More Fun with Homeopath Dana Ullman, MPH(!) [Archive]

sbernie87

16th May 2007, 11:29 AM

Here was what Dana has to say, in response to my blog (http://secularstudentslb.wordpress.com/2007/02/27/homeopathy-revisited/): It is EASY to assume that homeopathic medicines are akin to placebos if one has a superficial understanding of what homeopathy is and what good research has been conducted to evaluate it.
I actually think that skeptics of alternative medicine can and should separately understand and evaluate homeopathy if you wish to honor good scientific thinking. Mixing various subjects together is just sloppy, and I know that skeptics don't like or honor such undisciplined thinking.
Further, it is necessary for skeptics of homeopathy to do their homework on the subject. I am amazed to have debated skeptics of homeopathy who know virtually nothing about it and have only a very superficial knowledge of the basic science and clinical science research on the subject. Such sloppiness is common amongst people who think of themselves as defenders of "science." There is more than a tad amount of irony here. The references to the 200+ clinical studies and the several hundred basic science studies are at my website (www.homeopathic.com (http://www.homeopathic.com/)) and in the ebook that I've written...as well as some of the high quality books on homeopathic research that we sell (i.e. one by Drs. Bellavite and Signorini as well as Dr. Michael Dean are good examples).
If you don't want to spend a dime, you can read the article at my website called " Why Homeopathy Makes Sense and Works (http://homeopathic.com/articles/homeopathy_works.php)." I will be curious if those of you who choose to be skeptical of homeopathy even know much about what it is.
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: Rustom 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.

I will be the first to acknowledge that not all of homeopathic research has positive results, though most meta-analyses show that there is more evidence that the "placebo explanation" for homeopathy is inadequate. Please also know that the 2005 comparison of homeopathic and conventional studies that was published in the Lancet was embarrassingly bad science. Here's a short review/critique of it:
In 2005, the representatives of World Health Organization (WHO) were working on a report on homeopathic medicine, and one of the skeptics of homeopathy who was asked to review this report for comment complained bitterly about it because it was too “positive” towards homeopathy. He then leaked it to other skeptics and to the Lancet, a usually highly respected medical journal. In response to the potentially positive report on homeopathy from WHO, the Lancet published an article attacking this “report” that had not even been completed or published (Critics, 2005), and further, the Lancet rushed to publication a “study” that compared homeopathic and conventional medical treatment (Shang, et al, 2005).
The idea for comparing clinical studies of homeopathic and conventional medicine is certainly a good one, but actually doing so in a fair and accurate way is more challenging than it may seem. The lead author of this comparative study, however, was not the ideal physician or scientist to evaluate homeopathy objectively. Dr. M. Egger is a Swiss physician who is notoriously and actively anti-homeopathy. Before he completed his study, he informed the editors at the Lancet that he had planned to submit his study to them and that he fully expected the results to show that homeopathic medicines didn’t work.
Egger and his team first found 110 placebo-controlled trials evaluating the efficacy of homeopathic medicine. Next, they selected 110 “matched” placebo-controlled trials. Finding “matched” trials usually means finding experiments that sought to treat people with a similar disease, in a similar population, and who were treated for a similar period of time, but the researchers never explained how or why they included or excluded any of the conventional medical trials. And needless to say, finding matched experiments is much more difficult than it sounds. Although it is easy to question if these researchers found matched experiments or not, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they were successful in doing so.
Next, the researchers choose to evaluate the “quality of research design” and how each trial was conducted. The researchers determined that only 21 of the homeopathic studies were of a “high quality,” and yet, ironically, they found only 9 (!) of the conventional medical studies to be of a similar high quality.[1] Then, without adequate explanation, the researchers decided to only evaluate those studies that were both “high quality” and had large numbers of patients in each trial. The researchers found 8 homeopathic studies that fit these characteristics and only 6 conventional medical studies. Only two of the eight homeopathic studies used homeopathic medicines that were individualized to each patient, with the remaining studies giving the same medicine to everyone (this method may make research easier, but it is not necessarily a good test of the homeopathic methodology).
Of the remaining 8 homeopathic studies and 6 conventional medical studies, the studies were not matched in any way. How or why the researchers would or could claim that these studies were comparable requires “creative thinking” and logic (or illogic). Further, the researchers never provided the analysis of the results of the 21 “high quality” homeopathic studies as compared with the 9 conventional studies.
What is also interesting is the fact that the researchers acknowledged that they found eight homeopathic studies in the treatment of people with acute respiratory tract infections and that these studies found “substantial beneficial effect” and that this effect was “robust.” However, without adequate evidence or explanation, the researchers asserted that these studies could not be “trusted” and that eight trials is simply not enough to provide an adequate analysis. And yet, these same researchers evaluated 8 other homeopathic trials and concluded that they showed no obvious better treatment than the 6 conventional studies.
If the above concerns were not enough to lead readers to the conclusion that this is “garbage in, garbage out” type of comparative research, there are still even more concerns about this study. For instance, the researchers did not even reveal which studies were selected until many months later. And when the studies were finally announced, it was shocking to note that they had selected a study testing a single homeopathic medicine in the treatment of “weight-loss” (this study bordered on the preposterous because homeopaths assert that there is no one single remedy to augment weight-loss), another study evaluated the use of a homeopathic formula in the prevention of influenza (while there have been at least three large studies verifying the efficacy of homeopathic medicines in the treatment of influenza, only one of these three large studies was selected, while the study that evaluated its prevention was selected even though it was simply an exploratory investigation, not one that homeopaths necessarily expected to have a positive outcome).

As for some good studies in homeopathy...
COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is the #4 reason that people in the US die. A study conducted at the University of Vienna Hospital found "substantially significant" results from a double-blind placebo-controlled trial using homeopathic doses of potassium dichromate. This study was published in the most respected journal in medical respiratory health, CHEST.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed

(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed) 50% (!) of people in hospitals who experience severe sepsis die, and yet, the below study found that there was a 50% reduction in these deaths in those people with severe sepsis who were individually prescribed homeopathic medicines, as compared with those patients who underwent the same homeopathic interview process but who were given a placebo. There study was also double-blind, placebo controlled and randomized.
Adjunctive homeopathic treatment in patients with severe sepsis: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in an intensive care unit. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=15892486&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum)

When skeptics of homeopathy assert that there is "nothing" in homeopathic medicines, they seem to
assume that they know everything there is to know about the physics of water. I want to remind skeptics that good and serious scientists maintain a high level of HUMILITY about what they know and what they don't know. I am proud of my humility of what I know and what I don't know.

I am perfectly familiar with Mr. Randi's silly offer. He was involved in the intellectually dishonest study conducted by ABC's 20/20 program. If Randi was serious about science, he would have supported my critique of Mr. Stossel's junk science. For details about this junk journalism/science, go to: http://homeopathic.com/articles/media/index.php (http://homeopathic.com/articles/media/index.php)

I honor conventional medicine for its integrity to consistently and repeatedly disprove itself. What treatments have lasted 50 or more years? That's consistency! Homeopaths have expanded considerably its use of various medicines, but we have maintained the use of our past medicines too because 200 years of clinical experience has verified it.

Dana Ullman, MPH

So, what do you think, Skeptics? Has Dana proven homeopathy? Oh my!

realpaladin

16th May 2007, 11:57 AM

If we would grant the woo-woo physics of water...

To me, it does not say one single thing on how this then would translate in the body being triggered into healing.

And, I never got an answer to a question I once asked in a homeopathy store:

If it works, then why can I not put some diluted drops of most of the remedies into the ocean and have all people on the planet heal by just taking a dip in the ocean?

wahrheit

16th May 2007, 12:06 PM

I honor conventional medicine for its integrity to consistently and repeatedly disprove itself. What treatments have lasted 50 or more years? That's consistency! Homeopaths have expanded considerably its use of various medicines, but we have maintained the use of our past medicines too because 200 years of clinical experience has verified it.

You neither need to be a top skeptic nor a health professional to call 'BS' on that last paragraph alone. 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.

Kochanski

16th May 2007, 12:13 PM

What a pompous twit he is.

skeptifem

16th May 2007, 02:22 PM

I honor conventional medicine for its integrity to consistently and repeatedly disprove itself. What treatments have lasted 50 or more years? That's consistency!

you would think anyone could see the problem with this statement before they hit send, but i guess not.

realpaladin

16th May 2007, 02:27 PM

Not if they are Amish... what other modes of transport have lasted 50 years or more? That is consistency!

fls

16th May 2007, 02:29 PM

I completely agree that the placebo explanation is inadequate. It has been demonstrated that the effect is also due to bias in the design, analysis and reporting of homeopathic studies.

The criticisms of the Lancet article are contrived. The characteristics on which the studies were matched was explained in detail. The reasoning behind the selection of studies for further analysis was explained in detail and was valid - i.e. to see what would happen to the outcomes if the studies that were least influenced by bias were analyzed. The outcomes were still significant in the conventional medicine trials, but the significance disappeared in the homeopathic trials.

