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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
A doctor believing he has no legitimate treatment for a specific condition choosing to lead the patient to believe they are being treated is easy to distinguish from a fraud marketing magic water. The doctor is unlikely to choose the placebo over a legitimate treatment. The fraud doesn't care if there is a legitimate treatment.
#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.
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.)
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.
You could make this argument about anything, how about this a new medical treatment that cures everything, what you do is bang your head against a wall every day. It wont be more effective than a placebo, but some people will get better.
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.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 59.4 ms ] threadHearing 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.
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.
Boiron is not cheap.
That's the most ignorant thing I've read all day.
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...
In fact, different mechanisms of placebo delivery "work" to different degrees (in many cases, injection-based placebos "work" better than ingestion-based.)
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0