Child dies after being given homeopathic "medicine"

[BTox]

I don't know about that - maybe if we just keep posting the same thing over and over, it might just sink into rouser's thick head... but you're probably right. :(

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by BTox
I don't know about that - maybe if we just keep posting the same thing over and over, it might just sink into rouser's thick head... but you're probably right. :(

At the very least, maybe it'll make him shut up?

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
I have no clue as to potency and neither do you. I merely accept as a hypothetical given as to what the mixture consists of.Let's try to focus this again.

Rouser has no clue as to potency. Why not? Because he hasn't taken the trouble to find out. All homoeopathic preparations have the potency stated on the bottle. The vaccine nosodes illustrated in the Ratgags article (http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/homeopathy2.htm) have "200C" printed clearly on the bottle. Rouser chose "dilute homeopathic oral DPT vaccine" as the preparation he wanted to discuss. This preparation will have a stated potency. What is that, Rouser? Of course we can't know this until you tell us.

I repeat. All ultramolar (greater that 12C or 24X) homoeopathic preparations contain nothing but solvent. This is a fact. If you dispute this, Rouser, let's see some real argument.

If the answer is simply that the preparations state a constituent on the bottle, therefore they contain that constituent, that is simply wrong. You can't accept it as a "given", or demand that we do, when it is exactly that point which is in dispute.

Rolfe.

[The Don]

To be completely fair

Homoeopathy is the nonsense around "like cures like". A rock upside the head gives me a headache therefore to treat a headache I should smack myself on the head with a rock.

As part of exploring which "like cures like" better, it was "found" that increasingly dilute forms of the "like" performed better. i.e. being hit with a small rock will make be feel better quicker than being hit with a big rock.

There are versions of Homoeopathy which use high concentrations.

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]


>>Nobody is disputing that the "low potency" preparations have some molecules of "remedy" in them.


Then just what is your point???


-- Rouser

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by The Don
There are versions of Homoeopathy which use high concentrations.[list=1]
Define "high concentrations".
Where can we find out about these "versions of Homeopathy"?
[/list=1]We acknowledge that the DIY homoeopathic remedies sold over the counter are of such "low potency" that they probably do contain a few molecules of the actual remedy. However, they're still extremely dilute.

So far as I am aware (and I've studied this quite extensively), there is no version of homoeopathy as practised by people calling themselves homoeopaths which routinely uses appreciable doses of substance.

The only possible exception is where manufacturers of other sorts of quack remedies falsely label them as "homoeopathic" in order to take advantage of the licensing exemptions accorded to homoeopathic remedies, and so get them on the market without regulatory approval. These things tend to be labelled "1X" or "2X", signifying quite normal solutions of 1 in 10 or 1 in 100. However, these aren't versions of homoeopathy, they're versions of a different sort of fraud.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Then just what is your point???My point, often repeated, is that the "remedies" used by professional homoeopaths, that is virtually the whole of real homoeopathy, are used at dilutions so high that there is no molecule of the alleged active substance in them.

I never asked you what you thought was in the "low potency" OTC preparations; we probably don't disagree about that.

Once again, what do you think is in the ultramolar preparations? The ones used by the trained homoeopaths, the ones they call "high potency"?

Rolfe.

[The Don]

Originally posted by Rolfe
[list=1]
Define "high concentrations".
Where can we find out about these "versions of Homeopathy"?


one example:

http://www.arnica.com/homeo/homeopath3.html

and there's planty of stuff at the 6c level which I guess would contain at least one molecule of the "active" ingredient

I am in no way defending homoeoeoeoeoeopathy, I just wanted to differentiate between two different types of rubbish:

- The "like cures like" rubbish
- The "no molecules but water has a memory" rubbish

In theory the two could be tested separately.

- we could check if onions really do cure colds (like cures like)
- we could check whether 30c versions of non-homoeoeoeoeoeopath(et)ic remedies are more powerful than their conventional counterparts

Where like does indeed cure like, we should also check for active compounds. From a brief scan through some of the examples, a lot of "old wives" cures are included. Many of these do have a mundane explanation of how they work

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by The Don
I am in no way defending homoeoeoeoeoeopathy, I just wanted to differentiate between two different types of rubbish:

- The "like cures like" rubbish
- The "no molecules but water has a memory" rubbish.Yes, I realise that.

However, the link you provided is just talking about the "low potency" things which are in practice seldom found outside of the OTC mass-market. If you look at what homoeopaths are actually prescribing to their individual patients, you'll hardly ever find these preparations being used. Indeed, they appear to use the M potencies much more than that page implies, and much more than I had realised before I started lurking on their web sites.

The question to Rouser was always framed as "what is in the high-potency preparations apart from water/alcohol or lactose?" He still hasn't answered it.

Regarding the "like cures like" idiocy, this is also more nonsensical than it appears on the surface.

Although homoeopaths like Peter Fisher like to present it in public as "onion makes your eyes water, therefore homoeopathic onion will cure a cold", this isn't what they actually do in practice. The "provings" which are carried out to determine the effect of the remedies on healthy people are also done on the magic solute-free water. It thus becomes totally surreal, and in fact is simply a form of sympathetic magic.

If you haven't already looked at it, the Devon School of Homoeopathy provides some amazing modern "provings" which are just mind-boggling - www.hominf.org/proving.htm (http://www.hominf.org/proving.htm). As someone else remarked, "this isn't science, it's a fruitcake recipe".

Rolfe.

[Zombified]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Then just what is your point???The point is that while there may be some low-potency preparations that not diluted below the 24x/12c threshold, most homeopathic preparations are diluted more than that, and they require explanation.

In particular, you're being asked to explain what's in a DPT vaccine mixture diluted more than 24X.

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]


>>My point, often repeated, is that the "remedies" used by professional homoeopaths, that is virtually the whole of real homoeopathy, are used at dilutions so high that there is no molecule of the alleged active substance in them.

Really? No molecule? A molecule is a pretty small thing as I recall. You mean to say you can actually dilute a something so that it becomes a "nothing"??? Sounds like magic to me. Do you have any evidence for it????


-- Rouser

[Rouser2]

[Originally posted by Zombified [/i]
[

>>The point is that while there may be some low-potency preparations that not diluted below the 24x/12c threshold, most homeopathic preparations are diluted more than that, and they require explanation.


Why do they require explanation?


>>In particular, you're being asked to explain what's in a DPT vaccine mixture diluted more than..."


I have no idea.


-- Rouser

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]


>>My point, often repeated, is that the "remedies" used by professional homoeopaths, that is virtually the whole of real homoeopathy, are used at dilutions so high that there is no molecule of the alleged active substance in them.

Really? No molecule? A molecule is a pretty small thing as I recall. You mean to say you can actually dilute a something so that it becomes a "nothing"??? Sounds like magic to me. Do you have any evidence for it????


-- Rouser

It is called Avogadro's law. Molecules in solution are still molecules. Picture them, if you will, as marbles in a bottle. Pour half that bottle and its marbles into another bottle, fill up both bottles with water. Repeat. Repeat again. You finally arrive at a point where there is one marble left in the bottle. Repeat again, and you have one bottle with one bottle and one with no marbles.

[Prester John]

Rouser said:
Really? No molecule? A molecule is a pretty small thing as I recall. You mean to say you can actually dilute a something so that it becomes a "nothing"??? Sounds like magic to me. Do you have any evidence for it????

