More Fun with Homeopath Dana Ullman, MPH(!)

[Mojo]

Surely you can not be blaming homeopathy for an act of God?


The "act of God" followed the homoeopathic treatment. If you're going to be consistent in your application of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, this means that the treatment caused the "act of God".

I hope you're not going to object that there is no known mechanism by which the treatment could have caused the storm.

[manioberoi]

Can you be specific as to which "god" you are referring to, and give evidence that it was this "god" versus the homeopathic treatment that caused the problems?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_God
Act of God or act of nature is a legal term[1] for events outside of human control, such as sudden floods or other natural disasters, for which no one can be held responsible.

[manioberoi]

The "act of God" followed the homoeopathic treatment. If you're going to be consistent in your application of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, this means that the treatment caused the "act of God".

I hope you're not going to object that there is no known mechanism by which the treatment could have caused the storm.
lol

[Mojo]

lol


On what basis can you take credit for positive outcomes that follow homoeopathic treatment, but claim that negative outcomes are nothing to do with it?

[Mojo]

manioberoi, you seem to be conceding that the fact that one event followed another does not necessarily mean that the first event caused the second.

How would you go about establishing that the homoeopathic treatment did not cause the storm?

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_God
Act of God or act of nature is a legal term[1] for events outside of human control, such as sudden floods or other natural disasters, for which no one can be held responsible.


Manioberoi,

Why is it that you keep weaselling out of answering this question;

Which do you want to admit, either homeopathy is scientifically testable or your entire clincal case record must be ignored? There is no third option. Which do you want to choose?

At the moment there is exactly the same quality of evidence to say that homeopathy caused those weather events as there is to say it "cured" patients.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Here you are manioberoi. Not only does homeopathy cause storms it also causes car crashes involving people not even taking the remedies.

http://www.hominf.org/rubber/rubframe.htm

"During the 7th week of the proving there were 2 car crashes outside my house. I have lived here over 4 years and have never seen one before"

See what you are meddling with once you start unleashing the Cosmic Power of "energy medicines".

Now, surely you are not going to deny homeopathy's responsibility for those car crashes!!! It is dangerous stuff and its use should be stamped out.

[MRC_Hans]

#1 of course!So, homeopathic treatment makes an observable difference.

Then it will be easily testable by a double-blind trial.

Thank you.

Hans

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

So, homeopathic treatment makes an observable difference.

Then it will be easily testable by a double-blind trial.

Thank you.

Hans

So, manioberoi, your entire clincal case record must be ignored.

Are you also happy to agree with that?

[kieran]

I'd like to slightly rephrase BSM's question (in order to make it VERY clear and simple):

1) Do you claim that homeopathic treatment can make an observable difference for the patient?

2) Do you claim that homeopathic treatment can NOT make an observable difference for the patient?

Now, no diversions, no nonsense, no hand-waving. Answer the question, do you choose #1 or #2?

Hans

#1 of course!
Thank you for responding to the direct question with a direct answer. :)

There is no inconsistency.
I said keep in mind the observations in the study ref to in #738- I did not altogether rule out double blinding - only if the double blinding hampers the second or subsequent remedy selection would this become an issue.

One of us is being slow here ... we may have to resort to dictionary definitions of "inconsistency". :(

You said:

Your fetish for chemical/physical tests of the homeopathic remedies(placebo), double blinding / controls & c is all very well for conventional drug treatment efficacy - however homeopathy does not operate on the principles of conventional drugs.
What was the point of the word however there? To the vast majority of the forum population, this wording will suggest that the listed "double blinding / controls & c" are outside the principles homoeopathy - why else would you put a list of items and then a "however" if not to exclude them. Please clarify exacly what you were trying to say if you weren't saying that "double blinding / controls & c" were not applicable to homoeopathy. Then tell us why that isn't "inconsistent" with your claim that homoeopathy produces an observable effect on the patient. :confused:

If you weren't actually making a point with your "however" sentence, then please acknowledge the fact and try not to insert un-necessary and misleading noise into your posts. :o

We got past your waffle about "second or subsequent remedy selection" in the previous test protocols we discussed - you even said you were happy with the structure of those tests at the time - so there is no need to keep going back to it like it is some kind of obstacle to us here. :rolleyes:

[krazyKemist]

This is boring.

Where's Ullman ? I want to discuss "epitaxy" and thermodynamics.

the Kemist

[JamesGully]

It is sweet to know that I am missed...

I couldn't help but notice that Linda posted 3 links to replicated studies on the homeopathic treatment of influenza, and yet, no one here has the courage to acknowledge that these studies have confirmed the efficacy of a homeopathic medicine (Oscillococcinum) in the treatment of the flu. While I appreciated Linda's references, I couldn't help but notice that she provided NO positive words about the body of replicated studies (from 3 independent groups of researchers).

This is a common pattern here: You nitpick any (!) possible and even extremely minor problem with a clinical trial and make it seem that ANY minor problem is worthy enough to throw out the entire trial's information. Everyone here does all they can to NEVER acknowledge anything potentially positive about a trial testing homeopathy, unless it had a negative outcome.

Someone referred to Orac's critique of the CHEST study, and yet, this critique was so weak that it was surprising that CHEST chose to publish his "letter to the editor." However, because the authors replied to him (and blew his weak critique out of the water), I was pleased to see this in print. And yet, no one here acknowledged the incredible weakness of Orac's analysis.

You cannot have it both ways: you cannot be intellectually honest by applying your analysis to critique homeopathy unless you apply a similar level of analysis to the critique of the critique.

I just want some intellectual honesty...and sadly, I'm not getting it at this site.

[JamesGully]

Speaking of intellectual dishonesty, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes won the prize for this in the 19th century. Although skeptics of homeopathy at that time and even today (!) consider Dr. Holmes' book to be one of the strongest critiques of homeopathy ever written, I will be curious what the seemingly smart and seemingly hyper-vigilent participants at this site will say about his knowledge of and criticisms about homeopathy.

It is more than a tad ironic that you "defenders of the scientific paradigm" maintain such an unscientific attitude towards homeopathy. This is not a homeopathic dose of chutzpah...it is a very crude dose of it...read for yourself...


Oliver Wendell Holmes and His Attack on Homeopathy

The most famous anti-homeopathy book written in the 19th century was by Oliver Wendell Holmes, MD (1809-1894). Called Homoeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions, this book was written just six years after Dr. Holmes graduated from medical school. Before Holmes went to medical school, he authored a famous poem in 1830 called Old Ironside as well as two articles in 1832 and 1833 entitled Autocrat at the Breakfast Table (published in The Atlantic Monthly), which gave him a national reputation as a leading American writer and scholar.

Although Holmes had become a professor at Harvard Medical School and although he was a respected poet and author, he actually had very little direct experience practicing medicine before he wrote this attack on homeopathy. Dr. Holmes’ essay on homeopathy gained a lot of attention, and this book today is commonly referred to as a “strong” critique of homeopathy. However, this book should actually be a significant embarrassment to its author and to those who are seriously antagonistic to homeopathy because it is so full of obvious errors of fact, which authors today still quote as though this book was factual.

It is amazing to note, first, that Dr. Holmes wrote that the one physician who typifies the good American medical thinking and practice of that time was Benjamin Rush, MD (1745-1813), a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the surgeon general of the Continental Army. Dr. Rush was one of the leading advocates of “heroic medicine,” that is, the frequent and aggressive use of including bloodletting, intestinal purging (with mercury), vomiting (with the caustic agent tartar emetic), and blistering of the skin.

Dr. Rush recommended bloodletting for virtually every patient, and he considered it quackery if a physician did not bloodlet his patients. He even once boasted that he had drawn enough blood to float a 74-gun man-of-war ship (Transactions, 1882).

Rush was also an advocate of forced psychiatric treatment, which in part explains why his portrait is on the emblem of the American Psychiatric Association. One of Rush's favorite methods of treatment was to tie a patient to a wooden board and rapidly spin it until significant amounts of blood flowed to the head. He placed his own son in one of his insane asylum hospitals for 27 years until he died. Rush also believed that being black was a hereditary illness which he referred to as “negroidism.”

In addition to Dr. Holmes’ glorification of Dr. Rush’s heroic medicine, Holmes had the audacity to say that homeopathic medicine is “barbaric” because it uses various snake venoms (p. x). This statement is more than a tad ironic when you consider that one of Dr. Holmes’ most famous quotes was his own critique of conventional medical drugs when he said, “I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica (materials of medicine), as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind,--and all the worse for the fishes” (Holmes, 1860).

Dr. Holmes’ primary attack was on the extremely small doses that are used in homeopathic medicine. However, Dr. Holmes had seemingly never read a single book on homeopathy or had any meaningful dialogue with a homeopath because he committed a classic error of calculation. When a homeopathic pharmacy makes a medicine, they take one part of the original substance and dilute it in nine or 99 parts water (considered a 1:10 or 1:100 dilution); the glass bottle is then vigorously shaken approximately 40 times, and then, the medicinal solution is again diluted 1:10 or 1:100. Ultimately, to make a homeopathic medicine to the 30X or 30C (“X” is a Roman numeral for 10, and “C” means 100; the letter next to the number refers to the type of dilution), the total amount of water needed is 30 test tubes of water (considerably less than a simple gallon of water).

However, Dr. Holmes got his calculations confused, and he incorrectly assumed that the homeopathic manufacturer had to have 10 times or 100 times more water than in the previous dilution. Dr. Holmes estimated that the 9th dilution would require ten billion gallons of water and the 17th dilution required a quantity equal to 10,000 Adriatic seas. Dr. Holmes could have easily corrected his error if he had simply gone into one homeopathic pharmacy or had a simple short conversation with a homeopath. Sadly and strangely, Dr. Holmes and other conventional doctors of that age prided themselves on never talking with a homeopath. What is even more ironic is that Dr. Holmes arranged for the reprinting of this article in various books from 1842 to 1891 without changing a single word, despite this and numerous other errors of fact in his work.

Dr. Holmes explained in his book that the growth of homeopathy was primarily because conventional physicians tended to over-medicate their patients, even though Holmes later wrote that the public itself “insists on being poisoned” (Holmes, 1860, 186).

Dr. Holmes also attempted to “prove” that homeopathic medicines do not work by quoting a “scientific study.” To do this, Holmes referenced a “study” by a Dr. Gabriel Andral, professor of medicine in the School of Paris. Holmes referred to Andral “a man of great kindness of character…of unquestioned integrity.” Holmes reported on Andral’s experiment on 130-140 patients using homeopathic medicines, and Holmes quoted Andral saying, “not one of them did it have the slightest influence” (Holmes, 1842, 80).

Although Dr. Holmes and others have asserted that Andral’s experiment provided strong evidence for disproving homeopathy, it must be noted that later in his life, Andral himself acknowledged the serious problems in his study. Although Andral claimed to have used Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura as his guide, he neglected to mention at the time that the book was in German and that he could not read German. One other book by Hahnemann was translated into French at the time of this study, but Andral did not prescribe any of the 22 homeopathic medicines in this book for any patients in his study. Even Andral’s assistant for this study acknowledged that Andral did not know how to select homeopathic medicines for patients and that he “excuses his ignorance by saying it was unavoidable” (Dean, 2004, 112).

Additional evidence of Andral’s complete ignorance of homeopathy was revealed in a review of each of his prescriptions and his use of dosages. He never prescribed any homeopathic medicines for any patient’s unique syndrome of symptoms. Instead, he selected a single symptom of his own idiosyncratic choosing and then guessed at the medicine for it. For instance, his prescriptions of Arnica for one woman with painful menstruation and for one man with tuberculosis were guesses that were not based on any homeopathic textbook. Further, 75% of the patients were given just one dose of one remedy without any follow-up remedy (Irvine, 1844). If patients were not immediately cured by this one dose, he considered homeopathy a failure and then referred the patient for conventional medical treatment.
Andral later asserted that he had never formally granted anyone permission to publish his report on homeopathy, and further, by 1852 he had changed his mind about homeopathy and asserted that it deserved the closest examination by every physician (Dean, 2004, 112). Despite these facts, Dr. Holmes never changed a word of his essay on homeopathy to avoid misinformation.

When you consider that this book by Dr. Holmes was considered the best critique of homeopathy written in the 19th century, one must rightfully acknowledge that serious or sophisticated criticism of homeopathy at this time was neither rational nor accurate.

In 1861, Dr. Holmes finally confessed that homeopathy “has taught us a lesson of the healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us have made proper acknowledgements” (Holmes, 1891, x, xiii-xiv). However, he still never instructed his publisher to change a word of his previous writings on homeopathy.

[Cuddles]

He's back! Yay! We can start playing again!

OK, first question. What the hell did that post have to do with anything? Seriously, no-one here has mentioned a book over 100 years old as proof of anything. I take it this means you have nothing to say about all the criticism actually presented in this thread? Kind of sad that the best you can do is attack something written by a dead guy over a century ago really.

[Pipirr]

He's back! Yay! We can start playing again!

OK, first question. What the hell did that post have to do with anything? Seriously, no-one here has mentioned a book over 100 years old as proof of anything. I take it this means you have nothing to say about all the criticism actually presented in this thread? Kind of sad that the best you can do is attack something written by a dead guy over a century ago really.


Is it a chapter from his upcoming book?

[krazyKemist]

Finally !

Welcome back ! :D

This was going into an endless circle, really...

the Kemist

[Mojo]

Speaking of intellectual dishonesty......could you see your way to giving us enough information about your sources for us to consult them? Giving only the author's surname and year of publication isn't really enough.

[MRC_Hans]

Oh. Did you have a nice trip (or whatever)?

I wonder if anybody has the energy to compile a list of outstanding questions in this thread.

Wasn't the Oscillococcinum study dealt with somewhere? But yes, we do tend to nitpick homeopathy studies and reject them on even fairly minute details (not that one usually needs to resort to minute details), and I explained the reason to Manioberoi, earlier: Since homeopathy requires the rewriting of substantial parts of contemporary physics, biology, pathology, immunology, pharmacology, and a few other disciplines, it constitutes an extraordinary claim. Thus, it requires extraordinary evidence. Evidence extraordinary enough to counter the massive evidence in favor of all the mentioned disciplines.

To use an analogy, the claim for homeopathy is like a claim that a band of dinosaurs live in Central Park, NY. It would take more than a footprint to convince anybody of that.

Hans

[JamesGully]

He's back! Yay! We can start playing again!

OK, first question. What the hell did that post have to do with anything? Seriously, no-one here has mentioned a book over 100 years old as proof of anything. I take it this means you have nothing to say about all the criticism actually presented in this thread? Kind of sad that the best you can do is attack something written by a dead guy over a century ago really.


My subject was "intellectual dishonesty," and Holmes had in the 19th century, and this list is full of it today.

But heck, prove me wrong. Show some honesty. Acknowledge results from high quality clinical and basic science research whether it has a positive or negative outcome for homeopathy. Acknowledge that many principles of homeopathy have real merit. Acknowledge the several thousand studies by non-homeopaths test hormesis and other extremely low dose phenemona (at doses that are EXTREMELY commonly sold in health food stores and pharmacies today). And stop the total BS about the "high price" of homeopathic medicines (the vast majority are under $10!) or the "huge profits" that the homeopathic drug companies make (the total sales--not just profit--of the individual companies are LESS than the advertising budget of a single popular conventional drug).

In other words, GET REAL (this may be tough for some of you).

And yes...the info on Dr. Holmes is a part of the forthcoming book, and the references will be provided there.

[Michael C]

Dr. Holmes’ primary attack was on the extremely small doses that are used in homeopathic medicine. However, Dr. Holmes had seemingly never read a single book on homeopathy or had any meaningful dialogue with a homeopath because he committed a classic error of calculation. When a homeopathic pharmacy makes a medicine, they take one part of the original substance and dilute it in nine or 99 parts water (considered a 1:10 or 1:100 dilution); the glass bottle is then vigorously shaken approximately 40 times, and then, the medicinal solution is again diluted 1:10 or 1:100. Ultimately, to make a homeopathic medicine to the 30X or 30C (“X” is a Roman numeral for 10, and “C” means 100; the letter next to the number refers to the type of dilution), the total amount of water needed is 30 test tubes of water (considerably less than a simple gallon of water).

However, Dr. Holmes got his calculations confused, and he incorrectly assumed that the homeopathic manufacturer had to have 10 times or 100 times more water than in the previous dilution. Dr. Holmes estimated that the 9th dilution would require ten billion gallons of water and the 17th dilution required a quantity equal to 10,000 Adriatic seas. Dr. Holmes could have easily corrected his error if he had simply gone into one homeopathic pharmacy or had a simple short conversation with a homeopath. Sadly and strangely, Dr. Holmes and other conventional doctors of that age prided themselves on never talking with a homeopath. What is even more ironic is that Dr. Holmes arranged for the reprinting of this article in various books from 1842 to 1891 without changing a single word, despite this and numerous other errors of fact in his work.

First, lets get this straight: nobody else has talked about Holmes. You're just trying to use him as a straw man. So there is no need for me or anyone else to defend all that Holmes wrote: for all I know he may have said all sorts of silly things.

But since you're trying to knock this straw man down, and you're putting him in your book, you should at least read what he really wrote. Holmes never actually assumed that the homeopathic manufacturer had to have 10 times or 100 times more water than in the previous dilution. He was fully aware of how homeopathic remedies were prepared, and the example using the comparison with 10,000 Adriatic seas was presented as an illustration, to help people grasp the idea of how little of the original substance was to be found in the remedy.

I quote Holmes (my bolding):

"So much ridicule has been thrown upon the pretended powers of the minute doses that I shall only touch upon this point for the purpose of conveying, by illustrations, some shadow of ideas far transcending the powers of the imagination to realize. It must be remembered that these comparisons are not matters susceptible of dispute, being founded on simple arithmetical computations, level to the capacity of any intelligent schoolboy. A person who once wrote a very small pamphlet made some show of objecting to calculations of this kind, on the ground that the highest dilutions could easily be made with a few ounces of alcohol. But he should have remembered that at every successive dilution he lays aside or throws away ninety-nine hundredths of the fluid on which he is operating, and that, although he begins with a drop, he only prepares a millionth, billionth, trillionth, and similar fractions of it, all of which, added together, would constitute but a vastly minute portion of the drop with which he began. But now let us suppose we take one single drop of the Tincture of Camomile, and that the whole of this were to be carried through the common series of dilutions.

A calculation nearly like the following was made by Dr. Panvini, and may be readily followed in its essential particulars by any one who chooses.

For the first dilution it would take 100 drops of alcohol.
For the second dilution it would take 10,000 drops, or about a pint.
For the third dilution it would take 100 pints.
For the fourth dilution it would take 10,000 pints, or more than 1,000 gallons, and so on to the ninth dilution, which would take ten billion gallons, which he computed would fill the basin of Lake Agnano, a body of water two miles in circumference. The twelfth dilution would of course fill a million such lakes. By the time the seventeenth degree of dilution should be reached, the alcohol required would equal in quantity the waters of ten thousand Adriatic seas. Trifling errors must be expected, but they are as likely to be on one side as the other, and any little matter like Lake Superior or the Caspian would be but a drop in the bucket."

[MRC_Hans]

My subject was "intellectual dishonesty," and Holmes had in the 19th century, and this list is full of it today.

Well, we know that homeopaths are fond of quoting 19th century writings, but you will excuse us if we prefer things a bit more recent.

But heck, prove me wrong. Show some honesty. Acknowledge results from high quality clinical and basic science research whether it has a positive or negative outcome for homeopathy.

Sure. Where is it?

Acknowledge that many principles of homeopathy have real merit.

Mention some.

Acknowledge the several thousand studies by non-homeopaths test hormesis and other extremely low dose phenemona (at doses that are EXTREMELY commonly sold in health food stores and pharmacies today).

Explain how hormesis is relevant to homeopathy.


And stop the total BS about the "high price" of homeopathic medicines (the vast majority are under $10!) or the "huge profits" that the homeopathic drug companies make (the total sales--not just profit--of the individual companies are LESS than the advertising budget of a single popular conventional drug).


10$ is a lot for a bottle of sugar tablets, in my opinion.

You comparison with conventional drugs is dishonest. You know quite well it doesn't make sense to compare two operations of vastly different size.

The profit margin for homeopathic drugs is high, because although the retail price is modest, the production cost is negligible, the quality and research costs non-existent.


In other words, GET REAL (this may be tough for some of you).


I suggest you keep a civil tone. We can play rough if you want, but you won't like it.

And yes...the info on Dr. Holmes is a part of the forthcoming book, and the references will be provided there.

Why should we care what Dr. Holmes wrote?

Hans

[JamesGully]

First, lets get this straight: nobody else has talked about Holmes. You're just trying to use him as a straw man. So there is no need for me or anyone else to defend all that Holmes wrote: for all I know he may have said all sorts of silly things.


Oh yeah...Holmes did say LOTS of extremely silly things, even if the physicians of his day thought he was totally rational and "absolutely" right. Just as this list is full of similarly silly statements made by people with little knowledge of homeopathy and NO experience with it.

Hahnemann's gravestone has the words: Aude sapere ...Latin for dare to be wise, to experience, to taste. He challenged skeptics to simply try or taste homeopathy...but heck, you'd rather be rational than be right.

[Mojo]

And stop the total BS about the "high price" of homeopathic medicines (the vast majority are under $10!)...


How much is that per ounce of active component?

[kieran]

My subject was "intellectual dishonesty," and Holmes had in the 19th century, and this list is full of it today.
... full of it ... does that include your post then?

Don't you like having your subject analysed? Are you worried that it can't actually stand up to a bit of scrutiny?

But heck, prove me wrong.
I'd rather you proved yourself right ...

Show some honesty. Acknowledge results from high quality clinical and basic science research whether it has a positive or negative outcome for homeopathy. Acknowledge that many principles of homeopathy have real merit.
I will happily acknowledge such results, if and when they are presented. Why will you not critically examine your positive results, why do you dismiss negative results? Are you being a hypocrite here?

Anyway, which principles of homoeopathy have real merit? Like cures like? Below Avogadro limit effects? There is absolutely no proof of the essential principles of homoeopathy. Data mining and poor experimentation is a great smoke screen to hide behind.

Acknowledge the several thousand studies by non-homeopaths test hormesis and other extremely low dose phenemona (at doses that are EXTREMELY commonly sold in health food stores and pharmacies today).
Low does - or no dose? Go look up your essential principles again.

Also, selling is no proof of efficacy. A scam is a scam. It does not matter if it is EXTREMELY commonly sold or not.

And stop the total BS about the "high price" of homeopathic medicines (the vast majority are under $10!) or the "huge profits" that the homeopathic drug companies make (the total sales--not just profit--of the individual companies are LESS than the advertising budget of a single popular conventional drug).
A scam is a scam - pure and simple. There is no such thing as a fair price for a scam. As such - homoeopathy is always over-priced. This cost also includes the uncounted people who do not get proper treatment when necessary because they followed the wishful thinking of a homoeopath. That is an incredibily high price in my opinion.

In other words, GET REAL (this may be tough for some of you).
Not constructive - but that's not why you are here ...

And yes...the info on Dr. Holmes is a part of the forthcoming book, and the references will be provided there.
So what is the problem with giving us a sneak preview of a few lines of references?

[JJM]

How much is that per ounce of active component?You can do the calculation yourself: $10.00/0 = ...

Gee, it is tough; even with a calculator.

[JJM]

Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1842

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/holmes.html

A couple notes about literature:

1) Age does not mean something is wrong, or no longer useful. One must look to see if it has been rendered invalid by more recent work.

2) Any citation to poor-quality sources can be ignored. If it wasn't submitted to a high-quality medical journal, the author doesn't have any confidence in the work (or, it was unacceptable to a good journal). Any magazine with the name of some quack method (homeopathy, chiropractic, etc.) or with terms such as "alternative," "integrative," or "holistic" in the title is inferior (except- The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine). (Above, I criticized a quack article they claimed supported homeopathy. Most quack articles are like that one.)

So, that sweeps-away most, favorable homeopathic citations. We are left with the question of how to deal with articles in good journals. I dare say most of us cannot (I recognize that there are some qualified clinicians here), except to note that none has enough subjects to be considered definitive.

I am holding out for a large study in a good journal, one that survives the scrutiny of qualified experts (and is certain not to be fraudulent).

[Mojo]

Someone referred to Orac's critique of the CHEST study, and yet, this critique was so weak that it was surprising that CHEST chose to publish his "letter to the editor." However, because the authors replied to him (and blew his weak critique out of the water), I was pleased to see this in print.


References please. And links if it is availabe on the web, of course.

And an explanation of how the critique was "blown out of the water".

Nullius in verba.

[JJM]

Someone referred to Orac's critique of the CHEST study, and yet, this critique was so weak that it was surprising that CHEST chose to publish his "letter to the editor." However, because the authors replied to him (and blew his weak critique out of the water ), I was pleased to see this in print. And yet, no one here acknowledged the incredible weakness of Orac's ([I]et al's) analysis.The "letter to the editor" was from David Colquhoun (http://www.dcscience.net/improbable.html).

I suppose you will be rendering an analysis of the weakness of Orac's analyisis.

[Chris Haynes]

References please. And links if it is availabe on the web, of course.

And an explanation of how the critique was "blown out of the water".

Nullius in verba.

This is Orac's critique:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/07/homeopathy_in_thecringeicu_1.php

Mr, Ullman, where have the authors of the paper in question replied to Orac? Can you post that link please?

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

And stop the total BS about the "high price" of homeopathic medicines (the vast majority are under $10!) or the "huge profits" that the homeopathic drug companies make (the total sales--not just profit--of the individual companies are LESS than the advertising budget of a single popular conventional drug).

"Remedy Makers" sell for $395 each. Is that good value for money?

You could start by answering the following questions;

4. Can you tell us whether either of these machines works?

http://www.bio-resonance.com/elybra.htm

http://www.remedydevices.com/voice.htm

Bear in mind that the users of these machines rely on exactly the same anecdotal experience and fallacious post hoc reasoning that every other homeopath does. Are the homeopaths who use these machines right or wrong in thinking they work?

It's a very simple question and capable of a single-word answer.

I'll give you a new question just so you can show how well you understand the interpretation of clinical trial data;

9. I set a p-value for significance of 0.05 and run 100 trials. In no trial is the test substance distinguishable from the control. How many trials can I expect to show an apparent "effect" from my test substance?

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

p.s. I forgot to mention that the e-Lybra machine costs £8200. Plus postage!

[kieran]

p.s. I forgot to mention that the e-Lybra machine costs £8200. Plus postage!
What a bargain!!! They are practically giving it away!!! :D

(Well, we have to take into account their manufacturing costs, and all that R&D, and marketing, and they have to make a living (however meagre) out of it...;) )

[Michael C]

Oh yeah...Holmes did say LOTS of extremely silly things, even if the physicians of his day thought he was totally rational and "absolutely" right. Just as this list is full of similarly silly statements made by people with little knowledge of homeopathy and NO experience with it.

Instead of continuing to try to shoot down your "straw man", why not show some intellectual honesty yourself and reply to the point I made? For your convenience I'll put the reference of my post here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2755226&postcount=770). And I'll state the point again:

You assert that Holmes "incorrectly assumed that the homeopathic manufacturer had to have 10 times or 100 times more water than in the previous dilution". This is not true. Holmes was totally aware how homeopathic remedies were prepared, and his illustration using "ten thousand Adriatic seas" was clearly presented as such: an illustration, to give an idea to people who may not have realised how diluted the substances actually were.

Are you going to leave your erroneous statement in your book?

[Mojo]

Speaking of intellectual dishonesty, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes won the prize for this in the 19th century.

...snip...

In 1861, Dr. Holmes finally confessed that homeopathy “has taught us a lesson of the healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us have made proper acknowledgements” (Holmes, 1891, x, xiii-xiv). However, he still never instructed his publisher to change a word of his previous writings on homeopathy.

Instead of continuing to try to shoot down your "straw man", why not show some intellectual honesty yourself and reply to the point I made? For your convenience I'll put the reference of my post here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2755226&postcount=770). And I'll state the point again:

You assert that Holmes "incorrectly assumed that the homeopathic manufacturer had to have 10 times or 100 times more water than in the previous dilution". This is not true. Holmes was totally aware how homeopathic remedies were prepared, and his illustration using "ten thousand Adriatic seas" was clearly presented as such: an illustration, to give an idea to people who may not have realised how diluted the substances actually were.

Are you going to leave your erroneous statement in your book?


Well, he seems to think it's OK to claim that Darwin supported homoeopathy on the basis of Darwin's assertion that a hydropath may have improved his condition, and despite the fact that Darwin later wrote: You speak about Homœopathy; which is a subject which makes me more wrath, even than does Clair-voyance: clairvoyance so transcends belief, that one's ordinary faculties are put out of question, but in Homœopathy common sense & common observation come into play, & both these must go to the Dogs, if the infinetesimal doses have any effect whatever. How true is a remark I saw the other day by Quetelet, in respect to evidence of curative processes, viz that no one knows in disease what is the simple result of nothing being done, as a standard with which to compare Homœopathy & all other such things.


Apparently this sort of thing is only "intellectual dishonesty" when someone other than "JamesGully" does it.

[MRC_Hans]

Oh yeah...Holmes did say LOTS of extremely silly things, even if the physicians of his day thought he was totally rational and "absolutely" right. Just as this list is full of similarly silly statements made by people with little knowledge of homeopathy and NO experience with it.

Hahnemann's gravestone has the words: Aude sapere ...Latin for dare to be wise, to experience, to taste. He challenged skeptics to simply try or taste homeopathy...but heck, you'd rather be rational than be right.Can we take the above as a sign that you are out of arguments for your case?

Well, so be it, then. Been nice talking to you.

Hans

[Rolfe]

Speaking of intellectual dishonesty, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes won the prize for this in the 19th century. Although skeptics of homeopathy at that time and even today (!) consider Dr. Holmes' book to be one of the strongest critiques of homeopathy ever written, I will be curious what the seemingly smart and seemingly hyper-vigilent participants at this site will say about his knowledge of and criticisms about homeopathy.

It is more than a tad ironic that you "defenders of the scientific paradigm" maintain such an unscientific attitude towards homeopathy. This is not a homeopathic dose of chutzpah...it is a very crude dose of it...read for yourself...


Yes, I've read it. Now I notice nobody in this thread actually mentioned Dr. Holmes, you brought him up all by yourself. So maybe you had a point to make? If so, what was it?

Oliver Wendell Holmes and His Attack on Homeopathy

The most famous anti-homeopathy book written in the 19th century was by Oliver Wendell Holmes, MD (1809-1894). Called Homoeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions, this book was written just six years after Dr. Holmes graduated from medical school. Before Holmes went to medical school, he authored a famous poem in 1830 called Old Ironside as well as two articles in 1832 and 1833 entitled Autocrat at the Breakfast Table (published in The Atlantic Monthly), which gave him a national reputation as a leading American writer and scholar.

Although Holmes had become a professor at Harvard Medical School and although he was a respected poet and author, he actually had very little direct experience practicing medicine before he wrote this attack on homeopathy. Dr. Holmes’ essay on homeopathy gained a lot of attention, and this book today is commonly referred to as a “strong” critique of homeopathy. However, this book should actually be a significant embarrassment to its author and to those who are seriously antagonistic to homeopathy because it is so full of obvious errors of fact, which authors today still quote as though this book was factual.


In that case, would you mind citing some of these "obvious errors of fact", and showing the evidence that they are in fact errors?

It is amazing to note, first, that Dr. Holmes wrote that the one physician who typifies the good American medical thinking and practice of that time was Benjamin Rush, MD (1745-1813), a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the surgeon general of the Continental Army. Dr. Rush was one of the leading advocates of “heroic medicine,” that is, the frequent and aggressive use of including bloodletting, intestinal purging (with mercury), vomiting (with the caustic agent tartar emetic), and blistering of the skin.

Dr. Rush recommended bloodletting for virtually every patient, and he considered it quackery if a physician did not bloodlet his patients. He even once boasted that he had drawn enough blood to float a 74-gun man-of-war ship (Transactions, 1882).

Rush was also an advocate of forced psychiatric treatment, which in part explains why his portrait is on the emblem of the American Psychiatric Association. One of Rush's favorite methods of treatment was to tie a patient to a wooden board and rapidly spin it until significant amounts of blood flowed to the head. He placed his own son in one of his insane asylum hospitals for 27 years until he died. Rush also believed that being black was a hereditary illness which he referred to as “negroidism.”


