu of 1918. I don’t remember the exact statics, but the survival rate of those who had received HP treatments was remarkably higher than the standard survival rate. this, it could be argued, was not placebo effect at work.
Thanks, Spinoza, for bringing up another paradigm-challenging topic. Now let’s sit back and watch the bombs fly.
Placebo to Nocebo
There are many anecdotal reasons why people would believe in the placebo effect. And, that it centers largely on a belief-dependent experience.
Placebo is not a derogatory term. It is “part of the human potential to react positively“ to healing.
A public perception can see placebo as a derogatory term but science does not. Placebo effects are part of medical science ‘with the understanding’ that it is intended to be a fake treatment with medically inactive substances. Placebos, akin to homeopathy treatments, have measurably physiological effects and therefore the possibly of improved health, both mentally and physically.
However, the belief-dependent experiences carries known dangers when it is chosen because of belief, over medically established substances and therapies formulated for particular based examination and recognition of the symptoms. In addition, the nocebo effect can have serious detrimental effects on the health of someone using a placebo. On the other hand, use of prescribed substances usually carry side-effects, but is unrelated (not comparable) to the experiences of placebo users.
Nevertheless, indicating a remarkably higher survival rate than standard survival rates, as noted by WillStomp, is somewhat misleading in his Spanish Flu of 1918 example. Back then mutations of viruses were unknown, or least as modern science can understand it today. And, it was just as likely (or more likely) the mutations in play that connects with the 1918 survival rate, not use of placebos.
Opinion vs. Fact
One of the great psychological ailments of our day, in my opinion, is the tendency for people to desire to be thought of as the ones who know. I see it in town meeting, in academia, in national politics and in the highest levels of science. One manifestation of this is when people give their opinion on something, but portray it as fact. I think it comes out of an epidemic of insecurity in our culture, a desire to be heard and held in esteem. I’ve come to hold people in much higher regard who have the courage to say “I don’t know.”
Then again, maybe it’s not just our culture, or this age, maybe it’s been there since the dawn of Western Society.
Science is the most self-correcting of all disciplines
If I needed to say “I don’t know” I would. On the other hand, if I am assured that the information that I’ve assimilated over time is factual enough to fall into the “I know” category then I will put it in print. I also have no intentions of babysitting you with a flow of footnotes.
I do not give “opinion on something, but portray it as fact” Your assumption that I only express my “opinion” and portray it as fact is just that, your opinion.
Your attempt to be derogatory and have a superior view with your string of put-downs falls flat and says nothing. I don’t subscribe to your contention that I have a “great psychological ailment; desire to be thought of as the ones who know; an epidemic of insecurity; and, a desire to be heard and held in esteem.”
If you have a specific substantive contribution to make, then say what it is.
Now, if you find something that is, indeed, not factual of mine, that is something I want to be told, not all this rubbish of personal disparagement.
Science is the most self-correcting of all the informational disciplines.
Therefore, so am I.
Advice
I had a heart incident about 5 years ago. I did all the necessary with the Allopathic establishment, and I feel it worked well.
I also supplemented this with a Homeopath.
I felt the Homeopath’s advice was more personal to me and at least as helpful as the MDs.
I stopped going because my insurance would not cover it.
I think there’s usefulness in each.
I believe this short film
I believe this short film states it best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0-NalmRSl8
The unfounded assumption
It does a good job of stating it best. Thanks for sharing it. Of course, after all, it is Richard Dawkins.
What’s interesting about Dawkins’ take on Samuel Hahnemann’s hypothesis of “like cures like” is that it’s akin to a therapy of “dilute poison ivy cures skin rash because undiluted it causes a rash if touched” is how he proceeds to refute homeopathy. He reports,“Unlike a vaccine that introduces a diminished form of a virus into the body in order to provoke its immune system, like cures like makes the unfounded assumption that what causes similar symptoms can cure those symptoms. Homeopaths claim that the more you dilute an active ingredient in water the stronger medicine it becomes.”
Richard Dawkins goes on to add that the drop of an active substance into water would require far more than an ocean. Obviously the drop in the water Rx is useless so homeopaths so basically they sell you water that they claim the “water somehow has a memory of the now completely absent active ingredient.”
See the video provided by flannelpyjamas for more details.
nano o nada?
