On June 16 2010 02:50 xtfftc wrote: Don't even try arguing with them, there is no way to convince them that you are right quickly. Do what you think is right without engaging in a discussion about it, that's the most effective thing you can do.
I think people might have a greater chance of convincing others of one thing or another if they treated them with respect.
its disgusting how many people believe in this crap. i don't know whats good or bad... the placebo effect helps treat sick people but at the same time makes them believe their backwards "medicine" is actually working.
if there was no placebo effect, would we have less dumb-dumbs in the world? I could only imagine.
On June 16 2010 02:09 GG.Win wrote: Randi is an idiot.
While I'm skeptical myself on Homeopathy, but theres no reason to not give it a try. It's relatively safe and actually has some validity in it. Placebo effect is great anyway.
I agree with "Placebo effect is great anyway".
Of course it won't heal cancer ! And I never use Homeopathy.
But, i have argued with many people who think Homeopathy is great, and, all i can say is :
For "minor" diseases, when werstern medicin treatment don't give results on a person, but this person feel Homeopathy does, that's great for him !
It's like the "magic heal kiss" when a child feel pain somewhere after a fall... If the child feel better, that's great ! ( i am NOT speaking of a serious wound ofc )
It's obviously only placebo (everything else is not an opinion, just bullshit), but maybe it's the best to market it as actual medicine. No placebo will work if it has placebo written right on it, that is not how it works. And based on a lot of tests and statistics, the placebo effect is very strong, so it is actually not that easy to invent some medicine that works better than a placebo. So, I am aware of the fact that homeopathy is bullshit, but I don't get angry over this as long as there are people who get better using this "meds" to get the placebo effect going.
Show me some proven science saying homeopathy doesn't work. Show me that the Hormesis principle is proven false. If you're so sure it doesn't work, then a large portion of Europe and Asia must be fooled silly.
Are you even going to compare costs of homeopathy and conventional medicine? What a joke.
Randi is not a scientist, the guy is a fucking magician. I personally don't support homeopathy but writing it off immediately with fucking youtube videos of randi is such a joke.
You should seriously think logically, just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it doesn't work. Wait, the earth is flat right?
Can you provide evidence for your claims as well? And does the evidence completely rule out the possibility of related psychological and social patterns that could have a bigger effect on health?
Just because other parts of the world use it, doesn't mean it works. The placebo effect is mentioned, but also people who use homeopathy may be more health conscious in general, and could have better diets and exercise more. Psychologically they may feel better than they really are.
Yeah, I guess the more people believe it, the more true it is.
On June 16 2010 02:57 Slunk wrote: It's obviously only placebo (everything else is not an opinion, just bullshit), but maybe it's the best to market it as actual medicine. No placebo will work if it has placebo written right on it, that is not how it works. And based on a lot of tests and statistics, the placebo effect is very strong, so it is actually not that easy to invent some medicine that works better than a placebo. So, I am aware of the fact that homeopathy is bullshit, but I don't get angry over this as long as there are people who get better using this "meds" to get the placebo effect going.
The thing is they would get better without it too... Or with western medicine which is often cheaper... If only they knew.
On June 16 2010 01:44 Krolinkos wrote: For a good resource on quackery and pseudo-medicine, I would suggest sciencebasedmedicine.org, and all the respective blogs run by the contributors. I have nothing but the highest praise for both the editors (Novella and Gorski), their efforts over the last few years fighting to somewhat combat the endless bullshit on the internet have been outstanding.
They also have a reference section for factual overviews of common quackery topics, along with indexed posts by topic and links to good outside resources.
This site is obviously massively biased. I'll get into it with you if you want to.
It's seriously like a gigantic slap in the face to eastern medicine, which has a very rich history and while it may contain "quackery", it also contains proven methods of healing.
It's clear the editors have already made up their minds about many of these topics. Have they actually studied them their whole lives? Or did they study western medicine?
First off: there is no such thing as "eastern" medicine or "western" medicine. There is just medicine, period, defined as a treatment that works. The health industry searches far and wide for potential cures, and the easiest place to start is with "traditional" remedies. If it works, find why it works, and then put the active ingredient in a pill, balm, or solution and dispense accordingly. If it's a physiological treatment (as opposed to pharmaceutical) then, again, find out why and repeat. This is where all your "proven methods of healing" have gone - into our pills, splints and IV drips! A great outcome of the scientific method is that we can find out whether the candles, the incense, the herb rubbed on the wound, or the chanting by a priest in the ancient ritual is what causes patients to heal. Spoiler alert: EVERY treatment found to test above placebo level so far, in the entire fucking scientific literature, has been found to have a proper cause which has been reproduced and used on patients.