Now, I didn't remember any praise of Dr. Rush in Dr. Holmes' essay, or even any mention of him. So I called up the online text of the essay (http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/holmes.html) and did a search. The only two instances of the letter-group "rush" occur in the words "crushing" and "crushed". Perhaps I've missed it - I believe there is a fuller version of Dr. Holmes' text available somewhere - surely our James wouldn't be criticising a passage that doesn't actually appear in that essay, while critiquing that essay, would he? I mean, that would be intellectually dishonest.

So where is this praise of Dr. Rush, which is the first thing you seem to come up with when dealing with the many "obvious errors of fact" you say are contained in Holmes' essay? I'd like to know what you're actually referring to, because I can't find it.

In addition to Dr. Holmes’ glorification of Dr. Rush’s heroic medicine, Holmes had the audacity to say that homeopathic medicine is “barbaric” because it uses various snake venoms (p. x). This statement is more than a tad ironic when you consider that one of Dr. Holmes’ most famous quotes was his own critique of conventional medical drugs when he said, “I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica (materials of medicine), as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind,--and all the worse for the fishes” (Holmes, 1860).


Once again, I've searched the online text of the essay, and I can't find the words "barbaric", or "snake", or "venom". Again, I accept that James may be citing a fuller text than the one I'm searching, however we really need to know what Dr. Holmes actually said, and if the criticised passages aren't in the most easily accessible version of the text, and James won't quote them, then we're in some difficulty.

Dr. Holmes' last comment quoted by James is remarkably perceptive for its time and shows just what a clear thinker he actually was. He recognised that the therapeutic armoury of his time was largely completely useless and to a large extent toxic. However, when modern homoeopaths quote this to imply that modern pharmaceuticals are also useless and toxic, it is they who are being intellectually dishonest.

Dr. Holmes’ primary attack was on the extremely small doses that are used in homeopathic medicine.


Excuse me, but here you go again, James. Trying to stop you doing this is like trying to stop a child biting its nails! Please cease this reference to "extremely small doses" in relation to homoeopathy. We know and you know that there is no "extremely small dose" of anything at all in the vast bulk of homoeopathic preparations, and in none of those classed as the most "potent". Continually implying that there is indeed a minute amount of substance there (apart from the carrier material) could easily be seen a intellectual dishonesty.

However, Dr. Holmes had seemingly never read a single book on homeopathy or had any meaningful dialogue with a homeopath because he committed a classic error of calculation. When a homeopathic pharmacy makes a medicine, they take one part of the original substance and dilute it in nine or 99 parts water (considered a 1:10 or 1:100 dilution); the glass bottle is then vigorously shaken approximately 40 times, and then, the medicinal solution is again diluted 1:10 or 1:100. Ultimately, to make a homeopathic medicine to the 30X or 30C (“X” is a Roman numeral for 10, and “C” means 100; the letter next to the number refers to the type of dilution), the total amount of water needed is 30 test tubes of water (considerably less than a simple gallon of water).

However, Dr. Holmes got his calculations confused, and he incorrectly assumed that the homeopathic manufacturer had to have 10 times or 100 times more water than in the previous dilution. Dr. Holmes estimated that the 9th dilution would require ten billion gallons of water and the 17th dilution required a quantity equal to 10,000 Adriatic seas. Dr. Holmes could have easily corrected his error if he had simply gone into one homeopathic pharmacy or had a simple short conversation with a homeopath.


Others have dealt with this. Dr. Holmes never at any point stated or implied that anyone needed to use actual massive quantities of water to manufacture homoeopathic remedies. Indeed, it is such an obvious illustrative figure of speech that I fear only someone completely lost in intellectual dishonesty would even contemplate taking it literally. How could Dr. Holmes possibly have imagined any homoeopathic manufacturer literally utilising "10,000 Adriatic seas" to make every batch of a 17C remedy? It's ludicrous.

Dr. Holmes was perfectly clear that he was imagining, for illustrative purposes, the amount of water which would be diluting the mother tincture if a 17C preparation were to be made as a single step. Anyone reading the article would easily realise this - because he states so explicitly. The relevant passage has already been quoted above.

To take a figurative illustration out of context and assert that it was meant literally, and then to attack it on that basis, is indeed the height of intellectual dishonesty. Is this the only example of the many alleged "errors of fact" in the essay? We can see easily that this is no error of fact. So we're still waiting. Where are those errors?

Sadly and strangely, Dr. Holmes and other conventional doctors of that age prided themselves on never talking with a homeopath.


Evidence that Dr. Holmes stated that he never talked with a homoeopath? Please?

And while we're on the subject, evidence please that Holmes "never read a single book on homeopathy or had any meaningful dialogue with a homeopath", as stated in the preceding quote. I would mention that Holmes actually quotes quite liberally from Hahnemann's work, which would be quite difficult to do if he'd never read it.

What is even more ironic is that Dr. Holmes arranged for the reprinting of this article in various books from 1842 to 1891 without changing a single word, despite this and numerous other errors of fact in his work.


Ah yes, these numerous errors of fact. Could we please have even one of these quoted, then shown to be in error?

Dr. Holmes explained in his book that the growth of homeopathy was primarily because conventional physicians tended to over-medicate their patients, even though Holmes later wrote that the public itself “insists on being poisoned” (Holmes, 1860, 186).


And what's the problem with these statements? They're not mutually exclusive, "the public" isn't a homogeneous mass. Both can be true and I think both probably are true.

Holmes recognised that most ailments get better on their own. He also recognised that people tend to demand medication even for self-limiting conditions. And he recognised that, by providing no medication in the guise of therapy, homoeoapathy often dealt with those situations better than the conventional mdicine of his time. People "insist on being poisoned" (that is, treated). Homoeopathic treatment is less poisonous than 19th century conventional medicine. Therefore we can see why homoeopathy might become quite successful.

Perfectly sensible and rational position. But by selective quoting and making snide suggestions, James manages to imply some conflict. Intellectually dishonest, or what?

Dr. Holmes also attempted to “prove” that homeopathic medicines do not work by quoting a “scientific study.” To do this, Holmes referenced a “study” by a Dr. Gabriel Andral, professor of medicine in the School of Paris. Holmes referred to Andral “a man of great kindness of character…of unquestioned integrity.” Holmes reported on Andral’s experiment on 130-140 patients using homeopathic medicines, and Holmes quoted Andral saying, “not one of them did it have the slightest influence” (Holmes, 1842, 80).

Although Dr. Holmes and others have asserted that Andral’s experiment provided strong evidence for disproving homeopathy, it must be noted that later in his life, Andral himself acknowledged the serious problems in his study. Although Andral claimed to have used Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura as his guide, he neglected to mention at the time that the book was in German and that he could not read German. One other book by Hahnemann was translated into French at the time of this study, but Andral did not prescribe any of the 22 homeopathic medicines in this book for any patients in his study. Even Andral’s assistant for this study acknowledged that Andral did not know how to select homeopathic medicines for patients and that he “excuses his ignorance by saying it was unavoidable” (Dean, 2004, 112).

Additional evidence of Andral’s complete ignorance of homeopathy was revealed in a review of each of his prescriptions and his use of dosages. He never prescribed any homeopathic medicines for any patient’s unique syndrome of symptoms. Instead, he selected a single symptom of his own idiosyncratic choosing and then guessed at the medicine for it. For instance, his prescriptions of Arnica for one woman with painful menstruation and for one man with tuberculosis were guesses that were not based on any homeopathic textbook. Further, 75% of the patients were given just one dose of one remedy without any follow-up remedy (Irvine, 1844). If patients were not immediately cured by this one dose, he considered homeopathy a failure and then referred the patient for conventional medical treatment.

Andral later asserted that he had never formally granted anyone permission to publish his report on homeopathy, and further, by 1852 he had changed his mind about homeopathy and asserted that it deserved the closest examination by every physician (Dean, 2004, 112).


OK, what did Dr. Holmes actually say about Dr. Andral's work? The first passage is this one.

I will take, for instance, the statements of Andral (and I am not referring to his well-known public experiments in his hospital) as to the result of his own trials. This distinguished physician is Professor of Medicine in the School of Paris, and one of the most widely known and valued authors upon practical and theoretical subjects the profession can claim in any country. He is a man of great kindness of character, a most liberal eclectic by nature and habit, of unquestioned integrity, and is called, in the leading article of the fast number of the "Homeopathic Examiner," "an eminent and very enlightened allopathist." Assisted by a number of other persons in good health, he experimented on the effects of cinchona, aconite, sulphur, arnica, and the other most highly extolled remedies. His experiments lasted a year, and he stated publicly to the Academy of Medicine that they never produced the slightest appearance of the symptoms attributed to them. The results of a man like this, so extensively known as one of the most philosophical and candid, as well as brilliant of instructors, and whose admirable abilities and signal liberality are generally conceded, ought to be of great weight in deciding the question.


Now this is explicitly not talking about the work that James is criticising, but about attempts to replicate "proving" symptoms. If there is any valid criticism of this work, James has failed to point it out.

However, Dr. Holmes does indeed reference Andral's trials on actual patients, later in the essay. What does he say there? Let's have a look.

M. Andral, the "eminent and very enlightened allopathist" of the "Homoeopathic Examiner," made the following statement in March, 1835, to the Academy of Medicine: "I have submitted this doctrine to experiment; I can reckon at this time from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and forty cases, recorded with perfect fairness, in a great hospital, under the eye of numerous witnesses; to avoid every objection I obtained my remedies of M. Guibourt, who keeps a Homoeopathic pharmacy, and whose strict exactness is well known; the regimen has been scrupulously observed, and I obtained from the sisters attached to the hospital a special regimen, such as Hahnemann orders. I was told, however, some months since, that I had not been faithful to all the rules of the doctrine. I therefore took the trouble to begin again; I have studied the practice of the Parisian Homoeopathists, as I had studied their books, and I became convinced that they treated their patients as I had treated mine, and I affirm that I have been as rigorously exact in the treatment as any other person."

And he expressly asserts the entire nullity of the influence of all the Homoeopathic remedies tried by him in modifying, so far as he could observe, the progress or termination of diseases. It deserves notice that he experimented with the most boasted substances -- cinchona, aconite, mercury, bryonia, belladonna. Aconite, for instance, he says he administered in more than forty cases of that collection of feverish symptoms in which it exerts so much power, according to Hahnemann, and in not one of them did it have the slightest influence, the pulse and heat remaining as before.

These statements look pretty honest, and would seem hard to be explained away, but it is calmly said that he "did not know enough of the method to select the remedies with any tolerable precision." [Homoeopathic Examiner, vol. i. p. 22. "Nothing is left to the caprice of the physician. ('In a word, instead of being dependent upon blind chance, that there is an infallible law, guided by which the physician must select the proper remedies.')" Ibid., in a notice of Menzel's paper.]
Who are they that practice Homoeopathy, and say this of a man with the Materia, Medica of Hahnemann lying before him? Who are they that send these same globules, on which he experimented, accompanied by a little book, into families, whose members are thought competent to employ them, when they deny any such capacity to a man whose life has been passed at the bedside of patients, the most prominent teacher in the first Medical Faculty in the world, the consulting physician of the King of France, and one of the most renowned practical writers, not merely of his nation, but of his age? I leave the quibbles by which such persons would try to creep out from under the crushing weight of these conclusions to the unfortunates who suppose that a reply is equivalent to an answer.


Dearie, dearie me. Do we see here that Dr. Holmes was perfectly aware of the criticisms that had been levelled at Dr. Andral, had taken them on board already, and addressed them in his essay? I believe we do, indeed.

Despite these facts, Dr. Holmes never changed a word of his essay on homeopathy to avoid misinformation.


What would you like him to have changed, James? He reported that Dr. Andral's work had been criticised, he summarised the grounds of the criticism, then he gave his reasons for believing the criticism was unfounded.

We can see from this that attacks on critics of homoeopathy are no new thing, and the need to address these attacks is also no new thing. Holmes observed quite clearly the intellectually dishonest nature of these attacks (the bolded passages in the last paragraph quoted), in that on the one hand homoeopaths were content to supply remedies to the entirely medically naive, with a little book of instructions, and assure them that they could use these effectively, but on the other hand an experienced doctor, who is labouring to practise just as Hahnemann practised, cannot possibly know enough to succeed. Intellectual dishonesty, indeed.

When you consider that this book by Dr. Holmes was considered the best critique of homeopathy written in the 19th century, one must rightfully acknowledge that serious or sophisticated criticism of homeopathy at this time was neither rational nor accurate.


Where are those inaccuracies, again? You still haven't quoted one single statement of Holmes' that you have shown to be inaccurate.

In 1861, Dr. Holmes finally confessed that homeopathy “has taught us a lesson of the healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us have made proper acknowledgements” (Holmes, 1891, x, xiii-xiv). However, he still never instructed his publisher to change a word of his previous writings on homeopathy.


Finally "confessed"? What did Holmes actually say? I can't find the exact quote, but I know he did say this or something like it. But it wasn't a "confession", and it certainly wasn't a declaration that homoeopathy has any efficacy. On the contrary, it was an observation that most patients recover even with no treatment. If you have a cold, a fever, a chill, a headache or whatever, you'll get better! You don't need anyone to bleed and purge you, and in fact bleeding and purging are likely to make you worse. (Indeed, you don't even need to take aspirin or paracetamol, you're NOT GOING TO DIE.) Holmes recognised that homoeopathy was an elaborate method of doing nothing, and that doing nothing was not only a perfectly reasonable way to treat most illness, it was in fact demonstrably better than many of the practices prevalent in his time. Hence his remarks about sinking the materia medica to the bottom of the sea.

Homoeopathy in fact provided the first "placebo control" of the medicine of its time, and the conventional medical practices did not come out well from this comparison. Holmes recognised this, and even credited homoeopathy with providing the evidence that current practice was worse than doing nothing, which was the whole spur to the medical advancements we've benefitted from over the past 150 years or so.

However, we see yet more intellectual dishonesty on the part of James. Holmes' observed that the conventional medicine of his time was at best useless and at worst actively harmful and occasionally lethal. He observed that doing nothing at all was better for the patient. He recognises that homoeopathy is equivalent to doing nothing at all, and credits it with a role in demonstrating this truism. What he never stated nor believed was that homoeopathy was anything other than doing nothing at all, and to take a selective quote out of context to imply that in his later years he believed homoeopathy to be efficacious is - oh dear, not again - intellectually dishonest.

Rolfe.

[fls]

It is sweet to know that I am missed...

I couldn't help but notice that Linda posted 3 links to replicated studies on the homeopathic treatment of influenza, and yet, no one here has the courage to acknowledge that these studies have confirmed the efficacy of a homeopathic medicine (Oscillococcinum) in the treatment of the flu. While I appreciated Linda's references, I couldn't help but notice that she provided NO positive words about the body of replicated studies (from 3 independent groups of researchers).

How could I? It would be profoundly stupid of me to base a whole new field of science on 2 studies of replication (against a background of hundreds of attempts), considering that the kinds of results that were obtained can occur due to chance and bias, and were trivial in importance. As I said before, even if I concede that the studies were well-designed, well-performed, and well-analyzed, the results are insufficient to speak towards the validity of the idea of homeopathy.

This is a common pattern here: You nitpick any (!) possible and even extremely minor problem with a clinical trial and make it seem that ANY minor problem is worthy enough to throw out the entire trial's information. Everyone here does all they can to NEVER acknowledge anything potentially positive about a trial testing homeopathy, unless it had a negative outcome.

I apply the same criteria to all trials, regardless of whether it is a trial of homeopathy or conventional medicine.

Someone referred to Orac's critique of the CHEST study, and yet, this critique was so weak that it was surprising that CHEST chose to publish his "letter to the editor." However, because the authors replied to him (and blew his weak critique out of the water), I was pleased to see this in print. And yet, no one here acknowledged the incredible weakness of Orac's analysis.

You are speaking about two different things. The letter to the editor that CHEST published was to point out the details of the silliness of the idea behind homeopathy - not all physicians are familiar with this. And he was hardly pwned. All they did was bring out the same old invalid arguments you have presented here - that homeopathy is based on many observations, that you can't ignore the results of a randomized trial (demonstrating, like you, a misunderstanding of just what can be concluded from the results of a clincial trial), and (my personal favourite) maybe water doesn't have memory that lasts more than femtoseconds, but it doesn't matter because it was water and alcohol.

The critique of the details of the study itself was on Orac's blog. I did not see a response from the authors there (although admittedly I didn't wade through all the posts, as a fight broke out over what to do about homeopathy).

You cannot have it both ways: you cannot be intellectually honest by applying your analysis to critique homeopathy unless you apply a similar level of analysis to the critique of the critique.

I did. I applied a similar level of analysis and the critique holds up as valid.

I just want some intellectual honesty...and sadly, I'm not getting it at this site.

I think you just like to say that, regardless of whether or not you think it's true.

Linda

[Rolfe]

no one here has the courage to acknowledge....
she provided NO positive words....

this critique was so weak....
blew his weak critique out of the water....
no one here acknowledged the incredible weakness of Orac's (David Colquhoun, wasn't it, Professor of Pharmacology that he is, can't even get the identity of the critics right even) analysis....

....

I just want some intellectual honesty...and sadly, I'm not getting it at this site.


You're not getting it anywhere you go, because you trail intellectual dishonesty with you wherever you go. Do you refer to this fault so often because you have such a perfect example of it staring back at you every morning when you shave?

I've noticed that James (or Dana, if he is he) has a nice way with words. He makes statements and criticisms that sound reasonable, even plausible, and his command of English is light years ahead of almost any other homoeopath we've seen here. So he may give a good impression.

However, when we examine these apparently reasonable and plausible statements we find things that simply aren't so. We find an entirely unjustified critique of O. W. Holmes' essay, founded on selective quoting, quotes that don't seem to be there at all, and false inference. We find continual references to minute doses of substances, and hormesis, without acknowledging that these points have nothing at all to do with homoeoapthy. And we find bald statements that criticisms of homoeoapthy are in error or have been disproved, when that is simply not the case.

In fact, we see just another example of "argument by blatant assertion" that we see so often from homoeopaths. It's just dressed up nicer than is usual, with a spice of unwarranted intellectual superiority.

Toom tabard again, methinks.

Rolfe.

[Cuddles]

Rolfe - 1,000,000
Homeopaths - 0

Unfortunately, according to their logic that probably means they've won.

[Oualawouzou]

Rolfe - 1,000,000
Homeopaths - 0



QFT.

[JJM]

Speaking of intellectual dishonesty ... {snip}

In 1861, Dr. Holmes finally confessed that homeopathy “has taught us a lesson of the healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us have made proper acknowledgements” (Holmes, 1891, x, xiii-xiv). ...I wonder what Holmes' quote looks like in context ...

[Michael C]

I wonder what Holmes' quote looks like in context ...

Here you go:

"Homoeopathy is now merely a name, an unproved theory, and a box of
pellets pretending to be specifics, which, as all of us know, fail
ignominiously in those cases where we would thankfully sacrifice all
our prejudices and give the world to have them true to their
promises.

Homoeopathy has not died out so rapidly as Tractoration. Perhaps it
was well that it should not, for it has taught us a lesson of the
healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us
have made proper acknowledgments. But it probably does more harm
than good to medical science at the present time, by keeping up the
delusion of treating everything by specifics..."

Ever heard of quote mining, Mr. Gully/Ullman?

For more, go to http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Complete-PG-Works-of-Oliver-Wendell41.html

[krazyKemist]

This looks like a highly unfair battle to me, but what the heck...:D

My subject was "intellectual dishonesty," and Holmes had in the 19th century, and this list is full of it today.

But heck, prove me wrong. Show some honesty. Acknowledge results from high quality clinical and basic science research whether it has a positive or negative outcome for homeopathy. Acknowledge that many principles of homeopathy have real merit. Acknowledge the several thousand studies by non-homeopaths test hormesis and other extremely low dose phenemona (at doses that are EXTREMELY commonly sold in health food stores and pharmacies today).

Honesty ? Please at least understand that hormesis has nothing to do with homeopathy... And let's discuss the misuse homeopathy proponents make of materials science and nanotechnology...

And stop the total BS about the "high price" of homeopathic medicines (the vast majority are under $10!) or the "huge profits" that the homeopathic drug companies make (the total sales--not just profit--of the individual companies are LESS than the advertising budget of a single popular conventional drug).

I checked homeopathic remedies for fun at my local pharmacy... Most of them cost more than a bottle of advil...

In other words, GET REAL (this may be tough for some of you).

...:boggled: ... The "if you don't see this you're just stupid" technique ? Please... :(

the Kemist

[JamesGully]

Yes, I've read it. Now I notice nobody in this thread actually mentioned Dr. Holmes, you brought him up all by yourself. So maybe you had a point to make? If so, what was it?


I thought that the point was obvious: people who do not understand the past are condemned to repeat it...as this list has shown...

I do not have the time to respond to all of your questions and responses. You obviously have a lot more time on your hands than I do.



Now, I didn't remember any praise of Dr. Rush in Dr. Holmes' essay, or even any mention of him. So I called up the online text of the essay (http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/holmes.html) and did a search. The only two instances of the letter-group "rush" occur in the words "crushing" and "crushed". Perhaps I've missed it - I believe there is a fuller version of Dr. Holmes' text available somewhere - surely our James wouldn't be criticising a passage that doesn't actually appear in that essay, while critiquing that essay, would he? I mean, that would be intellectually dishonest..


This is an easy one: This reference is on page 192 of Holmes' most famous book...his collection of essays entitled MEDICAL ESSAYS.




Once again, I've searched the online text of the essay, and I can't find the words "barbaric", or "snake", or "venom". Again, I accept that James may be citing a fuller text than the one I'm searching, however we really need to know what Dr. Holmes actually said, and if the criticised passages aren't in the most easily accessible version of the text, and James won't quote them, then we're in some difficulty..


On page x from MEDICAL ESSAYS...


Others have dealt with this. Dr. Holmes never at any point stated or implied that anyone needed to use actual massive quantities of water to manufacture homoeopathic remedies. Indeed, it is such an obvious illustrative figure of speech that I fear only someone completely lost in intellectual dishonesty would even contemplate taking it literally. How could Dr. Holmes possibly have imagined any homoeopathic manufacturer literally utilising "10,000 Adriatic seas" to make every batch of a 17C remedy? It's ludicrous.



Holmes' example was intellectually dishonest because it is a false metaphor. One cannot say that the atomic bomb is a placebo just because it is impossible for such small things as atoms creating big explosions...or others might note that a single atom cannot exist because the material in the atom is so much smaller than the space inbetween its component parts.



Evidence that Dr. Holmes stated that he never talked with a homoeopath? Please?


The AMA Code of Ethics explicitly disallow consultations with homeopaths from the 1860s to the turn of the century, and this was one of the very few ethical codes that was ever enforces. Read some medical history books to learn about the "Consultation Clause."



What would you like him to have changed, James? He reported that Dr. Andral's work had been criticised, he summarised the grounds of the criticism, then he gave his reasons for believing the criticism was unfounded.


And yet, once Andral himself acknowledged the SERIOUS problems with his "research," Holmes chose to not change a single word from his essays, even when the collection of his essays was published in 1891.

This is a classic example of intellectual dishonesty. Case book, indeed.

I would hope that scientifically-minded people, including many people on this list who proclaim to be such, would join me in expressing concerns about Holmes and his ilk.



Homoeopathy in fact provided the first "placebo control" of the medicine of its time, and the conventional medical practices did not come out well from this comparison. Holmes recognised this, and even credited homoeopathy with providing the evidence that current practice was worse than doing nothing, which was the whole spur to the medical advancements we've benefitted from over the past 150 years or so.


I'm glad that you acknowledged this.



I've noticed that James (or Dana, if he is he) has a nice way with words. He makes statements and criticisms that sound reasonable, even plausible, and his command of English is light years ahead of almost any other homoeopath we've seen here. So he may give a good impression.



Thanx, Rolfe. I appreciate it when you show your gentlemanly side. You are one of the few that doesn't name-call or belittle. I predict that one day you will be a leading advocate of homeopathy and nanopharmacology (I hope that your fellow skeptics here don't belittle you before of this remark).

[JamesGully]

To clarify, Holmes' worship for Benjamin Rush was evidenced in Holmes' essay "Currents and Counter-Currents" written in 1860.

[JamesGully]

How could I? It would be profoundly stupid of me to base a whole new field of science on 2 studies of replication (against a background of hundreds of attempts), considering that the kinds of results that were obtained can occur due to chance and bias, and were trivial in importance. As I said before, even if I concede that the studies were well-designed, well-performed, and well-analyzed, the results are insufficient to speak towards the validity of the idea of homeopathy.

I would never expect you or anyone to say that a single study or a replicated study would "prove" entire system of homeopathy, just as I wouldn't expect you to say that it would disprove the entire system of homeopathy.

However, I would expect scientifically-minded people to say that Oscillococcinum IS effective in the treatment of influenza and inflenza-like syndromes because three large, independently conducted double-blind studies have shown this to be true.

It is simply interesting that no one on this list has enough of a backbone to make this statement. Sadly, it is almost as though you are afraid of each other and almost as though you are all vying to seem to be more anti-homeopathic than the other.



The critique of the details of the study itself was on Orac's blog. I did not see a response from the authors there (although admittedly I didn't wade through all the posts, as a fight broke out over what to do about homeopathy).

Get a chance to read it. I don't have the URL right now, but I still assert that this response blows Orac out of the water, especially Orac is simply the theoretician, while Frass and his colleagues are the scientists and researchers. Heck, there are lots of things in nature that seem illogical but are real.

[JJM]

Linda (fls), don't waste any time looking for a rebuttal at Orac's blog- it is not there. You may be surprised to learn this; but Ully/Gullman is confused. He refers to a letter to the editor by David Calquhoun that was published in Chest, followed by a moronic response from the author.

http://www.dcscience.net/improbable.html#chest
Using potassium dichromate to treat patients in intensive care (rather than to clean the glassware)?
No, that isn't a joke. The respectable journal, Chest, official journal of the American College of Chest Physicians, published an article that purported to show that homeopathic potassium dichromate (i.e. water) was a useful way to treat patients in intensive care. {snip}

The editor of Chest ... did publish a response from me: Treating Critically Ill Patients With Sugar Pills, Chest, 131 , 645, 2007 [Get pdf (http://www.dcscience.net/colquhoun-chest-2007.pdf)].
{snip} The Frass paper has now received some close attention on the Respectful Insolence (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/07/homeopathy_in_thecringeicu_1.php#more) blog. Someone posting under the name 'getzal' has done a nice analysis which shows that the control group must have contained patients who were were more seriously ill than the homeopathically-treated group.

[Chris Haynes]

...However, I would expect scientifically-minded people to say that Oscillococcinum IS effective in the treatment of influenza and inflenza-like syndromes because three large, independently conducted double-blind studies have shown this to be true.

No they don't. If you read earlier in this thread, this has been mentioned multiple times. Actually, to be precise you have never given the title, date, and journal of any of those studies. Linda dug them out here:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2623708&highlight=Oscillococcinum#post2623708 ... and mentions that
No. The results are barely statistically significant, and there are aspects which are suspicious - they measure a lot of stuff which makes it easier to select (post hoc) those combinations which happen to show the most difference. If correction for multiple comparisons was made to the signficance level, none of the results would be significant. Then when you take into consideration that this is the best they have to show for all of homeopathy, it's underwhelming to say the least.

Linda

Also, if I plug the search term "Oscillococcinum" into www.pubmed.gov (http://www.pubmed.gov) I get a total of six studies. All of them reviews, and none of them outright say Oscillococcinum is effective for homeopathy.

Here they are with their conclusions:
Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum for preventing and treating influenza and influenza-like syndromes (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=16855981&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum) concludes " Current evidence does not support a preventative effect of Oscillococcinum-like homeopathic medicines in influenza and influenza-like syndromes."

Preventing influenza: an overview of systematic reviews (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=16112852&ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum).... notes that "The popularity of homoeopathic Oscillococcinum, especially in France, is not supported by current evidence."

Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum for preventing and treating influenza and influenza-like syndromes (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=14973976&ordinalpos=3&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum)...concludes "Though promising, the data are not strong enough to make a general recommendation to use Oscillococcinum for first-line treatment of influenza and influenza-like syndrome." (hey, that is not very overwhelming... especially when it says it reduced symptoms a total of .28 days, um... that is just a few hours!).

Respiratory and allergic diseases: from upper respiratory tract infections to asthma. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=12391710&ordinalpos=4&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum).. was long involved and included this rather noncommittal note "The one study on Elderberry's use for the flu was encouraging, and the data on the homeopathic remedy Oscillococcinum interesting, but more studies should be performed. "

Systematic reviews of complementary therapies - an annotated bibliography. Part 3: homeopathy. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=11527508&ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum)... where again we have these unexcited notes that "The majority of available trials seem to report positive results but the evidence is not convincing. For isopathic nosodes for allergic conditions, oscillococcinum for influenza-like syndromes and galphimia for pollinosis the evidence is promising while in other areas reviewed the results are equivocal."

Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum for preventing and treating influenza and influenza-like syndromes (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=10796675&ordinalpos=6&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum).... which states "Oscillococcinum probably reduces the duration of illness in patients presenting with influenza symptoms. Though promising, the data are not strong enough to make a general recommendation to use Oscillococcinum for first-line treatment of influenza and influenza-like syndrome. Further research is warranted but required sample sizes are large. Current evidence does not support a preventative effect of homeopathy in influenza and influenza-like syndromes."

Now where were those three large studies that show positive results for Oscillococcinum? Because they seem to be missing from the www.pubmed.gov (http://www.pubmed.gov) index.

...Get a chance to read it. I don't have the URL right now, but I still assert that this response blows Orac out of the water, especially Orac is simply the theoretician, while Frass and his colleagues are the scientists and researchers. Heck, there are lots of things in nature that seem illogical but are real.

Then get it... because from http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/07/homeopathy_in_thecringeicu_1.php we read that the study was very small:
First, there were only 25 patients in each group, which is a pretty small number for anything other than a pilot study. You have to remember that, when studies are small, spurious results are more likely to occur.

Then... A more interesting difference, however, and potentially more likely to influence the results of the study comes when you look at the number of patients who were on home oxygen before being hospitalized and developing respiratory failure. In the control group, 9/25 patients were on chronic home oxygen, whereas in the potassium dichromate group, only 5/25 were on home oxygen.

Did you not notice that the two groups were not even equivalent?

[Mojo]

In addition to Dr. Holmes’ glorification of Dr. Rush’s heroic medicine, Holmes had the audacity to say that homeopathic medicine is “barbaric” because it uses various snake venoms (p. x). This statement is more than a tad ironic when you consider that one of Dr. Holmes’ most famous quotes was his own critique of conventional medical drugs when he said, “I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica (materials of medicine), as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind,--and all the worse for the fishes” (Holmes, 1860).
Once again, I've searched the online text of the essay, and I can't find the words "barbaric", or "snake", or "venom". Again, I accept that James may be citing a fuller text than the one I'm searching, however we really need to know what Dr. Holmes actually said, and if the criticised passages aren't in the most easily accessible version of the text, and James won't quote them, then we're in some difficulty.On page x from MEDICAL ESSAYS...


Well, I've found that one: it's in the 1861 preface to Medical Essays linked to by Michael C above (James, it's not necessary to shout out titles like that). Let's look at it in context: Homoeopathy has not died out so rapidly as Tractoration. Perhaps it
was well that it should not, for it has taught us a lesson of the
healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us
have made proper acknowledgments. But it probably does more harm
than good to medical science at the present time, by keeping up the
delusion of treating everything by specifics,--the old barbarous
notion that sick people should feed on poisons [Lachesis, arrow-
poison, obtained from a serpent (Pulte). Crotalus horridus,
rattlesnake's venom (Neidhard). The less dangerous Pediculus capitis
is the favorite remedy of Dr. Mure, the English "Apostle of
Homoeopathy." These are examples of the retrograde current setting
towards barbarism] against which a part of the Discourse at the
beginning of this volume is directed.

I didn't find it yesterday because I looked for the word "barbaric", which doesn't actually appear.

[Mojo]

It is amazing to note, first, that Dr. Holmes wrote that the one physician who typifies the good American medical thinking and practice of that time was Benjamin Rush, MD (1745-1813), a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the surgeon general of the Continental Army. Dr. Rush was one of the leading advocates of “heroic medicine,” that is, the frequent and aggressive use of including bloodletting, intestinal purging (with mercury), vomiting (with the caustic agent tartar emetic), and blistering of the skin.

...snip...

In addition to Dr. Holmes’ glorification of Dr. Rush’s heroic medicine...


For what Holmes says about Rush, see this page (http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Complete-PG-Works-of-Oliver-Wendell44.html).

