If only the debate were really over

[MrGongGong]

There's a simple experiment that anyone can try. Seek out as many friends as you can find who happen to take homoepathic remedies. Ask them if they can tell you "What is homoeopathy?"
The majority will be unable to tell you the absurd principle on which it is based. Instead they will say " Well, it's more natural isn't it ? " Very frequently they get homoeopathy confused with herbalism or other similar remedies.

Ignorance is a great danger, as I witnessed myself when being with a friend who died of AIDS at a time when there was very little treatment available. He spent a great deal of money visiting a quack clinic in Mexico who fed him on all sorts of rubbish which eventually hastened his death by starvation. If he had lived on a normal diet he might have survived long enough to benefit by modern treatments, but, clutching at straws did not work for him.

We might think that quackery is mostly harmless, but it really isn't so.

Exactly

Some people really do need protecting from their own stupidity.

When asked about homeopathy people often start talking about how vaccination works as if somehow there is a connection.

[ahinton]

There's a simple experiment that anyone can try. Seek out as many friends as you can find who happen to take homoepathic remedies. Ask them if they can tell you "What is homoeopathy?"
The majority will be unable to tell you the absurd principle on which it is based. Instead they will say " Well, it's more natural isn't it ? " Very frequently they get homoeopathy confused with herbalism or other similar remedies.

That's true, just as it is that some people have allowed themselves to be confused by biodynamic agriculture as though it is broadly synonymous with organic faming, whereas one of the few real commonalities between these practices seems to be the rejection of the use of manufactured non-organic pesticides; even organic farming is susceptible to the possibility of risks that do not apply to conventional farming, although these would seem to be very small and it is likely that these and possibly others might apply also to biodynanic agriculture. That said, whereas the majority of promoters and practitioners of organic farming largely eschew fanciful nonense in what they say and write about it, those who practice and seek to advocate biodynamic agriculture seem to spout forth little else, as exemplified in the almost alarmingly accepting and uncritical piece from an edition of BBC1 Countryfile at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBlcTWRafEc.
By contrast with this kind of thing, veganism seems almost sanguine and level-headed...

[MrGongGong]

[teamsaint]

Exactly

Some people really do need protecting from their own stupidity.

When asked about homeopathy people often start talking about how vaccination works as if somehow there is a connection.

So Doctors who use or prescribe homeopathic remedies need saving from their own stupidity?


Nobody that i know confuses homeopathy and vaccination.

[french frank]

No-one, surely, could doubt the truth of the first sentence. However, it is not the same as saying that homoepathic remedies are somehow of equal standing and therefore should be welcomed because they're less dangerous.

What I actually said was: "On a par? perhaps not. What I am suggesting, cautiously, is that the effects of 'poorly' prescribed medicines can be more harmful that homoepathic remedies." So, not of equal standing, not to be welcomed for any reason.

I just wonder why so much venom and vitriol is hurled at homoeopathy if it is no more than a load of rubbish. And I was saying it can, factually, be less harmful than standard, doctor-prescribed, medications. I would feel more inclined to campaign for better training for GPs and more funding for the NHS. But that's just me. We all have our reasons …

[MrGongGong]

So Doctors who use or prescribe homeopathic remedies need saving from their own stupidity?

I think they should be struck off for the same kind of fraud as Andrew Wakefield.

[ahinton]

I just wonder why so much venom and vitriol is hurled at homoeopathy if it is no more than a load of rubbish. And I was saying it can, factually, be less harmful than standard, doctor-prescribed, medications.

Because the former has the inherent capability of putting at risk people's health at best and lives at worst with no demonstrable opposite effect, whereas the latter is unlikely to do this unless inappropriately prescribed by the doctor and/or used by the patient.

[vinteuil]

it [homeopathy] can, factually, be less harmful than standard, doctor-prescribed, medications…

... of course it is less harmful. It is only water. Or as practitioners assert, "water with a memory".

Medicines that have a real effect on the body are likely to have 'harmful' side-effects; the more drastic the beneficial effect sought the more likely that there will be serious side-effects. But statistically the benefits outweigh the disbenefits.

[MrGongGong]

... of course it is less harmful. It is only water. Or as practitioners assert, "water with a memory".

Unless, of course, you really ARE ill and then it's potentially lethal

[Serial_Apologist]

That's true, just as it is that some people have allowed themselves to be confused by biodynamic agriculture as though it is broadly synonymous with organic faming, whereas one of the few real commonalities between these practices seems to be the rejection of the use of manufactured non-organic pesticides; even organic farming is susceptible to the possibility of risks that do not apply to conventional farming, although these would seem to be very small and it is likely that these and possibly others might apply also to biodynanic agriculture. That said, whereas the majority of promoters and practitioners of organic farming largely eschew fanciful nonense in what they say and write about it, those who practice and seek to advocate biodynamic agriculture seem to spout forth little else, as exemplified in the almost alarmingly accepting and uncritical piece from an edition of BBC1 Countryfile at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBlcTWRafEc.
By contrast with this kind of thing, veganism seems almost sanguine and level-headed...

I think some form of corrective might be timely at this point in the thread, given that scientism, the final reduction of understanding to scientifically deducible causes, is capable of evidencing another kind of reductionism, one no better than blind faith, inasmuch as it excludes the intuitive from all human deduction on the grounds of alleged irrationalism. I would go as far as argue that the ancients who thought up Hinduism were on the right track in their understanding of the influences perpetually operating on any phenomenon, call it mental, physical or biological, at the level of a universe which itself operates as an interrelated, interdependent whole.