LOL, i guess you're not being sarcastic.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
A molecule is a pretty small thing as I recall. You mean to say you can actually dilute a something so that it becomes a "nothing"???Yes. precisely. That is exactly what we have been trying to explain to you for about three weeks now.

BillHoyt has presented a clear analogy using marbles. For this to be extended to the molecular level you only need to use higher dilution ratios and more dilution steps. The principle is exactly the same.Matter is not infinitely divisible. Eventually you get to the point where there is only one molecule in the container. Next dilution step, you don't even have that, Homoeopaths routinely keep diluting way past this point.I said that well before Christmas. Got it yet?

For a detailed run through the calculations look at Peter Bowditch's article (http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/homeopathy2.htm) which goes through it all with specific reference to 200C vaccine nosodes.

200C is indeed diluted until it becomes "nothing". So is 30C, for that matter. So are the vast majority of the preparations you find homoeopaths prescribing. Thus, it is absolutely correct to describe them as "content-free".

Which is where we came in, I think.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
>>In particular, you're being asked to explain what's in a DPT vaccine mixture diluted more than..."


I have no idea.I think we have our answer, chaps.

Rouser started all this by declaring that there was something other than the basic solvent in homoeopathic preparations - he actually objected to these preparations being described as "content-free".

It was explained to him that the "content-free" designation referred specifically to ultramolar preparations, and he was repeatedly asked to state what he believed was in those preparations apart from the water/alcohol or lactose solvent.

He now says he has no idea. As we all suspected from the beginning (20th December, I seem to recall).

Never mind, we have the answer. He has no idea what it in those preparations. Thus he presumably has no more objection to their being described as "content-free".

So, what was the other question? Oh yes. How can you tell the difference between a bottle of the basic solvent which has been through an x-ray security camera and one which hasn't.

Seconds out....

Rolfe.

[BTox]

Originally posted by Rouser2
I have no idea.


-- Rouser

:D Rouser has an epiphany and answers all our questions truthfully with just 4 simple words... finally!

[Darwin'sGoat]

There was an article I read, (from a skeptic point of view) probably about 5 or 6 years ago, where a group of homeopaths were claiming that you could transfer water memory through wire, and they were trying to market some sort of internet based company where you could download different 'mixtures' from a website.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I can't seem to dig up anything on it.

[Rolfe]

Jacques Benveniste (http://www.digibio.com/) is the originator of this nonsense. From (allegedly) being a respected scientist working in a homoeopathy-related field, he seems to have gone pure David Icke.

I think there are others trying to cash in on much the same effect though. Including something being discussed somewhere on the Commentary forum where they sell you a CD to use as a coaster and it magically energises the water placed on it....

Rolfe.

[Darwin'sGoat]

If water memory were true, wouldn't you be able to cure just about anything with a glass of sea water?

[geni]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat
If water memory were true, wouldn't you be able to cure just about anything with a glass of sea water?

[homeopathic "logic"]
No beacuse you miss out the process of sucession (some kind of shaking that is involved in each step of the dilution). Also a lot of the stuff in sea water (sodium chloride iodine ect) is in very low potencies which would not have an effect but would tend to mess up anythiong in the mixture at higher potencies. you should also rember that the sea water might contain substances that are not for the thing you are suffering from so you risk causeing a proving. Finialy you would be mixing remedies (after all there has to be more than one thing in sea water at homeopathic levels) and combiantion remedies are a bad thing.
[/homeopathic "logic"]

See its easy when you get the hang of it

[Darwin'sGoat]

So then if water memory were true how can you ever use water as the base of your mixture? Wouldn't it all be contaminated? Or do they only use distilled water?

[geni]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat
So then if water memory were true how can you ever use water as the base of your mixture? Wouldn't it all be contaminated? Or do they only use distilled water?

I belive that they mostly used distilled water all though some of the sucessions are made up in ethanol.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by geni
[homeopathic "logic"]
No beacuse you miss out the process of sucession (some kind of shaking that is involved in each step of the dilution). Also a lot of the stuff in sea water (sodium chloride iodine ect) is in very low potencies which would not have an effect but would tend to mess up anythiong in the mixture at higher potencies. you should also rember that the sea water might contain substances that are not for the thing you are suffering from so you risk causeing a proving. Finialy you would be mixing remedies (after all there has to be more than one thing in sea water at homeopathic levels) and combiantion remedies are a bad thing.
[/homeopathic "logic"]Geni, that's priceless!
:dl:

Rolfe.

[Prester John]

Homeopathic geni said:
you should also rember that the sea water might contain substances that are not for the thing you are suffering from so you risk causeing a proving

I can confirm this is true, shortly after ingesting sea water i have seen a number effects including coughing, gagging, cursing, and if a large volume is ingesting even vomiting.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat
So then if water memory were true how can you ever use water as the base of your mixture? Wouldn't it all be contaminated? Or do they only use distilled water? More recently they seem to be saying that if the remedies are put through an airport security scanner then that "de-energises" the preparation, some effect of the x-rays on the hypothetical EM level. Exactly what evidence they have for this is very unclear, though it does make a handy caveat if a patient inexplicably fails to get better (if the remedy was sent by post, maybe it was put through a scanner).

Presumably they could use x-rayed water/alcohol as their basic solvent, in that case. How Hahnemann decided what to use as his native, unmagicked solvent, I have no idea. Geni, do you know?

And then on the other hand, the entire boiling of them, collectively, simply haven't a clue. Transporting remedies on airlines (http://www.hpathy.com/FORUM/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=2&TopicID=808&PagePosition=1).

Rolfe.

[geni]

Originally posted by Rolfe

Presumably they could use x-rayed water/alcohol as their basic solvent, in that case. How Hahnemann decided what to use as his native, unmagicked solvent, I have no idea. Geni, do you know?

I don't know but from here

http://www.indmedplants-kr.org/Homeopathy3.htm

Hahnemann probably chose ethyl alcohol as the solvent for his medicines as it was regarded as the most efficient solvent at that time 200 yr ago. Another probable reason is that alcohol also functions as a preservative; aqueous extractions decompose soon.


I assume that ethyl alcohol is ethanol but my knowlage of 200 year old chemical names is limited.

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]

>>Rouser started all this by declaring that there was something other than the basic solvent in homoeopathic preparations - he actually objected to these preparations being described as "content-free".

>>It was explained to him that the "content-free" designation referred specifically to ultramolar preparations, and he was repeatedly asked to state what he believed was in those preparations apart from the water/alcohol or lactose solvent.

>>He now says he has no idea. As we all suspected from the beginning (20th December, I seem to recall).

Ah, but an honest answer. I would remind you and your "Amen" chorus of pseudo-skeptics that I have never taken a position on homeopathy, except as a devil's advocate, and except, to point out, that if taking such preparations in place of some of the harmful treatments of Modern Medicine, then all to the good. I admit I do not understand nor comprenhend numbers that go to the trillionth degree. But nor do I fully understand how the Theory of Relativity works. In that same line of thinking, there seems to be some unfortunate evidence (unfortunate for skeptics) that homeopathy actually works.


See "Homeopathy Validated?

http://www.shareintl.org/archives/health-healing/hh_ebhomeo.html


But Science says it can't work, therefore it doesn't work. In other words, you just can't believe your own lyin' eyes.


>>So, what was the other question? Oh yes. How can you tell the difference between a bottle of the basic solvent which has been through an x-ray security camera and one which hasn't.

That still stands. It's the sample with the excess radio-activity.

Your'e Welcome. Again.


-- Rouser

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Rouser2

>>So, what was the other question? Oh yes. How can you tell the difference between a bottle of the basic solvent which has been through an x-ray security camera and one which hasn't.