Dawkins misrepresents the Doctrine of Signatures to be a core tenet of homeo practice, but it’s not. That’s an aspect of the herbal tradition going way back. Much more prevalent is determination by proving. That’s when you give ‘the remedy’ to healthy people and observe the manifestations.
You may feel free to choose to be among those convinced it’s just water, but I would be reticent to set-up glasses of higher potency homeopathic solutions and just hand them out at the co-op to be guzzled down with samples. Is that what you and eschimdt and the amazing Randi are proposing? “If you’re thirsty folks step right up, it’s just water!”
And Dawkins? Hardly achieves impeccability as a specimen IMHO
"The oxygen of respectability"
Of course, I wouldn’t speak for eschmitt and the amazing Randi, but my answer is no. My no is partly because the question, as asked, is not applicable to the discussion at hand and exaggerative. As one raised on a small farm, I too would be “reticent to set-up glasses of higher potency homeopathic solutions and just hand them out at the co-op to be guzzled down with samples.”
That Dawkins “Hardly achieves impeccability as a specimen” I think is more centered on his criticisms of faith, religion and god. And there, he is merely up against the vast body of fearful, ignorant and superstitious humans. He also has consistently expressed criticisms of alternative, non science and nonmedical based therapies.
His greater acceptance and lesser prominence is as an evolutionary biologist and ethnologist, disciplines that too many people today are ignorant of. He is currently an “emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford,” and for 14 years was the “University of Oxford’s Professor for Public Understanding of Science.”
I haven’t confirmed that “Dawkins misrepresents the Doctrine of Signatures to be a core tenet of homeo practice.” However, the Doctrine of Signatures that “states that herbs that resemble various parts of the body can be used by herbalists to treat ailments of those parts of the body” has something of a parallel to homeopathy. Moreover, Wikipedia indicates, a “theological justification for (the Doctrine of Signatures), as stated by botanists like William Coles, was that God would have wanted to show men what plants would be useful for.”
There is also a parallel here in that homeopathy, as seen as the equivalent to the placebo effect, is a dynamic part of the belief-dependency syndrome. And, the problem remains that the believer’s bottom line is unsubstantiated, unproven and unprovable tenets of faith. And, faith has sorely depleted its ‘breathability’ to the point of self-destruction.
Higher potency homeopathy?So
Higher potency homeopathy?
So you mean water that contains even less of any possible active ingredient used to call it a “remedy”? So in other words its less potent in the real world? (The math does seem to indicate most homeopathic remedies probably don’t contain a single molecule of the active ingredient, if one takes the dilution rates at face value).
Did you hear about the man who died of an overdose of homeopathic medicine? He forgot to take his pill.
This gem and more at:
https://www.ted.com/talks/james_randi?language=en
Watch the first few minutes or at least from 2:15 to 2:50 and then skip to 11:30 and stick around to at least 12:30.
Homeopathy is utter nonsense and you could gather 10 of us together to ingest every one of these diluted to high potency homeopathic remedies in town and the only effect will be needing to pee due to drinking so damned much water.
And heres the thing Spinoza, every homeopathic remedy that has been tested under scientifically rigorous conditions has failed to show any effect beyond a placebo.
So try it, ingest a huge quantity of some of that highly diluted/potent homeopathic remedy and watch how absolutely nothing happens. Then you can come back here and admit its all a bunch of psuedoscience quackery and nonsense.
After that, enjoy having slightly more true beliefs and slightly fewer false beliefs than you did yesterday.
Ted-ville follies
I was going to let this go. I realize you enjoy loading up the ole Trebuchet and lobbing rocks all day. And I should say “different strokes” and leave it at that, but your amazing Randi evidence was flawed and ridiculous. By your own selectivity standard, on Dr Emoto, we don’t see Randi taking off the plastic seal. It could be anything he put in there. The shot showed him opening a previously opened container. ALL that aside…Calms Forte is a mild to the point of cup o tea potency. I’d even call it placebo in its tameness. It’s a combination herbal derivative at the weakest of strengths. It’s a commercial product, true. Which I’m not a fan of. But hardly, this is not what I was referring to above. Look into LM Nosodes if you want more information on the idea of a high potency homeopathic class of drug.