The other clinical trials mentioned are isolated "significant" findings. Since we expect this to happen in 5% of trials (in the absence of bias), the studies need independent replication. Otherwise it is more likely that they are simply spurious results, given the lack of any other support.

Linda

Davo

16th May 2007, 03:46 PM

If we would grant the woo-woo physics of water...

If it works, then why can I not put some diluted drops of most of the remedies into the ocean and have all people on the planet heal by just taking a dip in the ocean?

I think you could, but then the homeopaths wouldn`t make any money.

I was thinking of a similar idea adding a homeopathic solution to the local drinking water for a negligible sum (Taking away all business from Homeopaths). That would bring out the homeopaths to start attacking their own theories.

Anyone know what water homeopaths use to dilute their solutions, is it a special kind of water ?

JoeTheJuggler

16th May 2007, 10:07 PM

I am amazed to have debated skeptics of homeopathy who know virtually nothing about it and have only a very superficial knowledge of the basic science and clinical science research on the subject.

"Basic science" of homeopathy? Huhn?

TheGline

16th May 2007, 10:10 PM

"I am perfectly familiar with Randi's silly offer."

I love how an offer for a double-blinded, controlled experiment conducted with due oversight is branded with the ad hominem "silly".

sbernie87

16th May 2007, 10:48 PM

What a pompous twit he is.

You should have seen his more "knee-jerk" reaction. He made me promise not to share it.

Cuddles

17th May 2007, 03:27 AM

What treatments have lasted 50 or more years?

Hmm, let me think. Aspirin? 108 years. Penicillin? 79 years. Paracetamol? 129 years. Bandages? Probably thousands. Is this person actually insane?

Mojo

17th May 2007, 05:29 AM

And, I never got an answer to a question I once asked in a homeopathy store:

If it works, then why can I not put some diluted drops of most of the remedies into the ocean and have all people on the planet heal by just taking a dip in the ocean?

They have a whole host of "reasons". For example the seawater will not have been succussed properly, or will not have been diluted serially in the approved manner; homoeopathy, it is claimed, only works when properly individualised to the particular patient's set of symptoms (a handy get-out for negative results of clinical trials studying the effects of a particular remedy for a particular condition, at least until someone carried out a double blind placebo controlled trial of individualised homoeopathy and found that it still didn't work, hence the next one); there is some sort of magic (possibly even "quantum"!) entanglement between the patient, the practitioner and the remedy which is destroyed by any blinding process...

A more important question, in view of the claims that it only works if properly individualised, is: why do homoeopaths not object to OTC "homoeopathic" remedies sold to treat a particular condition?

realpaladin

17th May 2007, 05:36 AM

RenaissanceBiker

17th May 2007, 05:52 AM

Do homeopaths enjoy watered down drinks?

realpaladin

17th May 2007, 06:42 AM

Do homeopaths enjoy watered down drinks?

You know, I was just thinking about something along these lines....

I am going to try two homeopathic experiments!

One:
First I am going to create a C30 solution of Jack Daniels (have to do that first, because I have to be sober to do all the measuring and shaking... well not the shaking, but you get my drift)

Then I am going to get drunk on JD.
Then, if I am able to remember, I will try the solution to see if it cures me of being drunk!

Two:
I am taking the C30 solution prepared earlier and see if it makes me more drunk!

jon

17th May 2007, 07:24 AM

"I am perfectly familiar with Randi's silly offer."

I love how an offer for a double-blinded, controlled experiment conducted with due oversight is branded with the ad hominem "silly".

Not to mention an offer of $1m for carrying out such an experiment (assuming homeopathy works, of course...) I mean, if someone offered me a million bucks research funding in exchange for carrying out one simple experiment, I wouldn't really care how 'silly' what they wanted me to do was...hell, if I was asked to wear a clown outfit while working, my response would be 'what type of shoes' :D

Maybe homeopathic research is better funded, though? Or Dana doubts that homeopathy would pass such a 'silly' challenge.

Mojo

17th May 2007, 07:33 AM

I am going to try two homeopathic experiments!

One:
First I am going to create a C30 solution of Jack Daniels (have to do that first, because I have to be sober to do all the measuring and shaking... well not the shaking, but you get my drift)

Then I am going to get drunk on JD.
Then, if I am able to remember, I will try the solution to see if it cures me of being drunk!

You need a control.

Blinding this shouldn't be too difficult though: when preparing the 3oC JD, just take two bottles, put your 30C JD in one and water in the other, and mark them "A" and "B". With a bit of luck you won't be able to remember which is which after you've drunk the JD. Then get a friend to volunteer to get drunk with you and give them whichever bottle you don't use yourself.

If you want to double blind the experiment, label the bottles while drunk. ;)

Pipirr

17th May 2007, 08:37 AM

The other clinical trials mentioned are isolated "significant" findings. Since we expect this to happen in 5% of trials (in the absence of bias), the studies need independent replication. Otherwise it is more likely that they are simply spurious results, given the lack of any other support.

Linda

Would you mind elaborating on that? I understand that a small percent of all experiments will produce positive results. Of course whether those results could be replicated independently is another matter.

But why should we expect 5%? And in absence of what bias?

I see it as the best explanation for why positive homeopathy publications exist, and why none of them (to my knowledge) have been replicated. But I don't really get the details...

Rolfe

17th May 2007, 09:22 AM

The quick version is that when a scientific experiment reports a significant result, the cutoff for significance is usually that the chances of the result occurring by accident (that is, in the absence of any real difference between the two test groups) is only 1 in 20 (that is 5%, usually expressed as p<0.05, the probability of the result being random is less than 0.05).

So if you do an experiment to try to find a difference where none exists, and you keep doing it, then one shot out of every 20 repetitions will give you an apparently significant difference.

One shot in 100 will give you significance at p<0.01, and one out of every 1,000 will get you p<0.001, which is usually considered to be a pretty strong indication of significance.

Rolfe.

fls

17th May 2007, 11:39 AM

Would you mind elaborating on that? I understand that a small percent of all experiments will produce positive results. Of course whether those results could be replicated independently is another matter.

But why should we expect 5%?

Five percent simply represents our arbitrary cut-off for significance testing.

A clinical trial is the process of taking a bunch of people, dividing them into two groups and then taking some measurements after a period of time has passed. We expect some differences in the measurements between the two groups just due to chance. What we are really interested in knowing is whether the differences are so unexpected (if it were only due to chance) that we really should consider that the treatment given to one of the groups contributed to the difference. By convention, we have chosen p<0.05 (less than %5 chance or 1 chance in 20) as the cut-off for considering a difference so unexpected that it provides evidence in favour of a real drug effect. However, 1000's of clinical trials have been performed, which means that we should expect to see 100's (i.e. 5%) of "statistically significant" differences due to chance, so we need to be cautious of isolated findings.

And in absence of what bias?

Bias is the propensity to create differences between groups that is unrelated to the purported intervention.

For example, there may be a bias in the way you divide the people into two groups (putting all the men in one group and all the women in the other would lead to obvious differences), the two groups may undergo different treatment, the measurements may be performed differently, the method of analysis may create differences that wouldn't exist otherwise, etc.

These problems are well-documented and pervasive in homeopathic research.

Linda

Pipirr

17th May 2007, 12:15 PM

Two good answers, thanks Rolfe and Linda.

However, 1000's of clinical trials have been performed, which means that we should expect to see 100's (i.e. 5%) of "statistically significant" differences due to chance, so we need to be cautious of isolated findings.

I guess that's the key point for me. Thanks for clarifying.

TX50

17th May 2007, 02:29 PM

Do homeopaths enjoy watered down drinks?

Shaken, not stirred, presumably.

Homeopathic "remedies" would definitely cure dehydration (and would be
good for plants too).

Mojo

18th May 2007, 12:36 AM

Homeopathic "remedies" would definitely cure dehydration (and would be good for plants too).

Not really: they're usually administered in the form of a sugar pill on which the magic water has been dripped and allowed to evaporate.

So there's not even any of the water left to remember what it used to have dissolved in it...

realpaladin

18th May 2007, 05:48 AM

To quote supafly: "Awww, my frickin' head!"

Meaning, homeopathically curing a hangover did not work...

(Yeah, I really tried)

hipparchia

18th May 2007, 06:46 AM

I am constantly confused by the claims of homeopaths.

For one, there is the British (classical) and French schools. French prescripts separate "substances" or mixes of substances to treat specific diseases. Think Boiron. There are people who swear by those remedies. Then, there are those for whom a homeopath need not even have a diagnosis, but merely draw a picture of the person's symptoms and personality, and prescribe the best possible remedy, but of only one kind.

Then, there is the Organon itself, the deluded writings of Mr. Hahneman. In it, he explicitly claims that homeopathy is not for surgical cases or acute conditions.

Why then the sepsis study? And what remedy?

Besides, the results of the study are not statistically significant. Was the study replicated? Important thingy.

Sometimes homeopaths who swear by the British-classical-two hour interview homeopathy will gladly quote the research of Boiron.