With regard to the above, I don't want to hear anything about science "not working" for certain treatments, or "not being appropriate" to investigate a particular cure of your liking. Science is the only tool we have to look at the cause/effect relationship in an unbiased manner, and deals with all natural phenomena. Even if the treatment caused realignment of your inner energy flow (although undecectable by any instrument, funnily enough), we would still be able to see the results in patient health outcomes. Also: I pose to you - if I can't detect something, and you can't show me how to detect it, why should I believe something exists?
Yes, it's clear that the authors have 'made up their minds' about these topics. However, taking acupuncture as an example, if a proper study was released tomorrow that detailed:
- a physiological mechanism for health benefits, including chemicals/receptors if appropriate - an explanation thereby of the "connections" between needles in one place and relieving pain in unconnected regions - a double-blind trail showing that some connection was significantly significant - a reason why modern medical investigations has missed the effect up until now
then I and the rest of the world will sit up and take notice. And, when further studies are done, and the effect is confirmed, then we will reverse our position right away and look for what we were doing wrong in all our previous studies, and incorporate it into professional treatment. Until then, we'll stick with the current evidence. This isn't being closed-minded, we're completely open to the evidence that's never been provided.
As a final note, I have four exams in the next three days (Aus uni student), but I'll check back here periodically if you'd like to keep going. I'm sure many other people here have similar opinions, other people posting in this thread will give you a run, I'm sure.
Edit - got ranting and forgot to include: With regard to some of the bias on the site, I had a look at the homeopathy page and saw that most of the derision was connected to the founding of the 'discipline' and why people started using it. I think it's useful for people that are 'sitting on the fence' exactly how ridiculous the quackery is - we might slowly start winning against ignorance by innoculating through humorous distain in the general populace.
On June 16 2010 03:05 sqwert wrote: soooo how do i recognize a homeopathic solution from medicine? do hospitals carry homeopathic solutions?
I don't know if hospitals carry them. Here I would guess at least not much of it.
Here it's written on the label like this.
Also it clearly uses honey and I think it says 0.004% menthol. A little bit of everything ^^ You pay super premium for this when you should just inject yourself with steroids, that'll do the trick if you want to stop coughing. Real medicine win. =P
PS: I'm kind of kidding here. It may help a little bit, I don't know. Coughing syrup (of all kinds) never did much for me. The "homeopathy" part of that certainly doesn't do anything. Like I said earlier in the thread, they sometimes mix it up with other things.
Although I think Homeopathy is quite the fraud, the amount of fanaticism and lack of scientific method on the part of Randi made him seem more like a comedian playing to the crowd than scientist trying to disprove a theory.
For the question the OP made, I'd have to say it's more of a placebo effect than anything. I tried a homeopathic remedy a couple years back because I thought I'd give it a try. I was skeptical of its workings, but I thought I would perform my own little experiment. At first I had high hopes for the pills to work, I was giving it my full confidence in order to maximize its potential success. I felt great, because I thought the pills were helping. After a few months I started doubting that it would work, and, needless to say as I was still taking them yet not consciously believing they would work, I stopped after about a year.
On June 16 2010 03:05 sqwert wrote: soooo how do i recognize a homeopathic solution from medicine? do hospitals carry homeopathic solutions?
Not likely, unless you go to an institution that is homeopathic in nature (there are homeopathic doctors).
Also, by law I think most natural and homeopathic medicine must include something about the FDA not approving or verifying the effectiveness of such products, so if it says anything like that, it is probably homeopathic or something else natural. Also, all the homeopathic medicine in my area is labelled as such. May be the same for you, I don't know.
I personally don't have a problem with people using homeopathic medicine, but I do not support it myself. And while I found some parts of that Randi video funny, he was acting more like a degrading ass. I don't care if anyone is wrong, I don't like the idea of people being demeaned intentionally because you feel superior, even if it makes your presentation funny.
a human response mechanism to purge unwanted substances in the lungs?
the intention of what its supposed to cure is stupid, and the fact that it does nothing is also stupid. morons don't realize they can just go to church and pray to a zombie to get better.
On June 16 2010 02:20 Djzapz wrote: Yeah dude you're right, there's no reason not to try something disproven by science... What were we thinking? Of course it's relatively safe, seeing how it's water.
If you have too much money you can even fill your water dispenser with homeopathic "medicine" that does absolutely nothing. Sure you pay an incredible amount of money for water but whatever, right? You should also try voodoo and crystals. No reason not to try it right?
Randi is an idiot and screw science, what has it ever done for us?
Seriously, think logically.
Show me some proven science saying homeopathy doesn't work. Show me that the Hormesis principle is proven false. If you're so sure it doesn't work, then a large portion of Europe and Asia must be fooled silly.
Are you even going to compare costs of homeopathy and conventional medicine? What a joke.