Also, the nano imprint piece of nothingness needs to be looked at. The measure is energetic intentionally. Placebo effects could play into its effectiveness, I’ve never doubted that, but homeopathic remedies are seen as sparks to the vital force. That which in organic disease made the symptoms in the first place. The physical part is not meant to cure in of itself physically. Science does not even validate the concept of the vital force, its instruments don’t know how to test for it. It’s not just the immune system. Vital force encompasses neurological activity, limbic activity, the overarching synthesis that is life… maybe this is why so many people intuitively grasp there’s something to this so called nothingness.
I’d also add, your definition of water having no memory is a red herring. Just as a wave travels many thousands of miles on winds to eventually take form and break on the shore, Water facilitates the transport of that energy. The movement of the water is not what counts. The ‘memory’, the wave, is revealed in the moment the surfer translates the energy of that swell, that set, and a particular wave. Water is the medium.
Here’s a link to more worldwide application and widespread usage.
http://www.homeopathycenter.org/news/homeoprophylaxis-human-records-studies-and-trials
Abstract?
I decided to see if I could search for a clinical trial available that could offer any substantiation of homeopathic claims. Clinical trials, as I’m sure most of you know, are the ”vehicles for the development and evaluation of therapeutic and preventive agents under scientifically rigorous conditions.”
When I came across this trial, the trial title seemed to mirror spinoza’s claims in the context of “nosodes” and eschmitt’s call for scientific scrutiny.
I submit this, at the risk of making a fool out of myself, only as a condition to further examine the discussion between Spinoza and eschmitt’s points of contention to help illustrate why it is that eschmitt indicates why so many of us lay people need to demonstrate (prove) our claims.
This clinical is published in PubMed US National Library of Medicine, the National Institute of Health (NIH).
Below is a reprint of the full Abstract.
Please note the what when and how’s including the author information, and the test particulars under each heading. But read especially the “Context” and “Conclusions” paragraphs, if you find your eyes glassing over with the clinical details.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10484829
Alternative Therapiesin Health and Medicine. 1999 Sep;5(5):36-40.
QUESTION: *Do homeopathic nosodes protect against infection? An experimental test. Jonas WB1.
Author information
•Department of Family Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Md. 20814, USA. wjonas@mxa.usuhs.mil
Abstract
CONTEXT:
•For centuries, homeopathic practitioners have claimed that serially agitated dilutions of infectious agents (called “nosodes”) are effective in the prevention of infectious disease. However, no rigorous tests of this claim have been performed.
OBJECTIVE:
•To test whether a nosode of Francisella tularensis-infected tissue could protect from subsequent challenge with this pathogen in vivo.
DESIGN:
•Experimental laboratory test.
SETTING:
•A P3 containment laboratory at an infectious disease research facility.
PARTICIPANTS:
•142 male C3H/HeN specific, pathogen-free mice.
INTERVENTION:
•Six levels of a nosode prepared from tularemia-infected tissue were produced. All exposures were below the lowest level at which a classical vaccination response was expected. The nosode and dilutent control solutions were administered orally (.03 mL, 3 times per week) for 1 month before and after challenge. Animals were challenged with a potentially lethal dose (LD50 or LD75) of F tularensis, then evaluated for time of death and total mortality.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:
•Mortality and time to death.
RESULTS:
•In a series of 15 trials (n = 142), the tularemia nosode consistently produced increased mean times to death. All but 2 of 15 trials showed reduced time to death in the nosode group and decreased mortality compared with controls. Protection rates averaged 22% over controls compared to 100% protection by standard vaccination.
CONCLUSIONS:
•This study found partial protection from a nosode of tularemia in dilutions below those expected to have protective effects, but not as great as those produced by standard vaccination. If homeopathic nosodes can induce protection from infectious agents for which vaccination is currently unavailable, they may provide an interim method of reducing morbidity or mortality from such agents.
Now, read this again, because I had to. lol !
I'd encourage anyone who is
I’d encourage anyone who is tempted to buy the claims of this article at face value google the author.
He has a somewhat long history of conjuring slightly positive results for all manner of homeopathic remedies.
He only publishes in obscure “friendly” journals. That is to say journals that sprang up to publish articles from folks who’s work couldn’t pass muster in the usual scientific discourse.
I was unable to find sufficient information on this particular experiment to determine whether it was properly performed.
I’d also encourage anyone familiar with statistics to apply their knowledge to his conclusion. The positive result seems to be within what might be expected due to random chance.
Lastly, the fact that this hasn’t been replicated should be a red flag, especially given how old this article is.