That still stands. It's the sample with the excess radio-activity.



The list of things you don't understand is growing far faster than you realize.

[geni]

How about this lot? Homeopathy not looking so good is it?

CONCLUSIONS: This study provides no evidence that adjunctive homeopathic remedies, as prescribed by experienced homeopathic practitioners, are superior to placebo in improving the quality of life of children with mild to moderate asthma in addition to conventional treatment in primary care.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12668794&dopt=Abstract


CONCLUSION: Ultramolecular homeopathy had no observable clinical effects

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14651731&dopt=Abstract

A double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of a homeopathic treatment of neonatal calf diarrhoea was performed using 44 calves in 12 dairy herds. Calves with spontaneously derived diarrhoea were treated with either the homeopathic remedy Podophyllum (D30) (n = 24) or a placebo (n = 20). No clinically or statistically significant difference between the 2 groups was demonstrated. Calves treated with Podophyllum had an average of 3.1 days of diarrhoea compared with 2.9 days for the placebo group.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14650548&dopt=Abstract

We conclude that this systematic review does not provide clear evidence that the phenomenon of homeopathic aggravations exists.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12725251&dopt=Abstract

CONCLUSION: The effect of homeopathic treatment on mental symptoms of patients with generalized anxiety disorder did not differ from that of placebo. The improvement in both conditions was substantial. Improvement of such magnitude may account for the current belief in the efficacy of homeopathy and the current increase in the use of this practice.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12716269&dopt=Abstract

Swelling and use of analgesic medication also did not differ between arnica and placebo groups. Adverse events were reported by 2 patients in the arnica 6C group, 3 in the placebo group and 4 in the arnica 30C group. The results of this trial do not suggest that homeopathic arnica has an advantage over placebo in reducing postoperative pain, bruising and swelling in patients undergoing elective hand surgery.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12562974&dopt=Abstract

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by geni
I assume that ethyl alcohol is ethanol but my knowlage of 200 year old chemical names is limited. Yes, I think it is.

I don't know of any suggestion that Hahnemann even considered the possible problem of the stock solvent already being "contaminated" at homoeopathic levels. Possibly he believed the succussion to be so critical and so precise that it couldn't possibly happen by accident.

Of course he was very precise about how many times the solution had to be struck against a leather-covered book or pad to succuss it.On this point I will quote Hahnemann's own words. "A long experience and multiplied observations upon the sick lead me within the last few years to prefer giving only two shakes to medicinal liquids, whereas I formerly used to give ten." From the excellent essay by Oliver Wendell Holmes (http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/holmes.html), who didn't miss a trick in the homoeopathy-is-ludicrous debate, even in 1842.

So perhaps he simply assumed that without this exact procedure, anything would be inert. However, modern homoeopathic pharmacies mostly just use vortex mixers, I believe.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
I have never taken a position on homeopathy, except as a devil's advocate, and except, to point out, that if taking such preparations in place of some of the harmful treatments of Modern Medicine, then all to the good. I admit I do not understand nor comprenhend numbers that go to the trillionth degree. No, you specifically contested the statement that there was nothing but solvent in the ultramolar preparations. This has nothing to do with any claim of efficacy. It is simple fact, and it is a fact not contested by any homoeopath.

It might have saved a lot of debate if you'd simply taken the trouble to inform yourself about this fact before leaping to defend a clear fallacy.

The numbers are very easy to understand, so it does worry me that you say you can't comprehend this. BillHoyt's analogy with marbles explained it quite simply, and by expressing the dilutions as powers of 10 most people have no trouble following it. My 14 year old god-daughter asked me to explain it for her, while she was revising her school work, and she had no difficulty with it.

So, we're now clear that the ultramolar remedies, those which make up the vast majority of individualised homoeopathy prescriptions, have no physical content except the basic solvent. And before you ask, they have no measurable energy content, and no demonstrable structural difference from the native material either. There is no known way to differentiate these remedies from the basic solvent.

However, Rouser has now taken the debate to the previously unaddressed question of efficacy. Homoeopaths claim that these content-free preparations are effective. What is their evidence?

Mostly, repeated declarations that "I know it works", and recounting individual anecdotes of dramatic cures. However, I know from personal experience how easy it is to persuade yourself that a useless intervention has had a beneficial effect - this is why we must require proper trials to be sure we're not suffering from a bad case of wishful thinking.

Homoeopathy consistently fails these trials. If the dramatic results reported anecdotally were even close to the mark, homoeopathy should have no trouble demonstrating efficacy. But it can't do it. The dramatic cures vanish completely, and what we're left with is a lot of statistical optimisim at the borders of significance.

Yes, there are two or three papers in "respectable" journals which give some benefit of a great deal of doubt to homoeopathy. But better analyses of their data and further trials have revealed null effect.

I haven't a great deal of hope that Rouser will understand this, but I'll try. Analogy. How many groups of ten owners did you have to ask before you found the one in which 8 of them said their cats preferred Whiskas? Answer, maybe about 20. So, you chuck the other 19 in the bin and publish the one you like.

Homoeopaths do this a lot. In fact, even if there is no difference between two groups, one in every 20 studies will show a difference at the lowest level of statistical significance. In addition, if you do just one study, but measure 20 variables, you'll get one variable coming up significant. Keep trumpeting these findings, and you can make it look as if there's something there when there isn't.

The trouble is, when the exercise is repeated without suppressing any of the data sets, it transpires that it's all down to chance variation.

Not only that, but look also at the magnitude of the improvements being claimed. Anecdotally, recoveries are reported to be dramatic. But in the group trials, even the homoeopaths' favourites, the magnitude of the difference between the groups is tiny. A couple fewer coughs a day in the asthmatic children. The diarrhoea study they keep banging on about had the treated group with one less loose stool on day 4, but no difference from the control group on days 3 or 5. (Another way of looking at the data said that the homoeopathically treated group had their diarrhoea stop a couple of hours earlier on average than the control group, whereas a regular anti-diarrhoea medicine would have stopped it almost immediately, days earlier.)

Now, Geni has a nice line in actually posting the individual papers, with links to the abstracts and some salient sentences quoted for the edification of the masses. Pray continue, Geni.

Edited to add: I see Geni was "fastest finger first" here!

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

I see that Rouser's preferred homoeopathy vindication only refers to Reilly and Benveniste (and the usual stuff about the Queen being no less gullible than anyone else).

Reilly's stuff was the bit I mentioned above about a couple of coughs less per week in the treated group. Hardly worth the trouble of taking the pills, really. And the publication is 18 years old now. Not only has it never been replicated, it has been resoundingly trumped (see here (http://thorax.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/58/4/317)).

And Benveniste! His repeated claims that others had reproduced his findings all turned out to be untrue, the Nature investigation revealed simple operator bias as the explanation for the claimed effect (negated by proper blinding), and he has now completely left the realms of sanity with his digital biology (http://www.digibio.com/) ravings.

Come on, Rouser, you can do better than that! We're used to opponents who can at least cite Kleijnen et al (1991) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1825800&dopt=Abstract), Linde et al (1997) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9310601&dopt=Abstract&holding=f1000) and Cucherat et al (2000) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10853874&dopt=Abstract&holding=f1000) in support of their case.

Of course it's not worth bothering, as this is achieved only by quoting very selectively from these publications, and all that is required to blow the case out of the water is to quote the less favourable passages for a bit, but I'd expected that Rouser would at least have got that far.

