Putting homeopathy into perspective

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Let's replace conventional science with homeopathy! What's the worst that could happen?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0[/youtube]

That suggestion flops like a two-ton wonton [unfried]:

First, because you could not replace "Conventional Science" with Homeopathy any more than you could replace "Conventional Science" with "Conventional Biology", or "Conventional Electrical Engineering".

Second, because where research in Homeopathy is carried out [which as I have said regrettably short-changes basic theory, it operates on principles differing from the conventional methodology of science no more than the methods applied in the investgation of avian behavior differ from those used by String theorists.

Third, because Classical Homeopathy no more seeks to supplant the very varied modalities of mainstream medical practice than surgery is seeking to supplant immunization, or psychiatry working for the overthrow of chiropractic - itself a one-time "alternative" modality with a theory at least as questionable as that of Homeopathy.

The fact that one segment of the scientific community rejects another is nothing new, and rejection by the establishment is not an infallible indicator of falsehood.

I hear tell that for a while String Theory was seen as something between hokey heresy and stupidity by the Physics Establishment.

I could quote example after example of people I know personally who have been cured by "alternative" medicine after the doctors have given up.

My daughter had problems with her hips when she was pregnant. She could barely walk from the pain.
She went to doctors and specialists who did x-rays and all sorts of tests.

She was told that she would probably have to spend her pregnancy in bed or in a wheelchair.
Her husband actually bought a wheelchair.

She went to see a Homeopath. He said "I think I can fix you"
She said "Can you make the pain less?"

He said, "No I think I can CURE you!"
So he gave her a bottle of "water" and within three weeks she was as good as new.

Why should we not naturalize into PPR this thread that started out more appropriate to the Science forum? At the risk of further perturbing the honorable Prime Poster, there is this story:
from the good Bishop of Hippo - not a joke however amusing the title:

In the same city of Carthage lived Innocentia, a very devout woman of the highest rank in the state. She had cancer in one of her breasts, a disease which, as physicians say, is incurable. Ordinarily, therefore, they either amputate, and so separate from the body the member on which the disease has seized, or, that the patient’s life may be prolonged a little, though death is inevitable even if somewhat delayed, they abandon all remedies, following, as they say, the advice of Hippocrates. This the lady we speak of had been advised to by a skillful physician, who was intimate with her family; and she betook herself to God alone by prayer. On the approach of Easter, she was instructed in a dream to wait for the first woman that came out from the baptistery after being baptized, and to ask her to make the sign of Christ upon her sore. She did so, and was immediately cured. The physician who had advised her to apply no remedy if she wished to live a little longer, when he had examined her after this, and found that she who, on his former examination, was afflicted with that disease was now perfectly cured, eagerly asked her what remedy she had used, anxious, as we may well believe, to discover the drug which should defeat the decision of Hippocrates. But when she told him what had happened, he is said to have replied, with religious politeness, though with a contemptuous tone, and an expression which made her fear he would utter some blasphemy against Christ, “I thought you would make some great discovery to me.” She, shuddering at his indifference, quickly replied, “What great thing was it for Christ to heal a cancer, who raised one who had been four days dead?”

What inclines to believe that this account has a factual basis is the reported attitude of the doctor, so true to what we see today. Nothing new under the sun.

Not true.

Chemotherapy and radiation are based on killing a tumor. For it, science needed the knowledge of tumors, the knowledge that sometimes doing such awful things like radiation and chemotherapy is the only way to get rid of tumors. And a lot of other knowledge that is the base for the treatment.

They don't do chemotherapy just because it gives the same symptoms as cancer. And the chemicals used are certainly not diluted to 30C.



That also is based on actual, tested knowledge rather than the assumption that 'like cures like'. Immunology has studied the way viruses work and the way the body battles those viruses

If getting facts straight matters to you, check out that apparently inoculation for smallpox prexdated Jenner's cowpox innovation, and that even at the time of Jenner it would hardly be accurate to say anybody understood the action of a virus.

In fact postulation of the existence of such a thing as a virus had to wait for most of a century after Jenner. Vaccination got into medical practice simply because it was found to work.

If we had to wait for theory to predict cures before starting treatment, a lot more people would die.

Irrelevant. I argued about why we use vaccinations now. Not why they were used at first. Inoculation is something that even old tribes used in the past. Using inoculations without knowledge is pseudoscience. But we actually have the knowledge now.