What I have noticed- homeopathy is like a religion. It is quasi-scientific, mystical, with a touch of alchemy to it and a chance to throw in quantum mechanics, if you are so inclined. So, the adherents will constantly move the goalposts, quote failed studies and all the time violate their own principles (such as claiming how important it is to have a personalized cure while at the same time recommenting a certain remedy over an internet forum).

I am constantly pissed when people use homeopathy for children, sometimes forgoing other treatment.

As for the alcohol preparation: when dilluted, it should actually be a hangover remedy. And dilluted coffee should be a sleeping pill.

realpaladin

18th May 2007, 06:49 AM

As for the alcohol preparation: when dilluted, it should actually be a hangover remedy. And dilluted coffee should be a sleeping pill.

My achin' brain says nope.

And the first person brave enough to serve me diluted coffee will meet the natural sleeping pill called 'knuckles' :)

johnnyc

18th May 2007, 07:18 AM

I though I’d share an amusing story my wife relayed to me. Her friend, our friendly neighbourhood alternative healer, left a bottle of homeopathic pills unattended at home, which were then swallowed by her daughter. Frantic, she phoned the British Homeopathic Society, who told her not to worry – the child would not suffer any ill effects!

I wonder whether they believe it themselves.

RenaissanceBiker

18th May 2007, 09:59 AM

My achin' brain says nope.

And the first person brave enough to serve me diluted coffee will meet the natural sleeping pill called 'knuckles' :)

Followed by my all-natural size 11 boot.
http://www.harley-davidson.com/media/images/productphotos/MC/98408_M_77d5.jpg

JamesGully

21st May 2007, 07:58 PM

Mashuna

21st May 2007, 11:17 PM

fls

22nd May 2007, 05:57 AM

I appreciate good skeptical thinking, and yet, am I the only one who thinks that no one responded to the numerous basic science and clinical studies that Dana Ullman referenced?

Am I the only one who think that Ullman also gave a good, solid critique of that questionably done "meta-analysis" that sought to compare 110 homeopathic and allopathic studies? Am I the only one who is surprised that even the skeptics who did this study found that the homeopathic studies had a larger number of higher percentage of higher quality studies than the allopathic studies (by THEIR own definition of high quality studies).

At first blush, homeopathy seems weird to me too, but heck, nature is full of mysteries. Humility is a healthy scientific attitude.

I attempted to respond to the critique of the metanalysis (thanks for pointing that out Mashuna). I don't think that I would call it a "good, solid critique" as many of the criticisms were not valid or were irrelevant. For example, no meaningful conclusions can be drawn about differences in the percentage of high quality studies, since two different methods were used to obtain that number. For the homeopathy group it is a population value (i.e. all the homeopathy studies of that type were included) and for the conventional medicine group it is a sample value. Since the sample was not drawn randomly, but rather selected, it is a biased sample on that value and cannot be used to make general predictions about the percentage of high quality studies among conventional medicine trials. Also, the measures of quality were fairly gross and only really differed on one measure (concealment of allocation) - it more likely represented a variation in whether it was reported, than in the actual performance.

Ullman's critique would be relevant if one were talking about disproving homeopathy. The analysis does not exclude the possibility that there is a real effect. However, since homeopathy is without supporting evidence independent of the results of clinical trials, it is sufficient to point out that there are alternate explanations for those results. And the support for those alternate explanations does not need to be robust, it simply needs to be plausible - a standard the meta-analysis easily acheives.

Ullman also makes the common mistake of thinking that individual trials demonstrating the effects of a "special" water provides support for homeopathy. At best, all it can demonstrate is that a particular water may have a therapeutic effect in a particular condition. But it doesn't tell us why. The analogy I have used in the past is "alfabetopathy". If I choose a drug that starts with the same letter as the condition it is meant to treat and a clinical trial shows that the drug is effective, that doesn't mean that I have proven that drugs can be chosen on the basis of their initial letters.

It is true that many people who are skeptical of homeopathy are ignorant of the details, but that is true of anything in science - no one person has adequate knowledge, but collectively we do. The skepticism is based on trust in the process of the objective evaluation from those in the field, rather than based on the wishful thinking of individuals. I think the comments in this thread have been directed at evaluating those things that we are competent to evaluate, such as whether appeals to longevity are valid or whether it is "silly" to perform studies that remove/reduce the effects of chance and bias.

I agree that humility is important, but why assume skepticism reflects a lack of humility? It seems to me that it is the skeptics, who realize that we are all subject to cognitive biases and therefore need to actively avoid their effects, who demonstrate humility. It is the homeopaths who somehow seem to think they are immune from bias and can trust their "clinical experience" who suffer from a lack of humility.

Linda

ponderingturtle

22nd May 2007, 06:37 AM

Hmm, let me think. Aspirin? 108 years. Penicillin? 79 years. Paracetamol? 129 years. Bandages? Probably thousands. Is this person actually insane?

Yes. I am surprised that he is not advocating bleeding to balance the humors, now there is a paradigm that lasted, not like this silly effective medicine one that is constantly coming out with new things.

Big Al

22nd May 2007, 07:46 AM

It's not even as simple as substance --> water --> pill. Many of the substances don't dissolve in water, so a solvent such as alcohol is used. So alcohol (a hydroxylated hydrocarbon, C2H5OH) acts the same as water (an inorganic ionic polar molecule H+OH-) works the same as sugar (a disaccharide whose formula I can't remember).

Hang on a minute... they all have hydroxyl groups... maybe THAT's the magic ingredient! So caustic soda (NaOH) ought to work, too! Perhaps Dana would consider producing a homeopathic solution of ammonia in caustic soda and chugging it down. The two alkalis should cancel themselves out.

Hydrogen Cyanide

22nd May 2007, 09:54 AM

Ullman has shown up on Orac's blog with the exact same rant (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/doctor_strange_and_the_only_way_to_make.php#commen t-439779)!

I love the fact that this part where he says... As for some good studies in homeopathy...
COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is the #4 reason that people in the US die. A study conducted at the University of Vienna Hospital found "substantially significant" results from a double-blind placebo-controlled trial using homeopathic doses of potassium dichromate. This study was published in the most respected journal in medical respiratory health, CHEST.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed)

But fails to actually identify the paper, and the actual research facility, but just lists the Pubmed search engine. It did not take too long to find out it was something done in an Institute of Homeopathy! (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=15764779&itool=pubmed_abstractplus)

But there was a response that I wish I could read: Treating critically ill patients with sugar pills. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=17296675).... especially after reading what the author of that comment says about Homeopathic hospitals in his website (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Pharmacology/dc-bits/quack.html#rlhh3),
Fisher suggests you write to your MP to prevent closure of the RLHH.
I suggest you write to your MP to support closure of the RLHH.

jon

22nd May 2007, 10:08 AM

But there was a response that I wish I could read: Treating critically ill patients with sugar pills. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=17296675).... especially after reading what the author of that comment says about Homeopathic hospitals in his website (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Pharmacology/dc-bits/quack.html#rlhh3),

Closed access journals are a pain. I'll quote a good part of Colquhoun's letter below:

It surprises me that CHEST would publish an article (March 2005)127 on the effect of a therapeutic agent when in fact the patients received none of the agent mentioned in the title of the article. [T]he “potassium dichromate” was a homeopathic C30 dilution. That is a dilution by a factor of 1060 [which] means there would be one molecule in a sphere with a diameter of approximately 1.46 × 1011 m....To describe this as “diluted and well shaken,” as the authors do, is the understatement of the century. The fact of the matter is that the medicine contained no medicine.

The authors...will doubtless claim some magic effect of shaking that causes the water to remember...The memory of water has been studied quite a lot. The estimate of the duration of this memory has been revised...downwards...to approximately 50 femtoseconds...That is not a very good shelf life.

It is one thing to tolerate homeopathy as a harmless 19th century eccentricity for its placebo effect in minor self-limiting conditions like colds. It is quite another to have it recommended for seriously ill patients. That is downright dangerous.

Hydrogen Cyanide

22nd May 2007, 11:00 AM

Closed access journals are a pain. I'll quote a good part of Colquhoun's letter below:

Thank you!!!

Edit to add: May I copy that in a reply in Orac's blog?

jon

22nd May 2007, 11:30 AM

Thank you!!!

Edit to add: May I copy that in a reply in Orac's blog?

You're welcome. I've got no problem with you adding that to orac's blog. Not sure if the journal might be awkward about copyright, though...

Hydrogen Cyanide

22nd May 2007, 12:17 PM

You're welcome. I've got no problem with you adding that to orac's blog. Not sure if the journal might be awkward about copyright, though...