Rolfe.

[The Don]

Originally posted by Prester John
Homeopathic geni said:


I can confirm this is true, shortly after ingesting sea water i have seen a number effects including coughing, gagging, cursing, and if a large volume is ingesting even vomiting.

Likewise Ethanol

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]

>>No, you specifically contested the statement that there was nothing but solvent in the ultramolar preparations.

I never even used the word. "Ultramolar" was your interpolation.

>>So, we're now clear that the ultramolar remedies, those which make up the vast majority of individualised homoeopathy prescriptions, have no physical content except the basic solvent.

No, I still don't think so. Those molecules have to go somewhere. Perhaps there is still one or two in the diluted sample. Nor do I know that such "ultramolar" remedies are the majority of homeopathic prescriptions. Excuse me, if I don't automatically take your word for it.

>>I haven't a great deal of hope that Rouser will understand this, but I'll try. Analogy. How many groups of ten owners did you have to ask before you found the one in which 8 of them said their cats preferred Whiskas? Answer, maybe about 20. So, you chuck the other 19 in the bin and publish the one you like.

Ah, yes. That I do INDEED understand. That is perhaps the most common form of statistical flim-flammery employed by the Pharmacological/Medical/industry complex.


-- Rouser

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]

>>And Benveniste! His repeated claims that others had reproduced his findings all turned out to be untrue, the Nature investigation revealed simple operator bias as the explanation for the claimed effect And Benveniste! His repeated claims that others had reproduced his findings all turned out to be untrue, the Nature investigation revealed simple operator bias as the explanation for the claimed effect


Funny how Nature Mag originally said that there were four replicated studies with the same positive result.

-- Rouser

[Zombified]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Funny how Nature Mag originally said that there were four replicated studies with the same positive result.I could find no such article. I found some contrary articles, not just editorials but studies which falsify homeopathic predictions. Would you be so kind as to cite the article more precisely?

Incidentally, X-rays do not leave any residual radiation. They are electromagnetic in nature. Of course, it doesn't matter, because what we need to know is how to determine whether the mixture is still potent, not whether it has been irradiated. How would you do that?

[Prester John]

Rouser said
No, I still don't think so. Those molecules have to go somewhere. Perhaps there is still one or two in the diluted sample. Nor do I know that such "ultramolar" remedies are the majority of homeopathic prescriptions. Excuse me, if I don't automatically take your word for it.
As if it needed proving, the lack of understandingis here again for all to see. The molecules Rouser, get left behind in the previous dilutions. Go check out a homeopathy website for the other. jeepers!

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
I never even used the word. "Ultramolar" was your interpolation.It was my clarification. Recognising that we had no disagreement about the "low-potency" remedies, I limited my question to the "high-potency" ones. Which make up the vast bulk of the prescriptions issued by homoeopaths treating individual cases, so it's impossible to consider homoeopathy as a discipline without addressing this fact.Originally posted by Rouser2
No, I still don't think so. Those molecules have to go somewhere. Perhaps there is still one or two in the diluted sample. Nor do I know that such "ultramolar" remedies are the majority of homeopathic prescriptions. Excuse me, if I don't automatically take your word for it.Sigh.

The molecules all went down the drain. The dilution factors these people employ quickly get you to the point where there is unlikely to be one molecule present in the preparation even if you had a container of it the size of the earth. They themselves understand this very well. They don't attempt to deny it. If you don't believe us, go ask them.

And at the same time you can find out for yourself what sort of "potencies" they are most commonly recommending. Remember, anything over 12C has NO molecules left in it. Or if you like, the chance of any one vial having even ONE molecule is very tiny indeed (less than one in several million). If you happened to get that vial, well, what about all the rest of the vials?

Try these places. You might fit in quite well, you never know.

Homeopathy Home (http://www.homeopathyhome.com/cgi-bin/bb/ultimatebb.cgi)

Homeopathy Forums (http://www.hpathy.com/FORUM/Default.asp)

Originally posted by Rouser2
Ah, yes. That I do INDEED understand. That is perhaps the most common form of statistical flim-flammery employed by the Pharmacological/Medical/industry complex.Well, if you understand, we don't have to explain it again.

However, Geni has already posted a fine collection of papers showing absolutely null effect of homoeopathy. And we've pointed out that even the papers the homoeopaths like to cite provide only the most half-hearted and conditional support.

Why do you prefer to believe the few, mostly old, (marginally) positive studies over the many, mostly newer, resoundingly negative ones? How many of either category have you actually read?

And if homoeopathy really is capable of producing the dramatic cures its proponents claim, can you explain why the effect simply goes away if anyone is watching?

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Zombified
Incidentally, X-rays do not leave any residual radiation. They are electromagnetic in nature. Of course, it doesn't matter, because what we need to know is how to determine whether the mixture is still potent, not whether it has been irradiated. How would you do that? Be fair, the challenge was to distinguish between a homoeopathic and a sham preparation, any way you like...... can the applicant differentiate between homeopathic and non-homeopathic materials? We'll accept positive results and the determination can be done by any means: chemical, physical, optical, biological (in vivo or in vitro), using infrared, ultraviolet, polarized, high-intensity, or pulsed light, conductivity or electrochemical means, Tarot cards, or a crystal ball.From the 22nd August 2003 Commentary (http://www.randi.org/jr/082203.html).

Randi then commented that as the homoeopaths themselves claimed that the remedies become ineffective if you put them through an x-ray scanner (though they themselves disagree about this (http://www.hpathy.com/FORUM/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=2&TopicID=808&PagePosition=1)), maybe x-rayed material would be a suitable control or sham.

Thinking about it, though, I think you must be right. It's the claim that the remedies have a biological action which is removed by x-raying that is the challenge, not whether you can simply determine that one lot has been through the scanner and the other hasn't.

Nevertheless, I suspect that might be nearly as hard. Certainly, going through a security x-ray machine doesn't render one's luggage radioactive!

Rolfe.

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Ah, but an honest answer. I would remind you and your "Amen" chorus of pseudo-skeptics that I have never taken a position on homeopathy, except as a devil's advocate...

The devil should fire you.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Rouser2

No, I still don't think so. Those molecules have to go somewhere. Perhaps there is still one or two in the diluted sample. Nor do I know that such "ultramolar" remedies are the majority of homeopathic prescriptions. Excuse me, if I don't automatically ...
That's right they "have to go somewhere." And wherever they went, they ain't in the other place. At some point, one of the two bottles gets none and the other bottle gets one. Do we at least agree to that?

[Suezoled]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat


The devil should fire you.

[hug] he's just so cuddly!

[BTox]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat


The devil should fire you.

A poster of few words... but they pack a punch! Good one. ;)

[BTox]

Originally posted by Rouser2
In that same line of thinking, there seems to be some unfortunate evidence (unfortunate for skeptics) that homeopathy actually works.


But Science says it can't work, therefore it doesn't work. In other words, you just can't believe your own lyin' eyes.



Sure there's some evidence homeopathy works, just like there is some evidence the moon is made of green cheese. There is, however, a preponderance of the evidence that it does not work any better than placebo, which agrees perfectly with what science would predict from a placebo treatment.

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]


>>Why do you prefer to believe the few, mostly old, (marginally) positive studies over the many, mostly newer, resoundingly negative ones?

Who said I believed them?


-- Rouser

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Zombified [/i]

>> I could find no such article. I found some contrary articles, not just editorials but studies which falsify homeopathic predictions. Would you be so kind as to cite the article more precisely?