After discussing various historical figures such as Galen, Vesalius, Harvey and Bichat, he says: If we come to our own country, who can fail to recognize that
Benjamin Rush, the most conspicuous of American physicians, was the
intellectual offspring of the movement which produced the Revolution?
"The same hand," says one of his biographers," which subscribed the
declaration of the political independence of these States,
accomplished their emancipation from medical systems formed in
foreign countries, and wholly unsuitable to the state of diseases in
America."

Following this general course of remark, I propose to indicate in a
few words the direction of the main intellectual current of the time,
and to point out more particularly some of the eddies which tend to
keep the science and art of medicine from moving with it, or even to
carry them backwards.Later, he says: Under these influences transmitted to, or at least shared by, the
medical profession, the old question between "Nature," so called, and
"Art," or professional tradition, has reappeared with new interest.
I say the old question, for Hippocrates stated the case on the side
of "Nature" more than two thousand years ago. Miss Florence
Nightingale,--and if I name her next to the august Father of the
Healing Art, its noblest daughter well deserves that place of honor,
--Miss Florence Nightingale begins her late volume with a paraphrase
of his statement. But from a very early time to this there has
always been a strong party against "Nature." Themison called the
practice of Hippocrates "a meditation upon death." Dr. Rush says:
"It is impossible to calculate the mischief which Hippocrates, has
done, by first marking Nature with his name and afterwards letting
her loose upon sick people. Millions have perished by her hands in
all ages and countries." Sir John Forbes, whose defence of "Nature"
in disease you all know, and to the testimonial in whose honor four
of your Presidents have contributed, has been recently greeted, on
retiring from the profession, with a wish that his retirement had
been twenty years sooner, and the opinion that no man had done so
much to destroy the confidence of the public in the medical
profession.

In this Society we have had the Hippocratic and the Themisonic side
fairly represented. The treatise of one of your early Presidents on
the Mercurial Treatment is familiar to my older listeners. Others
who have held the same office have been noted for the boldness of
their practice, and even for partiality to the use of complex
medication.And: But there are other special American influences which we are bound to
take cognizance of. If I wished to show a student the difficulties
of getting at truth from medical experience, I would give him the
history of epilepsy to read. If I wished him to understand the
tendencies of the American medical mind, its sanguine enterprise, its
self-confidence, its audacious handling of Nature, its impatience
with her old-fashioned ways of taking time to get a sick man well, I
would make him read the life and writings of Benjamin Rush. Dr. Rush
thought and said that there were twenty times more intellect and a
hundred times more knowledge in the country in 1799 than before the
Revolution. His own mind was in a perpetual state of exaltation
produced by the stirring scenes in which he had taken a part, and the
quickened life of the time in which he lived. It was not the state
to favor sound, calm observation. He was impatient, and Nature is
profoundly imperturbable. We may adjust the beating of our hearts to
her pendulum if we will and can, but we may be very sure that she
will not change the pendulum's rate of going because our hearts are
palpitating. He thought he had mastered yellow-fever. "Thank God,"
he said, "out of one hundred patients whom I have visited or
prescribed for this day, I have lost none." Where was all his legacy
of knowledge when Norfolk was decimated? Where was it when the blue
flies were buzzing over the coffins of the unburied dead piled up in
the cemetery of New Orleans, at the edge of the huge trenches yawning
to receive them?

One such instance will do as well as twenty. Dr. Rush must have been
a charming teacher, as he was an admirable man. He was observing,
rather than a sound observer; eminently observing, curious, even,
about all manner of things. But he could not help feeling as if
Nature had been a good deal shaken by the Declaration of
Independence, and that American art was getting to be rather too much
for her,--especially as illustrated in his own practice. He taught
thousands of American students, he gave a direction to the medical
mind of the country more than any other one man; perhaps he typifies
it better than any other. It has clearly tended to extravagance in
remedies and trust in remedies, as in everything else. How could a
people which has a revolution once in four years, which has contrived
the Bowie-knife and the revolver, which has chewed the juice out of
all the superlatives in the language in Fourth of July orations, and
so used up its epithets in the rhetoric of abuse that it takes two
great quarto dictionaries to supply the demand; which insists in
sending out yachts and horses and boys to out-sail, out-run, out-
fight, and checkmate all the rest of creation; how could such a
people be content with any but "heroic" practice? What wonder that
the stars and stripes wave over doses of ninety grains of sulphate of
quinine, [More strictly, ninety-six grains in two hours. Dunglison's
Practice, 1842, vol. ii. p. 520. Eighty grains in one dose.
Ibid. p. 536. Ninety-six grains of sulphate of quinine are equal
to eight ounces of good bark.--Wood & Bache.] and that the American
eagle screams with delight to see three drachms of calomel given at a
single mouthful?

Add to this the great number of Medical Journals, all useful, we
hope, most of them necessary, we trust, many of them excellently well
conducted, but which must find something to fill their columns, and
so print all the new plans of treatment and new remedies they can get
hold of, as the newspapers, from a similar necessity, print the
shocking catastrophes and terrible murders.

Does this support JamesGully's contention that Holmes regarded Rush as "the one physician who typifies the good American medical thinking and practice of that time", or that Holmes "glorifi[ed] Dr. Rush’s heroic medicine"? He says that Rush perhaps typified the medical mind of the time, but that's not the same thing as saying that he typified good thinking, as the context makes clear.

He also mentions Rush on the following page (http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Complete-PG-Works-of-Oliver-Wendell45.html), where he describes Rush as one of "the great fathers of modern medicine": To you, young men, it belongs to judge all that has gone before you. You come nearer to the great fathers of modern medicine than some of you imagine. Three of my own instructors attended Dr. Rush's Lectures. The illustrious Haller mentions Rush's inaugural thesis in his "Bibliotheca Anatomica;" and this same Haller, brought so close to us, tells us he remembers Ruysch, then an old man, and used to carry letters between him and Boerhaave.

Again, this isn't the same as saying that he typified good practice of Holmes's time.

ETA: found another mention of Rush on the following page: "Medicine is my wife and Science is my mistress," said Dr. Rush. I
do not think that the breach of the seventh commandment can be shown
to have been of advantage to the legitimate owner of his affections.
Read what Dr. Elisha Bartlett says of him as a practitioner, or ask
one of our own honored ex-professors, who studied under him, whether
Dr. Rush had ever learned the meaning of that saying of Lord Bacon,
that man is the minister and interpreter of Nature, or whether he did
not speak habitually of Nature as an intruder in the sick room, from
which his art was to expel her as an incompetent and a meddler.And another on the next page: A certain amount of natural ability is requisite to make you a good
physician, but by no means that disproportionate development of some
special faculty which goes by the name of genius. A just balance of
the mental powers is a great deal more likely to be useful than any
single talent, even were it the power of observation; in excess. For
a mere observer is liable to be too fond of facts for their own sake,
so that, if he told the real truth, he would confess that he takes
more pleasure in a post-mortem examination which shows him what was
the matter with a patient, than in a case which insists on getting
well and leaving him in the dark as to its nature. Far more likely
to interfere with the sound practical balance of the mind is that
speculative, theoretical tendency which has made so many men noted in
their day, whose fame has passed away with their dissolving theories.
Read Dr. Bartlett's comparison of the famous Benjamin Rush with his
modest fellow-townsman Dr. William Currie, and see the dangers into
which a passion for grandiose generalizations betrayed a man of many
admirable qualities.

[Michael C]

Holmes' example was intellectually dishonest because it is a false metaphor. One cannot say that the atomic bomb is a placebo just because it is impossible for such small things as atoms creating big explosions...or others might note that a single atom cannot exist because the material in the atom is so much smaller than the space inbetween its component parts.

OK, but that's not what you said in the extract from your book. You said "However, Dr. Holmes had seemingly never read a single book on homeopathy or had any meaningful dialogue with a homeopath because he committed a classic error of calculation". This is simply not true. Holmes calculations are correct and he made it perfectly clear that he was making an illustration. If you think that the illustration itself is invalid, you may give your reasons, but what you actually do, in the extract from your book, is to misrepresent what Holmes really said.

Once more: you quote him as having said homeopathy "has taught us a lesson of the healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us have made proper acknowledgements" to give the impression that he had finally confessed that Homeopathy works.

In fact, if the quote is put into context, Holmes's real meaning becomes clear: he meant that Homeopathy had been useful in making the fact clear that people often get better with no treatment at all: "Nature" does the work. As he says at another point:

"While keeping up the miserable delusion that diseases were all to be
"cured" by drugging, Homoeopathy has been unintentionally showing
that they would very generally get well without any drugging at all."

Please note that my point here is not to defend Holmes: it is to attack your own dishonesty in incorrectly or incompletely quoting him.

[steenkh]

It is hilarious in a tragic way to see how a man without good evidence accuses others of intellectual dishonesty, yet is himself repeatedly and grossly exhibiting intellectual dishonesty. Talk about living in glasshouses!

At least I have learned something about Dr. Holmes, who seems not to deserve the smear that JamesGully intends to publish in his new quote-mining exercise.

[Cuddles]

At least I have learned something about Dr. Holmes, who seems not to deserve the smear that JamesGully intends to publish in his new quote-mining exercise.

As they say, all publicity is good publicity. I'd never heard of Holmes and had never really looked at the origin of homeopathy. I've actually leant quite a lot from this thread, although probably not quite in the way JamesGully hoped.

[MRC_Hans]

I thought that the point was obvious: people who do not understand the past are condemned to repeat it...as this list has shown...

So which other achaic literature do you wish us to study, lest we repeat the past?

I do not have the time to respond to all of your questions and responses. You obviously have a lot more time on your hands than I do.

Of course not. After all you are busy quote-mining, and making posts devoid of argument.


Holmes' example was intellectually dishonest because it is a false metaphor. One cannot say that the atomic bomb is a placebo just because it is impossible for such small things as atoms creating big explosions...or others might note that a single atom cannot exist because the material in the atom is so much smaller than the space inbetween its component parts.


You analogy is intellectually dishonest because that was not what Holmes said. He explained that there are no atoms in homeopathic remedies. Not small atoms, NO atoms. Shall I explain the difference to you?

The AMA Code of Ethics explicitly disallow consultations with homeopaths from the 1860s to the turn of the century, and this was one of the very few ethical codes that was ever enforces. Read some medical history books to learn about the "Consultation Clause."

What has consultation to do with talking?


And yet, once Andral himself acknowledged the SERIOUS problems with his "research," Holmes chose to not change a single word from his essays, even when the collection of his essays was published in 1891.

This is a classic example of intellectual dishonesty. Case book, indeed.


Even if this is correct, why exactly should we care?


I would hope that scientifically-minded people, including many people on this list who proclaim to be such, would join me in expressing concerns about Holmes and his ilk.


Which ilk? And why should we care at all? Holmes is long dead. None of us have used him as a reference for anything. How exactly is his conduct relevant for the discussion about homeopathy in the present?

Thanx, Rolfe. I appreciate it when you show your gentlemanly side. You are one of the few that doesn't name-call or belittle. I predict that one day you will be a leading advocate of homeopathy and nanopharmacology (I hope that your fellow skeptics here don't belittle you before of this remark).That'll be the day! :roll:

Seriously: Careful; you are playing with fire, now.

Hans

[Mojo]

The AMA Code of Ethics explicitly disallow consultations with homeopaths from the 1860s to the turn of the century, and this was one of the very few ethical codes that was ever enforces. Read some medical history books to learn about the "Consultation Clause."


How would this have prevented him from talking to homoeopaths before writing his essay about homoeopathy in 1842?

[fls]

I would never expect you or anyone to say that a single study or a replicated study would "prove" entire system of homeopathy, just as I wouldn't expect you to say that it would disprove the entire system of homeopathy.

But the problem is that you and others specifically mention these studies when we point out that there is no evidence that homeopathy is valid. You have even referred specifically to the influenza studies when we have pointed out that reproducibility of results is one of the components of proof for a hypothesis. You do actually seem to think that these studies contribute to the proof of homeopathy which is why I felt compelled to point out that they do not.

However, I would expect scientifically-minded people to say that Oscillococcinum IS effective in the treatment of influenza and inflenza-like syndromes because three large, independently conducted double-blind studies have shown this to be true.

Again, you are grossly over-stating the case. Even just looking at whether or not water prepared in a certain manner is effective in the treatment of influenza, the results are equivocal. It is not clear whether or not differences were found between the treated and untreated groups because the researchers looked for and emphasized any differences while downplaying similarities, because there are always differences between goups and in this case they were larger than average, or because the special water actually had a tiny effect on influenza.

An honest scientist takes into consideration what conclusions can reliably and validly be drawn from the studies when deciding what can be stated to be true. The results only support the possibility that it is effective, but they most certainly do not exclude the possibility that it is not effective.

It is simply interesting that no one on this list has enough of a backbone to make this statement. Sadly, it is almost as though you are afraid of each other and almost as though you are all vying to seem to be more anti-homeopathic than the other.

Is there a prize?

Get a chance to read it. I don't have the URL right now, but I still assert that this response blows Orac out of the water, especially Orac is simply the theoretician, while Frass and his colleagues are the scientists and researchers. Heck, there are lots of things in nature that seem illogical but are real.

You misunderstood. I did read Frass' response and it was completely unconvincing. Orac wrote two different critiques and Frass only responded to one (per JJM).

ETA: I think I misread JJM's post. I assumed that Orac was Colquhoun. I saw Frass' response to Colquhoun. I did not see any response from Frass to Orac.

Linda

[Mojo]

Get a chance to read it. I don't have the URL right now, but I still assert that this response blows Orac out of the water, especially Orac is simply the theoretician, while Frass and his colleagues are the scientists and researchers.


If you want this taken seriously, I suggest that you find the url, or at least a proper published reference, and post it here. As far as I can tell, Orac hasn't had anything published in Chest. A search for Colquhoun as author, on the other hand, finds this (http://www.chestjournal.org/cgi/reprint/131/2/635?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=colquhoun&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT). ;)

[Mojo]

ETA: I think I misread JJM's post. I assumed that Orac was Colquhoun. I saw Frass' response to Colquhoun. I did not see any response from Frass to Orac.


The problem is JamesGully's habit of making claims about sources without providing references (also mentioned here (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/doctor_strange_and_the_only_way_to_make.php)).

[JJM]

{snip} ETA: I think I misread JJM's post. I assumed that Orac was Colquhoun. I saw Frass' response to Colquhoun. I did not see any response from Frass to Orac.

LindaI see; that is an easy mistake to make, my bad. That is another caution about being accurate in this realm of real names and nom's de blog.

[Rolfe]

Hmmm, thinking, mustn't lose this long post, better copy it into Notepad for safety, then pressing Control-V instead of Control-C, is really dumb. Note to self, don't do that again.

I thought that the point was obvious: people who do not understand the past are condemned to repeat it...as this list has shown...


Well we see homoeopaths resolutely repeating all the same errors Hahnemann made, no change in 200 years, nothing new there then.

I do not have the time to respond to all of your questions and responses. You obviously have a lot more time on your hands than I do.


Not really. Funny, I was just thinking, it's odd James has so much time to trawl the internet looking for adverse comments about homoeopathy and/or himself, and butting in to argue. I'd never have time for all that. But the JREF Forum is a hobby of mine, you get such a good class of person here.

Mostly.

This is an easy one: This reference is on page 192 of Holmes' most famous book...his collection of essays entitled MEDICAL ESSAYS.

On page x from MEDICAL ESSAYS...

[Then finally, from the next post, "To clarify, Holmes' worship for Benjamin Rush was evidenced in Holmes' essay "Currents and Counter-Currents" written in 1860."]


OK, the first point James makes made in his critique specifically aimed at Holmes' essay Homoeopathy and its Kindred Delusions is in fact a criticism of something Holmes wrote in a completely different essay. Good start!

Even there, it takes Mojo to track down and quote Holmes' actual words. Thank you Mojo. I won't repeat it all here, but let's look at one passage.

If I wished him to understand the tendencies of the American medical mind, its sanguine enterprise, its self-confidence, its audacious handling of Nature, its impatience with her old-fashioned ways of taking time to get a sick man well, I would make him read the life and writings of Benjamin Rush. Dr. Rush thought and said that there were twenty times more intellect and a hundred times more knowledge in the country in 1799 than before the Revolution. His own mind was in a perpetual state of exaltation produced by the stirring scenes in which he had taken a part, and the quickened life of the time in which he lived. It was not the state to favor sound, calm observation. He was impatient, and Nature is profoundly imperturbable. We may adjust the beating of our hearts to her pendulum if we will and can, but we may be very sure that she will not change the pendulum's rate of going because our hearts are palpitating. He thought he had mastered yellow-fever. "Thank God," he said, "out of one hundred patients whom I have visited or prescribed for this day, I have lost none." Where was all his legacy of knowledge when Norfolk was decimated? Where was it when the blue flies were buzzing over the coffins of the unburied dead piled up in the cemetery of New Orleans, at the edge of the huge trenches yawning to receive them?


While we can see that Holmes was polite about Dr. Rush, and acknowledged his reputation, there isn't the slightest sign in anything quoted that he "worshipped" him. On the contrary, everything about these passages is critical, using Rush as the most prominent example of all that Holmes felt was wrong with the medical establishment of his time - the arrogance, the over-confidence, the too-ready resorting to "heroic" doses of questionable preparations and so on.

OK, untenable misinterpretation applied to Holmes' writings about Rush, presented as unquestionable fact without quotes from the original, and this straw man made the object of attack. Good start, James.

Holmes' example was intellectually dishonest because it is a false metaphor. One cannot say that the atomic bomb is a placebo just because it is impossible for such small things as atoms creating big explosions...or others might note that a single atom cannot exist because the material in the atom is so much smaller than the space inbetween its component parts.


Hamg on a minute! In your original post, you declared that Holmes had shown he didn't understand homoeopathic manufacture because he declared that 10,000 Adriatic seas were needed to make a 17C preparation. Now you realise that blatant misinterpretation has been blown out of the water you resort to another! Holmes employed no "false metaphor". What did he actually say?

For the fourth dilution it would take 10,000 pints, or more than 1,000 gallons, and so on to the ninth dilution, which would take ten billion gallons, which he computed would fill the basin of Lake Agnano, a body of water two miles in circumference. The twelfth dilution would of course fill a million such lakes. By the time the seventeenth degree of dilution should be reached, the alcohol required would equal in quantity the waters of ten thousand Adriatic seas. Trifling errors must be expected, but they are as likely to be on one side as the other, and any little matter like Lake Superior or the Caspian would be but a drop in the bucket.


He is of course explaining, quite correctly, that the dilution factor involved in a 17C preparation is such that it is equivalent to the original drop of mother tincture being dissolved in ten thousand Adriatic Seas. This is a sensible, reasonable and accurate way to explain to the listener, who might be misled by the relatively modest volumes of water actually used to make the serial dilutions, just what a ludicrous dilution factor is actually present.

It's not a metaphor, it's an illustration. I cannot understand what your grossly false analogy about atomic bombs has to do with this at all, but again you seem to be trying to set up a straw man (implying Holmes' argument is as silly as the atomic bomb one) and then knock it down.

So, first try is to claim Holmes said something he simply didn't say, and portray that as "ignorance". Then, when that is exposed, complete change of tack to present a completely silly metaphor, and claim that Holmes' argument (still never quoted) is as silly as that. Very slippery.

The AMA Code of Ethics explicitly disallow consultations with homeopaths from the 1860s to the turn of the century, and this was one of the very few ethical codes that was ever enforces. Read some medical history books to learn about the "Consultation Clause."


And once again, what has that got to do with anything? Holmes' essay was written in 1842, so quoting regulations of the 1860s is a little pointless. However, a code disallowing "consultations" (that is, professional collaborations regarding individual patients and their care) with homoeopaths is hardly the same as declaring that all homoeopaths should be sent to Coventry. Please provide evidence that Holmes prided himself in never talking to a homoeopath, as you declared was the case.

Please also provide evidence that Holmes "had never read a single book on homoeopathy", as you also declared was the case. And then explain how he manages to quote extensively from the writings of Hahnemann.

So herre we have two specific accusations, neither apparently with a shred of evidence to support it. Doing well.

And yet, once Andral himself acknowledged the SERIOUS problems with his "research," Holmes chose to not change a single word from his essays, even when the collection of his essays was published in 1891.

This is a classic example of intellectual dishonesty. Case book, indeed.


Forgive me, but given your virtual 100% record in misrepresenting what people have said and written, I'm not inclined to swallow this tale of recantation whole without actual quotes, dated, and from verifiable sources.

However, even if it were the case that Dr. Andral at some point came to believe that the criticisms of his work were reasonable, does that mean that Holmes had to share his opinion? It is clear from Holmes' essay that he was aware of the criticisms of Andral's work, he addressed these criticisms and dismissed them. What more would you have him do?

Still no acknowledgement that Holmes was aware of the criticism of Andral and dealt with it in his essay as he saw fit. Running true to form.

I would hope that scientifically-minded people, including many people on this list who proclaim to be such, would join me in expressing concerns about Holmes and his ilk.


Why should I be concerned about a writer whose work dates back to 1842? It's interesting only because it's relevant, and it's relevant because it's true. Holmes pretty much covered all the basic inanities and contradictions of homoeopathy in a witty and entertaining essay, way back then. It has endured on its merits, which are considerable. It will take more than the misinterpretations and straw-man attacks of an aggrieved homoeopath to damage that man's reputation.

[Regarding homoeopathy as a shining example of "first do no harm".]

I'm glad that you acknowledged this.


My God, is it me who is being misinterpreted and by implication misquoted now? I'm "acknowledging" nothing. It's well known that it was the observation (from homoeopathy) of how often people got well with nursing care only, and no effective medication, which prompted the realisation among some doctors of the 19th century that their methods were possibly actively harmful. Pointing out that homoeopathy provided a useful "control group" of untreated patients is in no way any acknowledgement that the arcane beliefs and practices of homoeopathy do the slightest good whatsoever, of themselves.

Thanx, Rolfe. I appreciate it when you show your gentlemanly side. You are one of the few that doesn't name-call or belittle. I predict that one day you will be a leading advocate of homeopathy and nanopharmacology (I hope that your fellow skeptics here don't belittle you before of this remark).


I'm no gentleman, believe me. Good Lord, what planet are you orbiting? I don't need to call names, because you do such a good job of showing yourself up for a fool, all by yourself, and an intellectually dishonest fool at that. The day I'm a leading advocate of homoeopathy - well, the phrase "cold day in hell" rather springs to mind.

Nanopharmacology? Well, I'm no pharmacologist, in spite of having done my PhD work in a pharmacology department, but I do know that there are even now active drugs which are effective in the body at the 10^-9 order of magnitude. This is of course what "nanopharmacology" really means, if anyone bothered to use the term. I anticipate there will be more in the future, as molecules are specifically designed to fit particular receptor sites. But that isn't what James means at all, is it. He's still trying to hijack a rather orphan term with a specific meaning to give some semblance of respectability to his witterings about preparations in the purely theoretical range of 10^-24 and beyond.

Get over it, James. Homoeopathy isn't nano-anything. It's just no-medicine.

I've got a bit more to say about the string of dishonesty that is James' post about O. W. Holmes, which seems to be a preview of something he is preparing for publication, but I want my tea now.

Bye!

Rolfe.

[Chris Haynes]

Hmmm, thinking, mustn't lose this long post, better copy it into Notepad for safety, then pressing Control-V instead of Control-C, is really dumb. Note to self, don't do that again.

Control-Z is your friend.




.....
Nanopharmacology? Well, I'm no pharmacologist, in spite of having done my PhD work in a pharmacology department, but I do know that there are even now active drugs which are effective in the body at the 10^-9 order of magnitude. This is of course what "nanopharmacology" really means, if anyone bothered to use the term. I anticipate there will be more in the future, as molecules are specifically designed to fit particular receptor sites. But that isn't what James means at all, is it. He's still trying to hijack a rather orphan term with a specific meaning to give some semblance of respectability to his witterings about preparations in the purely theoretical range of 10^-24 and beyond.

Get over it, James. Homoeopathy isn't nano-anything. It's just no-medicine.



There is actually some exciting things happening with nanotechnology/nanopharmacology:
http://www.nature.com/bjp/journal/v150/n5/full/0707130a.html;jsessionid=12AE11B0B9705E4FBFF32CFE1 AAC786C

And it has absolutely nothing to do with homeopathy.

...The critique of the details of the study itself was on Orac's blog. I did not see a response from the authors there (although admittedly I didn't wade through all the posts, as a fight broke out over what to do about homeopathy).

...

The funny thing about the one angry guy, http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/07/homeopathy_in_thecringeicu_1.php#comment-486142 , is that he lives in San Francisco, which I believe is close to Ullman. I apologize for goading him a bit, because I now believe he is actually quite ill. I won't do that anymore.

[fls]

I see; that is an easy mistake to make, my bad. That is another caution about being accurate in this realm of real names and nom's de blog.

It wasn't your fault - I misread something, and (to my even deeper shame) I took something that Ullman said at face value. That'll teach me!

Linda

[Mojo]

Please also provide evidence that Holmes "had never read a single book on homoeopathy", as you also declared was the case. And then explain how he manages to quote extensively from the writings of Hahnemann.


Well, "James" has evidently not read what Holmes wrote, but still feels able to [mis]quote him in his long streams of GullyBullTM.


[Regarding homoeopathy as a shining example of "first do no harm".]


First, do no harm.
???
Profit!

[Mojo]

Has he left the country again?

[steenkh]

Has he left the country again?
You must respect his line of work. Good quote-mining is a lot of work, and it takes time.

[Chris Haynes]

Has he left the country again?

Maybe he is hiding from "S.H.A.M. Scam Sam (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/07/homeopathy_in_thecringeicu_1.php#comment-486142)" who lives uncomfortably close to him (the short story is that this angry man's mother-in-law died from cancer after seeking treatment from a homeopath... then his wife disvorced him and ran off with the homeopath... and he feels that bloggers are not doing enough to bring the evil homeopaths down).

[MRC_Hans]

Well, I suppose you can't blame him for fleing. Once you get under Rolfe's gentelemanly hands, the flight reflex must get strong, if you're a homeopath :roll:.

Seems you guys broke this one, too. Whether he realizes it and wisely stays away, time will show, hehe.

Hans

[Rolfe]

But I hadn't finished with him! [stamps foot]

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

It looks to me as if James' post #763 (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2754997#post2754997) is a preview of something he's preparing for publication. So let's have a look at how it stacks up in the accuracy stakes.


James states that he's going to critique an essay by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. entitled Homoeopathy and its Kindred Delusions. He kicks off by lambasting Holmes for his "worship" of a Dr. Rush, but includes no references or substantial quotes. When we (that is Mojo) finally find out what he's talking about, it turns out to be contained in a different essay, one entitled Currents and Countercurrents.
Having found what Holmes actually said about Dr. Rush, we find that he is in fact highly critical of the man, holding him up as a prime example of what he believes is wrong with the contemporary medical establishment, its arrogance, overconfidence and tendency to over-prescribe heroic quantities of possibly harmful substances. It may be that Holmes' gently ironic style of writing is simply miles above James' head, but he really needs to pay more attention to what he's reading if he's going to criticise it in print.
James goes on to state that Holmes accused homoeopathy of being "barbaric" because of its use of snake venom. Once again, it took Mojo to find the actual passage referred to, in the preface to Medical Essays, not in the essay Homoeopathy and its Kindred Delusions. We find that Holmes has said nothing of the sort. After having opined that homoeopathy might be credited with unintentionally doing some good by demonstrating to the heroic brigade how often patients do just fine with no treatment, he looks at the other side of the scale. There he observes that homoeopathic doctrine, by continuing to promote such things as snake venoms as "specific cures", is retrograde, and harmful to progress. The term "barbarism" as describing the use of snake venoms (actual quantities) in medical treatment, is however reserved for the conventional medicine of his time. Far from being a contradiction of Holmes' elsewhere-expressed opinion that the entire materia medica of his time was worse than useless, it is part and parcel of that opinion.
Next, James attacks Holmes' illustration of the ludicrous dilution factors achieved by homoeopathy's serial 1:100 dilutions. This one is so gross I have to quote it.However, Dr. Holmes got his calculations confused, and he incorrectly assumed that the homeopathic manufacturer had to have 10 times or 100 times more water than in the previous dilution. Dr. Holmes estimated that the 9th dilution would require ten billion gallons of water and the 17th dilution required a quantity equal to 10,000 Adriatic seas. Dr. Holmes could have easily corrected his error if he had simply gone into one homeopathic pharmacy or had a simple short conversation with a homeopath.Is this clear or is it clear? James actually seems to think that Holmes really believed a homoeopathic manufacturer would actually use a volume of solvent (not water, by the way, alcohol!) equivalent to 10,000 times the volume of the Adriatic to make every 17C preparation. Does James think at all? And based on that preposterous misinterpretation, James accuses Holmes of never having read a single book on homeopathy or having any meaningful dialogue with a homeopath, and indeed declared that Holmes prided himself in never talking with a homoeopath! James can provide no evidence that Holmes never talked with any homoeopath, or read a single book on homoeopathy, and is in the latter accusation calmly ignoring Holmes' extensive quotes from Hahnemann's own writings.
Once the illustrative rather than literal meaning of Holmes' "calculations" is pointed out to him, James backtracks to declare it a "false metaphor". To do this he produces a quite stunningly false (and indeed meaningless) metaphor to do with atoms in an atomic bomb, and baldly asserts that Holmes' sensible and well-explained illustration is a silly as that. Two own goals in one! No James, it's not literal, but it's not a metaphor either, it's an illustration. Care to try again to explain where it's wrong?
James then appears to criticise Holmes for inconsistency between one statement that homoeopathy had become popular because conventional physicians over-medicated their patients, and another that "the public insists on being poisoned". There is no contradiction there, they are two sides of the same coin. When the public "insists on being poisoned" (that is, on being given something they believe to be medicine), then a doctrine that gives them harmless sugar pills might well flourish when compared to one which gives harsh purgatives! Baseless criticism.
James then proceeds to criticise Holmes' references to work carried out by a Dr. Andral, which James asserts was subsequently repudiated by Andral. Two points emerge. First, James has not shown the evidence that Andral repudiated his work (and based on track record, forgive me if I suspect that the reality of what he said may have been somewhat unlike what James asserts it to be). Second, if we actually read Holmes' writings (this time actually in the essay in question), we find that he is well aware that Andral's work had been criticised by homoeopaths, and he makes reference to Andral having completely repeated some of his work subsequent to some criticism. Holmes confronts the critics square on, debunks them quite effectively, and makes it clear why, in his opinion, Andral's work was useful and valid. But does James allow the merest hint of this in his critique? Of course not.
James concludes by having the gall to imply that Holmes actually came to believe that homoeopathy was a valid method of treatment, saying that he "confessed" that homeopathy “has taught us a lesson of the healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us have made proper acknowledgements”. It's the word "confessed" that's so dishonest here. Holmes quite properly observed that on one sense homoeopathy might be regarded as having done conventional medicine a favour, by providing a control group of untreated patients which allowed observation of how well most people will recover when nature is left to her own devices. (Of course he then decided that on balance homoeopathy was a retrograde influence, by its promotion of the idea that there were "specifics" such as snake venom for all conditions, but that's by the way.) To represent this as any sort of acknowledgement that the arcane beliefs and practices of homoeopathy had any validity is perhaps the worst example of intellectual dishonesty in the entire thing.
Finally, James repeatedly accuses Holmes' work of being "full of obvious errors of fact", having "numerous .... errors of fact", containing "misinformation", and being "neither rational nor accurate". However, he has not quoted one single factual statement from Holmes' work which he has shown to be in error. Nor has he shown any irrationality.James seems to think that Holmes should have revised his essay in the light of the matters that he has singled out to criticise. As can be seen, these criticisms are entirely unfounded, and based on misreading and misinterpretation of what Holmes wrote. In some cases I wonder whether Holmes' witty, urbane and sophisticated writing style is just so far over James' head that he simply doesn't understand what Holmes is actually saying. However, some of the misinterpretations are so gross (the idea that Holmes was declaring that homoeopathic manufacturers literally used a volume of alcohol 100,000 the volume of the Adriatic Sea to make each 17C preparation, for one, and the implication that Holmes by 1861 had "confessed" that homoeopathy was valuable, for another, are pretty hard to sustain), that I think we have to conclude wilful intent.

However, these misinterpretations and errors of fact have now been pointed out to James. In particular, James has acknowledged that Holmes' passage about the dilution factors is not an "error of calculation" at all, and has backtracked to declaring it a "false metaphor".

So, goose and gander sauce. Will James now revise what he has written to address all the errors and misinterpretations and straw men he has been caught peddling? In something that seems not even to have been published yet, and so relatively easily amended? I mean, not to do so - wouldn't that be intellectually dishonest?

