Philippe Leick
27th April 2008, 05:31 AM
In this new thread I’d like to comment on some of the responses of Harald Walach and Lionel R. Milgrom to my letter in Homeopathy Vol. 97 Issue 1 (available online).
I’ll start with Milgrom’s reply. I concluded my original letter with the following statement:
“To summarize the above criticisms, it can be concluded that in their present states, the proposed applications of Weak Quantum Theory to the problem of ultra-molecular dilutions in homeopathy are not science, but rhetoric.”
Now, is there any science in Milgroms rather well written letter? Unfortunately, not really.
It is not my intention here to list the passages where Milgrom has (deliberately?) misunderstood my text, just to answer his key points, which are:
1. [Leick and his fellow skeptics] Ignore research that demonstrates (a) homeopathy’s clinical efficacy over placebo, and (b) differences between solutions potentised beyond Avogadro’s limit and pure water.
Regarding 1a, Milgrom criticises the “recent high-profile Lancet meta-analysis that seems to show homeopathy is no better than a placebo”. First, it’s not just the Lancet study… Second, while this particular study has been harshly criticized by homeopaths, most of these criticisms have been answered rather convincingly – see A.P. Gaylard’s and Paul Wilson’s sites for details. And third, the effect sizes in many of the studies with statistically significant positive outcomes are so small that it is rather an exaggeration to claim that they show positive results.
Regarding 1b, Milgrom cites the severely flawed Rao et al. study.
2. [Leick and his fellow skeptics] Exhibit a fundamentalist adherence to (a) the DBRCT as the only way to demonstrate the efficacy of any therapeutic modality; and (b) one, positivist, interpretation of quantum theory.
I don’t remember endorsing either view, though I did write that “the real test of both models is not whether they explain previously known features of homeopathy, but whether they can be used to improve the design of experimental tests of homeopathy’s core hypothesis” and that “if the gold-standard of evidence-based medicine (randomized, double-blind trials) is rejected, another way to account for the (surprisingly powerful!) placebo effect needs to be proposed.”
I think this is fair to ask. Now, Milgrom states that “[I]algorithms for such experiments were suggested years ago”. I remember reading one of the references given here, which left me completely unimpressed.
He goes on to explain that “Generalized entanglement models of the homeopathic process have been around for about 5 years. I therefore make no apology for what is still ‘work-in-progress’.” and compares this to the years that passed between the first formulations of quantum mechanics (1900), the suggestion of quantum entanglement (1935), the formulation Bell’s inequalities (1964) and the experiments that showed that they are violated (1982 and later). It’s perfectly acceptable to ask for more time to develop the ideas about WQT and homeopathy. But this doesn’t mean that they should be shielded from criticism – indeed, it is often the debate between proponents and opponents of new theories that accelerates their development. In fact, both the EPR paradoxon and the Bell inequalities were attempts to show that quantum mechanics is an incomplete theory. During all these years, so much progress was made in other areas of quantum mechanics that this particular comparison between the historical development of WQT and proper QM can not be taken seriously.
3. [Leick and his fellow skeptics ] Attempt to dismiss opposing arguments by disparaging the scientific views, competence and credibility of their proponents.
Unfortunately, this is necessary. Milgrom’s writings about QM contain so many inaccuracies and errors that it is natural to ask, paraphrasing Feynman, how much of quantum mechanics he has not understood.
The “Epistemology vs ontology”-section warrants two additional comments:
1. It is my impression that Milgrom is trying to wriggle out of a mis-citation of the original WQT paper (Atmanspacher, Römer and Walach) that I identified. But we can leave this to philosophers with too much spare time. The central question is (roughly) the following: If reality itself is beyond our reach, is this an epistemic (what can be known about reality?) or ontic (what reality “really is”) property of reality?
2. Milgrom: “In asking ‘how is it that two so fundamentally different concepts as a remedy (a material object) and a collection of symptoms (an abstract idea generalized from individual observations) can be entangled at all?’ Leick poses a false dichotomy. Both remedy and patient are sources of information, obtained during case-taking, and therefore capable of being entangled in the therapeutic process. By posing this question, Leick and his fellow skeptics exhibit the limitations of their own presuppositions.”
In principle, all quantum states (wave functions; or information about quantum systems, if you prefer) can be combined via tensor products to create entangled states. Whether these are – in any physically way – meaningful is another question. Entanglement essentially requires a quantity whose total value is conserved (such as angular momentum in the most common examples) during the entanglement process, but whose parts can be distributed in different ways between the entangled sub-systems. The fact is that such a quantity has not even been hinted at. Information is often suggested, but information – defined in any meaningful way – is not a conserved quantity.
I’ll write an additional post with comments on Walach’s reply – which actually makes a lot of sense – in a following post. In the meantime, I apologize for not including any links; it seems you need at least 15 posts to be allowed to include links in this forum.
