

Another Damning Homeopathy Report - tokenadult
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/another-damning-homeopathy-report/

======
sillysaurus3
There's one type of homeopathy story I haven't yet heard: a reformation story.
Has anyone heard of many homeopathists who have renounced their ways? If so,
then what ultimately convinced them?

Hearing that Steve Jobs lost his life due to his insistence to treat his
cancer with homeopathy is what convinced me that homeopathy is probably going
to be with humanity forever. If someone as shrewd, rational, and rich as Jobs
can fall victim to seductive thinking, then it must be true that education
isn't enough. In order for education to be effective, it requires someone
willing to learn. Was Jobs such a person? If so, then how is it that he still
fell victim to homeopathy?

It seems being a homeopathist is a part of one's identity, the way being a
vegetarian or a democrat or a hacker or a christian is. I don't understand why
it's so difficult to change, but it's certainly an example of the destructive
power of choosing the wrong identity.

~~~
Detrus
There are many people with a medical degree practicing it. UK's NHS supports
it. Holy water is much cheaper than the drug industry's offerings. It's a
placebo or alternative treatment for a lot of light ailments. Just like folk
remedies, most of the time it "works" and you come out alive and well so it's
not hard to believe.

Of course it's offensive to science on ideological grounds.

And if someone were to recommend it for a definite diagnosis of cancer that
would be irresponsible.

As for Steve Jobs, rationality was not his key to success.

~~~
Oletros
Is really an homeopathic treatment cheaper than real medicines?

Boiron is not cheap.

------
rhth54656
I know youtube videos are off-topic but this parody on homeopathy is too
brilliant not to post.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0)

------
ps4fanboy
Just need to do some more reports on chiropractors now, they have the audacity
to call themselves doctors in Australia.

------
cyberjunkie
James Randi ridicules homeopathy really well. He downs 2 weeks of sleeping
pills dosage, which should obviously be lethal. He does this very often. Check
the videos on Youtube.

~~~
frobozz
Surely a lethal homeopathic dose would be _less_ than the standard dose, not
_more_.

------
denom
Science cannot and will never be able to demonstrate how homeopathy does not
work, only that it works about as well as a placebo. So we are left with
stories like this, which basically states that these two unknown things
(placebos and homeopathy) are scientifically indistinguishable. That much is
painfully clear. Is there anything that this article brings to the debate that
is new/original?

~~~
sillysaurus3
Being indistinguishable from a placebo is equivalent to "as powerful as your
mind," though. Which is to say, if your mind can't cure cancer, then neither
can homeopathy. Isn't that pretty close to demonstrating it doesn't work?

~~~
denom
maybe, but I think you are assuming that we can, scientifically or otherwise,
distinguish (categorize) everything that is real. I'm inclined to believe that
this is not possible. In that case indistinguishability becomes equivalent to
saying nothing at all in scientific terms. The arguments in these kinds of
articles have no choice but to become very tedious, mainly focusing on how
people are getting ripped off, they cannot determine why homeopathic cures
operate the same way as placebos--or not, which is the crux of the homeopathic
argument.

~~~
letstryagain
> I'm inclined to believe that this is not possible.

That's the most ignorant thing I've read all day.

~~~
denom
Wow, I didn't realize that I would get downvoted here. Let's see if I can
explain myself.

Consider a few examples of things that science cannot distinguish:

* The speed and position of an electron cloud ensemble. * The moment a radioactive particle will decay

Anyways, my point was that homeopathy stories like the one we are talking
about revolve around this formula:

1) peer reviewed studies show that homeopathy works as a placebo 2) ordinary
people don't understand science 3) people are getting ripped off!

For me the interesting stuff is in #1. The debate over homeopathy is
epistemological, over how we can know things. I have not seen any scientific
research on how homeopathic works, or does not work, in the same way as a
placebo. Anything less than this and the "rational" argument becomes "just
don't take it because it's a placebo". Which is not a reason to cease taking
homeopathic products, because doctors _prescribe_ placebos, and I have never
seen an article like this that attacks doctors who prescribe placebos.

[http://www.webmd.com/pain-
management/news/20081023/50percent...](http://www.webmd.com/pain-
management/news/20081023/50percent-of-doctors-give-fake-prescriptions)

~~~
isleyaardvark
#1 isn't interesting because placebos _don 't work_. By definition. "[A]
simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment, per Wikipedia. If a
trial of a medicine works as well as a placebo, that means it does not work.

~~~
dragonwriter
Placebos do "work", after a fashion, which is part of why they are used as a
control rather than nothing being given to the control group (helping to
assure blinding of participants, both subjects and experimenters, is also a
factor.)

In fact, different mechanisms of placebo delivery "work" to different degrees
(in many cases, injection-based placebos "work" better than ingestion-based.)

~~~
isleyaardvark
That's the placebo effect, not the placebo itself.

This is as simple as I can explain it.

1) People test a new medicine. 2) That medicine does no better than placebo.
3) That medicine does not work and the makers go back to the drawing board.

They don't sit around and wonder why that medicine "works", because it
doesn't. Nor do they sell it as medicine, or claim it is effective, because it
isn't. Homeopathy is no more interesting than every single failed medicine
plus every single non-medical substance a person can put in their mouth.

~~~
dragonwriter
Right. I perhaps wasn't sufficiently clear that I wasn't disagreeing with you
in substance.