Homeopathy validated?
by Edward V. Brown
A short history of homeopathy and a survey of research pointing to its validity.


"This research was first submitted to Nature in August 1987. Nature’s initial reaction was that the research was flawed. Before consenting to publish the research, Nature required that the results be repeated in separate laboratories. The study was replicated in five laboratories in four countries"

http://www.shareintl.org/archives/health-healing/hh_ebhomeo.html


-- Rouser

[Prester John]

Ah having your cake and eating it, i will argue the case but make it clear that even if proved wrong i didn't neccesarily believe what i was saying!
State your position then!

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Zombified [/i]

>>Incidentally, X-rays do not leave any residual radiation. They are electromagnetic in nature.

Incidently, you're full of it.

Q. Do your instruments measure x-rays?
A. Our Geiger counters detect x-rays, but may not be accurate in measuring the dose rate. This is because an x-ray is usually a short concentrated burst of radiation. A geiger counter measures by detecting individual ionizing events in its Geiger tube. The events during the X-ray usually occur so fast that the instrument cannot detect all of them, giving a reading that does not reflect the full amount of radiation. For a true dose rate, an ionization chamber would be required.

http://www.medcom.com/faq.htm#x


http://www.mineralab.com/Pocket.htm

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Who said I believed them?You did. Unless I'm completely misinterpreting this:.... there seems to be some unfortunate evidence (unfortunate for skeptics) that homeopathy actually works.

See "Homeopathy Validated?

http://www.shareintl.org/archives/health-healing/hh_ebhomeo.html

But Science says it can't work, therefore it doesn't work. In other words, you just can't believe your own lyin' eyes.This is some of the poorest quality evidence there is. And even so, look at the question mark. Even this one-sided gem ends with the remark:.... is homeopathy a delusion as is maintained by its detractors? The jury is still out....Actually, it's not so much that science says that homoeopathy can't work, as that science observes that homoeopathy doesn't work, and then remarks, "why am I surprised about that?"

If there is a demonstrable, verifiable effect, then science's job is to find out how it happens. By rewriting the accepted laws of the universe if need be. However, with homoeopathy there is no demonstrable, verifiable effect (only those alleged miracles which suddenly stop happening when anyone is looking), therefore science is under no obligation to explain anything. Nevertheless, we still observe that according to everything we know about how the universe behaves, based on our studies of effects which are demonstrable and verifiable, we would predict that homoeopathy would not be expected to work. Which accords exactly with our observations.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Before consenting to publish the research, Nature required that the results be repeated in separate laboratories. The study was replicated in five laboratories in four countriesTo the best of my knowledge, this is simply untrue. Forgive me for not simply taking the word of a homoeopathy proponent. Rouser, can you find the citation in Nature which refers to this replication?

Why do you believe lies like this without question, but accuse us of lying when we point to contrary evidence?

Edited to add: For the latest about replication, see here (http://www.ratbags.com/loon/mailbox/digibio.htm) in Benveniste's own words:Our experiments have been recently reproduced in a major American University and several labs in France. We should be launching momentarily the international replication by 10-15 other labs worldwide. However Mike should not state that the Karolinska has reproduced one of our previous technique. An attempt was made on a different biological system than ours and too many variables forced them to abandon the project. So, the name of this Institute must not be mentioned. Upon completion of the present replication job, a scientific report will be submitted to a major journal.This communication was dated 1999, over four years ago. Still no publication. Basically, he's lying. By the way, he sued someone else that said that, and lost the case.

There was no replication outside Benveniste's lab before the publication in Nature. And afterwards, lots of people tried and failed to replicate it, and claims (by Benveniste) that replication had been achieved turned out to be suspect to put it politely.

Madeleine Ennis is in a rather odd position, but she has never had anyone come into her lab to see how she got the results she claimed to have got - she's pretty coy about the whole thing.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Incidently, you're full of it.

Q. Do your instruments measure x-rays?
A. Our Geiger counters detect x-rays, but may not be accurate in measuring the dose rate. This is because an x-ray is usually a short concentrated burst of radiation. A geiger counter measures by detecting individual ionizing events in its Geiger tube. The events during the X-ray usually occur so fast that the instrument cannot detect all of them, giving a reading that does not reflect the full amount of radiation. For a true dose rate, an ionization chamber would be required.

http://www.medcom.com/faq.htm#x


http://www.mineralab.com/Pocket.htm Sigh, again. Rouser, how about you check what you're saying before you insult people with remarks like "you're full of it"?

These instruments you cite can measure x-rays. That is, if you put the instrument inside the scanner machine, it would pick up the radiation. If the machine was poorly shielded, you might pick something up from right beside it, while it was actually operating.

However, they will not be able to pick up any radiation from any object which has passed through the scanner, because such an object will not carry any residual radiation. Just as Zombified said.

Do you seriously think airports are using machines which make everybody's hand baggage radioactive? Have you any idea at all of the level of public outcry which would result if that were the case?

Rolfe.

[BillyJoe]

Rolfe,

I really admire your persistence. You will not have any effect on Rousser, as you no doubt know, but you have got him firmly by the balls for all to see - and it's quite fun too see actually considering the lies, abuse and insults he's hurled at other posters in the past. And we're all getting a good education about how to effectively refute the claims of homoeopathy. Well done.

BillyJoe.

[Zombified]

Originally posted by Rouser2
"This research was first submitted to Nature in August 1987. Nature’s initial reaction was that the research was flawed. Before consenting to publish the research, Nature required that the results be repeated in separate laboratories. The study was replicated in five laboratories in four countries"Ah, this. You know Randi himself was involved in debunking this foolishness, right?

One of the great things about science is that it is self-correcting. Error, whether honest mistake, primitive understanding, outright fraud, or utter nonsense, is eventually discovered and fixed.

Did you read what the page you linked me to had to say about concentrations? Is this not exactly what we've been trying to explain to you?

What do you think of Bieneviste's "memory" explanation?

(Edit to add postscript: regarding X-rays, "what Rolfe said.")

[Terry]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Originally posted by Zombified [/i]

>>Incidentally, X-rays do not leave any residual radiation. They are electromagnetic in nature.

Incidently, you're full of it.



No, actually you are. As the snippet you posted says, X-Rays are ionizing radiation. This means that they can affect the electrons of atoms (and can be detected by the canonical radiation detector, a Geiger counter). However, X-Rays do not have sufficient energy to affect the nucleii of atoms. In order to make something non-radioactive turn radioactive, you have to affect the nucleus. The most common cause of this is exposure to neutrons, although other particles can do it.

--Terry.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
You will not have any effect on Rousser, as you no doubt know, but you have got him firmly by the balls for all to see...He has balls?

I guess there's not much chance of having an effect on him. I usually reckon on no effect whatsoever on a homoeopathy proponent, but Rouser did fall over just the once - he went on and on about how the ultramolar remedies weren't content-free (based on a dictionary definition of homoeopathy about three lines long), but in the end had to admit he had no clue what's in them. OK, he still can't quite get his brain round it, but he might eventually get that one.

Paradoxically, he's such an unsophisticated arguer and so deeply ignorant (compared to the professional, veterinary homoeopaths I usually argue with), that there's a slightly better then usual chance of getting a couple of small steps down the way.

The rest? I doubt it. But it's not often that you get a homoeopathy proponent who is so ignorant about homoeopathy that you actually have to force him to acknowledge things which actual homoeopaths readily accept as fact. Which adds a bit of interest.