There’s much more to say, but the post is already rather long. Discussions would be very welcome though.
I’ll start with Milgrom’s reply. I concluded my original letter with the following statement:
“To summarize the above criticisms, it can be concluded that in their present states, the proposed applications of Weak Quantum Theory to the problem of ultra-molecular dilutions in homeopathy are not science, but rhetoric.”
Now, is there any science in Milgroms rather well written letter? Unfortunately, not really.
It is not my intention here to list the passages where Milgrom has (deliberately?) misunderstood my text, just to answer his key points, which are:
1. [Leick and his fellow skeptics] Ignore research that demonstrates (a) homeopathy’s clinical efficacy over placebo, and (b) differences between solutions potentised beyond Avogadro’s limit and pure water.
Regarding 1a, Milgrom criticises the “recent high-profile Lancet meta-analysis that seems to show homeopathy is no better than a placebo”. First, it’s not just the Lancet study… Second, while this particular study has been harshly criticized by homeopaths, most of these criticisms have been answered rather convincingly – see A.P. Gaylard’s and Paul Wilson’s sites for details. And third, the effect sizes in many of the studies with statistically significant positive outcomes are so small that it is rather an exaggeration to claim that they show positive results.
Regarding 1b, Milgrom cites the severely flawed Rao et al. study.
2. [Leick and his fellow skeptics] Exhibit a fundamentalist adherence to (a) the DBRCT as the only way to demonstrate the efficacy of any therapeutic modality; and (b) one, positivist, interpretation of quantum theory.
I don’t remember endorsing either view, though I did write that “the real test of both models is not whether they explain previously known features of homeopathy, but whether they can be used to improve the design of experimental tests of homeopathy’s core hypothesis” and that “if the gold-standard of evidence-based medicine (randomized, double-blind trials) is rejected, another way to account for the (surprisingly powerful!) placebo effect needs to be proposed.”
I think this is fair to ask. Now, Milgrom states that “[I]algorithms for such experiments were suggested years ago”. I remember reading one of the references given here, which left me completely unimpressed.
He goes on to explain that “Generalized entanglement models of the homeopathic process have been around for about 5 years. I therefore make no apology for what is still ‘work-in-progress’.” and compares this to the years that passed between the first formulations of quantum mechanics (1900), the suggestion of quantum entanglement (1935), the formulation Bell’s inequalities (1964) and the experiments that showed that they are violated (1982 and later). It’s perfectly acceptable to ask for more time to develop the ideas about WQT and homeopathy. But this doesn’t mean that they should be shielded from criticism – indeed, it is often the debate between proponents and opponents of new theories that accelerates their development. In fact, both the EPR paradoxon and the Bell inequalities were attempts to show that quantum mechanics is an incomplete theory. During all these years, so much progress was made in other areas of quantum mechanics that this particular comparison between the historical development of WQT and proper QM can not be taken seriously.
3. [Leick and his fellow skeptics ] Attempt to dismiss opposing arguments by disparaging the scientific views, competence and credibility of their proponents.
Unfortunately, this is necessary. Milgrom’s writings about QM contain so many inaccuracies and errors that it is natural to ask, paraphrasing Feynman, how much of quantum mechanics he has not understood.
The “Epistemology vs ontology”-section warrants two additional comments:
1. It is my impression that Milgrom is trying to wriggle out of a mis-citation of the original WQT paper (Atmanspacher, Römer and Walach) that I identified. But we can leave this to philosophers with too much spare time. The central question is (roughly) the following: If reality itself is beyond our reach, is this an epistemic (what can be known about reality?) or ontic (what reality “really is”) property of reality?
2. Milgrom: “In asking ‘how is it that two so fundamentally different concepts as a remedy (a material object) and a collection of symptoms (an abstract idea generalized from individual observations) can be entangled at all?’ Leick poses a false dichotomy. Both remedy and patient are sources of information, obtained during case-taking, and therefore capable of being entangled in the therapeutic process. By posing this question, Leick and his fellow skeptics exhibit the limitations of their own presuppositions.”
In principle, all quantum states (wave functions; or information about quantum systems, if you prefer) can be combined via tensor products to create entangled states. Whether these are – in any physically way – meaningful is another question. Entanglement essentially requires a quantity whose total value is conserved (such as angular momentum in the most common examples) during the entanglement process, but whose parts can be distributed in different ways between the entangled sub-systems. The fact is that such a quantity has not even been hinted at. Information is often suggested, but information – defined in any meaningful way – is not a conserved quantity.
I’ll write an additional post with comments on Walach’s reply – which actually makes a lot of sense – in a following post. In the meantime, I apologize for not including any links; it seems you need at least 15 posts to be allowed to include links in this forum.
There’s much more to say, but the post is already rather long. Discussions would be very welcome though.