Don't hold your breath. :nope:

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

The trouble is that the gullible nitwits who buy the book will believe every word of his GullyBullTM; they won't follow up references (even if he bothers to provide them in enough detail for them to be easily followed up) and they won't see what has been posted here.

[Rolfe]

Well, exactly, that's the whole point of the exercise. And it's just SOP for homoeopathic discourse as far as I can see. He'll probably even boast that I agreed with him!

Classic argument by blatant assertion.

Rolfe.

[MRC_Hans]

But I hadn't finished with him! [stamps foot]

Rolfe.That'll teach you not to finish them off before you are finished with them.

... But by all means continue. We love to watch. :popcorn1


Hans

[MRC_Hans]

Rolfe:

Oh, I see you finished in the meantime. Nice sum up.

Yes, I'm afraid it's about par for the homeopathic course. That is, for those of them who are at least literal. Seems they use their literacy to obfusciate. However, let's face it: What would happen if they were objective and honest?

Objective and honest homeopath:

"I must acknowledge that there is absolutely no backing for my claims, except some selected anecdotical material, most of which is ancient. However, I feel homeopathy is at least harmless, and I hope people will continue using it, because I hate to have to find a new line of work."

Riiight. No reason to hold your breath.

Hans

[steenkh]

It was quite interesting how he switched from his original line of argumentation to focus on the presumably air-tight attack on a defenceless doctor in the 19th century, and put himself on the high horse accusing us and the poor Dr. Holmes of intellectual dishonesty, only to be unhorsed in the most ignoble manner, and ending up being the only intellectual dishonest person around.

And his victim Dr. Holmes has gained modern popularity in the process.

I, for one, will use the example of Dr. Holmes to point out how homoeopathy was exposed right from the beginning, and that homoeopaths have learned nothing of the past.

[kieran]

First, do no harm.
???
Profit!

May I cheekily suggest "Second, do no good." for the vacant slot?

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

OK. We've left James with no data. We've blown up his attempt to hide in 19th Century literary criticism.

That leaves these questions still outstanding:

4. Can you tell us whether either of these machines works?

http://www.bio-resonance.com/elybra.htm

http://www.remedydevices.com/voice.htm

Bear in mind that the users of these machines rely on exactly the same anecdotal experience and fallacious post hoc reasoning that every other homeopath does. Are the homeopaths who use these machines right or wrong in thinking they work?

It's a very simple question and capable of a single-word answer.

I'll give you a new question just so you can show how well you understand the interpretation of clinical trial data;

9. I set a p-value for significance of 0.05 and run 100 trials. In no trial is the test substance distinguishable from the control. How many trials can I expect to show an apparent "effect" from my test substance?

Perhaps he'd like to try question 9. At least with that he could copy the correct answer from elsewhere even if he doesn't understand the question or its purpose.

[JamesGully]

No, I have not gone away yet, but I am just about to do so, not because I am "broken," but because this conversation is broken. While some of you may be a tad diplomatic, you still are so entrenched in your position, you don't even consider that you may be wrong.

I can and will assert that homeopathy is without merit if or when there is adequate evidence to prove it so, but the body of evidence (basic science, clinical research, AND historical empirical evidence) weighs much more heavily for homeopathy than against it.

And because GOOD scientists have humility and because I have not yet found a good scientist on this list (arrogance limits vision), this conversation is boring.

My previous longer posts were from a forthcoming book. I'm sorry if I do not have the time to include all of the references, but please know that what I've written is true. It is classic that all of you assume that I am "wrong," without even asking me to be more specific. This is part and parcel of your unscientific thinking processes (you are right; others are wrong). My references to Holmes' writing is from his collection of essays, not just one. The fact that you all will quibble with what he said or didn't say WITHOUT knowing the facts (and again, without humility) is typical of your mindset.

The worst that you seem to say is that I am "quote mining." Because I have no interest in quoting ALL of Holmes' work, how else can a writer quote work without being specific to one statement or another. Every quote from Holmes that I found could be found in other writing of his in slightly different language (THAT is not quote mining...YOUR critique is a weak effort to create a defense...a VERY weak effort).

I have provided evidence of the work of Rustom Roy, PhD (I mentioned that he had 13 papers published in NATURE, and I got attacked for not knowing that he had actually had 15 papers published in NATURE). His 2005 paper on water structure comes from some of world's leading scientists who understand WATER STRUCTURE, and I told you to watch out for a 2007 paper in which he conducts experiments that verify his previous writings on the subject. I could have provided you with a URL to a presentation on this new research, but I couldn't help but notice that no one inquired about what this new research was (the people on this list do not really want to learn; you want to attack, and you want to feel superior).

I referenced Rey's work in one of the most respected physics journals in the world, and the worst that could be said was quoted from Benveniste (who you normally attack!)...this "worst" statement is that the study wasn't blinded. So, if I fly and show the world that I can fly, you would say that it isn't true because I (or you!) wasn't blinded. Some physical phenomena, like Rey's work, cannot be influenced by belief, and it is not necessary to have every basic science study be blinded (especially in physics--don't take this out of context).

The Elia work is substantial and remains unrebutted...despite many references to this being forthcoming.

The influenza studies have been replicated by 3 independent groups of researchers. There have been 4 studies on allergic conditions by a group at the University of Glasgow and 3 studies on childhood diarrhea.

Even the CHEST study on COPD is weakly criticized. When you consider the results of that study (P<.0007), the initial state of the homeopathic treated group was still substantially significant (not just "significantly" different than the placebo group).

I cannot help but sense that most of the people on this are a bit like that angry SAM guy. He can blame homeopathy all he wants, but I know that we all know that his wife left him for good reasons that have nothing to do with homeopathy. I cannot help but sense that you folks were kidded as children for being smart-alec nerds, and now, you want to get back at anyone and everyone who simply has a different worldview.

Mr. Monkey has STILL not evolved and is still asking the same innane questions about some machine that I have never heard of...and yet, he insists that I answer this questions.

Someone else continually asks me about homeopathy for syphilis. I'm sorry that you or someone in your family may have been stricken with it, but why the broken record?

[Chris Haynes]

...The influenza studies have been replicated by 3 independent groups of researchers. There have been 4 studies on allergic conditions by a group at the University of Glasgow and 3 studies on childhood diarrhea.

Prove it. So far all we have to go on is your statement, which is of dubious value. But there is no link to the studies, or the data. All I had to go on is to check out www.pubmed.gov (http://www.pubmed.gov) which led me to six reviews. All of them lukewarm and unremarkable.

......Someone else continually asks me about homeopathy for syphilis. I'm sorry that you or someone in your family may have been stricken with it, but why the broken record?

You have serious reading comprehension problems (no one in my family has syphilis).

And of course the reason I kept bringing it up is because you never answered the question!

Obviously because you did not understand it. The question was since one of the miasms that Hahnemann wrote about was the "syphilis" miasm. I even posted a link to the part of the Organon where he claims to cure it. Now the simplified question is: What is a better way to cure syphilis... the way Hahnemann did or with antibiotics?

Be sure to include links to actual research showing the efficacy of Hahnemann's method versus antibiotics for syphilis.

[fls]

No, I have not gone away yet, but I am just about to do so, not because I am "broken," but because this conversation is broken. While some of you may be a tad diplomatic, you still are so entrenched in your position, you don't even consider that you may be wrong.

When you make statements that apply more strongly to yourself than to those you intend to insult, you run the risk of inducing a fit of the giggles in your audience. There is only so much of this sweet torture we can withstand, after all.

I can and will assert that homeopathy is without merit if or when there is adequate evidence to prove it so, but the body of evidence (basic science, clinical research, AND historical empirical evidence) weighs much more heavily for homeopathy than against it.

You know that can't be true, else you wouldn't need to convince us.

And because GOOD scientists have humility and because I have not yet found a good scientist on this list (arrogance limits vision), this conversation is boring.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. I can think of many counter-examples, and I cannot think why it would be necessary considering that humility will be thrust upon you once you start doing/saying silly and stupid things.

My previous longer posts were from a forthcoming book. I'm sorry if I do not have the time to include all of the references, but please know that what I've written is true. It is classic that all of you assume that I am "wrong," without even asking me to be more specific. This is part and parcel of your unscientific thinking processes (you are right; others are wrong). My references to Holmes' writing is from his collection of essays, not just one. The fact that you all will quibble with what he said or didn't say WITHOUT knowing the facts (and again, without humility) is typical of your mindset.

You've been caught in too many outright lies. And I like how you failed to mention the part about how further investigation confirmed the initial suspicion that you were lying yet again.

The worst that you seem to say is that I am "quote mining." Because I have no interest in quoting ALL of Holmes' work, how else can a writer quote work without being specific to one statement or another. Every quote from Holmes that I found could be found in other writing of his in slightly different language (THAT is not quote mining...YOUR critique is a weak effort to create a defense...a VERY weak effort).

You misunderstand. "Quote mining" is when you compile a selection of quotes, taken out-of-context, in order to provide the illusion of support, which obscures (or reverses) the original meaning of the text - i.e. what you did to Dr. Holmes.

I have provided evidence of the work of Rustom Roy, PhD (I mentioned that he had 13 papers published in NATURE, and I got attacked for not knowing that he had actually had 15 papers published in NATURE). His 2005 paper on water structure comes from some of world's leading scientists who understand WATER STRUCTURE, and I told you to watch out for a 2007 paper in which he conducts experiments that verify his previous writings on the subject. I could have provided you with a URL to a presentation on this new research, but I couldn't help but notice that no one inquired about what this new research was (the people on this list do not really want to learn; you want to attack, and you want to feel superior).

You do realize that this is recorded, right?

I referenced Rey's work in one of the most respected physics journals in the world, and the worst that could be said was quoted from Benveniste (who you normally attack!)...this "worst" statement is that the study wasn't blinded. So, if I fly and show the world that I can fly, you would say that it isn't true because I (or you!) wasn't blinded. Some physical phenomena, like Rey's work, cannot be influenced by belief, and it is not necessary to have every basic science study be blinded (especially in physics--don't take this out of context).

We've heard that excuse before. And yet we still have the Magically Disappearing Results Show when blinding is introduced. I'll ignore that your example shows a profound misunderstanding of what blinding means - presumably you were too rushed (or tired or impaired) to come up with a valid example.

The Elia work is substantial and remains unrebutted...despite many references to this being forthcoming.

Cute. It is the criticism of the Elia work that you have yet to rebutt.

The influenza studies have been replicated by 3 independent groups of researchers. There have been 4 studies on allergic conditions by a group at the University of Glasgow and 3 studies on childhood diarrhea.

None of which provided convincing evidence for the effectiveness of any specially prepared water.

Even the CHEST study on COPD is weakly criticized. When you consider the results of that study (P<.0007), the initial state of the homeopathic treated group was still substantially significant (not just "significantly" different than the placebo group).

A weak criticism is something like "the exact details of how the allocation was hidden weren't described". The discovery that the two groups were different before the treatment was given (meaning that the differences after treatment cannot be solely attributed to that treatment (if at all)) would be considered a moderate to strong criticism.

I cannot help but sense that most of the people on this are a bit like that angry SAM guy. He can blame homeopathy all he wants, but I know that we all know that his wife left him for good reasons that have nothing to do with homeopathy. I cannot help but sense that you folks were kidded as children for being smart-alec nerds, and now, you want to get back at anyone and everyone who simply has a different worldview.

I know you're trying to get this particular insult to stick (you've floated it several times now), but you aren't getting any takers. Maybe try something new? I'd get pissed off if you accused me of getting my medical info from WebMD, for example. Well, not now, but you get the idea.

Mr. Monkey has STILL not evolved and is still asking the same innane questions about some machine that I have never heard of...and yet, he insists that I answer this questions.

Because the skills and understanding necessary to answer those questions are also necessary to the evaluation of homeopathy. And the kinds of mistakes you make suggests that you do not have those skills. By asking you those questions, he's giving you the benefit of the doubt by providing you with an opportunity to demonstrate otherwise.

Linda

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I'll not expand on what fls just said, but will instead point out that you have simply failed to grasp the purpose of the questions I have asked. Your smug condescension would carry more weight if you had even a little justification for it, but just take a step back and look at what you have just written. After 200 years the entire trial record that you find to rely on is a tiny handful of papers. Even those papers do not support the load that you need them to bear. Cann you really not see how pathetic your position is?

Let me say this in very simple terms so that even the hard of understanding might see the problem.

4. Can you tell us whether either of these machines works?

http://www.bio-resonance.com/elybra.htm

http://www.remedydevices.com/voice.htm

Bear in mind that the users of these machines rely on exactly the same anecdotal experience and fallacious post hoc reasoning that every other homeopath does. Are the homeopaths who use these machines right or wrong in thinking they work?

Homeopathy depends for its credibility almost exclusively on accumulated, unblinded, biased, partial and selective accounts of clinical cases. From that base homeopaths are sold, and are happy to use, a variety of wacky devices that purport to make homeopathic remedies but provide absolutely no validation that they really perform this purpose. Sadly, your critical faculties are at such a low level that you cannot even see when you're colleagues are effectively being scammed. And you seem unable to be able to draw the necessary inferences about the quality of your entire evidence-base.

You similarly failed to answer adequately as to the problem of some homeopaths thinking that X-rays disable their remedies and others are adamant that they do not.

It really is quite irrelevant whether or not a few controlled trials appear to show marginally positive effects for homeopathy (and we know how these marginally positive results fare under attempts at replication), the considerations I have just given you show that the entire clinical record of homeopathy cannot but be riddled with utter falsity. But, this clinical record, and nothing else at all, is all that you have to base your practice on.

I suppose someone needs to remind you that even if Roy's claimed findings were true they are completely irrelevant to the practical reality of giving sugar tablets onto which some water was once evaporated. So, please give up with this constant reiteration of Roy's work- it is irrelevant to your case.

You simply refuse to accept that the plural of anecdote is not data. If you cannot pass over this particular version of the pons asinorum then you are incapable of having a valid opinion on the topics under discussion. All that you have, and I do mean all that you have, is the tiny handful of properly conducted clinical trials of homeopathy. Even looked at in a generous light, the effects these show are tiny at best. But, they fail under replication. And, as has been pointed out repeatedly to homeopaths, these vanishingly small effects are in stark contrast to the claims made for the huge and reliable curative power of their sugar and water remedies that homeopaths constantly assert.

Hey, but you make a living selling sugar and water, so why should you worry.

[Michael C]

The worst that you seem to say is that I am "quote mining." Because I have no interest in quoting ALL of Holmes' work, how else can a writer quote work without being specific to one statement or another.

Oh come on: do you really not know the difference between quote mining and correct quoting? What you're doing is fundamentally dishonest: you quote a segment out of context to apparently support your complete misrepresentation of what the writer actually said.

You pretend that Holmes at some point changed his mind about homeopathy, and criticise him for not asking his publisher to change what he had previously wrote. But Holmes didn't change his mind about homeopathy. You use this quote to support your claim:

"[homeopathy] has taught us a lesson of the healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us have made proper acknowledgements"

Yes, Holmes wrote that. No, it doesn't mean that he had changed his mind: look at the context and the meaning becomes perfectly clear: he was talking about the fact that giving a homeopathic remedy was equivalent to giving no remedy at all, and therefore equivalent to letting Nature get on with healing.

Every quote from Holmes that I found could be found in other writing of his in slightly different language

Fine: give me another version of the quote above, with enough of the surrounding context to make the meaning clear.

YOUR critique is a weak effort to create a defense...a VERY weak effort

No: this is not a defence, it is an attack. I am attacking your dishonesty in misrepresenting the writings of Holmes.

But finally I must thank you for one thing: because of your silly attacks on him, I have been reading Oliver Wendell Holmes with interest. I have discovered a fine, intelligent writer.

[steenkh]

I referenced Rey's work in one of the most respected physics journals in the world, and the worst that could be said was quoted from Benveniste (who you normally attack!)...this "worst" statement is that the study wasn't blinded. So, if I fly and show the world that I can fly, you would say that it isn't true because I (or you!) wasn't blinded. Some physical phenomena, like Rey's work, cannot be influenced by belief, and it is not necessary to have every basic science study be blinded (especially in physics--don't take this out of context).
We thought that you would appreciate Benveniste's comments because he himself learned the hard way why blinding is necessary in basic physical research. In Japan Dr. Emoto has shown that water can read read and knows Hitler, but there was no blinding (and nobody has replicated the research). The critique of non-blinded experiments in this sort of work is devastating.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

this "worst" statement is that the study wasn't blinded.

OK. Some things do bear repetition.

That was possibly the most revealing thing that you have said in all of your posts. It really seems that you have no appreciation whatsoever of how a valid conclusion may be drawn from scientific observattions. If you really cannot see why a lack of blinding completely invalidates the inferences drawn from these kinds of experiments then you have no right to hold an opinion on any of the matters we are discussing.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

We thought that you would appreciate Benveniste's comments...

It is also sadly all too common, in my experience, among the defenders of alt. med. that they are so po-faced and narrow in their outlook that, never mind failing to get the joke, they don't even see when a joke has been made or something is said that is loaded with irony.

Perhaps forcing yourself to accept the amusingly false as reality erodes your sense of humour.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

While some of you may be a tad diplomatic...

Poor little James. The nasty sceptics are being rude when they point out the error of his ways.

But what's this?

Mr. Monkey has STILL not evolved and is still asking the same innane questions about some machine that I have never heard of...and yet, he insists that I answer this questions.


:i:

p.s. You do know that Lamarck was wrong, don't you? Or do your misconceptions about science extend beyond the field of medicine? For the record, Kipling's "Just So" stories were never intended as a formalised theory to compete with Darwin's. I hope that's clear for you now.

Glad to be of service.

[Mojo]

It is classic that all of you assume that I am "wrong," without even asking me to be more specific.

Yes, we did: we asked you for proper references. We then tracked down the sections of Holmes's work that you claimed supported what you had posted (the preface to Medical Essays, and the essay "Currents and Counter-Currents"), and found that they did not say what you claimed they did. If you have quotations from Holmes that support your assertions, please provide them, and give references so that we can see them in context.

You still haven't said what "Dean, 2004" refers to, by the way, and you still haven't provided any reference for the reply from Frass et al. which you claim "blows Orac out of the water".

Please be more specific.

[Mojo]

Poor little James. The nasty sceptics are being rude when they point out the error of his ways.

But what's this?

Mr. Monkey has STILL not evolved...


:i:

p.s. You do know that Lamarck was wrong, don't you?


Look at the dates, BSM:

Lamarck 1744-1829
Hahnemann 1755-1843
Darwin 1809-1882

Darwin didn't publish On the Origin of Species until it was too late for Hahnemann to know about it.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Look at the dates, BSM:

Lamarck 1744-1829
Hahnemann 1755-1843
Darwin 1809-1882

Darwin didn't publish On the Origin of Species until it was too late for Hahnemann to know about it.

Sorry, it's easy to forget that homeopaths have an intellectual Event Horizon sitting at the publication date of the Organon.

That's presumably why James got into such a muddle with his Oliver Wendell Holmes quotes- the ideas are too new-fangled and are positioned the other side of that infinitely distorting barrier.

[manioberoi]

OK. We've left James with no data. We've blown up his attempt to hide in 19th Century literary criticism.

That leaves these questions still outstanding:

4. Can you tell us whether either of these machines works?

http://www.bio-resonance.com/elybra.htm

http://www.remedydevices.com/voice.htm

Bear in mind that the users of these machines rely on exactly the same anecdotal experience and fallacious post hoc reasoning that every other homeopath does. Are the homeopaths who use these machines right or wrong in thinking they work?

It's a very simple question and capable of a single-word answer.

I'll give you a new question just so you can show how well you understand the interpretation of clinical trial data;

9. I set a p-value for significance of 0.05 and run 100 trials. In no trial is the test substance distinguishable from the control. How many trials can I expect to show an apparent "effect" from my test substance?

Perhaps he'd like to try question 9. At least with that he could copy the correct answer from elsewhere even if he doesn't understand the question or its purpose.
Experienced conventional medical experts have (in India) the good sense to say that they do not know much about homeopathy to be able to comment on it - however they do say that in medical college they were taught that it is placebo and so ethical guidelines require them not to use homeopathy in their practice. They use it for their children if / when it works and have witnessed "miracle" cures but these can not be the proof that medicine requires - the statistical evidence.

Similarly homeopaths have no experience in occult sciences - so can not comment on their effectiveness - classical homeopaths would not use those methods on ethical grounds.

For homeopathic trials which lack prior scientific results at present, a standard p> .05 level of significance trial is not appropriate.

A better method is to use p-rep methodology with RI confidence levels with minimum sample size of 40 patients.

See http://www.asu.edu/clas/psych/research/sqab/Forms/p_rep_pack.zip

[fls]

For homeopathic trials which lack prior scientific results at present, a standard p> .05* level of significance trial is not appropriate.

A better method is to use p-rep methodology with RI confidence levels with minimum sample size of 40 patients.

See http://www.asu.edu/clas/psych/research/sqab/Forms/p_rep_pack.zip

I haven't read through all this stuff yet, but this is basically what I have pointed out before in this and other threads (using different terminology). It doesn't get homeopaths off the hook. It makes it more difficult to legitimately infer anything about homeopathy from the results of individual studies.

Which one of the papers describes "RI confidence levels"?

Linda

*This should be p<0.05.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

classical homeopaths would not use those methods on ethical grounds.

So, what are we to conclude about the homeopaths who most definitely do use those machines? Need I remind you that their clinical experience is just as valid as yours.

[Mojo]

Experienced conventional medical experts have (in India) the good sense to say...


Hi manioberoi.

Now that you're back, perhaps you can answer the question I asked you in relation to an anecdote (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2723288#post2723288) you posted:

How would you go about establishing that the homoeopathic treatment did not cause the storm?

[SYLVESTER1592]

I would never expect you or anyone to say that a single study or a replicated study would "prove" entire system of homeopathy, just as I wouldn't expect you to say that it would disprove the entire system of homeopathy.

However, I would expect scientifically-minded people to say that Oscillococcinum IS effective in the treatment of influenza and inflenza-like syndromes because three large, independently conducted double-blind studies have shown this to be true.

It is simply interesting that no one on this list has enough of a backbone to make this statement. Sadly, it is almost as though you are afraid of each other and almost as though you are all vying to seem to be more anti-homeopathic than the other.


Ahh yes... The Winston Wu defense: "you are not skeptical you are cynical"
Our judgement is based on the entire body of evidence, which is not in your favor. I can only speak for myself, but I feel I can still doubt myself on many fronts and think the mere fact that this discussion has lasted this long is a testimony to the willingness to be open to any evidence you may present. But to make up for all the bad science in the past and the vast amount of data disproving the effect of homeopathy is a though task.

Nevertheless, we do listen to what you have to say and maintain open to new evidence, even when by most standards it should already have been rejected many decades ago. So we're not the cynics...

How open are you to new ideas? :rolleyes:

You have been presented with arguments opposing yours, but remain relentless and steadfast in your belief, based on ... ?
If tomorrow these studies would turn out to be untrue, would you give them up?
I have a feeling you wouldn't, you would present it as evidence eventhough it has already been refuted, you would hang on to it, like all the other studies that came before it and have been refuted. Basically the vast amount of bad studies and refuted claims has decreased the credibility of the homeopaths to an abominable level. This explains the hesitancy.
You don't feel any hesitancy, maybe because you don't need a study to tell you homeopathy works. We do...

If the 3 studies check out, I would suggest you present it to Mr. Randi. Let's see what happens. (You might want to double check)

Good luck,

SYL :)

[Furcifer]

Ahh yes... The Winston Wu defense: "you are not skeptical you are cynical"
Our judgement is based on the entire body of evidence, which is not in your favor. I can only speak for myself, but I feel I can still doubt myself on many fronts and think the mere fact that this discussion has lasted this long is a testimony to the willingness to be open to any evidence you may present. But to make up for all the bad science in the past and the vast amount of data disproving the effect of homeopathy is a though task.

Nevertheless, we do listen to what you have to say and maintain open to new evidence, even when by most standards it should already have been rejected many decades ago. So we're not the cynics...

How open are you to new ideas? :rolleyes:

You have been presented with arguments opposing yours, but remain relentless and steadfast in your belief, based on ... ?
If tomorrow these studies would turn out to be untrue, would you give them up?
I have a feeling you wouldn't, you would present it as evidence eventhough it has already been refuted, you would hang on to it, like all the other studies that came before it and have been refuted. Basically the vast amount of bad studies and refuted claims has decreased the credibility of the homeopaths to an abominable level. This explains the hesitancy.
You don't feel any hesitancy, maybe because you don't need a study to tell you homeopathy works. We do...

If the 3 studies check out, I would suggest you present it to Mr. Randi. Let's see what happens. (You might want to double check)

Good luck,

SYL :)

HA! Shows what you know! ;)

[SYLVESTER1592]

Experienced conventional medical experts have (in India) the good sense to say that they do not know much about homeopathy to be able to comment on it - however they do say that in medical college they were taught that it is placebo and so ethical guidelines require them not to use homeopathy in their practice. They use it for their children if / when it works and have witnessed "miracle" cures but these can not be the proof that medicine requires - the statistical evidence.

Similarly homeopaths have no experience in occult sciences - so can not comment on their effectiveness - classical homeopaths would not use those methods on ethical grounds.

For homeopathic trials which lack prior scientific results at present, a standard p> .05 level of significance trial is not appropriate.

A better method is to use p-rep methodology with RI confidence levels with minimum sample size of 40 patients.

See http://www.asu.edu/clas/psych/research/sqab/Forms/p_rep_pack.zip
Hi manoiberoi,

You do realize that the skewed curve of the Prep or PR, makes the likelyness of a distiguishable significant or insignificant result harder, because the incremental differences become smaller in the range where you are looking.
In more understandable terms: the difference between a p<0.05 and >0.05 is harder to see.

I would suggest that it may be an added control to a p-value as the authors suggest, but I would not choose it as your criterium to determine significant from insignificant.
(You know the p-values are not without reason: Do you know where these cut-off point come from?)

SYL :)

[SYLVESTER1592]

Hi 3bodyproblem,
nice to see you again :D

You agree with the idea that 3 studies confirming each other deserve another look? I'm not saying it must therefore be true (considering all the previous attempts to show it works ), but it would be interesting to look at.

The 3 confirming studies idea that we present each time, comes from the idea that there are no other studies denying it (in a Z distribution, chances are that the results are most likely not explained by chance). In homeopathy the score is more like 3 vs 100 or more, but I'm willing to look at it. I think that's more then fair, don't you?

SYL :)

[Furcifer]

Hi 3bodyproblem,
nice to see you again :D

You agree with the idea that 3 studies confirming each other deserve another look? I'm not saying it must therefore be true (considering all the previous attempts to show it works ), but it would be interesting to look at.

The 3 confirming studies idea that we present each time, comes from the idea that there are no other studies denying it (in a Z distribution, chances are that the results are most likely not explained by chance). In homeopathy the score is more like 3 vs 100 or more, but I'm willing to look at it. I think that's more then fair, don't you?

SYL :)

I thought you had disappeared :) More than fair that's for certain. In fact merely entertaining the notion that any homeopathic/homeopaths have any merit whatso ever is too fair. Personally I don't like to entertain fantacists. Unfortunately however, the potential for harm by allowing this "medicine" to continue to go unchallenged is too great. Any chance to dispell the myth must be pursued agressively.

[manioberoi]

I haven't read through all this stuff yet, but this is basically what I have pointed out before in this and other threads (using different terminology). It doesn't get homeopaths off the hook. It makes it more difficult to legitimately infer anything about homeopathy from the results of individual studies.

Which one of the papers describes "RI confidence levels"?

Linda

*This should be p<0.05.
That should have been replication levels

[Mojo]

Hi manioberoi.

Referring back to your anecdote about the sheep (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2723288#post2723288), how would you go about establishing that the homoeopathic treatment did not cause the storm?

[manioberoi]

Hi manioberoi.

Referring back to your anecdote about the sheep (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2723288#post2723288), how would you go about establishing that the homoeopathic treatment did not cause the storm?
The null hypothesis would be absurd so there would be no need to establish any such thing!!!

[Mojo]

The null hypothesis would be absurd so there would be no need to establish any such thing!!!



So if an alleged causal relationship appears absurd, there's no need to test whether there is an actual causal relationship? We can just assume that there is no causal relationship?

Would this also apply to absurdities such the suggestion that remedies from which the allegedly active component has long since been diluted away can have an actual effect?

[Mojo]

Manioberoi: if your anecdote isn't evidence that homoeopathy causes storms, then neither is it evidence that homeopathy cures.

[kieran]

No, I have not gone away yet, but I am just about to do so, not because I am "broken," but because this conversation is broken. While some of you may be a tad diplomatic, you still are so entrenched in your position, you don't even consider that you may be wrong.
Please re-read what you write and consider whether the accusation would sit more comfortably on your own shoulders.

I can and will assert that homeopathy is without merit if or when there is adequate evidence to prove it so, but the body of evidence (basic science, clinical research, AND historical empirical evidence) weighs much more heavily for homeopathy than against it.
This historical evidence ... is that basically anecdotal? What "basic scientific evidence"? Which generally accepted "clinical research"? Do you ever tire of making unsupported claims? You have nothing ... or at least you have shown nothing ...

You keep posting but it's like a broken record. It is sooooo easy to prove that homoeopathy works - it only needs one good quality, reproducable study. That's your job. Disproving it means disproving the many, many claims of people who hide behind smoke-screens of statistical anomalies, stories, wishful thinking and poor studies. That's our job.

And because GOOD scientists have humility and because I have not yet found a good scientist on this list (arrogance limits vision), this conversation is boring.
I must be confused here ... I would have thought that you might have been more likely to use words like "mistaken", "embarrassed", "caught-out", "dis-credited" when describing your position on Holmes. The concept of boredom here doesn't convey much "humility" and "arrogance". Do you always claim to be bored when you are wrong? Do you normally arrogantly accuse others of arrogance?

My previous longer posts were from a forthcoming book. I'm sorry if I do not have the time to include all of the references, but please know that what I've written is true. It is classic that all of you assume that I am "wrong," without even asking me to be more specific. This is part and parcel of your unscientific thinking processes (you are right; others are wrong). My references to Holmes' writing is from his collection of essays, not just one. The fact that you all will quibble with what he said or didn't say WITHOUT knowing the facts (and again, without humility) is typical of your mindset.
Sorry - we just "typically" like to check things for ourselves lest we naively believe the witterings of charlatans. Oh to be humble and gullable ;)

If you have additional information (facts) to support what he did or didn't say, then provide it - otherwise please stop wishing to be right - it just makes you look very foolish.

The worst that you seem to say is that I am "quote mining." Because I have no interest in quoting ALL of Holmes' work, how else can a writer quote work without being specific to one statement or another. Every quote from Holmes that I found could be found in other writing of his in slightly different language
... well wasn't it a bit unfortunate that you provided references to examples that said the exact opposite of what you claimed they said. Why don't you provide the "slightly different language" versions of these quotes with a source that we can check for ourselves? ... and why don't you save us all time by reading a sentence or two on either side of the quote you lift to make sure we don't catch you out again ...

(THAT is not quote mining...YOUR critique is a weak effort to create a defense...a VERY weak effort).
So comprehensively showing that you ... took statements totally out of context, reversed their meaning for your own purposes, and then claimed it was an illustration of "intellectual dishonesty" ... that is a VERY weak effort!!! :D How deluded are you? :boggled:

Quote mine this: "James Gully is both a hypocrite and intellectually dishonest." Prove me wrong.

[kieran]

The null hypothesis would be absurd so there would be no need to establish any such thing!!!
Just to re-iterate what Mojo is saying ... why don't you ever think to apply this selective "null hypothesis" of yours to homoeopathy?

[MRC_Hans]

No, I have not gone away yet, but I am just about to do so, not because I am "broken," but because this conversation is broken. While some of you may be a tad diplomatic, you still are so entrenched in your position, you don't even consider that you may be wrong.

This is the "beauty" of the internet. It is possible to receive the equivalent of being run over by a steam-roller, and pretend nothing has happened. This gives it all an erie cartoon-like quality, where a character is flattened, floats around in a paper-like fashion for a few seconds, then pops back in shape.

However, you are fooling nobody but yourself, James/Dana: Everybody else here (with Manioberoi as a possible exception) can see how you have been devastated. You can put your fingers in your ears and scream "lalalala" at the top of your voice, but you are devastated and ridiculed.

I can and will assert that homeopathy is without merit if or when there is adequate evidence to prove it so, but the body of evidence (basic science, clinical research, AND historical empirical evidence) weighs much more heavily for homeopathy than against it.

So you think that a, carefully selected, few tentative results from poorly designed studies outweigh the mass of modern knowledge of physics, pathology, and pharmacology? Well, well, .......