Randi is not a scientist, the guy is a fucking magician. I personally don't support homeopathy but writing it off immediately with fucking youtube videos of randi is such a joke.
You should seriously think logically, just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it doesn't work. Wait, the earth is flat right?
Diluting something to the point where it is not even likely to be present in any given capsule is not Hormesis. Your stretching information and being misleading. Homeopathy is a joke, many other reputable people agree it is. There is also tons of scientific studies showing that it simply does nothing.
Its not because he doesnt understand it, its because it simply does not work.
On another note, I think Randi is perfectly justified in being very harsh towards those who support homeopathy simply because he views it as a scam. I agree with this view and although some people may be tricked into believing what they are selling, at the end of the day, its just not right for homeopathy to be peddled as medicine. It makes the people who buy into it less likely to receive proper care and costs them money that could be spent on medication that works.
Its a page by Dr Ben Goldacre British medical jurnalist, writing for guardian. He comments on medical studies and articles bashing all kind of pseudoscience ,like homeopathy. His analysis are very deep and sometimes close to academic level. But also lighter pieces.
He is relentlessly fighting Homeopathy on British soil and has tones of articles about that. A must read for any sceptic.
PS. If anyone wants proof that homeopathy is pure BS its the right place to look for it. You will find plenty evidencies there.
1 mol of water is about 18 grams. 1 mol = 6.0221415 * 10^23 molecules. Therefore, 18 grams of water is about 6 * 10^23 molecules.
At a concentration of 1:10^30, you get 1 molecule of the substance in about 30 tonnes of the solution.
To put it in perspective, the water volume of a pool 60 ft. long, 30 ft. wide and that slopes in depth from 3 ft. to 10 ft. would hold about 11 molecules of the solute.
OTOH, there are natural medicines that do not follow these homeopathic rules. In fact, a lot of modern medicines are based off of some of the same chemicals that are already found in nature. They have simply been refined to work better, with less side-effects.
On June 16 2010 02:57 Slunk wrote: It's obviously only placebo (everything else is not an opinion, just bullshit), but maybe it's the best to market it as actual medicine. No placebo will work if it has placebo written right on it, that is not how it works. And based on a lot of tests and statistics, the placebo effect is very strong, so it is actually not that easy to invent some medicine that works better than a placebo. So, I am aware of the fact that homeopathy is bullshit, but I don't get angry over this as long as there are people who get better using this "meds" to get the placebo effect going.
The thing is they would get better without it too... Or with western medicine which is often cheaper... If only they knew.
No, they wouldn't. In order for the placebo effect to work, people have to believe that they get help. It does not matter if it helps or not, they have to get some pills or something.
On June 16 2010 01:45 BlackMagister wrote: Yes as explained by many people like James Randi and Richard Dawkins homeopath dilutes the substance in water so much that they're literally isn't any of the substance left in the water and is literally just water. They think the water retains memory of the substance somehow but if that were true than the water would just retain the memory of everything and regular tap water would be just as effective if not more so because it's even more diluted. After all water is recycled, the water you drink has passed through other organisms through the mouth and the bladder.
It might have been the most effective medicine in older times simply because medicine sometimes actually was harmful, but compared to today's medicine it's just using the placebo effect to cure people.
I'm glad you posted that video because it's the best piece I've seen on homeopathy. Total and utter nonsense is all it is.
On June 16 2010 02:09 GG.Win wrote: Randi is an idiot.
While I'm skeptical myself on Homeopathy, but theres no reason to not give it a try. It's relatively safe and actually has some validity in it. Placebo effect is great anyway.
I agree with "Placebo effect is great anyway".
Of course it won't heal cancer ! And I never use Homeopathy.
But, i have argued with many people who think Homeopathy is great, and, all i can say is :
For "minor" diseases, when werstern medicin treatment don't give results on a person, but this person feel Homeopathy does, that's great for him !
It's like the "magic heal kiss" when a child feel pain somewhere after a fall... If the child feel better, that's great ! ( i am NOT speaking of a serious wound ofc )
Placebo effect FTW !!
Just wanted to point out that the "magic heal kiss" actually has a biological explanation as to why it works. It has to do with how the bodys feel pain (PGE2 plays a role here - hence why painkillers also work).
My stance on the subject is that as long as people are making an informed choice (i.e. that zero studies have been able to show any effect and that there is no explanation and thus reason for why it should work better than drinking regular water) and as long as they don't hurt themselves in the process I don't really care. If they believe in it, go ahead - as long as it is an informed choice.
Ghostcom i dont think its the people taking it that piss people off. To me, I find it disgusting that people are knowingly creating fake medicine and giving it to sick people to make a fortune. Its the same thing as psychics.... sure... they give people comfort... but theres something very very wrong about taking money from a vulnerable person to pretend to talk to their dead loved ones.
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