The real fun is to keep at it in such a way as to formulate the question clearly enough so that they can't argue round it, they can only play the flat denial or go away. We're getting quite a lot of the former, I expect the latter later in the year.

Rolfe.

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]

>>Do you seriously think airports are using machines which make everybody's hand baggage radioactive? Have you any idea at all of the level of public outcry which would result if that were the case?

The claim was that x-ray radiation could not be detected and further that no radiation is involved in x-rays. That claim is false. We are not talking about airport scanning devices, but an alleged challenge by Mr. Randi as to x-rayed samples of homeopathic remedies. If, for that purpose, an ionization chamber is required to measure the radiation, then presumably that does not compromise the integrity of the challenge.

-- Rouser

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]

>>Do you seriously think airports are using machines which make everybody's hand baggage radioactive? Have you any idea at all of the level of public outcry which would result if that were the case?

The claim was that x-ray radiation could not be detected and further that no radiation is involved in x-rays. That claim is false. We are not talking about airport scanning devices, but an alleged challenge by Mr. Randi as to x-rayed samples of homeopathic remedies. If, for that purpose, an ionization chamber is required to measure the radiation, then presumably that does not compromise the integrity of the challenge.

-- Rouser

Lies. Can you quote where anybody has claimed on this thread that x-ray radiation cannot be detected or that no radiation is involved in x-rays? (The answer is no, but it would do something for your incredibly battered credibility to admit that you just made this up).

On the other hand do you remember this exchange?

">>So, what was the other question? Oh yes. How can you tell the difference between a bottle of the basic solvent which has been through an x-ray security camera and one which hasn't.

That still stands. It's the sample with the excess radio-activity."

Your claim is that a sample that has been through an x-ray security camera is more radio-active than one which has not. You do recognize that there is nothing in either of the links quoted by you that supports this don't you?

Hear are a couple of websites that specifically state that specifically address the point:

http://www.hormel.com/cm/templates/kitchen/knowledge.asp?articleid=381&zoneid=57

"Yes. In fact, many people compare food irradiation to an airport x-ray machine; the x-rays do not make your suitcase radioactive or change its look or feel."

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/anthraxkilling011017.html

"Many people are concerned about safety when they hear the term irradiation. One fear is that the food itself will become radioactive. According to the Food and Drug Administration, "Irradiation does not make foods radioactive, just as an airport luggage scanner does not make luggage radioactive.""

http://www.nin.ca/public_html/Publications/HealthyBites/hb3_92en.html

"Q. Does the process make food radioactive?
A. No, because of the source of radiation and the level of energy used. Just as people who are exposed to x-rays or luggage that goes through the security scan at the airport do not become radioactive, neither does food that is exposed to radiation"

ucce.ucdavis.edu/counties/ceplacernevada/newsletterfiles/ Foodlines_for_Professionals2416.pdf

"It doesn't make food radioactive. Many common items such as cotton balls, adhesive bandages and baby bottles are irradiated to kill bacteria. None is made radioactive, just as airport security X-rays don't make luggage radioactive. "

[Prester John]

Next from Rouser: Perpetual Motion machines, all you need are a couple of magnets.

Rouser the man for who the laws of Physics do not apply!

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Jaggy Bunnet [/i]


>>Hear are a couple of websites that specifically state that specifically address the point:


It addresses irradiation for food, not x-rays. It claims they are like airport x-rays in that it leaves no radiation residue. You'll have to inform the geiger counter web sites which I have cited that their x-ray dectection machines won't work.


-- Rouser

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
The claim was that x-ray radiation could not be detected and further that no radiation is involved in x-rays. That claim is false. We are not talking about airport scanning devices, but an alleged challenge by Mr. Randi as to x-rayed samples of homeopathic remedies. If, for that purpose, an ionization chamber is required to measure the radiation, then presumably that does not compromise the integrity of the challenge.:dl:

I've seen moving goal-posts before, but this is ridiculous.

Rouser, please quote the passage from anyone at all on this forum, or from the Swift commentary, which you interpret as claiming that x-ray radiation cannot be detected, and that x-rays do not involve radiation. X-rays are part of the EM spectrum and can be detected with great ease.

The basic challenge regarding homoeopathy is:.... can the applicant differentiate between homeopathic and non-homeopathic materials? .... the determination can be done by any means: chemical, physical, optical, biological (in vivo or in vitro), using infrared, ultraviolet, polarized, high-intensity, or pulsed light, conductivity or electrochemical means, Tarot cards, or a crystal ball.Seems simple enough to me. A homoeopathic proving should do it easily, according to the theory. But of course there is no homoeopath who either believes that the million dollars exists, or who wants the money if it does.

The specific reference to x-rays was raised by the statements:Try not to put homeopathic remedies through airport security x-rays as it will render their healing properties less effective. .... You can protect them by using a lightweight lead-lined bag of the type sold for photographic films, or carrying them in your pocket.This was taken verbatim from homoeopathic sources. Yes, airport scanning devices is exactly what we're talking about, Rouser, right from the start.

Randi's take on this information was to say:Now, in view of this newest technological breakthrough — which says that x-rays will lessen the homeopathic qualities — and assuming that a very heavy dose of x-ray treatment would effectively cancel out any such qualities — I propose that a control batch of water (bottles of already-packaged product, exposed to heavy x-rays) be mixed with non-radiated samples, and presented to an applicant, to be sorted out.This is just an additional wrinkle - rather than using the stock solvent as the control, it is suggested that x-irradiated "remedies" be used.

There's nothing there about detecting x-rays. Of course x-rays can be detected. Pretty useless they'd be if they couldn't, after all. Rouser has pointed out that they will register on a Geiger counter, but the usual detection device is photographic film.

This is about sorting out which bottles have been through an airport security scanner (or perhaps a stronger source of x-rays), and which haven't. Always has been about that.

And in fact it's just a special case of the basic homoeopathic challenge, which is simply to tell an ultramolar homoeopathic preparation from the stock solvent, any way you like.

$1,000,000 for the first person who can do that.

Rolfe.

[Prester John]

It addresses irradiation for food, not x-rays. It claims they are like airport x-rays in that it leaves no radiation residue. You'll have to inform the geiger counter web sites which I have cited that their x-ray dectection machines won't work.

You really have missed the point haven't you.

I declare that Rouser has no scientific or comprhension ability whatsoever. I put this thread forward, esp the ultramolecular and x-ray discussions that have occured as evidence.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
You'll have to inform the geiger counter web sites which I have cited that their x-ray dectection machines won't work.Of course they work. Even a photographic film will detect x-rays, you idiot!

We're not talking about detecting x-rays. We never have been.

We're talking about a batch of bottles containing water/alcohol or lactose, and putting some of them through an airport security scanner. Then you are given all the bottles and have to tell which went through the scanner and which didn't. Any way you like.

Neither a Geiger counter nor a piece of photographic film will be the slightest help to you there. And the manufacturers of the Geiger counters will cheerfully confirm this.

Rolfe.

[BTox]

Originally posted by Prester John


You really have missed the point haven't you.

I declare that Rouser has no scientific or comprhension ability whatsoever. I put this thread forward, esp the ultramolecular and x-ray discussions that have occured as evidence.

Just pick any rouser post at random - provides all the evidence that he knows nothing about these topics that you need!

[Zombified]

Originally posted by Rouser2
It addresses irradiation for food, not x-rays. It claims they are like airport x-rays in that it leaves no radiation residue. You'll have to inform the geiger counter web sites which I have cited that their x-ray dectection machines won't work.Rouser, here's a hypothetical situation. I have two bottles of water. I shine a bright flashlight at one. I bring you both bottles of water and tell you to detect which one has had a flashlight shined at it.