And because GOOD scientists have humility and because I have not yet found a good scientist on this list (arrogance limits vision), this conversation is boring.

Your arrogance certainly limits your vision, yes. For instance, the thing you see around your head is not your halo, it is your horizon.

My previous longer posts were from a forthcoming book. I'm sorry if I do not have the time to include all of the references, but please know that what I've written is true.

How can we know that what you have written is true, when it has just been proven to be lies? I understand your preference for writing books, however. Relieves you of all those pesky contradictions.

It is classic that all of you assume that I am "wrong," without even asking me to be more specific. This is part and parcel of your unscientific thinking processes (you are right; others are wrong).

Who do you think you are fooling? People here proved you wrong. Especially Mojo and Rolfe tore your lies apart.



My references to Holmes' writing is from his collection of essays, not just one. The fact that you all will quibble with what he said or didn't say WITHOUT knowing the facts (and again, without humility) is typical of your mindset.


This is simply so ridiculous that I wonder how you can look in the mirror. It was by finding the facts that they showed you wrong. Richard/Dana, you were

The worst that you seem to say is that I am "quote mining." Because I have no interest in quoting ALL of Holmes' work, how else can a writer quote work without being specific to one statement or another. Every quote from Holmes that I found could be found in other writing of his in slightly different language (THAT is not quote mining...YOUR critique is a weak effort to create a defense...a VERY weak effort).

Keep eroding your credibility. If you don't know what quite mining is, look it up. You can look up "straw man" while you are at it.

I have provided evidence of the work of Rustom Roy, PhD (I mentioned that he had 13 papers published in NATURE, and I got attacked for not knowing that he had actually had 15 papers published in NATURE).

No, you got ridiculed for not knowing it. Afterward you got attacked for not mentioning that not one single of those papers were relevant to the subject at hand. Look up "appeal to false authority".

His 2005 paper on water structure comes from some of world's leading scientists who understand WATER STRUCTURE, and I told you to watch out for a 2007 paper in which he conducts experiments that verify his previous writings on the subject. I could have provided you with a URL to a presentation on this new research,

Yes, that would have been the proper thing to do.

but I couldn't help but notice that no one inquired about what this new research was (the people on this list do not really want to learn; you want to attack, and you want to feel superior).

Pot, meet mr Kettle.

I referenced Rey's work in one of the most respected physics journals in the world, and the worst that could be said was quoted from Benveniste (who you normally attack!)...this "worst" statement is that the study wasn't blinded.

Showing that we are not biased. Where Benveniste is right, he is right. For a medical study, lack of blinding is very serious.

So, if I fly and show the world that I can fly, you would say that it isn't true because I (or you!) wasn't blinded.

Better look up "straw man" again, so you are sure you know what it means.

Some physical phenomena, like Rey's work, cannot be influenced by belief, and it is not necessary to have every basic science study be blinded (especially in physics--don't take this out of context).

Of course not.


*snip*

Mr. Monkey has STILL not evolved and is still asking the same innane questions about some machine that I have never heard of...and yet, he insists that I answer this questions.


Yes, that question is essential, for two reasons:

1) Those machines base their function on the same type of anecdotical evidence as conventional homeopathy.

2) As a prominent homeopath, it is very surprising that you should not have an opinion on such sensational devices.

Someone else continually asks me about homeopathy for syphilis. I'm sorry that you or someone in your family may have been stricken with it, but why the broken record?

Have you no shame? Apparantly not. You know why the question is asked. You know the central role of syphilis in classical homeopathy. So don't try to dirty the person who asks about it.

James/Dana, there is an advice we use to give people here, when they have gotten themselves in a position like yours: When you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging.

Hans

[MRC_Hans]

So if an alleged causal relationship appears absurd, there's no need to test whether there is an actual causal relationship? We can just assume that there is no causal relationship?

Would this also apply to absurdities such the suggestion that remedies from which the allegedly active component has long since been diluted away can have an actual effect?I fear this level of logic is quite a bit over our friend's head.

Hans

[Rolfe]

I can and will assert that homeopathy is without merit if or when there is adequate evidence to prove it so, but the body of evidence (basic science, clinical research, AND historical empirical evidence) weighs much more heavily for homeopathy than against it.


Talking of getting bored, I get very bored nitpicking the detail of these tediously complicated and badly designed studies the homoeopaths rely on for their "scientific" proof. I think BSM has put it elegantly well.

After 200 years the entire trial record that you find to rely on is a tiny handful of papers. Even those papers do not support the load that you need them to bear.


If there was really a powerful healing force at work there, it would be possible, indeed easy, to convince the most sceptical by means of well-designed, repeatable studies. Isn't happening. I think BSM's comment sums it up admirably.

My previous longer posts were from a forthcoming book. I'm sorry if I do not have the time to include all of the references, but please know that what I've written is true.


Did you actually read my post with the bulleted points in it (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2764270#post2764270)? Have you no response other than to reassert that what you've written is true, even after that has been explicitly shown not to be the case?

Regarding your references to Oliver Wendell Holmes, I think we can all see from reference to Holmes' own writings that what you have written is demonstrably false. You are taking the view that if what someone has written has been shown to be false, he should amend what he has written if he has the opportunity. I think everyone here would agree with that. So.

You wrote that Holmes "worshipped" a Dr. Rush. However, we can see from Holmes' own words that he was highly critical of Dr. Rush, and was in fact holding him up as an example of what was wrong with the medical establishment of the day. Will you change what you have written?
You wrote that Holmes "got his calculations confused, and he incorrectly assumed that the homeopathic manufacturer had to have 10 times or 100 times more water than in the previous dilution". You have explicitly admitted that this is not the case, and Holmes assumed nothing of the kind. (And by the way, Holmes was talking about alcohol, not water.) Will you change what you have written?
You wrote that Holmes never talked with any homoeopath, and never read a single book on homoeopathy. You have admitted that the former is merely an assumption for which you have no evidence, and anyone can see that the latter is not true simply by observing the extent to which Holmes quotes from the sritings of Hahnemann himself. Will you change what you have written?Those are just the most clear-cut points, without even getting into James' lack of acknowledgement that Holmes was well aware of the criticism of Andral's work and addressed it to his satisfaction, or James' dishonest use of the word "confessed" when referring to Holmes' remarks that homoeopathy had taught us a valuable lesson (about how well people recover naturally when given no treatment), leading to the false implication that Holmes was admitting that homoeopathic methods were effective.

These are points which have been unambiguously shown to be erroneous. James thinks that people should change what they have written if it is shown to be in error. Anybody holding their breath for James to show even the tiniest glimmer of intellectual honesty here? :nope:

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

Regarding your references to Oliver Wendell Holmes, I think we can all see from reference to Holmes' own writings that what you have written is demonstrably false. You are taking the view that if what someone has written has been shown to be false, he should amend what he has written if he has the opportunity. I think everyone here would agree with that. So.

You wrote that Holmes "worshipped" a Dr. Rush. However, we can see from Holmes' own words that he was highly critical of Dr. Rush, and was in fact holding him up as an example of what was wrong with the medical establishment of the day. Will you change what you have written?


And not from just anywhere in Holmes' own writings: the passages I quoted included all the mentions of Rush in Holmes' essay Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science: the very words that "James" claimed supported his assertion: To clarify, Holmes' worship for Benjamin Rush was evidenced in Holmes' essay "Currents and Counter-Currents" written in 1860.

[Mojo]

This is simply so ridiculous that I wonder how you can look in the mirror. It was by finding the facts that they showed you wrong. Richard/Dana, you were...


Richard? Has James/Dana been using a third identity?

Not that the expression "Richard the Third" is entirely inappropriate when discussing James' writings.

[MRC_Hans]

Richard? Has James/Dana been using a third identity?

Not that the expression "Richard the Third" is entirely inappropriate when discussing James' writings.I made a mistake. Sue me.....

Heheh, there was this guy, they called him Lous 14th. ... Because he was only ever invited to avoid being 13 seated.

Rolfe, you will notice that James/Dana ignores anybody he can't answer. I assume it's his general way of staying alive: Simply ignore everything that doesn't fit.

Hans

[steenkh]

Rolfe, you will notice that James/Dana ignores anybody he can't answer.
I think he has addressed quite a lot of people that he could not answer: it is the questions that he consistently ignores.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I think he has addressed quite a lot of people that he could not answer: it is the questions that he consistently ignores.

Yeah, apparently I'm not properly evolved. Yet, his superior intellect has not enabled him to answer poor old monkey's little questions.

"Bloody hell," said Majikthise, "now that is what I call thinking. Here Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?"

"Dunno," said Vroomfondel in an awed whisper, "think our brains must be too highly trained Majikthise."

Which is JamesGully, Vroomfondel or Majikthise? We should be told.

[Cuddles]

Quote mine this: "James Gully is both a hypocrite and intellectually dishonest."

"James Gully is honest."

Like that you mean?:p

[Mojo]

I demand that he is Vroomfondel!

Although he could just as well be Majikthise. after all, what they were demanding was a total absence of solid facts...

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

and I think he demands rigidly defiined areas of doubt and uncertainty except where any doubt or uncertainty might impinge on the validity of homeopathy.

[fls]

Originally Posted by kieran
Quote mine this: "James Gully is both a hypocrite and intellectually dishonest."

"James Gully is honest."

Like that you mean?:p

To be fair, maybe like this:

"James Gully is...'honest."

Or:

"James Gully is both...intellectual' [and] 'honest."

Or:

"James Gully is both...'rite and intellectually 'honest."

Linda
(This is kinda fun. I can see why Ullman does it.)

[JJM]

What do you want me to say? Do you want me to say that homeopathy has been proven as a valid therapeutic system?"There, he said it everyone: "homeopathy has been proven as a valid therapeutic system" Plus, he loves faith healing ...

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Yep, I think JamesGully is finally too ashamed to show his face again.

Will we ever find a homeopathy worth debating with? Don't worry, it's a rhetorical question assuming an answer in the negative.

[JamesGully]

Regarding your references to Oliver Wendell Holmes, I think we can all see from reference to Holmes' own writings that what you have written is demonstrably false. You are taking the view that if what someone has written has been shown to be false, he should amend what he has written if he has the opportunity. I think everyone here would agree with that. So.

You wrote that Holmes "worshipped" a Dr. Rush. However, we can see from Holmes' own words that he was highly critical of Dr. Rush, and was in fact holding him up as an example of what was wrong with the medical establishment of the day. Will you change what you have written?
You wrote that Holmes "got his calculations confused, and he incorrectly assumed that the homeopathic manufacturer had to have 10 times or 100 times more water than in the previous dilution". You have explicitly admitted that this is not the case, and Holmes assumed nothing of the kind. (And by the way, Holmes was talking about alcohol, not water.) Will you change what you have written?
You wrote that Holmes never talked with any homoeopath, and never read a single book on homoeopathy. You have admitted that the former is merely an assumption for which you have no evidence, and anyone can see that the latter is not true simply by observing the extent to which Holmes quotes from the sritings of Hahnemann himself. Will you change what you have written?Those are just the most clear-cut points, without even getting into James' lack of acknowledgement that Holmes was well aware of the criticism of Andral's work and addressed it to his satisfaction, or James' dishonest use of the word "confessed" when referring to Holmes' remarks that homoeopathy had taught us a valuable lesson (about how well people recover naturally when given no treatment), leading to the false implication that Holmes was admitting that homoeopathic methods were effective.

These are points which have been unambiguously shown to be erroneous.

Rolfe...Your arrogance is palpable, and your errors of fact are transparent. I previously gave you the page # (192...though you can also look at page 193) from Holmes' MEDICAL ESSAYS, but it seems that you've chosen to not look at this source, and instead, you have chosen to assume that I'm wrong. Whooops...but heck, you simply claim that I'm wrong without doing your homework...whooops again.

Holmes encouraged medical students to read the life and writings of Rush if they wanted "show a student the difficulties of getting at truth from medical experience." Holmes said of Rush that he "gave a direction to the medical mind of the country more than any other one man; perhaps he typifies it better than any other." (page 193)

For the record...I never said or implied that Holmes changed his attitude towards homeopathy (he didn't!). My point was that he didn't change a word of his essay on homeopathy despite the many errors of fact in it, including the WRONG analogy to dilutions (the 17th potency requires 17 testtubes of water...how or why he could assert any analogy to 10,000 Adriatic Seas is false). Holmes' reference to the "research" by Andral back-fired on him. He should not have even mentioned this "study," and he should have acknowledged his errors in referencing it, even though he re-published his Essay 40 years later.

Someone incorrectly said that I asserted that Darwin was influenced by Hahnemann...not true. I never said that. What I did say is that it is highly unlikely that he could have completed his book, Origin of Species, if he had not received treatment from his homeopathic doctor, James Gully! This is a part of history, and nothing can change this history.

As for criticisms of Elia's work, I haven't seen them.

As for a review of the 3 clinical trials on influenza, here's the Cochrane report. They call the research "promising." Because Cochrane maintains the highest standard for evaluating clinical research, I am still waiting for SOMEONE (!) on this list to acknowledge this fact. Whooops...you might actually have to admit that homeopathic medicines may work. I'm waiting. Who will be first?

Vickers AJ, Smith C, Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum for preventing and treating influenza and influenza-like syndromes (Cochrane Review) The Cochrane Library, Issue 4, 2005.


This dialogue with you hyper-skeptics has been an experiment for me. You've proven to maintain an unscientific attitude towards homeopathy. Sadly, you missed a great opportunity to have a real dialogue with a homeopath, and instead, you have chosen to posture yourself as each person being more dogmatic than the other.

I do know that this is being "recorded," and in the near future, many of you will be embarrassed by your flat-earth attitudes.

Finally...Hahnemann's gravestone says "Aude sapere"--dare to taste, to experience, to understand. He challenged everyone to simply try homeopathy. If you are really serious scientists, you will experiment with using homeopathics on yourself when you are ill. The medicines are basically safe. You may actually be surprised.

[Psiload]

If you are really serious scientists, you will experiment with using homeopathics on yourself when you are ill. The medicines are basically safe. You may actually be surprised.


I have. I wasn't. :nope:

[Michael C]

To clarify, Holmes' worship for Benjamin Rush was evidenced in Holmes' essay "Currents and Counter-Currents" written in 1860.

Let's see what Holmes actually said about Rush in that essay:

Dr. Rush thought and said that there were twenty times more intellect and a hundred times more knowledge in the country in 1799 than before the Revolution. His own mind was in a perpetual state of exaltation produced by the stirring scenes in which he had taken a part, and the quickened life of the time in which he lived. It was not the state to favor sound, calm observation. He was impatient, and Nature is profoundly imperturbable. We may adjust the beating of our hearts to her pendulum if we will and can, but we may be very sure that she will not change the pendulum's rate of going because our hearts are palpitating. He thought he had mastered yellow-fever. "Thank God," he said, "out of one hundred patients whom I have visited or prescribed for this day, I have lost none." Where was all his legacy of knowledge when Norfolk was decimated? Where was it when the blue flies were buzzing over the coffins of the unburied dead piled up in the cemetery of New Orleans, at the edge of the huge trenches yawning to receive them?

No, evidently Holmes did not worship Rush. Why does JamesGully pretend he did?

[Mojo]

Rolfe...Your arrogance is palpable, and your errors of fact are transparent. I previously gave you the page # (192...though you can also look at page 193) from Holmes' MEDICAL ESSAYS, but it seems that you've chosen to not look at this source, and instead, you have chosen to assume that I'm wrong. Whooops...but heck, you simply claim that I'm wrong without doing your homework...whooops again.

Holmes encouraged medical students to read the life and writings of Rush if they wanted "show a student the difficulties of getting at truth from medical experience." Holmes said of Rush that he "gave a direction to the medical mind of the country more than any other one man; perhaps he typifies it better than any other." (page 193)


You do realise that those passages have actually been quoted, in context, in this thread, don't you?

Here they are: But there are other special American influences which we are bound to
take cognizance of. If I wished to show a student the difficulties
of getting at truth from medical experience, I would give him the
history of epilepsy to read. If I wished him to understand the
tendencies of the American medical mind, its sanguine enterprise, its
self-confidence, its audacious handling of Nature, its impatience
with her old-fashioned ways of taking time to get a sick man well, I
would make him read the life and writings of Benjamin Rush. Dr. Rush
thought and said that there were twenty times more intellect and a
hundred times more knowledge in the country in 1799 than before the
Revolution. His own mind was in a perpetual state of exaltation
produced by the stirring scenes in which he had taken a part, and the
quickened life of the time in which he lived. It was not the state
to favor sound, calm observation. He was impatient, and Nature is
profoundly imperturbable. We may adjust the beating of our hearts to
her pendulum if we will and can, but we may be very sure that she
will not change the pendulum's rate of going because our hearts are
palpitating. He thought he had mastered yellow-fever. "Thank God,"
he said, "out of one hundred patients whom I have visited or
prescribed for this day, I have lost none." Where was all his legacy
of knowledge when Norfolk was decimated? Where was it when the blue
flies were buzzing over the coffins of the unburied dead piled up in
the cemetery of New Orleans, at the edge of the huge trenches yawning
to receive them?

One such instance will do as well as twenty. Dr. Rush must have been
a charming teacher, as he was an admirable man. He was observing,
rather than a sound observer; eminently observing, curious, even,
about all manner of things. But he could not help feeling as if
Nature had been a good deal shaken by the Declaration of
Independence, and that American art was getting to be rather too much
for her,--especially as illustrated in his own practice. He taught
thousands of American students, he gave a direction to the medical
mind of the country more than any other one man; perhaps he typifies
it better than any other. It has clearly tended to extravagance in
remedies and trust in remedies, as in everything else. How could a
people which has a revolution once in four years, which has contrived
the Bowie-knife and the revolver, which has chewed the juice out of
all the superlatives in the language in Fourth of July orations, and
so used up its epithets in the rhetoric of abuse that it takes two
great quarto dictionaries to supply the demand; which insists in
sending out yachts and horses and boys to out-sail, out-run, out-
fight, and checkmate all the rest of creation; how could such a
people be content with any but "heroic" practice? What wonder that
the stars and stripes wave over doses of ninety grains of sulphate of
quinine, [More strictly, ninety-six grains in two hours. Dunglison's
Practice, 1842, vol. ii. p. 520. Eighty grains in one dose.
Ibid. p. 536. Ninety-six grains of sulphate of quinine are equal
to eight ounces of good bark.--Wood & Bache.] and that the American
eagle screams with delight to see three drachms of calomel given at a
single mouthful?

Add to this the great number of Medical Journals, all useful, we
hope, most of them necessary, we trust, many of them excellently well
conducted, but which must find something to fill their columns, and
so print all the new plans of treatment and new remedies they can get
hold of, as the newspapers, from a similar necessity, print the
shocking catastrophes and terrible murders.

They do not say what you claim they say. I have no idea whether this is because you think the target audience of your book is too lazy to look up references or too stupid to understand them, or simply because you are unable to understand them yourself. But now that it has been explained to you that your assertion is unsupported, it would, of course, be gross intellectual dishonesty (and, in view of your repeated comments about intellectual dishonesty, sheer hypocrisy) on your part if you were to allow the publication of your book without correction.

For the record...I never said or implied that Holmes changed his attitude towards homeopathy (he didn't!). My point was that he didn't change a word of his essay on homeopathy despite the many errors of fact in it, including the WRONG analogy to dilutions (the 17th potency requires 17 testtubes of water...how or why he could assert any analogy to 10,000 Adriatic Seas is false). Holmes' reference to the "research" by Andral back-fired on him. He should not have even mentioned this "study," and he should have acknowledged his errors in referencing it, even though he re-published his Essay 40 years later.


Again, the deceptive way you quoted Holmes is only too obvious to anyone who looks up the quotation in context: In 1861, Dr. Holmes finally confessed that homeopathy “has taught us a lesson of the healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us have made proper acknowledgements” (Holmes, 1891, x, xiii-xiv).Homoeopathy is now merely a name, an unproved theory, and a box of
pellets pretending to be specifics, which, as all of us know, fail
ignominiously in those cases where we would thankfully sacrifice all
our prejudices and give the world to have them true to their
promises.

Homoeopathy has not died out so rapidly as Tractoration. Perhaps it
was well that it should not, for it has taught us a lesson of the
healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us
have made proper acknowledgments. But it probably does more harm
than good to medical science at the present time, by keeping up the
delusion of treating everything by specifics,--the old barbarous
notion that sick people should feed on poisons [Lachesis, arrow-
poison, obtained from a serpent (Pulte). Crotalus horridus,
rattlesnake's venom (Neidhard). The less dangerous Pediculus capitis
is the favorite remedy of Dr. Mure, the English "Apostle of
Homoeopathy." These are examples of the retrograde current setting
towards barbarism against which a part of the Discourse at the
beginning of this volume is directed. The words "finally confessed" in your statement imply that Holmes changed his declared position on homoeopathy.

It has also been explained to you, more than once, that the illustration of dilutions that Holmes used was not inappropriate. Apparently you were incapable of understanding that as well.

Holmes addressed criticisms of Andral's work in his essay. If there were other criticisms of this work of which Holmes should have been aware but didn't address, please give more details of them, and proper references.

Someone incorrectly said that I asserted that Darwin was influenced by Hahnemann...not true. I never said that. What I did say is that it is highly unlikely that he could have completed his book, Origin of Species, if he had not received treatment from his homeopathic doctor, James Gully! This is a part of history, and nothing can change this history.


All the available sources (apart from your homoeopathic chums) indicate that Gully was a hydropath. Even Darwin describes Gully acting as a hydropath and bringing in a second doctor as a homoeopath to treat his daughter. And, contrary to your claims, there is nothing to indicate that Darwin thought homoeopathy worked, and direct quotations from him, both during and after he took Gully's "cure", indicating that he thought it was utter nonsense. And, of course, the Hydropathic treatments Darwin received almost certainly didn't have any real positive effect either, although the diet and exercise regimes might have.

Finally...Hahnemann's gravestone says "Aude sapere"--dare to taste, to experience, to understand. He challenged everyone to simply try homeopathy. If you are really serious scientists, you will experiment with using homeopathics on yourself when you are ill. The medicines are basically safe. You may actually be surprised.


I know where Hahnemann pulled homoeopathy from, and I therefore have no desire whatsoever to taste it.

I have, however, taken a homoeopathic remedy prescribed me for a headache. It had, as far as I could tell, no effect whatsoever.

P.S. have you managed to track down the "Cochrane Commission" [sic] to which you referred yet? Whooops!

[Michael C]

Holmes said of Rush that he "gave a direction to the medical mind of the country more than any other one man; perhaps he typifies it better than any other." (page 193)

Let's see how Holmes continued:

"... he gave a direction to the medical mind of the country more than any other one man; perhaps he typifies it better than any other. It has clearly tended to extravagance in remedies and trust in remedies, as in everything else."

[Mojo]

No, evidently Holmes did not worship Rush. Why does JamesGully pretend he did?


If you look very carefully, you might find the answer towards the end of this post (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2771721#post2771721).

[Michael C]

As for a review of the 3 clinical trials on influenza, here's the Cochrane report. They call the research "promising." Because Cochrane maintains the highest standard for evaluating clinical research, I am still waiting for SOMEONE (!) on this list to acknowledge this fact. Whooops...you might actually have to admit that homeopathic medicines may work. I'm waiting. Who will be first?

Vickers AJ, Smith C, Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum for preventing and treating influenza and influenza-like syndromes (Cochrane Review) The Cochrane Library, Issue 4, 2005.

I found this: http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD001957/frame.html

I quote the "plain language summary":

"Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum does not prevent influenza but might shorten the length of the illness"

... "might shorten the length of the illness"? That doesn't sound conclusive to me. And let's see by how much the length of the illness was shortened:

"Oscillococcinum treatment reduced the length of influenza illness by 0.28 days"

How significant is this result? Maybe somebody with more medical experience than myself can explain.

[fls]

As for a review of the 3 clinical trials on influenza, here's the Cochrane report. They call the research "promising." Because Cochrane maintains the highest standard for evaluating clinical research, I am still waiting for SOMEONE (!) on this list to acknowledge this fact. Whooops...you might actually have to admit that homeopathic medicines may work. I'm waiting. Who will be first?

Promising. Translation: while it is still much more likely to be a false-positive, than it is to be a true-positive, it is still better than the rest of the body of homeopathic research which is much, much, much more likely to generate false-positives than true-positives.

The very, very best that homeopathy has to offer as far as any sort of evidence that it doesn't consist of a vast ediface of chance, wishful thinking and fraud is called "promising".

And what may this "promising" treatment do? You still get just as sick for several days, but on the last day, you feel better at breakfast-time instead of lunch.

And all that you can "promisingly" conclude is that water prepared in a particular manner has a tiny effect on a particular self-limited illness. No connection whatsoever can be made between that and some elaborate system of preparing other waters. I could just as easily use it to support my contention that choosing treatments that start with the letter "o" will do the trick.

That you expend so much effort over the acceptance of this pathetic little piece of "evidence" serves only to highlight the barrenness of the entire field of homeopathy.

Linda

[MRC_Hans]

If you are really serious scientists, you will experiment with using homeopathics on yourself when you are ill. The medicines are basically safe. You may actually be surprised.Please explain why you consider it serious science to make uncontrolled self-experiments with medicines of unknown effects.

Also explain how a non-homeopath experimenting on self-cure has anything to do with proper homeopathic practice. IF homeopathic remedies worked the way homeopaths claim, the chance for an amateur to do more good than bad would be small.

Hans

[Rolfe]

Hans, perhaps he's suggesting that we should take a remedy to experience "proving" symptoms. Though why he should say that is safe, given the body of homoeopathic opinion that indicates serious harm occasionally results from provings, I don't know.

But as you and I both know, having tried it, no proving symptoms, even though we were assured that we would be "amazed" at what we'd experience.

Rolfe.

[kieran]

What I did say is that it is highly unlikely that he could have completed his book, Origin of Species, if he had not received treatment from his homeopathic doctor, James Gully!
A claim for which you have no evidence. (The pesky little thing that obviously doesn't matter to you.) :covereyes

Care to put a ball-park probability on your "highly unlikely" twaddle above? Why is it not even more probable that the treatment he received from his "homoeopathic" doctor had absolutely no beneficial effect? How do you know that it wasn't something else (healthier living has already been mentioned, the natural course of the illness is another) that happened at the same time that caused his improvement? In which case, it would be actually be highly likely "that he could have completed his book, Origin of Species, if he had not received treatment from his homeopathic doctor, James Gully!"
This is a part of history, and nothing can change this history.
... but you obviously feel free to re-write history by quote mining. You know what you do ... and you know why you need to do it ... :rolleyes:

JamesGully is both a hypocrite and intellectually dishonest.

[Rolfe]

Rolfe...Your arrogance is palpable, and your errors of fact are transparent. I previously gave you the page # (192...though you can also look at page 193) from Holmes' MEDICAL ESSAYS, but it seems that you've chosen to not look at this source, and instead, you have chosen to assume that I'm wrong. Whooops...but heck, you simply claim that I'm wrong without doing your homework...whooops again.

Holmes encouraged medical students to read the life and writings of Rush if they wanted "show a student the difficulties of getting at truth from medical experience." Holmes said of Rush that he "gave a direction to the medical mind of the country more than any other one man; perhaps he typifies it better than any other." (page 193)


Wow, you've got some nerve! Having been thoroughly exposed in your cherry-picking quote-mining, you simply continue to repeat it! I realise this has already been said by others, but as it is me you are addressing, I'll repeat it.

When you look at your very own chosen quotes in context, it is perfectly clear that Holmes was criticising Rush as a prime example of all that he believed was wrong with the medical establishment of his day. Even the bare phrases you yourself quote do not support the interpretation (of "worship") you put on them. Even these phrases in isolation can obviously just as easily be taken to imply that Holmes was holding Rush up as a bad example rather than a good one, and hey, when we see the context (kindly provided by Mojo, but heck, let's just repeat it again), we can clearly see that that is exactly the case.

But there are other special American influences which we are bound to take cognizance of. If I wished to show a student the difficulties of getting at truth from medical experience, I would give him the history of epilepsy to read. If I wished him to understand the tendencies of the American medical mind, its sanguine enterprise, its self-confidence, its audacious handling of Nature, its impatience with her old-fashioned ways of taking time to get a sick man well, I would make him read the life and writings of Benjamin Rush. Dr. Rush thought and said that there were twenty times more intellect and a hundred times more knowledge in the country in 1799 than before the Revolution. His own mind was in a perpetual state of exaltation produced by the stirring scenes in which he had taken a part, and the quickened life of the time in which he lived. It was not the state to favor sound, calm observation. He was impatient, and Nature is profoundly imperturbable. We may adjust the beating of our hearts to her pendulum if we will and can, but we may be very sure that she will not change the pendulum's rate of going because our hearts are palpitating. He thought he had mastered yellow-fever. "Thank God," he said, "out of one hundred patients whom I have visited or prescribed for this day, I have lost none." Where was all his legacy of knowledge when Norfolk was decimated? Where was it when the blue flies were buzzing over the coffins of the unburied dead piled up in the cemetery of New Orleans, at the edge of the huge trenches yawning to receive them?

One such instance will do as well as twenty. Dr. Rush must have been a charming teacher, as he was an admirable man. He was observing, rather than a sound observer; eminently observing, curious, even, about all manner of things. But he could not help feeling as if Nature had been a good deal shaken by the Declaration of Independence, and that American art was getting to be rather too much for her,--especially as illustrated in his own practice. He taught thousands of American students, he gave a direction to the medical mind of the country more than any other one man; perhaps he typifies it better than any other. It has clearly tended to extravagance in remedies and trust in remedies, as in everything else. How could a people which has a revolution once in four years, which has contrived the Bowie-knife and the revolver, which has chewed the juice out of all the superlatives in the language in Fourth of July orations, and so used up its epithets in the rhetoric of abuse that it takes two great quarto dictionaries to supply the demand; which insists in sending out yachts and horses and boys to out-sail, out-run, out-fight, and checkmate all the rest of creation; how could such a people be content with any but "heroic" practice? What wonder that the stars and stripes wave over doses of ninety grains of sulphate of quinine, [More strictly, ninety-six grains in two hours. Dunglison's Practice, 1842, vol. ii. p. 520. Eighty grains in one dose. Ibid. p. 536. Ninety-six grains of sulphate of quinine are equal to eight ounces of good bark.--Wood & Bache.] and that the American eagle screams with delight to see three drachms of calomel given at a single mouthful?

Add to this the great number of Medical Journals, all useful, we hope, most of them necessary, we trust, many of them excellently well conducted, but which must find something to fill their columns, and so print all the new plans of treatment and new remedies they can get hold of, as the newspapers, from a similar necessity, print the shocking catastrophes and terrible murders.


James, do you have some sort of reading comprehension problem? Do you now see that even your own cherry-picked quotes are holding Rush up as a bad example? Will you change what you have written?

For the record...I never said or implied that Holmes changed his attitude towards homeopathy (he didn't!).


Incorrect. You have very definitely implied that Holmes changed his attitude to homoeopathy when you wrote

In 1861, Dr. Holmes finally confessed that homeopathy “has taught us a lesson of the healing faculty of Nature which was needed, and for which many of us have made proper acknowledgements” (Holmes, 1891, x, xiii-xiv).


The words "finally confessed", followed by an out-of-context quote that appears to pronounce favourably on homoeopathy, most definitely imply that he changed his attitude. Since you acknowledge that he didn't, which makes this statement highly misleading, you should change what you have written. Will you do that?

My point was that he didn't change a word of his essay on homeopathy despite the many errors of fact in it, including the WRONG analogy to dilutions (the 17th potency requires 17 testtubes of water...how or why he could assert any analogy to 10,000 Adriatic Seas is false).


Reading comprehension problems again? I thought you had understood how wrong you were about this, but it seems not.

First, read what Holmes has said. He is talking not about water as a solvent, but alcohol. Why do you continually refer to water?

Surely even you cannot possibly imagine that Holmes was "asserting" that 10,000 times the volume of the Adriatic (of alcohol, no less!) was actually employed to make every 17C potency??? He said no such thing. He was in fact crystal clear about what he was saying.

It must be remembered that these comparisons are not matters susceptible of dispute, being founded on simple arithmetical computations, level to the capacity of any intelligent schoolboy. A person who once wrote a very small pamphlet made some show of objecting to calculations of this kind, on the ground that the highest dilutions could easily be made with a few ounces of alcohol. But he should have remembered that at every successive dilution he lays aside or throws away ninety-nine hundredths of the fluid on which he is operating, and that, although he begins with a drop, he only prepares a millionth, billionth, trillionth, and similar fractions of it, all of which, added together, would constitute but a vastly minute portion of the drop with which he began. But now let us suppose we take one single drop of the Tincture of Camomile, and that the whole of this were to be carried through the common series of dilutions.