Done... oh, and I took the liberty of checking out some of his other claims, particularly the one on Oscillococcinum (http://www.homeowatch.org/history/oscillo.html). He claims that studies showing it as good for influenza were replicated. I checked, but could not really find them. Edit to add: I did call him dishonest... in fact he is a liar who is posting all over trying to get business over to himself!

sbernie87

22nd May 2007, 01:01 PM

I suspect that JamesGully is Dana Ullman, judging by the tone of his post, his recent reg-date, and an email I received from Dana where he chided me for sharing his previous e-mail with all of you "randi-holics[sic]."

fls

22nd May 2007, 01:56 PM

Done... oh, and I took the liberty of checking out some of his other claims, particularly the one on Oscillococcinum (http://www.homeowatch.org/history/oscillo.html). He claims that studies showing it as good for influenza were replicated. I checked, but could not really find them. Edit to add: I did call him dishonest... in fact he is a liar who is posting all over trying to get business over to himself!

From Dana Ullman's article in FASEB journal (http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/full/20/14/2661#B5).....

He refers to three influenza studies with links to two of the abstracts.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B8CWK-4MDGN8F-3&_user=10&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F1998&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=595be723c5173e8b1cbaa97deb3ea544

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=2655683&dopt=Abstract

Linda

Hydrogen Cyanide

22nd May 2007, 02:06 PM

From Dana Ullman's article in FASEB journal (http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/full/20/14/2661#B5).....

He refers to three influenza studies with links to two of the abstracts.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B8CWK-4MDGN8F-3&_user=10&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F1998&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=595be723c5173e8b1cbaa97deb3ea544

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=2655683&dopt=Abstract

Linda

Okay, but I would have preferred he listed them. Also, I don't think the results are as definitive as he says.

Drudgewire

22nd May 2007, 04:00 PM

Hooray for homeopathy! (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070522/ap_on_re_us/leukemia_death)

:(

fls

22nd May 2007, 05:27 PM

Okay, but I would have preferred he listed them. Also, I don't think the results are as definitive as he says.

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

Rolfe

23rd May 2007, 02:07 AM

I think we need to go back to the basis of Randi's challenge. Can anyone, reliably and repeatedly, by any method at all, tell the difference between a homoeopathically-prepared sugar pill and an ordinary sugar pill? Dana Ullman can't do it, in fact nobody can. If there was any real effect that could be measured, that ought to be a pushover.

Rolfe.

Mojo

23rd May 2007, 02:09 AM

Hooray for homeopathy! (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070522/ap_on_re_us/leukemia_death)

:(A sad story, but that isn't homoeopathy: After researching alternative treatments, they found a doctor specializing in holistic medicine who recommended a healthier diet along with supplements to boost Noah's immune system.

Not that homoeopathy would have done any better.

Hydrogen Cyanide

24th May 2007, 10:15 PM

It is now known publicly that I find Dana Ullman (he with the Masters in Public Health) to be particularly annoying... and really lacking in answers:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/doctor_strange_and_the_only_way_to_make.php#commen t-442613

(yes, some kind soul who does medical research emailed me some of the full papers Brave Sir Dana was using as "proof"... and then I took off)

Note: Try not to get sick anywhere near the University Hospital in Vienna, or in Graz. Well, Graz is kind of a boring town anyway for tourists... and so was Vienna (even with its monument to the Great Plague)... Salzburg were more satisfying to us on our trip to Austria.

JamesGully

5th June 2007, 02:38 PM

Miss Whiplash

5th June 2007, 02:44 PM

Madalch

5th June 2007, 03:05 PM

Your bubble is about the pop. Enjoy it.
No, my pop is about the bubbles. Nobody likes to drink flat pop.

And the article you gave the link to is crap. The author presents some interesting hand-waving arguments about how water may be able to change its structure (apparently, if carbon can be graphite or diamond, then water obviously can form different phases, right?), but nothing that approaches anything other than the usual homeopathic fantasies and fictions about aqueous memory. Water does not form different phases under ordinary conditions.

I am a chemist with a PhD. I know something about molecular structures and phases. The author of this article does not.

fls

5th June 2007, 03:22 PM

For people who are skeptical of homeopathy, it is usually because you are unfamiliar with its body of evidence, including its basic science, its clinical trials, its epidemiology, and its history. In addition to this body of evidence, it may be helpful to understand the physics of water.

You are mistaken if you think ignorance drives the skepticism of myself and many others here. Knowledge and familiarity with the information you list above is what drives my skepticism.

The below article was published in the MEDICAL SCIENCE MONITOR by an Italian MD and senior research scientist at the University of Siena:
medscimonit.com/pub/vol_13/no_1/9827.pdf

Because I'm a relative newbie, I may not be able to post a link. If you cannot see it, you can go to this medical journal's website at medscionit.com and look under its January 2007 issue. This is a very impressive article. I am curious if any of you are really brave enough to comment on it.

Your bubble is about the pop. Enjoy it.

Yawn. I didn't see a single novel fallacy. How disappointing.

Linda

jon

5th June 2007, 03:44 PM

I didn't get past the bit where the author 'defines' science - drawing a good part of his information from answers.com and most of it from a short article in the 'journal of theoretics'. Who referried the paper - and why didn't they tell the author to engage with the philosophy of science literature on what 'science' is, or look at how practising scientists use the word, or at least find some sensible way of addressing the question of 'what is science' - and why was he allowed to reference answers.com...

Does it get any better?

fuelair

5th June 2007, 04:03 PM

For people who are skeptical of homeopathy, it is usually because you are unfamiliar with its body of evidence, including its basic science, its clinical trials, its epidemiology, and its history. In addition to this body of evidence, it may be helpful to understand the physics of water.

The below article was published in the MEDICAL SCIENCE MONITOR by an Italian MD and senior research scientist at the University of Siena:
medscimonit.com/pub/vol_13/no_1/9827.pdf

Because I'm a relative newbie, I may not be able to post a link. If you cannot see it, you can go to this medical journal's website at medscionit.com and look under its January 2007 issue. This is a very impressive article. I am curious if any of you are really brave enough to comment on it.

Your bubble is about the pop. Enjoy it.
JG, what is your background in science and statistics? I ask, because you seem to believe in two sources (by your statements) where the authors demonstrated that either they are not functionally competant in either OR that they are perfectly willing to lie about the actual analyses of both. If, and I do not mean this offensively (I do not use the word ignorant as a perjorative unless the ignorance is by choice), you are functionally ignorant of both fields (based on what you have written and pointed to as your justification) I suggest that you should consider showing articles to people who are trained in analysing and interpreting the data in them before sending us to them - making you look bad.:)

Hydrogen Cyanide

5th June 2007, 08:30 PM

...The below article was published in the MEDICAL SCIENCE MONITOR by an Italian MD and senior research scientist at the University of Siena:
medscimonit.com/pub/vol_13/no_1/9827.pdf

....
Your bubble is about the pop. Enjoy it.

Hello there... so Brave Sir Dana! You made it over here! Welcome, and I hope you stick around.

Sorry I have not gotten back to you, I've been busy with my actual life (and I should have logged off an hour ago). But I'm sure Orac will soon be answering all your questions.

This is in reference to:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/doctor_strange_and_the_only_way_to_make.php#commen t-456470

Wow...this SILENCE is so loud. It is time to LEARN from homeopathy and be a real scientist.
Read this impressive article published in the MEDICAL SCIENCE MONITOR by an Italian MD and senior research scientist at the University of Siena:
http://www.medscimonit.com/pub/vol_13/no_1/9827.pdf (http://www.medscimonit.com/pub/vol_13/no_1/9827.pdf)
Your bubble is about the pop. Enjoy it.
Posted by: Dana Ullman, MPH (http://www.homeopathic.com/) | June 5, 2007 05:25 PM (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/doctor_strange_and_the_only_way_to_make.php#commen t-456470)

I just noticed it, I haven't bothered to even check that blog reference, since I've only looked at Orac's first page. I see others have responded. (goes backs and reads what occured over the past week)... Hmmm... No, you did not answer any of my questions. You did say in this comment (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/doctor_strange_and_the_only_way_to_make.php#commen t-451391)
As for Oscillococcinum, it is the 200C potency of the heart and liver of a duck (because ducks are known to be resevoirs of flu viruses...and 3 large clinical trials have confirmed its efficacy).

But I specifically asked for PERCENTAGES... You do know how to convert 200C to a percentage, right?

JamesGully

5th June 2007, 08:47 PM

I do not answer really stupid questions like that. I'm more interest in controlled clinical trials. Are you? Are you or are you not interested in scientific experiments? It is like asking what percentage of matter vs. space is there inside an atomic bomb (that question is NOT the point of it).

And I'm still waiting for your critique of the CHEST study on COPD (the #4 reason that people in the US die).

I'm not as interested in theories as I am in controlled studies.

I'm also interested in the physics of water...and that article referenced above from MEDICAL SCIENCE MONITOR is very intriguing and is worthy of anyone who is serious about science and medicine. His references to the 1,000+ studies on HORMESIS is also important...but I doubt you are really interested in studies or science, but I hope you can prove me wrong. Really. Let's get serious. Avoid the name-calling...and the paternalistic "Sir Dana" stuff. You're embarrassing other people who would like to agree with you.

EHLO

5th June 2007, 10:22 PM

James, I'm new to the homeopathy debate so had a read through the "Modern understanding of homeopathy" at www.homeopathic.com.