You aren't allowed, by your own claim, to say you can't tell, because of course I can see the light from my flashlight so the light is clearly detectable.

This hypothetical situation is *exactly* analogous to what you are claiming about X-rays. In fact, all I've done is change the wavelength of the radiation.

[Eos of the Eons]

Someone should post all the examples of radiation for Rouser so he can put on a tin foil beanie to protect himself from the whole entire world.

Some are:
oven
microwave
lights
fire
sun
x-rays
any other heat source
etc etc etc

I bet he believes irradating food makes it contaminated with 'radiation' and will make it 'mutate'.

Now, stay in the sun, oven, microwave, etc. long enough and you will suffer the consequences. Being warmed a bit won't hurt you.

Now can someone explain radiation poisoning and why it occurs. I don't think I can explain it well enough. Then maybe the ignorant here will be able to sift out what is harmful and why, and what is not and why. I don't they will get it still, but at least we'll have a good reference as to why they should get it, but don't.


I mean, food gets warmed, but always cools. Cooked food won't revert back to it's uncooked state, but that doesn't mean it will poison us all.

[Zombified]

Originally posted by Eos of the Eons
Now can someone explain radiation poisoning and why it occurs. I don't think I can explain it well enough. Then maybe the ignorant here will be able to sift out what is harmful and why, and what is not and why.I can't claim to be authoritative, but this is my understanding. What people generally call "radiation" includes a couple of different things.

Technically, radiation consists of fast-moving subatomic particles. The particles involved in all of the examples in this thread are all photons. Light, microwaves, radio, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays are all electromagnetic radiation.

Other kinds of particles also count as radiation: electrons (aka beta radiation), neutrons, protons, even helium nuclei (alpha particles).

Colloquially, people sometimes also use "radiation" when what they really mean is a radioactive substance. A radioactive substance is a material that emits radiation.

Returning to electromagnetic radiation for a moment, there are roughly speaking two variables of interest: the energy of an individual particle, and the total intensity or rate of particles. (In wave terms, the frequency and amplitude of the EM waves, respectively.)

Radiation can affect materials (including people) thermally, by ionizing atoms, and by interacting with nuclei.

Thermal interactions result from elastic collisions between atoms and the incoming radiation. In these cases, the individual particles of the radiation do not have enough energy to damage an atom or molecule, but do knock it around. When you are being warmed by a heat lamp (electromagnetic radiation) this is what is happening.

Generally, the amount of heating is just the total energy of the radiation, assuming its all absorbed. Some molecules absorb some frequencies of radiation better than others, because they have mechanical resonances. The classic example is your microwave oven, which is tuned to a resonance of the water molecule.

The primary way most radiation damages people (and other things) is by ionizing atoms. Ionization knocks an electron away from an atom or molecule, giving it a net charge and causing it to become chemically active. A chemical reaction can occur, altering the molecule. If this molecule is, say, a DNA sequence, you've now altered the DNA code.

Different atoms and molecules require different amounts of energy in order to become ionized. To ionize something, you need a photon (or another particle) with enough energy to knock the electron out. Thus, in general, radiation with more energy per particle is more destructive than radiation with lower per-particle energy, because there are more things it can ionize. Ultraviolet damages more kinds of molecules than visible light, because the energy per photon is higher. X-rays damage even more because they have significantly more energy.

Very high energy radiation, such as gamma rays, can damage the nucleus itself, by interacting with a proton or neutron in the atom. The resultant atom might be unstable. In this case, the atom becomes a radioactive substance that will emit more radiation later, and it will be ionized as well.

Although the energies required to interact with the nucleus vary from atom to atom, the general rule of thumb is that if it has enough energy to affect the nucleus, its a gamma ray. If it has less, it's an X-ray (or lower).

Of course, the more particles you have, the more often this damage will occur, so the amount of damage will also be proportional to the intensity of the radiation and how long something is exposed to it.

I'm leaving out a few other modes like neutron capture or positron-electron annihilation, but eventually the effect on an atom resembles one of the three basic cases: an atom gets knocked around, it loses an electron, or its nucleus changes.

Radioactive substances themselves are of course dangerous, because they emit radiation. Basically, radioactive substances will emit gamma rays (photons emitted by a nucleus with excess energy), beta rays (electrons) and alpha particles (helium nuclei).

A radioactive atom resembles any other atom chemically. If your body can make chemical use of a radioactive atom, it might just keep it around in your body. That's bad, because when the nucleus decays, it will shoot a particle through your body.

Gamma rays can of course ionize any atom in your body. Beta rays are less penetrating, but because they also change a neutron into a proton they leave the atom they came from in an ionized state. Also, the atom is now a different chemical and can no longer do the same job it did before. The same applies to alpha particles.

One of the more biologically dangerous radioactive isotopes is Iodine-131. Iodine-131 has a half-life of around 10 days, and Iodine is also stored long-term in the body in your thyroid gland. If you get a dose of I131 your thyroid will soak it up and use it to make thyroid hormones. But within a few weeks, most of it will have emitted radiation. This can result in a thyroid cancer. Thyroid cancers often occur among people who have been exposed to radioactive fallout or waste, including "downwinders," people who claim to have cancer caused by nuclear tests during the cold war.

Ironically enough, one treatment for thyroid cancer is *more* I131... because the cancer tissue is usually hyperactive, it will soak up lots of iodine, and the radiation will (hopefully) kill the cancer cells. Because most iodine ends up in the thyroid, I131 is actually a very targeted therapy for thyroid cancer. I131 is also used to treat hyperthyroid cats.

If you are paranoid, keep some iodine water treatment pills handy, or some iodized salt, in case of a nuclear bomb going off. If your thyroid has plenty of iodine it won't absorb as much I131. Of course, you must also make sure your thyroid gland has plenty of iodine when you are growing up, or you end up like Rouser.

Edit to add: should I apologize for major thread drift? Rouser seems to have given up on the concentration issue since the link he himself posted confirms what we've all be trying to tell him.

[Eos of the Eons]

Yeah, Rouser just keeps throwing more ignorance on top of ignorance. First it was homeopathic claims, now onto this.

I only hope Rouser does eventually learn something. At least others reading all this will for the most part. I'm finding posts like yours highly educational Zombified.


This radiation stuff can make up its own thread. A few threads have been spawned from this one.

It just goes to show what types and how much misinformation people are carrying around in their brains. It then gets spread around like a disease.

In this case the response is treating misinformation with information, and not the homeopath response of treating misinformation with more misinformation.

-Eos

[geni]

Originally posted by Eos of the Eons

In this case the response is treating misinformation with information, and not the homeopath response of treating misinformation with more misinformation.


That is not homeopathy. That is isopathy. In homeopathy like cures like not same cures same. So the homeopathic cure for misinformation would be fox news (ok maybe that is still is isopathy but you get my drift).

[Eos of the Eons]

That is isopathy. In homeopathy like cures like not same cures same


Okay, now I really don't know the difference, thanks for the confusion geni :p So, fox is a diluted form of misinformation?:confused:

[geni]

Originally posted by Eos of the Eons



Okay, now I really don't know the difference, thanks for the confusion geni :p

Good you are now ready to sighn up for your first course of homeopathic treatments. Stating with a one hour session costing a mere US$300
So, fox is a diluted form of misinformation? :confused:
No fox news is very like a form of misinformation (enjoy your kids before they become cynical it happens so fast these days)

To put it simply if someone had mecry poisening to give them mecury at 30C would be isopathy. Homeopathy would involve giving them say lead at 30C.