"Let us suppose" that we don't throw anything away, but dilute the entire starting amount of the mother tincture. Does "let us suppose" convey anything to you? I don't know how Holmes could have made himself any clearer. He was pointing out that the effective dilution reached at the end of the process was as if the original thimbleful of mother tincture had been diluted by that amount.

In this he was perfectly correct (allowing for the trifling errors of Lake Superior or the Caspian he alluded to). He points out that the comprehension of this is "within the capacity of any intelligent schoolboy". He even pokes mild fun at someone who had objected to the calculations on the grounds that in fact one only needs "a few ounces of alcohol" actually to go through the usual process. I think pretty much everyone, reading what he actually wrote, would agree that he'd made himself pretty clear.

But no, you James are still in the position of the "person who once wrote a very small pamphlet", apparently not understanding Holmes' very lucid point, and continuing to repeat the hoary old misunderstanding well over 150 years later. Have you got it into your skull yet? HOLMES WAS RIGHT. Will you change what you have written?

Holmes' reference to the "research" by Andral back-fired on him. He should not have even mentioned this "study," and he should have acknowledged his errors in referencing it, even though he re-published his Essay 40 years later.


Holmes made reference to observations made by Andral. He was well aware that Andral's work had been criticised. He made reference to the criticisms in his essay. He also debunked those criticisms, and stated his opinion that Andral's work was valid. He gave his reasons for believing that.

Do you believe that everyone should "acknowledge their error" in referencing anything that has ever been subject to criticism, no matter how unfounded they believe that criticism to be? In that case, you'd better acknowledge as error pretty much everything you ever wrote, because pretty much all of that has been subjected to massive amounts of criticism. Elia, Rey, Roy, Benveniste, Ennis, Milgrom, Walach, all their publications (on homoeopathy) have been torn to shreds. So perhaps you shouldn't even mention them! And "acknowledge your error" when you have. Oh, what do I hear you say? You don't agree with these criticisms? Well, fancy that - Holmes didn't agree with the criticisms of Dr. Andral either, and said so, giving his reasons. I'd hardly call that backfiring.

James, your position is completely untenable. You are lambasting Holmes for not having changed passages in his writings which you are asserting were false. But now it has been shown to you quite clearly that these passages are in fact perfectly correct, and that Holmes was not in fact saying what you are declaring he said. By your own logic, you must change what you have written.

You must take on board

Holmes was deeply critical of Dr. Rush, holding him up as an example of all that he felt was wrong with the contemporary medical establishment
Holmes never changed his mind about homoeopathy, and he never "finally confessed" anything in its favour
Holmes was perfectly correct in pointing out that if the entire initial quantity of mother tincture was diluted, the final dilution would require a volume of alcohol ten thousand times the volume of the Adriatic sea
Holmes made reference to the criticism of Andral's work, and explained his reasons for disagreeing with the criticsThese facts are not subject to dispute, they are perfectly clear to anyone with a reading comprehension age of about 12. You must therefore change what you have written.

I see you're still banging on about "many errors of fact" in Holmes' essay. You have failed to demonstrate even one. Care to try again?

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

These facts are not subject to dispute, they are perfectly clear to anyone with a reading comprehension age of about 12. You must therefore change what you have written.


Think about who is likely to buy his book: he's probably safe to rely on their being too lazy to look up the references (especially when what he's written confirms their own predjudices) and not capable of understanding them even if they bother to look them up.

[Rolfe]

Oh yes. But what he has written is all about why someone 150 years ago should have changed what they wrote because James thinks they were shown to be wrong. We have shown quite clearly that it is James who is in fact wrong. Therefore, by his own standards, James should change what he has written.

I'm not sniffing a faint aroma of intellectual dishonesty here, am I? Surely James woudn't do exactly what he criticises others for doing, would he?

Wow, when this thread stated, I never dreamed we were going to have quite this much "fun with homoeopath Dana Ullman"!!!!

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

Assuming that it actually is Ullman that we're dealing with: I know "James" appears to have access to Ullman's as yet unpublished book, and has gone under the name "Dana Ullman" elsewhere (for example at Respectful Insolence), but Ullman is said to be "commonly considered America's leading spokesperson for homeopathy". Is this really the best they've got?

[Rolfe]

Sadly, probably yes.

Rolfe.

[Chris Haynes]

Sadly, probably yes.

Rolfe.

Perhaps it is fortunate that our homeopaths are as pathetic as Dana Ullman, MPH! At least all of our homeopathic hospitals closed down, and even the homeopathic medical college has become a real medical school, though it has been merged with another:
http://www.drexelmed.edu/Alumni/Colleges/HahnemannMedicalCollege/tabid/1085/Default.aspx

Edit to add that Hahnemann University Hospital still exists:
http://www.hahnemannhospital.com/CWSContent/hahnemannhospital

Hey, check out what it says about treating syphilis:
http://hahnemannhospital.staywellsolutionsonline.com/Library/Encyclopedia/3,85083

Syphilis is treated with antibiotics. During treatment, it is important not to have sex, or you may infect someone else. And be sure to return for follow-up visits. Your partner should also be checked for the disease.

[JamesGully]

Surely even you cannot possibly imagine that Holmes was "asserting" that 10,000 times the volume of the Adriatic (of alcohol, no less!) was actually employed to make every 17C potency??? He said no such thing. He was in fact crystal clear about what he was saying.

"Let us suppose" that we don't throw anything away, but dilute the entire starting amount of the mother tincture. Does "let us suppose" convey anything to you? I don't know how Holmes could have made himself any clearer. He was pointing out that the effective dilution reached at the end of the process was as if the original thimbleful of mother tincture had been diluted by that amount.

THIS is part and parcel of Holmes' ludacrous and uneducated statement: no homeopathic pharmacy makes a medicine if they "dilute the entire starting amount of the mother tincture." Once again, the 17th potency takes 17 test tubes worth of water. Any creative way that alludes anything to 10,000 Adriatic Seas is simply wrong...whether you or Holmes says "let us suppose" or not.


Holmes made reference to observations made by Andral. He was well aware that Andral's work had been criticised. He made reference to the criticisms in his essay. He also debunked those criticisms, and stated his opinion that Andral's work was valid. He gave his reasons for believing that.

So, even after Andral told the world all of the serious problems with his "research," Holmes still chose to not change a word of his essay. I guess your standards for scholarship are different than mine.


Do you believe that everyone should "acknowledge their error" in referencing anything that has ever been subject to criticism, no matter how unfounded they believe that criticism to be? In that case, you'd better acknowledge as error pretty much everything you ever wrote, because pretty much all of that has been subjected to massive amounts of criticism. Elia, Rey, Roy, Benveniste, Ennis, Milgrom, Walach, all their publications (on homoeopathy) have been torn to shreds. So perhaps you shouldn't even mention them! And "acknowledge your error" when you have. Oh, what do I hear you say? You don't agree with these criticisms? Well, fancy that - Holmes didn't agree with the criticisms of Dr. Andral either, and said so, giving his reasons. I'd hardly call that backfiring.

Your critiques of these scientists are so weak that no serious journal has published your critiques. Please provide references to the published critiques of Elia, Rey, Roy, or Ennis in peer-review journals. Someone here has said that they have written a critique of Elia's work here, and I've asked to see it several times...but no body is home. As for Roy's work, is there anyone here who has published a similar body of research as Roy has (and thus, has shown some "scientific chops") and who has provided some solid critique of Roy's work on homeopathy? Put up or shut up. Please show me published critique of Rey's work. Ennis' work was replicated by 3 other labs, though later, one other lab didn't repeat it successfully. This one trial did not disprove her work, and if you think it did, this shows your inadequate understanding of the way evidence works.

You folks are good at ganging up on me here, but you seem unable or afraid to go out into the world to publish your scientific chops.


James, your position is completely untenable. You are lambasting Holmes for not having changed passages in his writings which you are asserting were false. But now it has been shown to you quite clearly that these passages are in fact perfectly correct, and that Holmes was not in fact saying what you are declaring he said. By your own logic, you must change what you have written.

You must take on board

Holmes was deeply critical of Dr. Rush, holding him up as an example of all that he felt was wrong with the contemporary medical establishment
Holmes never changed his mind about homoeopathy, and he never "finally confessed" anything in its favour
Holmes was perfectly correct in pointing out that if the entire initial quantity of mother tincture was diluted, the final dilution would require a volume of alcohol ten thousand times the volume of the Adriatic sea
Holmes made reference to the criticism of Andral's work, and explained his reasons for disagreeing with the criticsThese facts are not subject to dispute, they are perfectly clear to anyone with a reading comprehension age of about 12. You must therefore change what you have written.

If Holmes had such disrespect for Rush, why did he insist that medical students read his work, and later (and unrelated to Holmes) why do psychiatrists today still use his FACE on their organization's membership logo?

Holmes statement about the dilutions has already been proven to be hogwash and yet you continue to assert that it makes complete sense (in a completely nonesensical world only).

As for Andral's research...are you saying that YOU stand behind it? If not, give up defending it (heck, the author stopped defending it a LONG time ago). I bet that NOT A SINGLE PERSON HERE will stand up for Andral's work.

The fact that Andral's work may have been the only reference to some type of controlled study in Holmes' work, and yet, the "solid foundation of science" that he was standing on was simply jello. This is not surprising when you consider that Holmes had only graduated from medical school just six years prior to writing this error-filled treatise on homeopathy.

As for Holmes reading a homeopathic book, I still claim that he didn't. Just because he read a chapter or two from one of Hahnemann's reference books does not mean anything. Holmes never quotes Hahnemann's ORGANON, which was Hahnemann's treatise on homeopathy. One cannot understand his other books until/unless one reads his ORGANON (or similar book on the homeopathic methodology). Without it, you're flying blind...and I cannot help but laugh that "defenders of science" like to fly blind...and defend science (badly).

You have simply shown that you, like our American President, will stand by your own (wrong and bone-headed) decisions, no matter what.

My recommendations for you to self-prescribe homeopathic medicines are for only acute non-life-threatening conditions only. Get beyond your own mindset and become a real scientist, an experimenter, not just arm-chair philosphers (you're all practicing that soft science of "philosophy," not science)...and yet, you think of yourselves as "defenders of science." Darwin just rolled over in his grave.

Good-bye...I'm going away again.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Get beyond your own mindset and become a real scientist, an experimenter,...

Quite extraordinary. After being blown out of the water on every piece of your venture into historical literary criticism you reiterate your appeal to personal anecdote as the way to determine the validity of homeopathy.

If you were in any position to understand the science you have presented as proof of homeopathy you would understand quite why that is such a foolish thing to advocate. But, here you are again. Is it any wonder you don't understand the criticisms of that feeble scientific base when you don't even understand the need for science?

Extraordinary, indeed.

[PixyMisa]

THIS is part and parcel of Holmes' ludacrous and uneducated statement: no homeopathic pharmacy makes a medicine if they "dilute the entire starting amount of the mother tincture." Once again, the 17th potency takes 17 test tubes worth of water. Any creative way that alludes anything to 10,000 Adriatic Seas is simply wrong...whether you or Holmes says "let us suppose" or not.
Guess you didn't get as far as multiplication in math class.
Good-bye...I'm going away again.
Byeee!

[kieran]

THIS is part and parcel of Holmes' ludacrous and uneducated statement: no homeopathic pharmacy makes a medicine if they "dilute the entire starting amount of the mother tincture." Once again, the 17th potency takes 17 test tubes worth of water. Any creative way that alludes anything to 10,000 Adriatic Seas is simply wrong...whether you or Holmes says "let us suppose" or not.
Let us suppose you are right ... hang on, that's the most creative use of "let us suppose" possible.

"Let us suppose" obviously preludes an analogy in Holmes' case. Do you struggle with analogy?

If you are claiming that Holmes thought that literally 10,000 Adriatic Seas are used in homoeopathy, then fine - that would be wrong and indefensible.

However, if (as the rest of the sane world would read it) Holmes were using an equivalent process to show the extreme nature of homoeopathic dilution - then that would be an analogy, and your assertion of his incorrectness would be an embarassment to you. Where is your shame?

If Holmes had such disrespect for Rush, why did he insist that medical students read his work,
... so that they could see what to avoid.

If you claim that you still can't see that from the full context of the quote then either you are illiterate or lying. Have you actually read the full context of the quote? (that means the surrounding text as well)

Please - this one point alone is so embarassing that it makes everything you say all the weaker. If you can't admit being wrong, absolutely wrong, on something so glaringly obvious, then what credibility is there in the rest of your argument. Your intellectual dishonesty is disappointing. Your hypocracy is annoying.

Your position is that homoeopathy itself has a positive effect in the treatment of medical conditions. Fine - prove it. Stop making excuses for why you can't.

[steenkh]

JamesGully prefers not to acknowledge his own dishonesty, but he does it indirectly by ceasing the use of quotes that are completely indefensible and concentrating on those quotes that merely needs fanciful interpretation to be defensible. Very interesting.

Now, about the replications of Ennis' work, were those performed double-blind or not?

[Rolfe]

THIS is part and parcel of Holmes' ludacrous and uneducated statement: no homeopathic pharmacy makes a medicine if they "dilute the entire starting amount of the mother tincture." Once again, the 17th potency takes 17 test tubes worth of water. Any creative way that alludes anything to 10,000 Adriatic Seas is simply wrong...whether you or Holmes says "let us suppose" or not.


Do you or do you not understand that it is true that a 17C potency is equivalent to having the whole of the orignal mother tincture dissolved in a volume of ethanol 10,000 times the volume of the Adriatic? Do you or do you not see how it is both relevant and appropriate to illustrate this in the way Holmes did, in order to allow the reader to appreciate the insane levels of dilution actually reached using only these few ounces of actual ethanol?

If you don't, then frankly I don't know what to say. How do you actually cope with tying your shoelaces in the morning?

So, even after Andral told the world all of the serious problems with his "research," Holmes still chose to not change a word of his essay. I guess your standards for scholarship are different than mine.


So Andral "told the world", did he? Then you'll have no problem showing us where to find this information. And quoting exactly what he said. Nice long quotes, please, we know how you like to cherry-pick.

Now, I don't know whether Andral really did say what James claims he said - I doubt it, because so far we've seen that everything James claims Holmes said, he didn't actually say, or not as James chooses to interpret it anyway. However, even if he did - why does that oblige Holmes to agree with him? Holmes studied Andral's work and believed it was valid. He explained why. He was entitled to take that view.

Your critiques of these scientists are so weak that no serious journal has published your critiques. Please provide references to the published critiques of Elia, Rey, Roy, or Ennis in peer-review journals. Someone here has said that they have written a critique of Elia's work here, and I've asked to see it several times...but no body is home. As for Roy's work, is there anyone here who has published a similar body of research as Roy has (and thus, has shown some "scientific chops") and who has provided some solid critique of Roy's work on homeopathy? Put up or shut up. Please show me published critique of Rey's work. Ennis' work was replicated by 3 other labs, though later, one other lab didn't repeat it successfully. This one trial did not disprove her work, and if you think it did, this shows your inadequate understanding of the way evidence works.


Oh no, James. You announced that Holmes should have revised what he wrote because Andral's work was criticised. You didn't give any references for the criticism, or show it to be justified. In fact, as we have seen, Holmes was aware of the criticism, and didn't believe it was valid. He said so, giving his reasons. However, you continue to declare that Holmes was in error in not revising his essay.

Now, we point out that the work of people like Rey, Roy, Benveniste, Ennis and so on has been criticised. This is true. So, by that token, you should not refer to their work, and you should revise anything you have written to remove any references to their work. This is just goose and gander sauce.

Oh, but you now want the criticisms of these people to be cited!! And justified!!! You feel that unless you are persuaded, personally, that these criticisms are valid, then you should not be obliged to expurgate all mention of the work from your writings.

Double standards.

Can you not understand that, in just the same way as you feel justifued in continuing to refer to these authors' work, because you do not agree that they have been discredited, Holmes felt justified in continuing to refer to Andral's work, because he did not agree that the work was invalid.

At least Holmes had the integrity to include in his essay the information that Andral's work had been criticised, and a summary of the criticism (followed by his own excellent reasons for dismissing these criticisms). You have not even had the courtesy to reference a single word you claim Andral said.

You folks are good at ganging up on me here, but you seem unable or afraid to go out into the world to publish your scientific chops.


What makes you think that? I have a PhD, almost every single data point of which was analysed by me with my own fair hands, using samples collected by these same hands. I have a list of publications running to about four pages, both work done in the course of the PhD and later. I currently have the editor of one scientific journal and the chairman of one grant-awarding body chasing me to scrutinise papers and grant applications. Because of my reputation in my field, you see.

And if you want my opinion of Roy, look over here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2778617#post2778617).

If Holmes had such disrespect for Rush, why did he insist that medical students read his work, and later (and unrelated to Holmes) why do psychiatrists today still use his FACE on their organization's membership logo?


Holmes was suggesting that students look at Rush, as a prime example of the sort of arrogance and gung-ho prescribing that he wanted them to avoid. This is perfectly clear from what he wrote. Everybody else here can see that with no problem. Why do you persist in interpreting his use of Rush as an "awful warning" as "worship"?

More problems with reading comprehension?

I don't know anything about psychiatrists, and I don't see what that has to do with the discussion.

Holmes statement about the dilutions has already been proven to be hogwash and yet you continue to assert that it makes complete sense (in a completely nonesensical world only).


Of course it makes sense. Now if you have accepted that Holmes was not suggesting that homoeopathic manufacturers actually use 10,000 times the volume of the Adriatic of alcohol to make a 17C remedy, what do you think he was saying? He was saying that the final "concentration" of the mother tincture in the 17C preparation is the same as if the entire starting amount of the mother tincture had been dissolved in that amount of water. This is correct. How else would you like him to have explained this?

(As an aside, I remember seeing a TV programme about homoeopathy that illustrated the same point showing pictures of swimming pools and then on up. Nobody thought they were saying that actual swimming pools were used to make the remedies, and while some homoeopaths did have some criticisms of the programme - as had some sceptics - nobody took issue with this part.)

As for Andral's research...are you saying that YOU stand behind it? If not, give up defending it (heck, the author stopped defending it a LONG time ago). I bet that NOT A SINGLE PERSON HERE will stand up for Andral's work.


I have read what Holmes wrote about Andral's work. I am still waiting for you to provide the slightest smidgin of support for your assertion that Holmes was wrong about this, and ought to have known he was wrong, or even for your assertion that Andral later recanted. How about it?

The fact that Andral's work may have been the only reference to some type of controlled study in Holmes' work, and yet, the "solid foundation of science" that he was standing on was simply jello. This is not surprising when you consider that Holmes had only graduated from medical school just six years prior to writing this error-filled treatise on homeopathy.


Jello? You're thinking of the so-called scientific support base for homoeopathy, right? You know, I've met some pretty smart cookies doing some extraordinarily impressive work only six years after graduation. Fancy that.

Now, about that error-filled treatise. You were going to show us one single actual error, remember? How about it? And assertions that Holmes said things he did not in fact say don't count.

As for Holmes reading a homeopathic book, I still claim that he didn't. Just because he read a chapter or two from one of Hahnemann's reference books does not mean anything. Holmes never quotes Hahnemann's ORGANON, which was Hahnemann's treatise on homeopathy. One cannot understand his other books until/unless one reads his ORGANON (or similar book on the homeopathic methodology). Without it, you're flying blind...and I cannot help but laugh that "defenders of science" like to fly blind...and defend science (badly).


You claim he didn't. You clearly have no evidence for this at all.

You have simply shown that you, like our American President, will stand by your own (wrong and bone-headed) decisions, no matter what.


Your American President is your responsibility, I'll take nothing to do with him. You seem to emulate him, however. The one standing by wrong opinions here is you, and that should by now be clear to you - if it weren't for that reading comprehension problem that seems to keep rearing its ugly head.

My recommendations for you to self-prescribe homeopathic medicines are for only acute non-life-threatening conditions only. Get beyond your own mindset and become a real scientist, an experimenter, not just arm-chair philosphers (you're all practicing that soft science of "philosophy," not science)...and yet, you think of yourselves as "defenders of science." Darwin just rolled over in his grave.

Good-bye...I'm going away again.


Fancy, you're not the first homoeopath to have suggested I try taking homoeopathic remedies. I actually did it. (On top of having been a homoeopathic patient in my youth.) Nothing at all happened. So what?

Where did I call myself a "defender of science"? What makes you think I've never done any experimentation? (I'll refer you back to my PhD thesis here.) And where does Darwin come into it?

Get real, James. You haven't a leg to stand on. You yourself derailed this thread from whatever it was about to showcase your precious critique of Holmes. Which has just ended up as a little pile of confetti on the floor.

Have the intellectual honesty to change it.

Rolfe.

[Cuddles]

You know, I've met some pretty smart cookies doing some extraordinarily impressive work only six years after graduation. Fancy that.

In fact, a lot of the most groundbreaking work is done in people's youth. In mathematics, for example, it is well established that almost all the really important work is done by people under 30, which is a maximum of 9 years after graduation. In fact, assuming a medical degree back then was still six years, as it is now, that would mean that far from being dismissed due to inexperience, this was just about Holmes' last chance to really publish anything noteworthy.

Mozart was only six when he wrote his first music, does that mean we should dismiss it because he didn't have enough experience?

[Michael C]

If you want a bit more fun with Dana Ullman, here's the presentation of his new book: http://www.homeopathicrevolution.com/

The book is called "The Homeopathic Revolution: Famous People and Cultural Heroes Who Chose Homeopathy". It seems to be a collection of famous people who may have used homeopathy, or supported it, or written something nice about it. It's clear from the presentation that Dana Ullman = JamesGully: we read that: "Charles Darwin could not have written Origin of Species without the homeopathic treatment that he received from Dr. Gully (based on Darwin's own letters!)." and in the sample chapter ("Literary Greats: Write on Homeopathy!") there is a bit of the misinformation on Oliver Wendell Holmes that we have already dissected in this thread.

Ullman has high hopes of his book:

"I am presently finishing the most important work of my life. It is a project that may actually change the face (and the heart) of medicine and may make homeopathy a household word."

In the table of contents (http://www.homeopathicrevolution.com/pages/table_of_contents.jsp) you can read all the illustrious names included in the book. Apparently all these people, famous for their music, art, literature or whatever, supported homeopathy.

Of course, knowing what Ullman/Gully has already written on this thread, we may well suspect him of careful quote-mining to make things look better for his cause, but let's suppose that all these people really did, or do support homeopathy. Does that change the face of medicine? Does being famous make people good judges of medical treatment?

And do we really want to use the same medical treatments that were used by Chopin (died of tuberculosis at 39), Schumann (died insane, probably of syphilis, at 46) or Van Gogh (depressive drinker of absinthe, committed suicide at 37)?

[Furcifer]

Originally by Dana Ullman:
"I am presently finishing the most important work of my life. It is a project that may actually change the face (and the heart) of medicine and may make homeopathy a household word."




If anyone uses the word "Homeopathy" in my house it results in a quarter being deposited in a jar on top of the fridge.

[Michael C]

I just started reading Ullman's sample chapter (http://www.homeopathicrevolution.com/pages/excerpt.jsp). He presents Ralph Waldo Emerson as an advocate of homeopathy. A little research led me to this quote from Emerson:

"Homoeopathy is insignificant as an art of healing, but of great value as criticism on the hygeia or medical practice of the time. So with Mesmerism, Swedenborgism, Fourierism, and the Millennial Church; they are poor pretensions enough, but good criticism on the science, philosophy, and preaching of the day."

(see the quote in context at http://emerson.thefreelibrary.com/Essays-Second-Series/8-1)

Could Mr. Ullman/Gully explain why an advocate of homeopathy would write that? And could he give a quote showing that Emerson supported homeopathy?

[Michael C]

Time for one more! Ullman also presents Henry James as an advocate of homeopathy. As evidence, he gives a quote from The Bostonians, where one of the characters, Miss Birdseye, says of homeopathy "Well, it's generally admitted now to be the true system".

So the fact that Henry James put something into a character's mouth meant that he believed it himself? In particular, did he share the beliefs of Miss Birdseye, whom he described as "a confused, entangled, inconsequent, discursive old woman"?

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

In particular, did he share the beliefs of Miss Birdseye, whom he described as "a confused, entangled, inconsequent, discursive old woman"?

Entangled?? It turns out that Lionel Milgrom has been channelling the spirit of a fictional 19th century woman. Now it becomes clear why his papers are such nonsense.

[Mojo]

I just started reading Ullman's sample chapter (http://www.homeopathicrevolution.com/pages/excerpt.jsp). He presents Ralph Waldo Emerson as an advocate of homeopathy. A little research led me to this quote from Emerson:

"Homoeopathy is insignificant as an art of healing, but of great value as criticism on the hygeia or medical practice of the time. So with Mesmerism, Swedenborgism, Fourierism, and the Millennial Church; they are poor pretensions enough, but good criticism on the science, philosophy, and preaching of the day."

(see the quote in context at http://emerson.thefreelibrary.com/Essays-Second-Series/8-1)

Could Mr. Ullman/Gully explain why an advocate of homeopathy would write that?


Simple: Emerson was, like everyone else in the world apart from "JamesGully", intellectually dishonest.

See also: "Critic's Choice (http://www.wepsite.de/Critic's%20Choice.htm)".

[Rolfe]

See also: "Critic's Choice (http://www.wepsite.de/Critic's%20Choice.htm)".


:dl:

Anybody care to speculate on whether Dana (I think we can be pretty confident of the identity) really believes he's right about this? I can only assume he does, but just how dense, or how divorced from reality, do you actually have to be to take the stance he's taken here? Imagining you see improvements in patients who are just getting better on their own isn't hard. But such wilful, tortuous misinterpretation of a perfectly clear and amusing writer takes real skill.

I forgot the smilie from my previous post, so I'll add it here.

:hb:

Do you think we finally broke him?

Rolfe.

[steenkh]

Do you think we finally broke him?
I do not think he can be broken. But he may decide not to spend anymore time on such a bunch of intellectually dishonest amateur scientists who aqre so entrenched in their old-fashioned views that they would never see the most obvious truths staring right in their eyes!

Besides, he is probably busy dredging quotes from the discussion to show how he won over a board of skeptics who like all his famous persons finally admitted that homoeopathy is the cure of the millenium.

[Rolfe]

In fact, a lot of the most groundbreaking work is done in people's youth. In mathematics, for example, it is well established that almost all the really important work is done by people under 30, which is a maximum of 9 years after graduation. In fact, assuming a medical degree back then was still six years, as it is now, that would mean that far from being dismissed due to inexperience, this was just about Holmes' last chance to really publish anything noteworthy.

Mozart was only six when he wrote his first music, does that mean we should dismiss it because he didn't have enough experience?


I checked Holmes' biography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Sr.). (I may have erroneously said O. W. Holmes Jr. in an earlier post. This was of course wrong, the writer of the essay in question was O. W. Holmes, Sr. His son, born in 1841, the year before the publication of the essay under discussion, was a very well-known US judge.) He was 32 or 33 when he gave the lecture that was published as Homoeopathy and its Kindred Delusions. And it seems to me that six years post-graduation is quite an experienced doctor, and I'd certainly have no qualms about letting someone six years out of medical school treat me! I've heard some very penetrating lectures by lecturers in their early 30s, too.

Be fair, though. You may have to be a child prodigy to do groundbreaking maths, but Holmes still had a long and productive medical career ahead of him at 33. Lots of people in the biological sciences have published excellent and novel work right up to their retirement.

By the way, I just noticed that Holmes also wrote several well-loved hymns. I'm surprised Dana didn't cast that one up as some twisted proof that he "wasn't a sceptic" or something!

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

This from Dana, from the message he wrote to the Opening Poster's blog which started this thread.

I am proud of my humility

:dl:

Says it all, really.

Rolfe.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

"I am presently finishing the most important work of my life."

Bit of a waste of a life.

But I can see why he'd be so resistant to accepting correction. There's a big pile of his silly books that would need to be pulped and a lot of grovelling letters to be written to reviewers who have been misled by its content.

[Mojo]

By the way, I just noticed that Holmes also wrote several well-loved hymns. I'm surprised Dana didn't cast that one up as some twisted proof that he "wasn't a sceptic" or something!


Ah, but Dana wants Holmes to be a skeptic so that, by misquoting him and throwing up strawmen, he can show that skepics are wrong.

[Mojo]

This from Dana, from the message he wrote to the Opening Poster's blog which started this thread.

I am proud of my humility

:dl:

Says it all, really.


Actually, I think wahrheit nailed him in post #3.

[Rolfe]

:cry:

But I want him to come back! He's lots more fun than Neil!

He was wittering on about how Roy (the 84-year-old retired materials scientist who appears to think you can tell homoeopathic alcohol from ordinary alcohol because the former does not demonstrate the significant absorbance at 320nm seen in the latter) is about to publish something really interesting. I really, really want to see this, because I'm hoping for an explanation of how Roy seems to be the only spectroscopist on the planet who has managed to measure a significant absorbance at 320nm in pure ethanol.

Roy's UV spectra in the slideshow referenced by Dana quite early in this thread are the lamest thing I've seen in a long time. I'd have said the chances of him getting any version of that past any scrutineer who wasn't actually dead were nil. So I'm really keen to see when Dana is going to reference this upcoming paper.

Rolfe.

[Pipirr]

In the webinar powerpoint (http://www.rustumroy.com/May%2016th%20Webinar.pdf) (slide 21), Roy indicates that some of this research will be published this year. Possibly in the July edition of Homeopathy, but this edition hasn't been released as yet.

The defining role of structure (including Epitaxy) in the Plausibility of Homeopathy.

Manju L Rao, Rustum Roy, Iris R Bell, M Richard Hoover

Homeopathy (in press 2007)

From the title alone, it looks like another speculative paper in the style of Milgrom.


Dana Ullman has been hyping up Roy’s upcoming publication, although he has been shy as to what publications exactly are of interest.

In Orac’s blog Respectful Insolence, on May 21st, he wrote the following (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/doctor_strange_and_the_only_way_to_make.php#commen t-439779):

Some new research on the silicates in water provide some very provocative possibilities on how the structure in water can change and how these nano-sized "silica chips" and the nano-bubbles can influence the water. I can tell you that later this week a new study on homeopathy and water will be published by two internationally respected professors of material sciences: Rustum Roy, PhD (of Penn State University) and Bill Tiller, PhD (former head of material sciences at Stanford). If any of your fellow skeptics can claim greater understanding of water than these two gentlemen, please publish your work.

Maybe he was referring to the webinar, in which case the terms ‘study’ and ‘published’ have a different meaning for Mr Ullman (MPH!). If there was another actual, published, peer reviewed paper, then I don’t know to what he was referring.

Watch this space for the latest update from Homeopathy and Roy’s upcoming, groundbreaking, bomb-dropping, paradigm shifting, vague musings about epitaxy….

[Rolfe]

Actually, I think wahrheit nailed him in post #3.


.... Looks to see what Warheit said ....

.... This must be a very dumb person who considers himself being very smart. And as long as there are people more stupid than him, he is doing fine.


Absolutely. Also a very arrogant person who boasts about his humility, of course.

Pipirr - sounds as if it's another Milgrom-style content-free speculation. Along quite different lines from Milgrom, but why should that matter? I mean I suppose it can be flakes of silica altering the structure of water, and quantum!

You know, these people are actually seeing "patients", and doling out sugar pills, and charging good money for all that. Already. But even if it were shown that there is a hitherto unsupected property of water, that for some bizarre reason the rest of science and biology (especially immunology, with its heavy reliance on 1:1 serial agitated dilutions!) has failed to notice, that wouldn't necessarily validate their clinical practice at all. I mean, we've still got the like curing like part, and the provings, and the persistence of this water property in the dry sugar pills to overcome, never mind finding an actual physiological explanation for clinical improvement....

But never mind that, Roy makes some unfounded assumptions (and some elementary mistakes in his UV spectroscopy), and hey, the money-raking scam is validated, of course!

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

Don't see any mention of Tiller in the forthcoming article or the lecture (other than a reference to the 2005 paper).

[Mojo]

Dana Ullman has been hyping up Roy’s upcoming publication, although he has been shy as to what publications exactly are of interest.

In Orac’s blog Respectful Insolence, on May 21st, he wrote the following (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/doctor_strange_and_the_only_way_to_make.php#commen t-439779): Some new research on the silicates in water provide some very provocative possibilities on how the structure in water can change and how these nano-sized "silica chips" and the nano-bubbles can influence the water.


He's very keen on the "nano-" prefix, isn't he. Perhaps his attempt to introduce the term "nanopharmacology" is some sort of tacit admission that homoeopathy has been discredited to the extent that it needs a rebrand, despite his attempts to prop it up with anecdotes about famous dead people.