Anti-science emerged, in 19th century Romanticism and 20th century New Ageism, as a reaction against the Industrial Revolution's intuited harmful effects on the environment - one that was part-right, part wrong, as we see from cures that would have been impossible without the discoveries among its outcomes. Alternative health treatments and therapies re-iterate holistic principles once widely held in pre-Europeanised cultures worldwide, necessarily re-contextualising where the pre-Heisenberg scientific mindset objectified, separated and isolated without sufficient regard for context.

I'm not here advocating blind faith in quackery: science's insistence on evidence and proof, and most importantly its associated open-mindedness, must always be the final arbiter even if questions may indefinitely remain open. The problem lies not in understanding that all consists in the inter-influence between the forces that make it up, as a modern follower of Astrology might put it, but in the way in which a faith-based mindset then goes on to state that it happens in this particular way, and that there is no further argument to be had on the subject.

Edit: I once had this argument out with follower of a particular branch of Paganism, an Odinist, telling him, "The trouble with you lot and your spells and curses is that from all that came the Christian mindset with its obsession with using forces of nature to be one-up on them". "You're right", he said, "I had never thought about it in those terms before. But in any case, casting curses and spells doesn't work: I know - I've tried it" .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I just wonder why so much venom and vitriol is hurled at homoeopathy if it is no more than a load of rubbish.

Like so many topics posted to make a point rather than to have a reasoned discussion, this one has degenerated into insulting other posters rather than looking at arguments.

I have a friend of very high intelligence, who was a successful science teacher, and who thinks the arguments in favour of homeopathy are extremely dubious. Having been afflicted with a debilitating complaint that threatened his career, conventional medicine failed to find a solution. It does appear that homeopathy has brought the situation under control, yet he insists that the homeopathic dosage is too small to have any effect according to everything he has ever learnt. The placebo effect would not help anyone as ungullible as this friend. I'm minded not to be too dogmatic.

[MrGongGong]

Like so many topics posted to make a point rather than to have a reasoned discussion, this one has degenerated into insulting other posters rather than looking at arguments.
.

This was posted NOT to have the same old argument
BUT because the article was by this man

http://edzardernst.com

WHO really does know what he is talking about and HAS read (and understood) the literature

(I'm not sure one can have a 'reasoned discussion' with those who believe that angels will come down and cure them when they get sick?)

The placebo effect would not help anyone as ungullible as this friend.

AFAIK placebo effects are not confined to the gullible

[vinteuil]

... where's David Hume when you need him?

"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish."

[Pabmusic]

... where's David Hume when you need him?

"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish."

Brilliant!

[ahinton]

I think some form of corrective might be timely at this point in the thread, given that scientism, the final reduction of understanding to scientifically deducible causes, is capable of evidencing another kind of reductionism, one no better than blind faith, inasmuch as it excludes the intuitive from all human deduction on the grounds of alleged irrationalism. I would go as far as argue that the ancients who thought up Hinduism were on the right track in their understanding of the influences perpetually operating on any phenomenon, call it mental, physical or biological, at the level of a universe which itself operates as an interrelated, interdependent whole.

Anti-science emerged, in 19th century Romanticism and 20th century New Ageism, as a reaction against the Industrial Revolution's intuited harmful effects on the environment - one that was part-right, part wrong, as we see from cures that would have been impossible without the discoveries among its outcomes. Alternative health treatments and therapies re-iterate holistic principles once widely held in pre-Europeanised cultures worldwide, necessarily re-contextualising where the pre-Heisenberg scientific mindset objectified, separated and isolated without sufficient regard for context.

I'm not here advocating blind faith in quackery: science's insistence on evidence and proof, and most importantly its associated open-mindedness, must always be the final arbiter even if questions may indefinitely remain open. The problem lies not in understanding that all consists in the inter-influence between the forces that make it up, as a modern follower of Astrology might put it, but in the way in which a faith-based mindset then goes on to state that it happens in this particular way, and that there is no further argument to be had on the subject.

All good points, to be sure, but the trouble remains, I think, in that even an individual's instincts (however good or bad) about his/her medical condition/s and how best to treat it/them is one thing whereas a pseudo-science presented as often as not as though the real deal purports to operate by persuading each and every patient with the same condition/s that the most appropriate treatment régime for it/them is a particular homœopathic one supposedly intended for that purpose despite the fact that not only does it have no organic or inorganic means to affect any condition but it's also the case that one size doesn't fit all.

Another issue is, as I've implied earlier, that not all "alternative" medical practices are as devoid of proof of effectiveness or of demonstrable beneficial effects as his homœopathy; chiropractic, for example, is still more or less an "alternative" therapy (albeit for use only in limited circumstances, a fact about which it makes no bones) but there's no doubt that it has had demonstrable beneficial effects on patients.

Futhermore, the very fact that most homœopathic practitioners tend usually to market their wares as though somehow superior to conventional medicine and not to be used in conjunction therewith immediately fosters a divisive element that itself runs counter to the very purpose of medical treatment.

The assertion that homœopathy, like herbal medicine, is somehow better because it's "natural" likewise has no factual basis, although at least herbal medicine is on occasion inherently capable of beneficial effects in the same way as controlled changes of diet can be, provided that each is suprvised properly by a qualified and experienced clinical nutritionist / dietician; a retired GP friend (now sadly deceased - it gets even them in the end) once told me that the seven years of his training included just a single day on diet and nutrition, which he thought absurd at the time and even more so once he began to practise.