Vaccinations were not the only idea against smallpox, many were tried, many were believed to sort of work. Although vaccinations were a good result of that methodology, there were multiple wrong theories that were originated from it. That's the reason the method was changed and we know really, really care about knowing the mechanism by which a medicine works, so we can prove that the it works and we can know any side effect.

The PDF is intriguing reading.

Is it in fact your contention that if you have a choice between two treatments you would consistently choose the one whose mechanism we think we understand better rather than the one we find works better?

It is not at all a difficult choice when the one which is found to work better is also the one that is better understood. Neither criterion would lead a sane person to choose homeopathy.

I would thank you kindly for that, but that I know you are not in a position to judge.

It is neither my job nor my inclination to convince you of anything, certainly not of my sanity.

Perhaps you are right and I am mad.

Perhaps I am right and you do not know everything.

IF I am right at least one of us will in due course find out which is which.

You are wrong; and there are a great many things I do not know. I do know a few things though, and among those are the facts that distilled water is not medicine, and there are a lot of snake-oil fraudsters out there.

An acquaintance who also happens to be a granola/alternative medicine nut decided that he would drink only distilled water as a homeopathic practitioner recommended this to him. Needless to say he ended up fainting regularly and had to be hospitalized and put on electrolytes. Distilled water is not good for you.

Orwell: I will not rabbit chicken you. Be that way. I will be this way. Good luck.

Vigilans:

That is a new one on me. There are homeopaths who advise against drinking coffee or tea when using a homeopathic remedy, believing they can neutralize the remedy, but experienced homeopaths reject this, and my wife's experience - daily coffee and tea for years - hardly supports the suggested neutralization.

But I have not seen the drinking of distilled or seriously filtered water recommended for homeopathy-based reasons. Of course, in this day of inconsistent water quality in many places there may well be other reasons.

The reaction to the distilled water, though, is very strange. What kind of diet available in North America is so totally free of a range of salts as to cause that? And what possible ingredients of tap water would be essential? Not the chorine, surely.

If your acquaintance is a serious healther, is it possible he has cut important foods out of his diet, or added significant doses of supplements?

If he were doing a fast trying to LIVE on distilled water, that might well do it. Or if he overloaded with water. There was a period when I was definitely overdosing with water, and wound up feeling quite dizzy.

I shall just add that in the unregulated state of the healthy stuff there may be those claiming to be homeopaths who are very far from qualified Classical Homeopaths.- the equivalent of mail order degrees and on-line ordinations.

I don't need luck. I have science.

There are a number of minerals and electrolytes in drinking water. The chlorine or fluoride is not essential, as we have lived millions of years without them being actively input into our water.


It's possible. I referred to him as a 'nut' for a reason. He certainly isn't going to win any awards for intellect (or being a nice person, for that matter)



He told me he drank nothing but distilled water for months at the recommendation of a homeopath



This is the problem with alternative medicine. You put your health in the hands of someone without any legitimate medical experience. Additionally you are at the mercy of his or her willingness to take risks with your health for their own profit

Homeopathic benefits are likely placebo-generated. The placebo effect is well documented

Being out in the country, we drink not distilled water - THAT would cost - but very much treated water that in fact is low enough in minerals that one can use it in a number of applications normally reserved for distilled. No chlorine in it. Been on it for years, though of course my wife turns it into coffee and we both do a bit of tea.

But we consume reasonable quantities of a sane - if I dare use the word now - and varied diet, and we are not going to be lacking electrolytes. I really think there has to be more than the water going on.

Of course, one cannot discount the placebo effect, any more than one can discount it when the patient is handed a sample of meds from the third drawer by a person with a white coat and a diploma on the wall, or hears the guy in the colobus skin doing an incantation.

But while you naturally do not have to take my word for it, and why should you when I am a deviationist and insane, and probably will not because in spite of being in Quebec you have many of the earmarks of a reasonable person and no reasonable person will accept such a statement without independently checking it -

TAKE a breath - okay, that was the preamble, here is what I am telling you, to wit, I have observed homeopathic remedies acting in ways which the placebo effect could hardly explain. And in fact a state licensed homeopasthic practitioner of my acquaintance scrupulously careful NOT to reveal what he is administering and what effects might be anticipated. I think myself he is wrong - while the placebo effect does not testify to the efficacy of a particular medicament or remedy, why not call on it for a bit of extra oomph. But he is trained to minimize the possibility and holds to it.