Under a section entitled "The Importance of Individualization" it states;

The way homeopaths learn what a homeopathic medicine will cure is through the use of experiments called "drug provings".In these homeopathic drug trials, researchers administer continuual doses of a substance to a healthy individual* until areaction to the substance is achieved.** The subject is asked to keep detailed record books of symptoms; additional symptoms are discovered through an interview process. The subject is encouraged to stop ingesting the substance once any particularly discomforting symptom manifests.

This statement implies that homeopathic treatments can reliably manifest predictable symptoms in test subjects, which would imply a definitive methodology for distinguishing a homeopathic remedy from a placebo that would satisfy the most ardent sceptic.

If such a test is not definitive, then it undermines the whole "drug proving" methodology and homeopathy itself. (By definitive I mean not having to resort to meta-analysis, and slightly above chance outcomes.)

If homeopaths base their medicines on "proving" then inducing symptoms homoeopathically must be nearly 100% reliable. Why is this not the case?

Cuddles

6th June 2007, 03:43 AM

I'm also interested in the physics of water...and that article referenced above from MEDICAL SCIENCE MONITOR is very intriguing and is worthy of anyone who is serious about science and medicine.

No it isn't. It contains absolutely nothing of either science or medicine The entire article is wrong from start to finish. If you are really so interested in studies perhaps you would like to provide some instead of some vague philosophical nonsense from someone who clearly has no understanding of physics, chemistry of biology.

jon

6th June 2007, 04:01 AM

No it isn't. It contains absolutely nothing of either science or medicine The entire article is wrong from start to finish. If you are really so interested in studies perhaps you would like to provide some instead of some vague philosophical nonsense from someone who clearly has no understanding of physics, chemistry of biology.

You forgot to mention philosophy - they got that wrong, too :rolleyes:

flimflam_machine

6th June 2007, 05:14 AM

What kind of journal is that article from? It's remarkably unscientific: the second half of the text basically says "Here are lots of things that you don't know everything about... quantum physics, dark matter the basis of the mind etc.. You also don't know how homeopathy works, therefore it's probably works because of one of these things."

It's also misleading in that it suggests that conventional medicine is nothing but placebo.

...a hidden injection of morphine was found to correspond toan open injection of saline solution in full view of the patient (i.e. a placebo!) [46]. It would appear at least bizarre, to an unbiased and sufficiently open mind, that holders of “true science” and supporters of the Avogadro’s number evidence have not yet found an explanation for the singular situation in which the hidden administration of analgesic (i.e. true molecules, true matter) can have no effect at all!

In fact, the Nature paper quoted (#46) says that application of placebo has the same effect as a specific amount of morphine (8mg). Use more morphine (12mg) and you get greater analgesia than placebo alone, so fusty old conventional medicine does appear to work.

The only interesting part of the article was the reference to hormetic response to drugs since it would be the beginnings of a mechanism for homeopathy. Does anyone have any thoughts/evidence on the validity of the hormetic response and an explanation for why it appears.

fls

6th June 2007, 05:32 AM

This is in reference to:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/doctor_strange_and_the_only_way_to_make.php#commen t-456470

Oh my.

I just read this. I thought that the degree of hubris he was exhibiting indicated at least some understanding of the necessary science. But instead he chooses to beat you over the head with uncontrolled studies on arsenic (hint: you actually have to read the study to see that it was uncontrolled since the authors chose to advertise otherwise (another hint: a control group actually has to be comparable to the treatment group to be considered a control group))? The write-up, particularly in the second study on ANA titres, is almost laughably awful.

Is it really necessary to even bother with this?

Linda

fls

6th June 2007, 07:24 AM

His references to the 1,000+ studies on HORMESIS is also important.

If it had ever been demonstrated that homeopathy has anything to do with hormesis, that would possibly be relevant.

To quote Joan Cusack from Working Girl - "Sometimes I sing and dance around the house in my underwear. Doesn't make me Madonna."

Linda

flimflam_machine

6th June 2007, 07:30 AM

Badly Shaved Monkey

6th June 2007, 08:22 AM

I appreciate good skeptical thinking, and yet, am I the only one who thinks that no one responded to the numerous basic science and clinical studies that Dana Ullman referenced?

Yes.

Am I the only one who think that Ullman also gave a good, solid critique of that questionably done "meta-analysis" that sought to compare 110 homeopathic and allopathic studies?

Yes.

Am I the only one who is surprised that even the skeptics who did this study found that the homeopathic studies had a larger number of higher percentage of higher quality studies than the allopathic studies (by THEIR own definition of high quality studies).

Yes. To find that the homoepthic community produces a high percentage of good quality studies simply requires avoiding most of homeopathy's published evidence.

Humility is a healthy scientific attitude.

And something that the homeopathic community entirely lacks, resting its case so completely on personal anecdotal experience.

Badly Shaved Monkey

6th June 2007, 08:31 AM

A more important question, in view of the claims that it only works if properly individualised, is: why do homoeopaths not object to OTC "homoeopathic" remedies sold to treat a particular condition?

Or any of the other fatal internal inconsistencies that we have pointed out to homeopaths at various times and from which they have run as fast as their little chicken legs can carry them.

But since we seem to have a live homeopath on the line at the moment, perhaps he can answer Mojo's question.

He can then tell us whether remedies are neutralised by airport X-ray scanners.

He can then tell us about 'grafting remedies' and whether he thinks that works.

Does he agree that during a homeopathic proving the people involve risk serious and long-term harm being caused?

For a laugh he can tell us whether either of these machines works;

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

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

I have a number of follow-up questions about both machines, but let's start with the easy one first.

Hey, ho.

fls

6th June 2007, 08:39 AM

fls,

I thought the bit about hormesis was the only reasonable bit of the paper, although in no way does it constitute evidence. If the effect of drugs is reversed at very low (but non-zero) concentrations then it would fit in with what homeopathy claims to do. If hormesis is simply a U-shaped distribution of response to drugs according to concentration then it's no help at all.

And 1,000+ studies? As far as I can see the paper referenced about 5.

They have simply hijacked the study of hormesis because there is a (very) superficial similarity (if you turn off the lights, squint your eyes, and tilt your head just so). And hormesis doesn't really find that the effects are reversed at low concentrations, but that the effect may be different in a way that may be characterized as positive or negative. However, that is still quite different from what homeopathy claims to do. In a way, the recognition of non-montonic (does not change in the same direction throughout) dose-response curves contradicts the principles of homeopathy. It tells you that you cannot predict the response at low doses based on the response at high doses - it has to be determined empirically.

Linda

Hydrogen Cyanide

6th June 2007, 08:40 AM

Oh my.

I just read this. ...snip for brevity...The write-up, particularly in the second study on ANA titres, is almost laughably awful.

Is it really necessary to even bother with this?

Linda

Only for entertainment, which is why when a bathroom remodel and getting up at the crack of dawn to get kid to marching band engagements, a couple of child dental appointments and life in general got in the way, I only checked Orac's main page.

I do not answer really stupid questions like that. I'm more interest in controlled clinical trials. Are you? Are you or are you not interested in scientific experiments? It is like asking what percentage of matter vs. space is there inside an atomic bomb (that question is NOT the point of it).....

I take that as an admission that you do not understand what a percentage is. The "%" is shorthand for "out of 100", cent coming from the Latin word for hundred. Just as you do not understand that "nano" is a word used for a discrete value of 10-9. Actually, the percentage of fissionable material is very pertinent to nuclear weapons --- just add another subject that you are clueless about.

Just to let you know that 200C translates to a percentage of (I may get the math wrong, corrections are welcome) to 10-399% (it is written out in full at http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/homeopathy2.htm). I believe that means that there may be one molecule of duck stuff in the amount of water that would exist on several dozen Earths.

Edit to add: I now need to go sand about 70 square feet of wood paneling to prep it for painting.

Badly Shaved Monkey

6th June 2007, 08:46 AM

For people who are skeptical of homeopathy, it is usually because you are unfamiliar with its body of evidence, including its basic science, its clinical trials, its epidemiology, and its history. In addition to this body of evidence, it may be helpful to understand the physics of water.

The below article was published in the MEDICAL SCIENCE MONITOR by an Italian MD and senior research scientist at the University of Siena:
medscimonit.com/pub/vol_13/no_1/9827.pdf

Because I'm a relative newbie, I may not be able to post a link. If you cannot see it, you can go to this medical journal's website at medscionit.com and look under its January 2007 issue. This is a very impressive article. I am curious if any of you are really brave enough to comment on it.

Your bubble is about the pop. Enjoy it.

Impressive in what sense? I'm always impressed by the ease with which homeopaths are convinced by the flimsiest and vaguest of arguments so long as it is spiced with a few long scientificke words.

I wonder that is why homeopaths are so easily deluded into buying those expensive "remedy" making devices. If your critical faculties prevent you from distinguishing a wacky sales pitch from fact then you are going to find anything with a few clever-sounding words impressive.