[Pipirr]

Don't see any mention of Tiller in the forthcoming article or the lecture (other than a reference to the 2005 paper).


The 2005 paper might be the soon to be released article that Dana was talking about.

That paper is two years in the past now, but who knows? With quantum nanohomeopathy, the evidence can always be in the future. Or, simultaneously, the 200 year old past.

Just not right now, where we can get to look at it.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

despite his attempts to prop it up with anecdotes about famous dead people.

But isn't that the most extraordinary thing. He seriously seems to believe that this is an important project when all his, let's be generous, gross distortions of historical truth are slave to an attempt to create a giant appeal to antiquity and appeal to authority fallacy. And this was from someone who wanted to discuss research that would apparently knock our socks off and open our eyes, only to trot out the familiar sad parade of usual suspects.

Unfortunately his vast expertise does not seem to render him capable of having a coherent opinion about these questions;

So, I return to your clinical evidence base;

4. Can you tell us whether either of these machines works?

http://www.bio-resonance.com/elybra.htm

http://www.remedydevices.com/voice.htm

Bear in mind that the users of these machines rely on exactly the same anecdotal experience and fallacious post hoc reasoning that every other homeopath does. Are the homeopaths who use these machines right or wrong in thinking they work?

It's a very simple question and capable of a single-word answer.

I'll give you a new question just so you can show how well you understand the interpretation of clinical trial data;

9. I set a p-value for significance of 0.05 and run 100 trials. In no trial is the test substance distinguishable from the control. How many trials can I expect to show an apparent "effect" from my test substance?

I think I have said this before, but when I first started paying serious attention to homeopathy I was very circumspect in my opinions and cautious with my criticisms. I sort of wondered whether I would meet an intelligent homeopath who had thought through the problems I perceived and had well-reasoned responses. That has never happened and I have now interacted with some who seem to be regarded as the best in their field. The more I have seen the more they have sickened me with their resistance to rational argument, constant use of fallacious reasoning and knee-jerk resort to censorship of contrary opinions. They literally personify all that they claim to be the worst in the world of conventional medicine as caricatured by them.

When I feel generous I pity them for wasting their lives on this bunch of hooey. Imagine getting to the Pearly Gates and finding St Peter doubled up with mirth at them having piddled away their earthly existence with this nonsense. Though the more likely destination would be somewhere hotter and more sulphurous.

[Mojo]

But isn't that the most extraordinary thing. He seriously seems to believe that this is an important project when all his, let's be generous, gross distortions of historical truth are slave to an attempt to create a giant appeal to antiquity and appeal to authority fallacy. And this was from someone who wanted to discuss research that would apparently knock our socks off and open our eyes, only to trot out the familiar sad parade of usual suspects.


Well, frankly, he's fooling nobody but himself. I mean, shaving the remaining patches is no more convincing than a comb-over, is it?

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Well, frankly, he's fooling nobody but himself. I mean, shaving the remaining patches is no more convincing than a comb-over, is it?

I wonder whether any of the less woo-ish appearing rentaquote providers that are listed at http://www.homeopathicrevolution.com/ would alter their views of the value of his book if presented with hard evidence of the serious misrepresentations in it.

[Rolfe]

I have now interacted with some who seem to be regarded as the best in their field. The more I have seen the more they have sickened me with their resistance to rational argument, constant use of fallacious reasoning and knee-jerk resort to censorship of contrary opinions.


What really sickens me is exactly what we've seen from Dana. The misrepresentation, the quote-mining, and general blatant dishonesty. I know we're not supposed to say they're dishonest, but it's the feature that pervades everything from the cherrypicking of cases to the selective out-of-context quoting to the constant pretence that there's no money in it.

They're so good at blandly asserting what simply isn't so. Then they just keep on asserting it time and time again even after it's been clearly shown to them that it isn't so. To the point where the repetition starts to get the claim accepted as fact. And of course it's impolite to call someone a liar, isn't it. I mean, how dare you, that's a slur!!

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

And of course it's impolite to call someone a liar, isn't it. I mean, how dare you, that's a slur!!


A classic example being Sue young and her "Guidelines (http://homeopathy.wildfalcon.com/archives/2007/07/09/the-parliament-of-owls-amended-guidelines/)", which have to be followed by everyone apart from, er, Sue Young.

[Chris Haynes]

I found a website that Dana Ullman should acquaint himself with:
http://cohesion.rice.edu/naturalsciences/nanokids/

It might help him figure out what "nano" actually means. Though it may actually be above his level of scientific understanding.

[SYLVESTER1592]

If anyone uses the word "Homeopathy" in my house it results in a quarter being deposited in a jar on top of the fridge.

:wave1

Unfortunately, they will probably figure out a new name...

SYL :)

[manioberoi]

But isn't that the most extraordinary thing. He seriously seems to believe that this is an important project when all his, let's be generous, gross distortions of historical truth are slave to an attempt to create a giant appeal to antiquity and appeal to authority fallacy. And this was from someone who wanted to discuss research that would apparently knock our socks off and open our eyes, only to trot out the familiar sad parade of usual suspects.

Unfortunately his vast expertise does not seem to render him capable of having a coherent opinion about these questions;

So, I return to your clinical evidence base;

4. Can you tell us whether either of these machines works?

http://www.bio-resonance.com/elybra.htm

http://www.remedydevices.com/voice.htm

Bear in mind that the users of these machines rely on exactly the same anecdotal experience and fallacious post hoc reasoning that every other homeopath does. Are the homeopaths who use these machines right or wrong in thinking they work?

It's a very simple question and capable of a single-word answer.

I'll give you a new question just so you can show how well you understand the interpretation of clinical trial data;

9. I set a p-value for significance of 0.05 and run 100 trials. In no trial is the test substance distinguishable from the control. How many trials can I expect to show an apparent "effect" from my test substance?

I think I have said this before, but when I first started paying serious attention to homeopathy I was very circumspect in my opinions and cautious with my criticisms. I sort of wondered whether I would meet an intelligent homeopath who had thought through the problems I perceived and had well-reasoned responses. That has never happened and I have now interacted with some who seem to be regarded as the best in their field. The more I have seen the more they have sickened me with their resistance to rational argument, constant use of fallacious reasoning and knee-jerk resort to censorship of contrary opinions. They literally personify all that they claim to be the worst in the world of conventional medicine as caricatured by them.

When I feel generous I pity them for wasting their lives on this bunch of hooey. Imagine getting to the Pearly Gates and finding St Peter doubled up with mirth at them having piddled away their earthly existence with this nonsense. Though the more likely destination would be somewhere hotter and more sulphurous.
Proving that homeopathy works to the skeptics is an uphill task requiring much study to understand the nature and depth of the objections.

This forum has helped me to understand the finer points of the objections - since I have taken 30 years to confirm beyond reasonable doubt that homeopathy works, I have commenced design of a set of studies with the help of some experts in the field of drug trials.

It may take a few months or years but the proof when it comes would be conclusive.

Regards.

Sarvadaman Oberoi
H 485 FF Ansals Palam Vihar
Gurgaon 122017 Haryana INDIA
Mobile: +919818768349 Tele: +911244076374
Website: http://www.freewebs.com/homeopathy249/index.htm
email: manioberoi@gmail.com

[Mojo]

It may take a few months or years but the proof when it comes would be conclusive.


Hey, we've been waiting a couple of centuries. What's another "few months or years"?

[Mojo]

Unfortunately his vast expertise does not seem to render him capable of having a coherent opinion about these questions;

So, I return to your clinical evidence base;

4. Can you tell us whether either of these machines works?

http://www.bio-resonance.com/elybra.htm

http://www.remedydevices.com/voice.htm

Bear in mind that the users of these machines rely on exactly the same anecdotal experience and fallacious post hoc reasoning that every other homeopath does. Are the homeopaths who use these machines right or wrong in thinking they work?


Well, the fact that he can't come straight out and say they don't work means that he at least considers them to be plausible.

[manioberoi]

Well, the fact that he can't come straight out and say they don't work means that he at least considers them to be plausible.
I have already said I am not competent to comment on this - but it is NOT homeopathy.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I have already said I am not competent to comment on this - but it is NOT homeopathy.

On whose authority do you make that statement? They are made by homeopaths and used by homeopaths to do homeopathy.

What do you say to that? Are those people dangerous frauds and lunatics? If they're not practising "homeopathy" then aren't they engaged in a fradulent activity?

See the problem here, manioberoi. When you try to equivocate and tell half truths or evade the issues you just lock yourself into an ever more ridiculous position.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

p.s In case you need a clue, remember that the people using these machines rely on exactly the same evidence-base as you do and it leaves you no room for "reasonable doubt" that homeopathy works. As I keep telling you, until you disregard your evidence-base and admit you have nothing then you are just going to continue to make yourself look foolish.

[kieran]

Proving that homeopathy works to the skeptics is an uphill task requiring much study to understand the nature and depth of the objections.

This forum has helped me to understand the finer points of the objections - since I have taken 30 years to confirm beyond reasonable doubt that homeopathy works,
Oh deary deary me. It sounds like you still haven't really understood the "finer points of the objections" - otherwise you would be embarassed to claim confirmation "beyond reasonable doubt". :o

You didn't understand the importance of a properly controlled study (e.g. double blinded with strict protocols, careful choice of study groups to eliminate other factors, careful choice of condition to remove subjectivity from the analysis, ...) until these were explained to you very recently on this forum. So you obviously cannot have conducted any such studies, hence your "evidence" is currently very weak and very tarnished ... so how can you be sure "beyond reasonable doubt"? :boggled:

I have commenced design of a set of studies with the help of some experts in the field of drug trials.
Maybe you should reserve your "beyond reasonable doubt" confidence until you actually have some data on which to base your opinion, instead of the wishful thinking that you have used to shape your philosophy and intellectual viewpoint thus far.

I thought we had already outlined a simple study that you could apply with little cost over a reasonably short time period - without the need for experts and the like ... anyone, anywhere is free to apply these concepts to see if things really are what they claim to be ... to get you started without any delays, why not just ask your local homoeopathic "practioner" to take part in a small scale exploratory study so you can start to find out some real information for yourself? - if these "practioners" come up with all the excuses you have been using so far, then ask yourself why they do that ;).

The worst thing you can do is go looking for the answer you want - you should only go looking for more information, and then look to see what conclusions can be drawn from it.

[kieran]

I do know that this is being "recorded," and in the near future, many of you will be embarrassed by your flat-earth attitudes.
I think that the position of "waiting for evidence before accepting it works" will not be embarassing regardless of which way the evidence actually points.

Blindly advocating it without being able to show any evidence ... now that is embarassing even if positive evidence does show up.

However, embarassment is not the main concern here. Evidence for homoeopathy is. Got any? Any at all? One little bit???

[kieran]

Good-bye...I'm going away again.
Is that as in ... I won't be around to answer your posts for {specify time period here} ... or as in ... I'm going home and taking my ball with me. (?)

[steenkh]

Proving that homeopathy works to the skeptics is an uphill task requiring much study to understand the nature and depth of the objections.
I have often noticed this problem for homoepaths, and though I believe it is real, I do not understand why it is so. After all, skeptics understand perfectly well the reasoning behind homoeopath claims.

This forum has helped me to understand the finer points of the objections - since I have taken 30 years to confirm beyond reasonable doubt that homeopathy works, I have commenced design of a set of studies with the help of some experts in the field of drug trials.
That is fine. You can present your ideas here, and we can tell you if you are on the right track. Unfortunately, you will probably encounter resistance from other homoeopaths if you design a study that leaves no room for argument.

It may take a few months or years but the proof when it comes would be conclusive.
That sounds great! We believe, of course that conclusive experiments have already been performed, but if they can help other people understand homoeopathy, we cannot have enough of conclusive experiments.

Working with ill patients have many ethical and practical problems, so if you try to design studies that uses healthy volunteers, it might be easier for you. A design to test the validity of the homoeopathic proving process could be a good start. After all, if homoeopathic proving did not work as advertised, all homoeopathic research right back to Hahnemann's time would be invalid. A positive result here would of course not conclusively prove homoeopathy right, but it ensure a solid foundation and gain much respectability to homoeopathy.

A study I have always wondered about why it has not been performed, is whether homoeopathic remedies are affected by airport x-ray machines. surely this must be of great interest to homoeopaths all over the world, and it must be comparatively simple to make (if you can get access to an x-ray machine). Simply run an entire collection of homoeopathic remedies through the x-ray scanner, and let half of the test persons use these remedies, and the opther half use normal remedies, but of course cleverly disguised so that neither the test persons nor the tester knows which remedies they have been using before the analysis of the result has been done.

I know that this is not the kind of test you are aiming at, but perhaps you can think of good reasons why this test has not been performed, and whether this will have influence on your test designs.

[manioberoi]

On whose authority do you make that statement? They are made by homeopaths and used by homeopaths to do homeopathy.

What do you say to that? Are those people dangerous frauds and lunatics? If they're not practising "homeopathy" then aren't they engaged in a fradulent activity?

See the problem here, manioberoi. When you try to equivocate and tell half truths or evade the issues you just lock yourself into an ever more ridiculous position.
In India the strong legal framework ensures that these treatments are NOT HOMOEOPATHIC. Read the relevant extracts from the Act and Regulations below.


The Homoeopathy Central Council Act, 1973
24.
(l) The Central Council may prescribe standards of professional conduct and etiquette and a code of ethics for practitioners of Homoeopathy.
(2) Regulations made by the Central Council under sub-section (1) may specify which violations thereof shall constitute infamous conduct in any professional respect that is to say, professional respect that is to say, professional misconduct and such provision shall have effect notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force.
33(1) . The Central Council may, with the previous sanction of the Central Government, make, by notification in the Official Gazette, regulations generally to carry out the purposes of this Act, and, without prejudice to the generality of this power, such regulations may provide for -
(k) the conduct of professional examinations, qualifications of examiners and the conditions of admission to such examinations;
(l) the standards of professional conduct and etiquette and code of ethics to be observed by practitioners of Homoeopathy;

Homoeopathic Practitioners (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Code of Ethics) Regulations, 1982

Regulations
In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (l) of section 33 read with section 24 of the Homoeopathy Central Council Act, 1973 (59 of 1973), the Central Council of Homoeopathy,with the previous sanction of the Central Government, hereby makes the following regulations,namely :-

1. These regulations may be called the Homoeopathic Practitioners (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Code of Ethics) Regulations, 1982.

I. DECLARATION AND OATH
2.
(a) At the time of registration, each applicant shall submit the following declaration
and oath read and signed by him to the Registrar concerned attested by the
Registrar himself or by a registered practitioner of Homoeopathy

(5) I will practise my profession with conscience and dignity in accordance with
the principles of Homoeopathy and/or in accordance with the principles of
biochemic system of medicine (tissue remedies).

(b) Hahnemannian Oath
"On my honour I swear that I shall practise the teachings of Homoeopathy,
perform my duty, render justice to my patients and help the sick whosoever comes
to me for treatment. May the teachings of master Hahnemann inspire me and may I have the strength for fulfillment of my mission."

III. DUTIES OF HOMOEOPATHIC PRACTITIONERS TO THEIR PATIENTS

12. Acts of Negligence

(3) His acts of commission or omission shall not be judged by any non-homoeopathic
standards of professional service expected of him but by those standards as are
expected from a Homoeopath of his training, standing and experience.

(4) A practitioner of Homoeopathy shall use any drug prepared according to
Homoeopathic principles and adopt other necessary measures as required.


VII. PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT
35. The following actions shall constitute professional misconduct

(4) Contravention of the provisions of laws relating to Drugs and regulations made
thereunder;

(5) Selling a drug or poison regulated by law to the public or his patients save as
provided by that law.

(6) Performing or enabling an unqualified person to perform an abortion or any illegal
operation for which there is no medical, surgical or psychological indication;

[manioberoi]

I have often noticed this problem for homoepaths, and though I believe it is real, I do not understand why it is so. After all, skeptics understand perfectly well the reasoning behind homoeopath claims.


That is fine. You can present your ideas here, and we can tell you if you are on the right track. Unfortunately, you will probably encounter resistance from other homoeopaths if you design a study that leaves no room for argument.


That sounds great! We believe, of course that conclusive experiments have already been performed, but if they can help other people understand homoeopathy, we cannot have enough of conclusive experiments.

Working with ill patients have many ethical and practical problems, so if you try to design studies that uses healthy volunteers, it might be easier for you. A design to test the validity of the homoeopathic proving process could be a good start. After all, if homoeopathic proving did not work as advertised, all homoeopathic research right back to Hahnemann's time would be invalid. A positive result here would of course not conclusively prove homoeopathy right, but it ensure a solid foundation and gain much respectability to homoeopathy.

A study I have always wondered about why it has not been performed, is whether homoeopathic remedies are affected by airport x-ray machines. surely this must be of great interest to homoeopaths all over the world, and it must be comparatively simple to make (if you can get access to an x-ray machine). Simply run an entire collection of homoeopathic remedies through the x-ray scanner, and let half of the test persons use these remedies, and the opther half use normal remedies, but of course cleverly disguised so that neither the test persons nor the tester knows which remedies they have been using before the analysis of the result has been done.

I know that this is not the kind of test you are aiming at, but perhaps you can think of good reasons why this test has not been performed, and whether this will have influence on your test designs.
It is much more important to get down to the trials proper than get sidetracked in side issues at this juncture as it takes much time and effort to organise a homeopathic double blind study -double blinding adversely affects the proper homeopathic interaction essential to the proper homeopathic process.

[steenkh]

It is much more important to get down to the trials proper than get sidetracked in side issues at this juncture as it takes much time and effort to organise a homeopathic double blind study -double blinding adversely affects the proper homeopathic interaction essential to the proper homeopathic process.
It is well known that doctors and patients can interpret the symptoms of an illness according to their wishes. It is also recognised that even simple data collection like counting the number of coloured cells in a sample can be subject to wishes and expectations of the one who makes the count. Jacques Benveniste found this out to his ruin, when his own researchers no longer achieved the same counts if they did not know what specimen they were counting. This is called 'bias'.

Do you have a cleverer method to eliminate bias than double blinding? Do you intend to eliminate bias in your test?

If not, you will convince nobody.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

manioberoi, you seem to be sharing JamesGully's problems with reading comprehension.

Never mind the fact that we are discussing matters of principle and what is actually true whereas you have responded with a set of national rules that have nothing at all to say about the validity of homeopathy itself, the rules themselves encapsulate the problem that I have presented you with and which you have evaded;

"(5) I will practise my profession with conscience and dignity in accordance with the principles of Homoeopathy and/or in accordance with the principles of biochemic system of medicine (tissue remedies)."

"(4) A practitioner of Homoeopathy shall use any drug prepared according to Homoeopathic principles and adopt other necessary measures as required."

The exact problem you must address is that reputable homeopaths use those silly machines and regard them as complete appropriate for the cteation of remedies "according to Homoeopathic principles". That's before you even move on to the get-out clause "adopt other necessary measures as required."

I think you need to try again.

I have already said I am not competent to comment on this - but it is NOT homeopathy.

On whose authority do you make that statement? They are made by homeopaths and used by homeopaths to do homeopathy.

What do you say to that? Are those people dangerous frauds and lunatics? If they're not practising "homeopathy" then aren't they engaged in a fradulent activity?

There is no unified definition of homeopathy. Homeopathy seems to be anything that someone who defines themself as a homeopath cares to declare it.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

p.s. As a follow-up, please define exactly what is the homeopathic principle for preparation of a remedy. Give us an unequivocal and step-by-step set of instructions to which the homeopath must adhere and from which no variation can be permitted. Make specific reference to whether succussion against a leather-bound Bible is a compulsory step.

[steenkh]

(b) Hahnemannian Oath
"On my honour I swear that I shall practise the teachings of Homoeopathy,
perform my duty, render justice to my patients and help the sick whosoever comes to me for treatment. May the teachings of master Hahnemann inspire me and may I have the strength for fulfillment of my mission."
Are you willing to declare as fraud any "homoeopath" who does not follow Hahnemann to the letter? Or, if it is not necessary to follow his instructions to the letter, just what aberrations are allowed, and how do you determine this?

[Rolfe]

This is a really interesting point. Lots of things spring to mind.

What should the solvent be? I believe Hahnemann used alcohol a lot, although we had one homoeopath who declared he used "pure spring water". Others have declared that it has to be double-distilled water or even something called "nuclear water". But then, others use alcohol as did Hahnemann - principally vodka I believe.

How much shaking should be done? Hahnemann once said he had at first advocated ten shakes, but felt that was too much, and had revised it down to two shakes. Is shaking OK, or does it have to be taps on a leather-bound book? Does it have to be a leather-bound bible, as Hahnemann used, or will any old leather pad do?

Is the K method just as valid as the H method?

Is there any difference between using the liquid preparations, and the sugar pills? Hahnemann invented the sugar pill part because he was worried that extra shaking of a liquid remedy in transit could make it too powerful. So what precautions do those using liquid remedies take to make sure they're not dangerous?

Do all remedies have to be made up from scratch, or can you simply "graft" more by adding blank sugar pills to a bottle of pills? Does it matter whether you take the sugar pill as it is, or dissolve it in water (or alcohol?) and take that?

And at each step of the process, how do you satisfy yourself of the quality of the product? How do you tell it is as potent as it should be, and something hasn't happened either to deactivate it or to make it dangerously over-potent?

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

I just started reading Ullman's sample chapter (http://www.homeopathicrevolution.com/pages/excerpt.jsp). He presents Ralph Waldo Emerson as an advocate of homeopathy. A little research led me to this quote from Emerson:

"Homoeopathy is insignificant as an art of healing, but of great value as criticism on the hygeia or medical practice of the time. So with Mesmerism, Swedenborgism, Fourierism, and the Millennial Church; they are poor pretensions enough, but good criticism on the science, philosophy, and preaching of the day."

(see the quote in context at http://emerson.thefreelibrary.com/Essays-Second-Series/8-1 (http://emerson.thefreelibrary.com/Essays-Second-Series/8-1))

Could Mr. Ullman/Gully explain why an advocate of homeopathy would write that? And could he give a quote showing that Emerson supported homeopathy?


Time for one more! Ullman also presents Henry James as an advocate of homeopathy. As evidence, he gives a quote from The Bostonians, where one of the characters, Miss Birdseye, says of homeopathy "Well, it's generally admitted now to be the true system".

So the fact that Henry James put something into a character's mouth meant that he believed it himself? In particular, did he share the beliefs of Miss Birdseye, whom he described as "a confused, entangled, inconsequent, discursive old woman"?


Just highlighting this piece of interesting work from Michael C. Is it possible that most of Dana's alleged supporters of homoeopathy have been quoted out of context and wilfully misrepresented? I suppose if he can imply that Oliver Wendell Holmes became a convert to homoeopathy, anything's possible.

And this is his magnum opus? What a sad waste of a life.

It's just a pity it will probably be impossible to get any sort of publicity for the fact that this treatise is a pile of great, heaping lies. The fans will simply lap it up and start quoting it all over their forums.

It's a great example though of why it's essential to take every claim by a homoeopath back to its original basis. So often they lie and misrepresent, sometimes simply quoting the lies and misrepresentations of others, but always in the smug assumption that nobody will call them on their facts. I wonder how much of the historical stuff they quote is also false?

Rolfe.

[Lothian]

And this is his magnum opus? What a sad waste of a life.
Oh, I don’t know, I am sure it will be a great book and one day “The Homeopathic Revolution: Famous People and Cultural Heroes who Chose Homeopathic Medicine” will sit right up there next to “Blood letting –ye guide for modern barbers “

[Mojo]

I just started reading Ullman's sample chapter (http://www.homeopathicrevolution.com/pages/excerpt.jsp). He presents Ralph Waldo Emerson as an advocate of homeopathy. A little research led me to this quote from Emerson:

"Homoeopathy is insignificant as an art of healing, but of great value as criticism on the hygeia or medical practice of the time. So with Mesmerism, Swedenborgism, Fourierism, and the Millennial Church; they are poor pretensions enough, but good criticism on the science, philosophy, and preaching of the day."

(see the quote in context at http://emerson.thefreelibrary.com/Essays-Second-Series/8-1)

Could Mr. Ullman/Gully explain why an advocate of homeopathy would write that? And could he give a quote showing that Emerson supported homeopathy?


The quotation from Twain is remarkably similar to the out-of-context quotations from Holmes: When you reflect that your own father had to take such medicines as the above, and that you would be taking them to-day yourself but for the introduction of homoeopathy, which forced the old-school doctor to stir around and learn something of a rational nature about his business, you may honestly feel grateful that homoeopathy survived the attempts of the allopathists to destroy it, even though you may never employ any physician but an allopathist while you live.


Note that Twain isn't recommending homoeopathy here: he's saying (just as Holmes did) that homoeopathy (and other competing systems may have done good by making "allopathy" reconsider its treatments.

Ullman sources several of his quotations from "Ober, 1997". Here's (http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/126/2/157) the article in question. Some more of Twain's comments about various systems illustrate his attitude towards "allopathy" and homoeopathy, as well as hydropathy: Twain had no difficulty describing the shortcomings of each of the various medical approaches available in this unregulated era. Allopathic medicine was notable for its heroic and toxic treatments.

"[I]f a citizen was inclined to take salts by the ton, ipecac by the barrel, mercury by the quart, or quinine by the load, and thus be cured of his ailment or his sublunary existence by the wholesale, he was at perfect liberty to invite he services of a medicus of the allopathic style ... "

Homeopathic medicine, using infinitely small and diluted doses of agents that mimicked the disease being treated, was the essence of nontherapy.

"[I]f another citizen preferred to toy with death, and buy health in small parcels, to bribe death with a sugar pill to stay away, or go to the grave with all the original sweetners undrenched out of him, then the individual adopted the "like cures like" system, and called in a homeopath physician as being a pleasant friend of death's."

Alternative approaches, such as hydropathic medicine, appeared equally ineffective.

"Citizens there were too, who liked to be washed into eternity, or soaked like over-salt mackerel before they were placed on purgatorial gridirons, and these, "of every rank and degree", had the right to pass their few remaining days in an element that they were not likely to see much of for some time."

Twain was intrigued by those who combined features of all of the available treatment programs.

"Then again there were those who saw "good in everything" and who believed that whatever is is right and these last mixed the allopathic, homeopathic, and hydropathic systems, qualified each with each, and thus passed to their long homes, drenched, pickled, sweetened, and soaked."


And from the conclusions of the article: Even as Twain ridiculed the unscientific approaches taken by practitioners of hydrotherapy and homeopathy, he continued to defend the importance of medical freedom of choice. He particularly recognized the importance of the competing systems in pressuring allopathic medicine to evolve into a new scientific discipline far removed from its noxious origins as a sect based on bloodletting and remedies such as Aqua Limacum (a concoction containing herbs, snails, earthworms, "Goose Dung," "Sheep Dung," "Strong Ale," and "Shavings of Hartshorn"

Ullman quotes from elsewhere in the article but for some reason doesn't seem to have noticed these comments.

Going back to Twain's comment about "those who saw good in everything": the original James Gully was a hydropath, but also introduced elements from other symptoms. Remember Darwin's comment about Dr. Gully: It is a sad flaw, I cannot but think in my beloved Dr Gully, that he believes in everything— when his daughter was very ill, he had a clair-voyant girl to report on internal changes, a mesmerist to put her to sleep—an homœopathist, viz Dr. Chapman; & himself as Hydropathist!

[Mojo]

I like Ullman's repeated appeals to fiction; not only relying on 19th century characters, but imaginary 19th century characters as support for homoeopathy!

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I like Ullman's repeated appeals to fiction; not only relying on 19th century characters, but imaginary 19th century characters as support for homoeopathy!

Is arguing from imaginary authority in support of an imaginary therapy still a fallacy?








Yes.

[shpalman]

So often they lie and misrepresent, sometimes simply quoting the lies and misrepresentations of others, but always in the smug assumption that nobody will call them on their facts. I wonder how much of the historical stuff they quote is also false?

They get their history from fiction too: http://homeopathy.wildfalcon.com/archives/2005/12/31/neal-stephenson/

[Rolfe]

Well, I like Nigel Tranter too, but I'm always aware that he's basically making most of it up.

I think we really did break the latest cat toys. James/Dana and Neil/Bach went away about the same time, and I'm not convinced Manioberoi will be back either. They're so fragile! Why can't we have one that stays the course?

Rolfe.

[shpalman]

They're so fragile! Why can't we have one that stays the course?

Veryscarymary (http://uk.geocities.com/veryscarymary/helvetiaproving.html) hasn't been back to badscience.net (http://badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2746&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=9) yet either...

[manioberoi]

Well, I like Nigel Tranter too, but I'm always aware that he's basically making most of it up.

I think we really did break the latest cat toys. James/Dana and Neil/Bach went away about the same time, and I'm not convinced Manioberoi will be back either. They're so fragile! Why can't we have one that stays the course?

Rolfe.
I have not gone away yet. Homeopathy is getting more professional to meet the criticisms such as have been made on this site.

PRESS RELEASE
(July 16TH 2007, London)
The inaugural Board Meeting of the newly formed Homeopathy Research Institute (HRI), took place in London in June signalling a new era in the field of homeopathic research in the UK.

The aim of the Homeopathy Research Institute is to promote and facilitate high-quality scientific research in the field of homeopathy. The HRI will be the first central resource dedicated solely to research about homeopathy as it is practised today. A key task of the Institute will be to communicate about the science relating to homeopathy to the medical and scientific communities, the media, the general public, and to homeopaths themselves. The Institute will form a bridge between the scientific and homeopathic communities backed up by a strong PR and communications team.

www.homeopathyresearchinstitute.org

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I have not gone away yet. Homeopathy is getting more professional to meet the criticisms such as have been made on this site.

PRESS RELEASE
(July 16TH 2007, London)
The inaugural Board Meeting of the newly formed Homeopathy Research Institute (HRI), took place in London in June signalling a new era in the field of homeopathic research in the UK.

The aim of the Homeopathy Research Institute is to promote and facilitate high-quality scientific research in the field of homeopathy. The HRI will be the first central resource dedicated solely to research about homeopathy as it is practised today. A key task of the Institute will be to communicate about the science relating to homeopathy to the medical and scientific communities, the media, the general public, and to homeopaths themselves. The Institute will form a bridge between the scientific and homeopathic communities backed up by a strong PR and communications team.

www.homeopathyresearchinstitute.org

I just checked the website and must say that the arguments I found there certainly convinced me! :confused:

[steenkh]

The aim of the Homeopathy Research Institute is to promote and facilitate high-quality scientific research in the field of homeopathy.
That sounds fine. But will they also recognise that homoeopathy is placebo therapy when their high-quality studies all end up with no effect found? I doubt it. Probably they will serve more as a PR institution than a research institution.

[steenkh]

I alos checked the HRI homepage. The ongoing projects are designed to show how they can cooperate with conventional science, but it does not look as if they are using any form of blinding. The project descriptions are very summary, but I believe that if they put any value on blinding, they would have mentioned it.

It does not seem that there will come anything valuable out of this other than how placebo might help people in certain circumstances.

[Cuddles]

Homeopathy is getting more professional to meet the criticisms such as have been made on this site.

Why? After all the claims of success and all the whining about how unfair it is that no-one takes them seriously, why are they only now getting "more professional"? Why not 200 years ago when it was first made up?

[Mojo]

Veryscarymary (http://uk.geocities.com/veryscarymary/helvetiaproving.html) hasn't been back to badscience.net (http://badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2746&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=9) yet either...


Sue the Young Homeopath seems to have thrown in the towel (http://homeopathy.wildfalcon.com/archives/2007/07/26/the-parliament-of-owls-62007-summary/) as well.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Well, I like Nigel Tranter too, but I'm always aware that he's basically making most of it up.

I think we really did break the latest cat toys. James/Dana and Neil/Bach went away about the same time, and I'm not convinced Manioberoi will be back either. They're so fragile! Why can't we have one that stays the course?

Rolfe.

Kumar (http://forums.randi.org/z/index.php?z-profile=Kumar) survived 4,881 posts but I think he was a "special" case. Testimony to the high quality engineering of Kumarbot and its patented Reality Shielding, which shelters all its working parts from inconvenient facts and logical argument.

[shpalman]

Veryscarymary (http://uk.geocities.com/veryscarymary/helvetiaproving.html) hasn't been back to badscience.net (http://badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2746&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=9) yet either...

... ooh, now she has (http://badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2746&start=17): Hello,
Sorry I've been away for a while but I think you should go here
http://uk.geocities.com/successful_complementary_therapy/index.htm
and DO make sure your great leader and 'God' bans me now.
Thanx
.............Oh and have a lovely Summer:)
p.s. Thanx for all the useful tips on how to write to the press, I used every one:)

[Mojo]

I have not gone away yet.