Be suspicious of any research that claims diluted medicine is at all effective. (Though thankfully this fellow acknowledges the best he could fudge things was 22%, whereas vaccines would be 100% in similar conditions, so thats kind of an admission that homeopathy pretty much sucks in this application)
Ha, I did note you didn't
Ha, I did note you didn’t respond to my takedown on that crackpot Emoto. So do you honestly believe that water crystals form differently in response to different emotions? If you say yes you need to stop pretending to have any basis or interest in reality or scientific credibility.
I’d call all of homeopathy a placebo. So would everyone who’s studied it scientifically.
The rest of your post is woo nonsense, demonstrating a complete lack of scientific literacy or even basic understanding of the way nature works. Did our education system truly fail you this badly or did you abandon it intentionally in preference for this nonsensical drivel?
There is no such thing as the vital force. If you think there is, present evidence. If there is no evidence, stop believing in such bullshit until there is.
As for this nosode, as it actually is the closest thing resembling evidence yet presented by the collection of crackpots around here, I’ll tear into it when I have more than 5 minutes to mock the loons.
"I'd also add, your
“I’d also add, your definition of water having no memory is a red herring. Just as a wave travels many thousands of miles on winds to eventually take form and break on the shore, Water facilitates the transport of that energy. The movement of the water is not what counts. The ‘memory’, the wave, is revealed in the moment the surfer translates the energy of that swell, that set, and a particular wave. Water is the medium.”
You really don’t understand physics, do you?
closeout wave
I’m not interested in engaging with you any further, you’re too reflexively caustic…
I hope as a Town Rep you’ll keep vigor in your inquiries, but display a little forbearance and neighborliness towards those not as empirically exalted as yourself.
Leaving with this:
http://physicsbridgecourse.blogspot.com/2013/11/chladni-plates-sand-vibration-patterns.html
Ok, you can do stuff like
Ok, you can do stuff like this with magnets and iron filings as well.
You *REALLY* don’t understand physics even a little bit if you think that this in any way has anything to do with water crystals reacting to “emotions”.
Please take remedial science classes. Your understanding of medicine I.E. homeopathy is similarly crippled.
As for not engaging any further, that is your choice and I will consider it a good thing that you are ceding the ground and have one less avenue to spread delusional misinformation.
Being kind to people is very different than being kind to ideas, especially bad ones.
Also, I'm still waiting for
Also, I’m still waiting for you to cite evidence of the placebo effect in infants and animals, but if you are taking your ball and going home I can assume that you are acknowledging you are full of shit on that count as well.
Learned Scholar
Isn’t it wonderful that we’re all blessed by such a learned scholar in our community to keep us from error and being led astray by false doctrines.
Have not seen fit to censor him
“Isn’t it wonderful that we’re all blessed by such a learned scholar in our community to keep us from error and being led astray by false doctrines.”
This sentiment and statement is entirely familiar to me. lol!
Ironically, one could answer this with a yes, you all are blessed, as it were…
No one seems to have a way to effectively dispute eschmitt, but he effortlessly disputes contributors in this recent spate of “burden of proof” articles and comments. The primary complaint against him is not what he says but how he says it.
Moreover, as he ably demonstrates, since he makes no claims or assertions, the burden of proof is not his. And, he is “still waiting for (you) to cite evidence.” As far as I can tell, no real evidence is forthcoming at this point.
All of this is a position I know very well for too long.
I’m glad that the “Moderators” have not seen fit to censor him or impede his freedom of speech.
I had a moment to look at
I had a moment to look at your “evidence” for worldwide usage and effectiveness of homeopathy.
I took a few of the links and citations in that page at random and pursued them and found nothing but unsupported assertions and junk pseudoscience.
Linking to a document that says “It works!” isn’t research or science. Its just self-reference.
None of them documented any of their testing or recording procedures in any meaningful detail.
I’ve not found a single instance of a double-blind controlled study, or a study of sufficient size to have statistical significance (I.E. outside the probabilities of random chance).
Your evidence is extremely poor.
Try looking up some *actual* medicine and the science behind it to get an idea of how exhaustive these papers should be and then compare them to your amateurish homeopathy references.
Here another link for ya
Try watching this video instead. Its in the form of a TV show so it should be more approachable for some of the homeopaths here than actual scientific data, to which they are allergic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKcC8EVFd9U
Spinoza. Watch this video. Learn something.