Badly Shaved Monkey

6th June 2007, 08:48 AM

They have simply hijacked the study of hormesis because there is a (very) superficial similarity (if you turn off the lights, squint your eyes, and tilt your head just so). And hormesis doesn't really find that the effects are reversed at low concentrations, but that the effect may be different in a way that may be characterized as positive or negative. However, that is still quite different from what homeopathy claims to do. In a way, the recognition of non-montonic (does not change in the same direction throughout) dose-response curves contradicts the principles of homeopathy. It tells you that you cannot predict the response at low doses based on the response at high doses - it has to be determined empirically.

Linda

And the crucial thing is that hormesis still presupposes that the active agent is still actually pesent at those low doses.

Lothian

6th June 2007, 08:49 AM

But I specifically asked for PERCENTAGES... You do know how to convert 200C to a percentage, right?Is it
0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 %

I have made the number big to show how strong the solution is.

Badly Shaved Monkey

6th June 2007, 08:53 AM

Mojo

6th June 2007, 08:56 AM

The rest of us call the process "rinsing". It's not very spooky and I find that when I rinse a coffee cup it is just cleaner than it was before rather than coming to contain super-potent essence of coffee.

I always make sure I tap all the crockery against a leather-bound book whenever I do the washing up. ;)

fls

6th June 2007, 09:02 AM

And the crucial thing is that hormesis still presupposes that the active agent is still actually pesent at those low doses.

While I think focussing on the dilution factor provides us with an easy way to demonstrate the silliness to those who are naive wrt homeopathy, I think it should also be pointed out that the principles of homeopathy still have no scientific basis even if active ingredients are present.

Linda

Badly Shaved Monkey

6th June 2007, 09:07 AM

While I think focussing on the dilution factor provides us with an easy way to demonstrate the silliness to those who are naive wrt homeopathy, I think it should also be pointed out that the principles of homeopathy still have no scientific basis even if active ingredients are present.

Linda

That's the thing with homeopathy: it's wrong in so many different ways that it's hard to to decide where to start first.

fls

6th June 2007, 09:32 AM

That's the thing with homeopathy: it's wrong in so many different ways that it's hard to to decide where to start first.

I know. When the woos don't toss us a bone every once in a while, we start chewing on ourselves. :)

Linda

fls

6th June 2007, 09:33 AM

Is it
0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 %

I have made the number big to show how strong the solution is.

The optical illusion that creates is kinda cool.

Linda

fuelair

6th June 2007, 03:53 PM

fuelair

6th June 2007, 03:58 PM

JamesGully

6th June 2007, 08:57 PM

Understanding water is not a simple subject. I recommend reading the work of Rustum Roy, PhD, professor of material sciences at Penn State University and head of a material sciences lab that the ISI considers to be the best in the world. Besides having almost 700 papers published, he has had 13 papers published in NATURE.

Because I'm still a newbie to this list, I cannot provide a full URL for a recent article. Just add the www to it:

rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure%20of%20Water.pdf

Dr. Roy will have another even more important article published shortly, though I wonder how many of you are serious enough to follow the science.

As for double-blind research, the arsenic study mentioned previously was a randomized double-blind trial for the GROUP A. This is undeniable. GROUP B choose not to be given a chance for a placebo, and if you wish, you can ignore this group. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that both the people in GROUP A who were given a homeopathic dose of arsenic and the people in GROUP B who were also given this medicine experienced a significant increase in certain detoxifying liver enzymes, while people in GROUP A who were given a placebo didn't.

The COPD study was another great trial, as was the severe sepsis trial, both of which were conducted at the University of Vienna Hospital.

The amazing feature of skeptics of homeopathy is that you assume that homeopaths have some magical power that other people don't seem to have and just by "magic" those people get better. An easier (and more probable) explanation is that nanopharmacology works.

I'm glad that some of you appreciate HORMESIS. If so, why do you think that medicine is ignoring it, despite the 1,000+ studies? Is homeo-phobia real?

Hydrogen Cyanide

6th June 2007, 09:06 PM

Oh my.

I just read this. I thought that the degree of hubris he was exhibiting indicated at least some understanding of the necessary science. But instead he chooses to beat you over the head with uncontrolled studies on arsenic (hint: you actually have to read the study to see that it was uncontrolled since the authors chose to advertise otherwise (another hint: a control group actually has to be comparable to the treatment group to be considered a control group))? The write-up, particularly in the second study on ANA titres, is almost laughably awful.

Is it really necessary to even bother with this?

Linda

Another reason is that Dana Ullman (despite his lack of math skills and understanding of basic science) has set himself up as a big homeopathy expert. He has written several books... and does practice medicine without a license. From http://skepdic.com/refuge/bunk11.html According to Ollivier, Dana Ullman, an advisory board member of alternative-medicine institutes at Harvard's and Columbia's schools of medicine, is a leading spokesman for homeopathy.

Do a Google search on homeopathy, and his name pops up. Though I am quite fond of this google find: http://www.dcscience.net/quack.html where it says
But they completely ruin their case by including quite barmy homilies about homeopathy (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/water2.php) (and here (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/WaterRemembers.php)), water structure (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SO_water.php) and traditional chinese medicine (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SO_holhealth.php). There is also an amazing piece of sheer pseudo-scientific nonsense, "Homeopathic Medicine is Nanopharmacology (http://www.dcscience.net/Homeopathic%20Medicine%20is%20Nanopharmacology)" by Dana Ullman (though elsewhere on the site, nanotechnology gets a bad press).

He is the American equivalent (or fancies himself as such) of the UK's Peter Fisher: http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/default.asp?Display=110 ...
... or Lionel Milgrom (who is really not terribly observent): http://www.badscience.net/?p=341

(note if you have an hour to spare, the video of Dr. Goldacre debating Dr. Fisher at http://www.badscience.net/?p=339 is quite entertaining!)

Anytime his lack of answering direct questions (like the percentage of duck bits in some flu nostrum), lack of understanding basic science and general evasiveness can be brought to light is not only entertaining, but shows the exactly how the reality of homeopathy is so incredibly shallow.

Hydrogen Cyanide

6th June 2007, 09:11 PM

...The COPD study was another great trial, as was the severe sepsis trial, both of which were conducted at the University of Vienna Hospital.
...

In the sepsis trial after 180 days 75% of the "homeopathic" patients survived, versus 50% of the "placebo" patients. Since the total number in the study was 35 people... it was not that big of a deal.

Do you know any math at all? We have figured out that you don't do percentages, so I guess basic statistics is just beyond any comprehension.

The conclusion I got from both papers is that if you are traveling try not to get sick in either Graz or Vienna while in Austria (stay in Salzburg, it may be touristy, but it is a nice touristy!... though the camping grounds were a bit too close to the train tracks).

Badly Shaved Monkey

6th June 2007, 11:26 PM

The amazing feature of skeptics of homeopathy is that you assume that homeopaths have some magical power that other people don't seem to have and just by "magic" those people get better.

Not at all. What we find is a uniform insistence on taking the credit for spontaneous recoveries and active misrepresentation of what actually happened with cases.

Continuing to reiterate the findings of discredited and weak studies does not help your case.

Nor does your failure to answer some simple, direct questions.

Here they are again- numbered for ease of reference.

1. Can you tell us whether remedies are neutralised by airport X-ray scanners?

2. Can you tell us about 'grafting remedies' and whether he thinks that works.

3. Do you tell agree that during a homeopathic proving the people involve risk serious and long-term harm being caused?

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

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

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

I'll add another now;

5. Can you tell us whether "constitutional remedies" work?

p.s. It is neither big nor clever to invent new words to cover up the holes in your philosophy. "Nano-", as has been pointed out, has a specific meaning. Describing what you practise as "nanopharmacology" is not technically accurate and is obviously a deliberate attempt to obscure the underlying reality. "Homeopathy" is quite sufficiently accurate a description for what you claim to do and we don't need to adopt any more of self-aggrandising jargon from water and sugar retailers.

Interestingly, by wanting to introduce this term you quietly sidestep the fact that all this dilution/solvent substitution business is a complete side issue, as you know doubt know, being an ardent devotee of Hahnemann. The central and primary false conception is "Like cures like". The dilution process only arose to stop you killing people directly with your toxic remedies.

Typical homeopathy, introduce a new false concept to conceal another. If you read the homeopathic literature it is nothing but a sequence of such ad hoc inventions. Clearly some mechanism for homeopathy would be required if it worked. Since it does not, and the trials clearly say this no matter how much its advocates pretend otherwise, we can sweep away this whole fantastical house of cards.

It is such a pity that some people waste their lives shackled to these lies. Presumably it is this personal investment that makes them so resistant to rational dissuasion.

MRC_Hans

6th June 2007, 11:35 PM

Thaks to Mojo for notifying me of this thread. Seems for once I'm not too late to joun the fun.

Understanding water is not a simple subject. I recommend reading the work of Rustum Roy, PhD, professor of material sciences at Penn State University and head of a material sciences lab that the ISI considers to be the best in the world. Besides having almost 700 papers published, he has had 13 papers published in NATURE.