Oh good. Perhaps you can answer a question I asked you a while back, then.

You posted an anecdote in which, following the administration of a homoeopathic remedy, an unusually violent storm broke out. How would you go about establishing that the remedy didn't cause the storm?

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Oh good. Perhaps you can answer a question I asked you a while back, then.

You posted an anecdote in which, following the administration of a homoeopathic remedy, an unusually violent storm broke out. How would you go about establishing that the remedy didn't cause the storm?

I second that request, manioberoi, that you finally answer Mojo's very simple question.

Here is an example where a homeopath very heavily implies that just proving their 'remedy' led to global-scale shipping disasters.

http://uk.geocities.com/veryscarymary/helvetiaproving3.html

[shpalman]

And here (http://www.otherhealth.com/showthread.php?t=5337) is an example of either a homeopathically-caused iatrogenic illness (http://homeopathy.wildfalcon.com/archives/2007/07/02/tha-parliament-of-owls-22007-iatrogenic-illness/) or a condition getting worse on its own because the homeopathy is doing nothing whatsoever. How does this fit in with Homeopathic remedies are a unique, potentised energy medicine, drawn from the plant, mineral and animal worlds. They are diluted to such a degree that not one molecule of the original substance can be detected (after the 6c potency).

They work by gently boosting the natural energy of the body, and are very safe, even for pregnant and sensitive patients. There is no danger of addiction or toxicity.

... from http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/ ?

[Baron Samedi]

And here (http://www.otherhealth.com/showthread.php?t=5337) is an example of either a homeopathically-caused iatrogenic illness (http://homeopathy.wildfalcon.com/archives/2007/07/02/tha-parliament-of-owls-22007-iatrogenic-illness/) or a condition getting worse on its own because the homeopathy is doing nothing whatsoever. How does this fit in with

... from http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/ ?

That homeopathy-soh.org (http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/) page has issues. I like this one:

How are the remedies made?
There are five regulated homeopathic pharmacies in the UK (see Find a Pharmacy). The raw extracts (from plants or animals) or triturations (from minerals and salts) are made into a ‘tincture’ with alcohol which forms the basis of the dilution procedure. Dilutions are made up to either 1 part tincture to 10 parts water (1x) or 1 part tincture to 100 parts water (1c). Repeated dilution results in the familiar 6x, 6c or 30c potencies that can be bought over the counter: the 30c contains less than 1 part per million of the original substance.
Bold and red mine. Either the writer doesn't know much about maths, or is being deliberately dishonest.

[steenkh]

Either the writer doesn't know much about maths, or is being deliberately dishonest.
Probably both. In fact, 30C contains less than a million parts per million too!

[Mojo]

... ooh, now she has (http://badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2746&start=17):
Hello,
Sorry I've been away for a while but I think you should go here
http://uk.geocities.com/successful_c...rapy/index.htm
and DO make sure your great leader and 'God' bans me now.
Thanx
.............Oh and have a lovely Summer
p.s. Thanx for all the useful tips on how to write to the press, I used every one



She's removed the letter that she claims to have sent to the newspapers, GMC &c., (as well as removing all her posts at badscience) but the letter's still available in one of her posts on otherhealth: http://www.otherhealth.com/showthread.php?t=8982

[Rolfe]

She's removed the letter that she claims to have sent to the newspapers, GMC &c., (as well as removing all her posts at badscience) but the letter's still available in one of her posts on otherhealth: http://www.otherhealth.com/showthread.php?t=8982


Could she get any further up her own backside?

Somewhere in the CT forum someone said that CTers don't have any sense of humour. They attributed this to the fact that seeing the funny side of something requires being able to work out how things would normally relate, and then seeing the humour in the incongruous relationship made in the joke. Not actually being able to make any logical connections in the first place rather puts a crimp in all this.

I wonder if homoeopaths are in the same category? They certainly seem a very humourless bunch.

Rolfe.

[shpalman]

Somewhere in the CT forum someone said that CTers don't have any sense of humour. They attributed this to the fact that seeing the funny side of something requires being able to work out how things would normally relate, and then seeing the humour in the incongruous relationship made in the joke. Not actually being able to make any logical connections in the first place rather puts a crimp in all this.

I wonder if homoeopaths are in the same category? They certainly seem a very humourless bunch.

In addition, humour relies on being able to spot what is real and what it fantasy, and this is another skill which they obviously lack.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

"It's one thing not wanting to use Homeopathy, its another when certain people organise sustained attacks against our chosen field of work."

I personally do not burgle and have no plans to be a burglar, but I am also quite glad that burglary is illegal.

Ah, but the homs aren't deliberately causing harm. Hmm, I've seen some shoving their heads so far into the sand that someone needs to drag them out by their feet and there comes a point where such egregious evasion of the truth becomes a conscious act.

Even allowing them the defence of being innocent of deliberate wrong-doing, just because you're a well-meaning loon doesn't mean that society has to tolerate you exploiting the sick and the gullible. Isn't that properly a job of government?

[Mojo]

Repeated dilution results in the familiar 6x, 6c or 30c potencies that can be bought over the counter: the 30c contains less than 1 part per million of the original substance.Either the writer doesn't know much about maths, or is being deliberately dishonest.Probably both. In fact, 30C contains less than a million parts per million too!


The 6x will contain less than 1 part per million of the original substance. If it's been made up accurately, it'll contain 1ppm of the mother tincture.

[Baron Samedi]

The 6x will contain less than 1 part per million of the original substance. If it's been made up accurately, it'll contain 1ppm of the mother tincture.

That's my point. To say that 30c contains less than 1ppm is like me saying that scientists using the Hubble telescope can see more than 20 stars in our galaxy! It's true, but mind-blowingly out of proportion.

[steenkh]

That's my point. To say that 30c contains less than 1ppm is like me saying that scientists using the Hubble telescope can see more than 20 stars in our galaxy! It's true, but mind-blowingly out of proportion.
A funny, but very apt analogy!

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

It's all part of the semantic game the homs like to play. While factually true, it enables them to imply a casual comparison with herbal remedies which really do contain stuff, other than the solvent, in meaningful quantities, for better or worse.

Very often you will hear them talking about "tiny" or "minute" doses to quietly elide the fact that there really is nothing in them or, according to the homs, there is some kind of energy signature but no actual chemical residue of the mother tincture.

This is part of why I find them so creepy. They can't even be honest about what they do because what they do is basically embarrassing to them.

[gmanontario]

Just saw this, I hope nobody has posted it before. I love it..:D
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_245846afadc95a438.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7375)

[JamesGully]

Just because I (or others pro-homeopathic thinkers) go away for a time does not mean that we are "broken" (your word); it is because I (we) have a life and have more things to do than to respond to the narrow fundamentalist thinking that pervades this site.

I will be curious which ones of you will be smart enough to formally apologize for your antagonism to homeopathy, though many flat-earthers died believing in their silly beliefs.

I had previously alerted you to some forthcoming research on homeopathy, and it has now been published. Poor Ben Goldacre (http://www.badscience.net/?p=480) has decried that he doesn't have access to the journal ("Homeopathy") that is published by Elsevier, but heck, such is the catch 22 when skeptics insist that we publish in peer-review journals and then bemoan the fact that they cannot access them without going to a proper library to read them.

If you wish to read the FREE and available writing of one of the author's in this journal, check out the work of Martin Chaplin...he serves as "guest editor" of this special issue.

Dr. Martin Chaplin's website and its info on homeopathy and water: This review of research on water includes reference to over 1,200 (!) published articles on water (needless to say, if you think that you know more about water than he does, put up or shut up): http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/homeop.html
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/memory.html
--these are but two short sections on homeopathy and the memory of water.

Entire table of contents for Chaplin's website: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/index2.html

To learn about who Dr. Chaplin is: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/chaplin.html
Professor of Applied Science
Water and Aqueous Systems Research
Head of the Food Research Centre
London South Bank University

You will find that Chaplin is a straight-shooter. He is not an advocate or an antagonist to homeopathy, and yet, he finds that the body of evidence for the making of homeopathic medicines and the therapeutic effects of these medicines is consistent with modern scientific thinking about the structure of water and how it can influence biological systems.

Below is a press release sent out by Elsevier:

A special issue of the journal Homeopathy, journal of the Faculty of Homeopathy and published by Elsevier, on the “Memory of Water” brings together scientists from around the world for the first time to publish new data, reviews and discuss recent scientific work exploring the idea that water can display memory effects. The concept of memory of water is important to homeopathy because it offers a potential explanation of the mechanism of action of very high dilutions often used in homeopathy.

Guest editor Professor Martin Chaplin of the Department of Applied Science at London South Bank University, remarks: “There is strong evidence concerning many ways in which the mechanism of this ‘memory’ may come about. There are also mechanisms by which such solutions may possess effects on biological systems which substantially differ from plain water.”

The concept of the memory of water goes back to 1988 when the late Professor Jacques Benveniste published, in the international scientific journal Nature, claims that extremely high ‘ultramolecular’ dilutions of an antibody had effects in the human basophil degranulation test, a laboratory model of immune response. In other words, the water diluent ‘remembered’ the antibody long after it was gone. His findings were subsequently denounced as ‘pseudoscience’ and yet, despite the negative impact this had at the time, the idea has not gone away.

In this special issue of Homeopathy (http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/623042/description#description), scientists from the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, USA as well as the UK present remarkably convergent views from groups using entirely different methods, indicating that large-scale structural effects can occur in liquid water, and can increase with time. Such effects might account for claims of memory of water effects.

Commenting on the special issue, Professor Chaplin said: “Science has a lot more to discover about such effects and how they might relate to homeopathy. It is unjustified to dismiss homeopathy, as some scientists do, just because we don’t have a full understanding of how it works.” In his overview he is critical of the “unscientific rhetoric” of some scientists who reject the memory of water concept “with a narrow view of the subject and without any examination or appreciation of the full body of evidence.”

Professor Chaplin and Dr Peter Fisher, editor-in-chief of the journal, agree that the current evidence brings us a step closer to providing an explanation for the claims made for homeopathy and that the memory of water, once considered a scientific heresy, is a reality. “These discoveries may have far reaching implications and more research is required,” comments Dr Fisher.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/14754916
--the table of contents of a special issue on "the memory of water" in the journal, HOMEOPATHY, published by Elsevier.

[Davo]

Can any advocate of homeopathy please, please explain what source of water they use for the homeopathic dilution process.

Is it Pure water or does it have any contaminants in ?

If pure, how is it ensured that pure water is pure water with no memory ?

[JamesGully]

Whooops...it guess that you have not done the reading in this dialogue. It is a double-distilled water and/or a mixture of water and ethanol (ultimately, it is not just a memory of water...it is a memor of other things too, but I just cannot remember what---see, homeopaths can have a sense of humor, even if it is a homeopathically-sized one).

[Rolfe]

Why don't we take this discussion where it belongs (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=88831). Where we've already been discussing Roy's underwhelming paper for a couple of days.

I do so hate having to repeat myself.

Rolfe.

[Davo]

Sure, will switch to the other forum to further discuss this topic

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Sure, will switch to the other forum to further discuss this topic


That would leave this thread as the ideal place for JamesGully to answer any one of the numerous questions he has evaded or refused point-blank to answer.

Try again on this;;

Do airport X-ray scanners inactivate remedies? Yes or no. Give the reasons for your answer.

Homeopaths show evidence of being "broken" in many ways. The most common is simple refusal to address the internal problems in their belief system. Running away tends to be a consequence of that.

[kieran]

I will be curious which ones of you will be smart enough to formally apologize for your antagonism to homeopathy, though many flat-earthers died believing in their silly beliefs.
Looks like you like to write, but not to read. This hypothetical situation has been addressed in direct response to you earlier in this thread. But since you asked again ...

If, and that is a very big if, any credible evidence (that's statistically significant and repeatable) is ever shown for homoeopathy being anything more than a pure placebo effect, then you'll get lots of apologies, and we will all be very excited and interested in discussing why it works ... however at the moment we have nothing to apologise for - we keep asking you for evidence and you keep obfuscating.

You know why you need the smoke screen. If it works, then it works ... if it doesn't, then better keep hiding behind waffle eh? ;)

You should apologise immediately for your pathetic attempt to take the moral high ground ... you are the one that makes black/white statements based on no evidence. If (hypothetically) you are right, it won't be because you know you are right, it will be because you hope you are right. I think you should apologise for that regardless of the efficacy, or lack of efficacy, of homoeopathy.

You present "evidence", and then throw your toys out of the pram when its flaws are pointed out to you ... rather than go back and look for better evidence without those flaws. If it works, it works ... no matter how tight the protocols are. What's the problem with eliminating the flaws? .... unless you can't ... ;)

You also lie about what other authors have said, and then come back again ignoring your blatent and pathetic intellectual dishonesty, no matter how glaringly obvious it is. You even intend to publish your lies - I doubt you would be so brave if the target of your lies (Holmes) was around to litigate over the complete and knowing misrepresentation.

Are you the expert here? Are you the best there is? How can homoeopathy ever be credible when frauds like you are its "best" hope? :rolleyes:

[Rolfe]

It's been nearly 24 hours since we saw Dana. Was that just a hit and run? Does he really, seriously think that a few incompetent and quite dismally wrong spectral graphs by Roy, published in a fanzine known for the platform it gives to kooks and weirdos (especially if they're called Milgrom), is going to have the entire world gasping that everything we thought we knew about subatomic physics was wrong?

:crazy:

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

Whooops...it guess that you have not done the reading in this dialogue.


That's a bit rich, considering that you don't even appear to have "done the reading" in the sources that you cite in the sample chapter of your book. For example you appear to have missed most of the quotations about homoeopathy from Twain in the article (http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/126/2/157) by Ober.

By the way, have you found out who or what the "Cochrane Commission (http://secularstudentslb.wordpress.com/2007/02/27/homeopathy-revisited/)" [sic] is yet?

[PixyMisa]

Dr. Martin Chaplin's website and its info on homeopathy and water: This review of research on water includes reference to over 1,200 (!) published articles on water (needless to say, if you think that you know more about water than he does, put up or shut up):

You will find that Chaplin is a straight-shooter. He is not an advocate or an antagonist to homeopathy, and yet, he finds that the body of evidence for the making of homeopathic medicines and the therapeutic effects of these medicines is consistent with modern scientific thinking about the structure of water and how it can influence biological systems.
I've looked through Chaplin's work. I don't see any evidence at all. I see a lot of speculation. I see links to a lot of papers. What I do not see is evidence.

Chaplin cites, so far as I can see, exactly one paper presenting direct experimental evidence for complex structures of liquid water. That paper applies specifically to water enclosed inside a complex molecule, and does not support Chaplin's speculation as to structures in unconfined liquid water at all.

If you think Chaplin has presented better evidence than this, then please give us a specific cite.

[Rolfe]

Is that it? He drives by to make a unilateral declaration of victory, on the basis of a paper I very much suspect he hasn't read, and know for sure he couldn't understand, published in a homoeopathy fanzine with scrutineering standards the Daily Mail would be ashamed of?

If what Roy were claiming were true, never mind the JREF million bucks, he'd be able to get a paper published in Nature and be the wunderkind (at 84!) of the scientific community. He'd give generations of physicists a new reason for getting up every morning.

But it's published in a fanzine.

Because he has his spectroscopy demonstrably, direly wrong. His control spectrum, the UV spectrum of ethanol, is simply not the UV spectrum of uncontaminated spectroscopic grade ethanol. The kindest interpretation is that he used a source of ethanol with some sort of additive that interfered with the trace. And since the homoeopathic manufacturer who sent him his remedies seems to have used a better grade (not spectroscopic, but significantly cleaner), the remedies absorb less in the UV wavelengths than the solvent does. Or seems to.

That's it. Nothing to see here, chaps.

Will Dana be back? Time will tell.

(Dana, that's "broken", as in, "Daddy, I broke my new toy! It isn't doing anything any more!" We like homoeopaths to play with, and we mourn when they get broken and don't come round to play any more.)

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Control-Z is your friend.


I realise I'm a month late with this, but grovelling, heartfelt thanks to HC for this.

Go on, laugh, but I wasn't aware of that shortcut, and it could have saved me a lot of trouble lots of times. (Especially when posting to the forum, when there doesn't seem to be a mouse-operated "copy" feature, and the only way to copy is to use Control-C - which is perilously close to Control-V....)

Deep gratitude, HC.

Rolfe.

[Chris Haynes]

You are most welcome. I understand how it goes, since I often must ask my children for help (most recently daughter told me how to get a screen image into a buffer to edit with a paint program). We really do not know these things until some body tells us about them.

Oh, by the way as far as mouse controls go: after selecting text click on the right mouse button (right as in "right hand side"), it should bring up a small menu. (stuff I learned from computer nerd spouse)

[SYLVESTER1592]

Previous post:
I think you are right, but we have to be careful what we say when we address specific people. I see you have removed your snippets on the webpage.
Some of these homeopaths don't take being called a quack very lightly and go to court over it. In some countries, the rules are set up in such a way that homeopaths or "alternative healers" can't always be called quacks based on the law. Recently one of these alternative healers has won a lawsuit against the anti-quackery association in my country and demanded rectification of the statements. The cost of this is threatening to put the anti-quackery association out of business...

Doctors have very few rights, they have the right to make the decision about a therapy based on their knowledge ( in my country at least), but all the rest are duties and requirements. Quacks are well versed in dealing with the laws and the institutions that watch over the quality of medical practice and the disciplinary board. As a matter of fact if you need to address the disciplinary board, you are most likely to get the best arguments for your defense from them. For a quack, medicine is a business, nothing more. As long as they can make money of of it, they will exist. They are immune to the law in some cases or tolerated by the law in others as long as they don't go too far. When this is the case, the law is basically on their side...

As long as people can't understand why homeopathy can't work or give it "a chance" because it can't do any harm (except to your wallet) they are not getting proper evidence based treatment. I think this is possibly the only argument that will sway people to look skeptically at homeopathy and alternative healers. I think a skeptical approach towards homeopathy and alternative medicine should also include the law, it's not about science or medicine, we all agree on that, it's about business...

My point is: dealing with quacks is not only about medicine or science, but also about the law. You can be right in every possible way, but you need a lot more to get justice...
a skeptical approach and providing a better understanding of what they are selling, may be an eye-opener to some people. Demanding proper scientific evidence is another. Making evidence based medicine the guideline for medical practice is the key to end quackery in combination with the proper application of the law and people's desire to change the law accordingly...

Just a thought...

SYL :)

I see The James Randi Educational Foundation has made a relatively large contribution to the "Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij" in the Netherlands (the Dutch Anti-qauckery Association), trying to stay above water (no pun intended), after a recent court ruling.


Thanks guys, for your support and donation (http://www.kwakzalverij.nl/php/display/ap/647/1),... It looks like they made it. The Dutch Anti-quackery Association is here to stay for a while.

SYL :)

[Pipirr]

Woot!

[Rolfe]

Oh, by the way as far as mouse controls go: after selecting text click on the right mouse button (right as in "right hand side"), it should bring up a small menu. (stuff I learned from computer nerd spouse)


Doesn't work in the reply boxes. Don't know why. That's why I was using control-C, with occasionally fatal results.

But thanks for your help!

Rolfe.

[Chris Haynes]

Doesn't work in the reply boxes. Don't know why. That's why I was using control-C, with occasionally fatal results.

But thanks for your help!

Rolfe.

Egads! You are right!

Truly bizarre.

Though I have the menu list on my browser (I had to add it on, it is not there by default), and the drop down menu under "Edit" did have "copy" and "paste"

[JJM]

{snip} In some countries, the rules are set up in such a way that homeopaths or "alternative healers" can't always be called quacks based on the law. Recently one of these alternative healers has won a lawsuit against the anti-quackery association in my country and demanded rectification of the statements. {snip}The magicians/entertainers, Penn and Teller, have a TV program here called "Bull ____." In the first episode, Penn explains that they are going to be unusually profane in the series because, if they call someone a quack or a fraud, they will spend a long time in court proving their assertions. However, if they call people the things that rule-8 prohibits, they can do that with impunity.

You gotta love it.

[Rolfe]

I'm copying this from the thread in Science and Medicine where we discussed the Roy paper and decided to write this Letter to the Editor pointing out its most
egregious anomalies. Sorry for the duplicaton, but if Dana comes back to look at "his" thread I want him to see this, and so far he's shown no signs of following links to other threads here.

Dana, this went in an envelope with a stamp on it. As a proper academic contribution to the debate. By the way, the only signatory without a PhD has finished writing his thesis and is merely waiting to be examined on it. Enough "scientific chops" for you?

27th August 2007.

Dr. Peter Fisher,
Editor, Homeopathy,
The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital,
60 Great Ormond Street,
London, WC1N 3HR.

Dear Sir,

We wish to draw to your attention serious anomalies and incongruities in the UV absorption data presented in the paper by Rao et al., published in your July 2007 issue [1].

In a study of this nature, which in effect is examining multiple samples of ethanol, the over-riding concern must be absolute uniformity in the source of the solvent. For the data to be valid, it is essential that every drop of ethanol used must be sourced from the same stock bottle. However, the authors fail to make any mention of this point, and it is clear from the results presented that the source of ethanol in this investigation was most certainly not uniform.

The most striking anomaly is the UV spectrum presented for "plain ethanol", a single trace repeated three times in figure 3. The provenance of this sample is not recorded. This trace reveals extremely high absorbance (greater than 0.8 absorbance units) at 250nm, falling off steeply towards 400nm but still above 0.4 units by 350nm, and demonstrating an absorbance peak of 0.65 units with a l-max of about 330nm. It is simply impossible to represent this trace as being ethanol of any recognised degree of purity. Spectroscopic grade ethanol has an absorbance of less than 0.05 units between 250 and 400nm [2], and even USP/NF pharmaceutical grade ethanol has an absorbance of less than 0.3 units at 250nm, falling off to less than 0.1 units by 270nm [3]. If the substance measured by the authors as "plain ethanol" was indeed ethanol at all, it is clear that it contained extremely high levels of impurities, possibly including acetone.

In contrast, the spectra of the samples which were diluted and succussed (Nat mur, Nux vomica and the "succussed ethanol" with no mother tincture), and which were presumably all supplied by Hahnemann Laboratories as detailed on page 178, demonstrate substantially lower levels of impurities. While still not being spectroscopic grade ethanol, these samples could well represent ordinary pharmaceutical grade ethanol. The authors claim these samples are "different", however the evidence presented for this is weak to nonexistent.

Figure 1 presents one trace each for Nat mur and Nux vomica, each at 6C, 12C and 30C potencies. The traces are said to be "representative", however with no information on repeatability or how the "representative" traces were selected, it is impossible to say whether there is any real difference between any of the six spectra.

Figure 2 purports to address this point, but then fails to present the necessary data. The legend declares that 10 samples of each of the six remedy preparations were analysed. The accepted way to present such data would be as mean absorbance ± standard deviation for each wavelength point, or at least for a representative selection of wavelength points. Statistical analysis could then be used to demonstrate whether or not there was a real difference between any of the remedies or potencies. However, the authors have instead chosen to present only two traces for each preparation, as "envelopes of differences". The derivation of these traces is not explained, although we surmise that "extreme" high and low traces for each preparation were chosen to provide an impression of the range of results obtained. This is not an appropriate method of handling data of this nature, as most of the information is lost and statistical analysis is rendered impossible.

A further difficulty with figure 2 is that the upper (open circles) trace in the top graph of fig 2a (30C Nat mur) appears to be a duplicate of the upper (filled circles) trace in the top graph of fig 2b (30C Nux vom). Comparison with other traces of the two remedies indicates that this trace is really one of Nux vom, which has been duplicated into the Nat mur graph in error.

Paucity of data, ambiguity of presentation and lack of statistical analysis prevent any conclusions being drawn from the information in figure 2.
Comparison of figure 2 with figure 1 reveals that all six traces presented in figure 1 are taken from figure 2, in each case the filled-circles traces. If indeed the traces in figure 2 represent the extreme range of results obtained, this is startling, as the traces in figure 1 are stated to be "representative". In addition, while it does appear that the Nux vom samples tended to demonstrate higher absorbances than the Nat mur samples (excluding the obvious mistake noted above), in two out of the three potencies the higher Nux vom trace from fig 2 has been chosen for inclusion in fig 1, thus exaggerating the apparent difference.

Figure 3 (b and c) again repeats the same six traces as figure 1, this time grouped by remedy. Presented in this way, it is clear that there is absolutely no difference between the three potencies of Nat mur, and that while variation between the Nux vom potencies is a little more pronounced, again all three appear to come from the same population. The same is true of the three potencies of "succussed ethanol" presented in fig 3a.

On simple visual inspection it does appear that there may be genuine differences between the three remedies (although no statistics are presented to allow this to be tested), with the Nat mur showing the lowest absorbtion and the Nux vom the highest, with the succussed ethanol lying somewhere between. Nevertheless, these differences are entirely consistent with small differences in purity of the ethanol stock used for preparation of the three remedies - small, that is, relative to the very high level of impurity evident in the "plain ethanol" sample presented alongside. This degree of variation in UV absorbance is entirely to be expected between different batches of pharmaceutical grade ethanol, which is not prepared with spectroscopic analysis in mind. The authors make no mention of having stipulated to Hahnemann Laboratories that all material sent to them should be prepared from the same stock bottle, and the data presented indicate that the different remedies, possibly prepared at different times, simply came from different bottles of ethanol.

We hope you will agree that these are very serious points, and it is regrettable they were not identified by your own scrutineering process. It is clear that the data presented are wholly inadequate to support the authors’ assertion that UV spectroscopy can differentiate between the two remedies, and between different potencies of the remedies. If the authors wish to test their assertion so that it can be substantiated it will be necessary to repeat the work from the beginning, ensuring that all samples used in the study are sourced from the same bottle of stock solvent, that all duplicate preparations for precision assessment are separately prepared de novo from the mother tinctures, and that sufficient data are generated to allow robust and valid statistical analysis of the results.

Yours faithfully,

Rolfe
JJM
Wilsontown
Pipirr

References:
1. Rao, M. L., Roy, R., Bell, I. R. & Hoover, R. (2007) The defining role of structure (including epitaxy) in the plausibility of homeopathy. Homeopathy 96, 175-182.
2. Sigma Aldrich catalogue, ACS spectrophotometric grade ethanol 95.0%, at www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/search/ProductDetail/SIAL/493511 (http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/search/ProductDetail/SIAL/493511)
3. Sigma Aldrich catalogue, USP/NF grade ethanol 190 proof, at www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/search/ProductDetail/ALDRICH/493538 (http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/search/ProductDetail/ALDRICH/493538)



Any comment, Mr. Ullman?

Rolfe.

[Cuddles]

Yours faithfully,

Rolfe
JJM
Wilsontown
Pipirr

I'm assuming these were replaced with real names on the actual letter? :p

[Rolfe]

Well, yes. :D

Rolfe.

[flume]

Any comment, Mr. Ullman?


Maybe he's at Burning Man this week.



(A few weeks ago he had a response on Nature news to an essay about homeopathy by Philip Ball called "Here lies one whose name was writ in water...":
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070806/full/070806-6.html
(I can read this at work but not on my home computer.)

[Mojo]

A few weeks ago he had a response on Nature news to an essay about homeopathy by Philip Ball called "Here lies one whose name was writ in water...":
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070806/full/070806-6.html
(I can read this at work but not on my home computer.)
You seem to need a sub for the article itself, but the comments can be seen here (http://blogs.nature.com/news/blog/2007/08/here_lies_one_whose_name_was_w.html) without one.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Where has Dana got to?

It would be nice to hear his views on Roy's thoroughly busted paper.

p.s. Rolfe, did you send David Colquhoun a copy of your letter?

[flume]

Where has Dana got to?
(A few years ago I remember he posted on otherhealth about attending the Burning Man festival in Nevada. If he went to Burning Man this year he probably won't be back for several more days.)

[JJM]

You seem to need a sub for the article itself, but the comments can be seen here (http://blogs.nature.com/news/blog/2007/08/here_lies_one_whose_name_was_w.html) without one.Thanks for that.

Rolfe, would you consider adding a short comment there? As the first author of our letter to the editor, I defer to you on that.

[Pipirr]

Excellent idea.

[Madalch]

You seem to need a sub for the article itself, but the comments can be seen here (http://blogs.nature.com/news/blog/2007/08/here_lies_one_whose_name_was_w.html) without one.
The number of pro-homeopathic comments there are horribly depressing. Particularly the one that says "Why do we hold on to useless theories like evolution but call homeopathy unscientific?"

[Rolfe]

Thanks for that.

Rolfe, would you consider adding a short comment there? As the first author of our letter to the editor, I defer to you on that.


What do you think we should write? I see Roy has posted there. Just ask him where he got his ethanol from?

I have great scepticism about his claim to have no connection with homoeopathy. The PowerPoint presentation is very woo-ish, as indeed is some of the language in the paper itself. I mean, come on, "polychrest"???

BSM, should we perhaps wait for a response to the letter before getting David Colquhoun involved?

Rolfe.

[Pipirr]

What do you think we should write? I see Roy has posted there. Just ask him where he got his ethanol from?


Perhaps something like:

Rustum Roy cautions Philip Ball against joining "far too may scientists in a much more dangerous, and ludicrous, practice... of requiring an “explanation” or “theory” before accepting and dealing with solid, repeatable facts and observations which remain the only basis of real science."

On the principle of accepting solid, repeatable facts and observations, we couldn't agree more. With that in mind, myself and others have taken the opportunity to scrutinise the experimental data presented in Roy's paper. While the authors claim to have found evidence for a detectable effect of homeopathy with standard spectroscopic techniques, we found a host of serious errors.

{Insert specifics here?}

It is gratifying to see the homeopathic community presenting such evidence for wider scrutiny and evaluation. In the spirit of furthering scientific debate, not on the theory, but on the experimental evidence for homeopathy, we have sent a letter detailing our criticisms of Rao et al's data to the editor of Homeopathy.

Although JJM may have something else in mind.

[Pipirr]

I have great scepticism about his claim to have no connection with homoeopathy. The PowerPoint presentation is very woo-ish, as indeed is some of the language in the paper itself. I mean, come on, "polychrest"???


No kidding. This is the guy that founded "Friends of Health: a non-profit organization fostering the art and science of whole person healing".

www.friendsofhealth.org

Gah, there's a link to a John of God video there. Psychic healing???!

[JJM]

Since Roy did not address his Homeopathy paper in the Nature comment, I planned to ignore his post. My thought was along the lines In the issue of Homeopathy under consideration, Rao et al (reference) published an article concerning, among other things, the UV-Vis spectroscopy of ethanol and ethanol-based homeopathic preparations. Their reference spectrum of "pure ethanol" is obviously highly contaminated, if it even is based on ethanol. The spectra of their homeopathic preparations appear to be spectra of ordinary, potable ethanol taken from different sources (i.e., production lots). We have sent a letter to the editor (Peter Fisher) describing these errors in more detail.That should light a fire under any scientist. I thought to send it now because 1- it may put pressure on Fisher to respond, and B- it is still a current event.

I am open to suggestion; but I still defer to Rolfe. We should have a uniform front.

[Mojo]

I have great scepticism about his claim to have no connection with homoeopathy. The PowerPoint presentation is very woo-ish, as indeed is some of the language in the paper itself. I mean, come on, "polychrest"???


If you Google "Rustum Roy" and homeopathy, you'll find plenty of evidence of his involvement with homoeopathy. He popped up defending it (http://www.homeopathic.org/pressrelease082505.html) against Shang et al., for example. There, he's quoted as saying: The underpinning of the editorial content of the Lancet as it relates to homeopathy relies on a quaint old idea from the nineteenth century that the ONLY way that the property of water can be affected or changed is by incorporating foreign molecules.He seems to have missed the fact that the Lancet paper in fact relied on "a quaint old idea from the nineteenth century" called the randomized double-blind placebo controlled trial.

And presumably he's forgotten that he's authored papers with titles like "The Structure of Liquid Water; Novel Insights from Materials Research; Potential Relevance to Homeopathy" and "The defining role of structure (including epitaxy) in the plausibility of homeopathy".

[Professor Yaffle]

He seems to have missed the fact that the Lancet paper in fact relied on "a quaint old idea from the nineteenth century" called the randomized double-blind placebo controlled trial.



A quaint old idea invented to test homeopathy...

http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/trial_records/19th_Century/lohner/lohner-commentary.html

[Wudang]

Doesn't work in the reply boxes. Don't know why. That's why I was using control-C, with occasionally fatal results.


Try right-clicking and you should get paste as an option