[Zombified]

Rouser is more like a vaccine: a mostly harmless irritant that results in an immune response which will prove useful against more serious adversaries. :-)

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by geni
To put it simply, if someone had mecury poisoning, to give them mercury at 30C would be isopathy. Homeopathy would involve giving them, say, lead at 30C. The funny thing is, when we asked Rouser to name one homoeopathic preparation so he could state what it contained, he named homoeopathic DTP vaccine. Used to treat the alleged adverse effects of DTP vaccine.

I said at the time this was an odd choice because it was isopathy, not homoeopathy, but he didn't seem to understand the remark. Like he doesn't seem to understand any of our remarks, I suppose.

Rolfe.

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]


>>Of course x-rays can be detected. Pretty useless they'd be if they couldn't,


Thank you.That was my entire point.


-- Rouser

[geni]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Originally posted by Rolfe [/i]


Thank you.That was my entire point.


How excatly does you point help you tell the difference between a remedy that has been through an airport scanner and one that has not?

[Rolfe]

To add a bit to what Zombified said (though he clearly knows more about it than I do), the reason for the particular signs of acute radiation poisoning is the different rates at which cells of different tissues divide.

Some tissues, once mature, don't have much cell division going on. However, others rely on almost constant renewal of cells. Examples are hair follicles growing hair constantly, the constant replacement of the cells of the mucuos membrane lining the gut, and the bone marrow cells constantly producing new blood cells. If the DNA of the dividing tissues is damaged, these tissues are in pretty deep trouble pretty quick.

This is why radiation poisoning shows up as hair falling out, anaemia, fever and bleeding (as a result of lack of red cells, white cells and platelets), and ulcers on the mouth and in the gut.

If you survive this, however, you face the likelihood that damage to the DNA of the seldom-dividing tissues will later surface as malignant transformation of some of these cells - otherwise known as cancer.

However, I'm not aware of anything a dose of x-rays could do to a bottle of water/alcohol or lactose which whould show up in any comparable manner - certainly not an airport security scanner, and I don't think a larger dose would do anything detectable to these things either.

To go back to Zombified's other analogy. Here, Zombified, I have two sheets of cheap newsprint. I leave one on the window sill in the sun for a week, the other I keep in a dark cupboard. Can you tell me which is which? Of course you could, because that amount of sunlight causes a chemical change in cheap paper, and it changes colour. However, if I'd specified two sheets of clear glass instead of the newsprint, you couldn't, because sunlight doesn't cause changes in glass, at that intensity.

Same with x-rays. Some substances will undergo chemical change as a result of exposure to the radiation. DNA is one of them. Glass, water/alcohol and lactose don't, so I don't see how you could tell which batch had been irradiated and which couldn't.

Anyway, even substances which undergo a chemical change on exposure to x-rays do not become radioactive.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Rouser2
>>Of course x-rays can be detected. Pretty useless they'd be if they couldn't,

Thank you.That was my entire point.Rouser, nobody is asking you to detect x-rays.

You are being asked to sort out which bottles of water/alcohol or lactose have been put through an x-ray machine, and which haven't.

How do you propose to do this?

Hint: the machine emits x-rays, but the bottles which have been through the machine don't.

Rolfe.

[Zombified]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Hint: the machine emits x-rays, but the bottles which have been through the machine don't.Maybe we take for granted something that isn't necessarily obvious to everyone: when a material absorbs photons, that does not mean that it those photons are soaked into the material unchanged only to be released later on. Instead, the energy is absorbed and converted into some other form, commonly the kinetic energy of either an atom or molecule (if it has a heating effect) or an electron (if the ray ionizes an atom). The original photon is gone (or at least it has a much lower energy).

To get more radiation out of the material the interaction has to cause something in the material, a nucleus, to be unstable, after which a completely new particle may be radiated. Again, for photons, you need gamma rays to get this effect, and even for gamma rays, many will happen to interact with electrons instead of nuclei.

While I have some familiarity with particle physics, I am not as familiar with the biological effects of radiation, except for a few facts gleaned from the medical experiences of a couple of relatives.

For the sake of clarity and full disclosure...

[geni]

Originally posted by Rolfe


Same with x-rays. Some substances will undergo chemical change as a result of exposure to the radiation. DNA is one of them. Glass, water/alcohol and lactose don't, so I don't see how you could tell which batch had been irradiated and which couldn't.


Let me chose the type of radition and I can cause chemical change in anything. I think you ment to say that Glass, water/alcohol and lactose are not effected by low level radition x ray radition of the type found in airport scanners.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Zombified
Maybe we take for granted something that isn't necessarily obvious to everyone: when a material absorbs photons, that does not mean that it those photons are soaked into the material unchanged only to be released later on.Precisely. It produces some heat, but such a small amount that by the time I have given the bottles to Rouser there is no thermometer on the planet is going to be able to detect it.

Anyway, he wanted to use a Geiger counter.

Rouser, the bottles have been given to you. Apart from their serial numbers, they are identical. Half have been x-rayed, the other half have not. How do you propose to tell which is which?

No, the ones which have been x-rayed will not be radioactive.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by geni
Let me chose the type of radition and I can cause chemical change in anything. I think you ment to say that Glass, water/alcohol and lactose are not effected by low level radition x ray radition of the type found in airport scanners. Indeed, that's what I meant - it was sort of the point of the stuff about the newsprint and the sunny windowsill.

In fact this is just a silly side-show. The real question is, can anyone tell the difference between a homoeopathically-prepared preparation (ultramolar) and the stock solvent bottle. Any way they like.

But perhaps we can get back to that once Rouser understands that x-rayed materials do not emit x-rays once they have left the x-ray machine.

Rolfe.

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Originally posted by Rouser2
Originally posted by Jaggy Bunnet [/i]


>>Hear are a couple of websites that specifically state that specifically address the point:


It addresses irradiation for food, not x-rays. It claims they are like airport x-rays in that it leaves no radiation residue. You'll have to inform the geiger counter web sites which I have cited that their x-ray dectection machines won't work.


-- Rouser

They refer specifically to the fact that airport x-ray machines do not make your luggage radioactive. I.e. they directly contradict your claim.

You still continue to spread your lies about what the geiger counter websites you cited claim. They can detect x-rays, not substances that have previously been exposed to x-rays. Nobody has ever disputed that x-rays can be detected (I assume you accept this as you have twice been asked to provide evidence of anyone having claimed this and failed to do so?).

Try thinking about it by analogy. There is a completely sealed room. You have a light detector. If you are inside the room, it is easy to determine whether or not the light is on at a specific time. (This is what the geiger counter websites claim to be able to do).

You turn the light off and leave the room at 5 to midnight and I flick one of two switches - one turns the light in the room on and one does nothing. Neither of us knows which does what. At 5 past midnight, the mains switch is cut to turn of all electricity to the room. You reenter the room the next morning. Your claim is that you can detect whether the light was on or off at midnight using your light detector. (This is NOT what the geiger counter websites claim ot be able to do.)

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Rolfe
But perhaps we can get back to that once Rouser understands that x-rayed materials do not emit x-rays once they have left the x-ray machine.

Rolfe.

And once Rouser understands:
o the JREF challenge has nothing to do with x-rays and homeopathic nostrums, and

o that there are no molecules left after a certain dilution level, and


...never mind.