Is he an authority on medicine?

Because I'm still a newbie to this list, I cannot provide a full URL for a recent article. Just add the www to it:

rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure%20of%20Water.pdf

Dr. Roy will have another even more important article published shortly, though I wonder how many of you are serious enough to follow the science.

Water physics is indeed a very interesting area. The big question here is what relevance it has to homeopathy. Homeopathic remedies are prepared using both water and alcohol, and they are stored in lactose. Any physics explaining homeopathy must also include properties of alcohol and lactose.

Finally: We can study the good doctor's papers, and I'm sure several of us will be able to understand them, but you, Mr. Ulmann, are the one who makes a claim. If Dr. Roy's studies are in support of your claim, it is your task to explain how.

As for double-blind research, the arsenic study mentioned previously was a randomized double-blind trial for the GROUP A. This is undeniable. GROUP B choose not to be given a chance for a placebo, and if you wish, you can ignore this group. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that both the people in GROUP A who were given a homeopathic *snip*

Both? BOTH?? Two subjects? DO you call that a randomized double blind study???? Excuse me, but do you know anything at all about statistics?

The amazing feature of skeptics of homeopathy is that you assume that homeopaths have some magical power that other people don't seem to have and just by "magic" those people get better. An easier (and more probable) explanation is that nanopharmacology works.

Well, since you cannot explain how it works (you cannot even come close), it might as well be magic. Nevertheless, the above is a straw-man. We do not believe in magic, remember? The easier, and more probable, explanation is that homeopathy is neither magic not nanopharmacology (you don't support things by inventing new scientific-sounding words), but that it simply doesn't work.

I'm glad that some of you appreciate HORMESIS. If so, why do you think that medicine is ignoring it, despite the 1,000+ studies? Is homeo-phobia real?

Ignore? Is 1,000+ plus studies the same as ignoring in your book?

Hans

fls

7th June 2007, 03:29 AM

As for double-blind research, the arsenic study mentioned previously was a randomized double-blind trial for the GROUP A. This is undeniable. GROUP B choose not to be given a chance for a placebo, and if you wish, you can ignore this group. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that both the people in GROUP A who were given a homeopathic dose of arsenic and the people in GROUP B who were also given this medicine experienced a significant increase in certain detoxifying liver enzymes, while people in GROUP A who were given a placebo didn't.

Now you're just making stuff up. Yes, parts of the studies included a group that was divided into a treatment arm and a control arm. However, the claims of effectiveness are based only on the results from the uncontrolled groups. The first arsenic study did not say it was randomized, and the description of the assignment of medication in the second trial is specifically of a non-random assignment. The liver enzymes were not measured in GROUP A, so your statement about differences in liver enzymes is a fabrication.

The COPD study was another great trial, as was the severe sepsis trial, both of which were conducted at the University of Vienna Hospital.

The results of the sepsis trial would be considered negative if it had been analyzed by conventional standards.

The COPD study is an isolated finding, and at the very least would have to be replicated (preferably not by a team that is heavily invested in the outcome) before one could even begin to suggest that it supports the idea that a sugar pill exposed to a particular water influenced the outcome in this particular situation. It still would not provide evidence for homeopathy for reasons that I provided (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2622498#post2622498)earlier in this thread.

Linda

JJM

7th June 2007, 04:21 AM

@ MRC Hans post #82

Rustum Roy is a retired "material scientist." I tried to read the cited paper; which is quite long and full of jargon. It is pure speculation on water memory, proving mothing. Half-way through, I skipped to the "Conclusion" which claims the paper suggests how to test the speculations.

Roy's argument begins with the lifetime of a hydrogen bond in pure water being 1 microsecond. Then, he argues (i.e., does not demonstrate) that clusters of water molecules may last longer. Then he argues that water clusters may form around a dissolved molecule, and remain after the foreign molecule is removed.

Let us suppose that the cluster lives 1 million times longer than a particular bond. That means the homeopath has one second to deliver a product to a victim; which is not even enough time to prepare said product. To provide a shelf-life of one day, the cluster has to live 84.6 billion times longer than an H-bond- and that is not much of a shelf-life (we like to see five years).

In short, for water to have a usable memory, the lifetime of water clusters must be MUCH greater than is indicated by research.

MRC_Hans

7th June 2007, 04:30 AM

Yes, plus water clusters must be complex enough to hold unique information about several thousand different compounts, several of them highly complex *). And these water clusters must be sturdy enough to transfer their information into new clusters during successive potentization steps. And once you have shown that, you still need to explain the alcohol and lactose connection. AND once you have done that, all you have done is made it possible that potentized remedies might have some biological effect. You then have to prove that like cures like.

Hans

*) IIRR, The most complex water cluster discovered so far consists of 64 water molecules.

Hans

fls

7th June 2007, 04:55 AM

Another reason is that Dana Ullman (despite his lack of math skills and understanding of basic science) has set himself up as a big homeopathy expert. He has written several books... and does practice medicine without a license.

Does any of what we say here trickle down to those people who need to hear it?

I realize that this is the Million Dollar Question (ha ha, I made a funny), but can we really accomplish anything here in some way that gives us a reasonable return for our effort? I think my perspective on the nature of this debate in Cyberworld is much narrower than yours and some of the others here. And I don't know the extent to which the Cyberworld debate impacts the Realworld debate.

Linda

Delusions_O_Grandeur

7th June 2007, 05:58 AM

Does any of what we say here trickle down to those people who need to hear it?

At least to some. This really was the last straw for me. I think I now at last understand why homeopathy is so incredibly persistent. It's persistency is the one thing that had me believe that "there had to be more to it than the placebo effect". I've been readin over the term 'emotional investment' without a second thought until it quite suddenly got stuck in my head and made me remember my experiences with homeopathy.

Healers in general (whether they are doctors or quaks) have a high social standing. Their patients concider them invaluable people in their lives. Homeopathy is an easy way for a person to achieve this standing. Once they have a stable circle of patients who keep telling them they feel better because of their treatments they will put themselves at the same level as a doctor. Because scientific research disproves the efficacy of their remedies they also start to think they know more then conventional doctors because those doctors can't even prove let alone understand how homeopathy cures people while they clearly see that they do. It's really not that hard to simply ignore or put down good scientific research when personal experience is valued above scientific research as a way of life.

Now imagine you're a 50 year old housewife with no higher education and you got all that. What happens when you give that up? From a noble and deeply spiritual healer battleing against sickness and prejudice of scientific researchers you are suddenly reduced to a deluded old woman who sells bottles of water, with virtually no chance of doing anything in the future that comes even close to the glory of her former position.

I tried to explain to my homepathic therapist that based on all the studies I had read that I could no longer believe homeopathy was effective, and that we both had to accept the concequences of that. I had to stop taking medicine, and since she always just wanted to make people's lives better, should close her shop. Well, I just kinda got shut out.

JJM

7th June 2007, 06:02 AM

Does any of what we say here trickle down to those people who need to hear it?

{snip} LindaProbably not directly; but I have learned a lot from many of you. If you recall the movie A Fistful od Dollars "Sometimes a man's life depends on a mere scrap of information."

Sometimes that info can be transferred to the curious; but almost never to the believers.

catbasket

7th June 2007, 06:44 AM

I have made the number big to show how strong the solution is.
That reminds me of the joke somebody posted here a short time back - "Did you hear about the homoepath who forgot to take his medicine? He died of an overdose".

fuelair

7th June 2007, 06:56 AM

Badly Shaved Monkey

7th June 2007, 07:27 AM

Water physics is indeed a very interesting area. The big question here is what relevance it has to homeopathy. Homeopathic remedies are prepared using both water and alcohol, and they are stored in lactose. Any physics explaining homeopathy must also include properties of alcohol and lactose.

You also need to be an expert on lactose tablets next to other lactose tablets and having their powers magically "grafted" onto them, while avoiding being "grafted" with the magic powers of some other adjacent lactose tablets.

For the uninititaed in these magic arts, see;

http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/pro_glossary.html

Mojo

7th June 2007, 07:42 AM

Yes, plus water clusters must be complex enough to hold unique information about several thousand different compounts, several of them highly complex *). And these water clusters must be sturdy enough to transfer their information into new clusters during successive potentization steps. And once you have shown that, you still need to explain the alcohol and lactose connection. AND once you have done that, all you have done is made it possible that potentized remedies might have some biological effect. You then have to prove that like cures like.

Hmm. That sounds like a lot of work.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to first establish whether homoeopathy works and only worry about a mechanism if it can be established that it works?

Badly Shaved Monkey

7th June 2007, 08:06 AM

Hmm. That sounds like a lot of work.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to first establish whether homoeopathy works and only worry about a mechanism if it can be established that it works?

Don't get me started on "long-time, mass-existing", or whatever Kumar's precise formula was!

Cuddles

7th June 2007, 08:21 AM

Roy's argument begins with the lifetime of a hydrogen bond in pure water being 1 microsecond. Then, he argues (i.e., does not demonstrate) that clusters of water molecules may last longer. Then he argues that water clusters may form around a dissolved molecule, and remain after the foreign molecule is removed.

Of course, this raises the problem of how to get the dissolved molecule out. Even if we allow that water forms clusters around molecules and even if we allow them to have lifetimes billions of times greater than that actually observed, it is not possible to remove the molecule without taking the cluster apart, which means that either the dissolved molecules must still be there, which is clearly not the case, or the clusters cannot survive removal of the molecules. Either way, homeopathy fails.

Mojo

7th June 2007, 08:23 AM

Don't get me started on "long-time, mass-existing", or whatever Kumar's precise formula was!

"Mass existing in well distributed people since long with least adversities".

You just have to think bit dynamically. ;)

Michael C

7th June 2007, 08:52 AM

Understanding water is not a simple subject. I recommend reading the work of Rustum Roy, PhD, professor of material sciences at Penn State University and head of a material sciences lab that the ISI considers to be the best in the world. Besides having almost 700 papers published, he has had 13 papers published in NATURE.

http://www.rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure%20of%20Water.pdf

(fixed the URL for you)

In his conclusion, Roy states:

The connection of the imprinting, via succussion and possible epitaxy, of the different specific homeopathic remedies on the structure of water eliminates the primitive criticism of homeopathy being untenable due to the absence of any remnant of the molecules.

Here's my question for JamesGully:

If we accept that water can retain the imprint of whatever was dissolved in it, how can the homeopathic laboratories be sure that the remedies they prepare only contain the imprint of the substance they use at the start of the dilution process, and do not contain imprints from any other substance?

The water they are using for each successive dilution must be full of imprints of many substances: the water has been in contact with the metal of the pipes it flowed through, whatever gases are in the air of the lab, the glass of the vessel which contains it, whatever. There is no known way to test what substances have left their "imprint" on a sample of water, so the laboratories can never prove that the water they are using for the dilutions is "pure", i.e. completely free from imprints.

Who can prove that the final remedy does not in fact contain high homeopathic potencies of duck's urine, copper, nitrogen or other substances with which the water has been in contact?

Mojo

7th June 2007, 10:17 AM

In his conclusion, Roy states: The connection of the imprinting, via succussion and possible epitaxy, of the different specific homeopathic remedies on the structure of water eliminates the primitive criticism of homeopathy being untenable due to the absence of any remnant of the molecules.

This strawman has been mentioned (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=53385) on the forum before. The abstract (http://www.matrice-technology.com/mri/abstract.php?pid=388) of the article says: The most telling argument is the core paradigm of materials science, that properties of a phase are determined by structure, not composition. Hence the single argument used against homeopathy, that because there are no molecules of the remedy left in the final product it cannot be different, is completely negated.

This is not, of course, "the single argument used against homeopathy". The main argument against homoeopathy is that it doesn't work better than placebo.

Incidentally, the editor-in-chief of that journal is a chap called Rustum Roy.

Delusions_O_Grandeur

7th June 2007, 11:57 AM

I'm just curious, how long do you think homeopathy will remain in existence? If it's going to be accepted that it's disproven, every alternative healer with homeopathic medicine in his/her arsenal is going to have to explain why his/her powers or insights were always perscribing ineffective remedies yet are still OK for everything else... Like asking questions about your relationship, future, vacation, job, dead relative etc.

Victor Meldrew

7th June 2007, 01:56 PM

Not to mention an offer of $1m for carrying out such an experiment (assuming homeopathy works, of course...) I mean, if someone offered me a million bucks research funding in exchange for carrying out one simple experiment, I wouldn't really care how 'silly' what they wanted me to do was...hell, if I was asked to wear a clown outfit while working, my response would be 'what type of shoes' :D

Maybe homeopathic research is better funded, though? Or Dana doubts that homeopathy would pass such a 'silly' challenge.

Forget the money: they already make plenty selling diluted products. But the prestige...and just imagine, if you could prove to all the skeptics that they were wrong.....with just one experiment....that would be priceless, wouldn't it?

Can you imagine the worldwide publicity that it would generate, being the first to prove James Randi wrong?

If they really believe it works, they would jump at the chance. Which just shows that they are more than happy to take money of people fraudulently, selling them a product that doesn't work.....they are low life.

Hydrogen Cyanide

7th June 2007, 03:40 PM

Is it just my active imagination, or does this actually look like another Dana Ullman sockpuppet:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/doctor_strange_and_the_only_way_to_make.php#commen t-458678 ?

I kind of figured out in a feeble way why he chose the 'nym of "JamesGully" here. It seems to be something about "Aims for Gullible". Anyway, just that "Gully" needs to be gullible.

JamesGully

7th June 2007, 09:38 PM

Wow...I seem to have stirred up the hornet's nest. What is interesting is how few people on this list seem knowledgeable about homeopathy at all. Usually, a good scientist is humble about he/she knows and doesn't know and realizes that there are many mysteries of this world. I hope that people on this list maintain a healthy humility, and I hope that this discussion encourages you to read homeopathic literature, both the theoretical and the experimental, so that you can speak or write with greater knowledge than I see on this list to date.

Further, the best scientists will take the true scientific attitude to the next step and may experiment with the subject themselves. I encourage you to try homeopathic Arnica (commonly for shock of injury; for injury to soft tissue) or homeopathic Oscillococcinum (for flu symptoms). Because homeopathic medicines are reasonably safe, there isn't too much about which to worry.

For the record, I like the term "nanopharmacology" for a couple of reasons. First, the word "nano" refers to "at least a billionth" and most homeopathic medicines are in this range or further. In actual fact, the vast majority of homeopathic medicines sold in health food stores and pharmacies in the US are at or under the 9X potency (which is in the billionth range). In popular parlance, the word nano has come to mean "very small and yet powerful," and as such, this is an apt description of homeopathic medicines.

For those of you who know the origin of the word "nano," you know that it derives from the word DWARF or DWARFISH, and the exceedingly small doses that are used in homeopathy are obviously dwarfish.

Rather than discuss the clinical research literature or the basic science literature in homeopathy, let's first talk about more fundamental issues in homeopathy...how they may work. First...I do not know a single physician or patient who didn't take aspirin just because s/he didn't know its mechanism of action (and we only began to understand this just 20 or so years ago).

Likewise, just because we don't yet fully understand how homeopathic medicines work doesn't mean that they don't nor does any disproven theory about the mechanism of action disprove clinical efficacy (we can have this discussion at another time).

Let me also suggest that people on this list try to avoid the knee-jerk anti-homeopathic reactions that you've used in the past. Read what I've written below, find and read some or all of the references, and consider the fact that some or all of what is written below may actually be true.

When you consider that homeopathy became popular in the 19th century primarily due to its significant successes in treating epidemics of cholera and typhoid, it seems unlikely that the "placebo response" is an adequate explanation for these successes, especially since these successes were observed all over the world. Other types of MDs, including the allopathic, the naturopathic, the eclectic physicians, osteopaths, or chiropractors, didn't experience similar successes. (For the record, medical historians acknowledge these facts. Are there any medical historians out there? William Rothstein, PhD. is one of many leading and living sources)

Rather than assuming that homeopaths had some magical powers, it is more likely to assume that their medicines were effective.

The renowned astronomer Johann Kepler once said, “Nature uses as little as possible of anything.”

The fact that living organisms have some truly remarkable sensitivity is no controversy. The challenging question that remains is: how does the medicine become imprinted into the water and how does the homeopathic process of dilution with succussion increase the medicine’s power? Although we do not know precisely the answer to this question, some new research may help point the way.

The newest and most intriguing way to explain how homeopathic medicines may work derives from some sophisticated modern technology. Scientists at several universities and hospitals in France and Belgium have discovered that the vigorous shaking of the water in glass bottles causes extremely small amounts of silica fragments or “chips” to fall into the water (Demangeat, Gries, Poitevin, 2004). Perhaps these “silica chips” may help to store the information in the water, with each medicine that is initially placed in the water creating its own pharmacological effect.

Further, the micro-bubbles and the “nano-bubbles” that are caused by the shaking may burst and thereby produce microenvironments of higher temperature and pressure. Several studies by chemists and physicists have revealed increased release of heat from water in which homeopathic medicines are prepared, even when the repeated process of dilutions should suggest that there are no molecules remaining of the original medicinal substance (Elia and Niccoli, 1999; Elia, Baiano, Napoli, 2004; Rey, 2003).

Also, a group of highly respected scientists have confirmed that the vigorous shaking involved with making homeopathic medicines changes the pressure in the water that is akin to water being at 10,000 feet in altitude (Roy, Tiller, Bell, 2005). These world-renown scientists have verified how the homeopathic process of using double-distilled water and then diluting and shaking the medicine in a sequential fashion changes the structure of water (Roy, Tiller, Bell, 2005).

One metaphor that may help us understand how and why extremely small doses of medicinal agents may work derives from present knowledge of modern submarine radio communications. Normal radio waves simply do not penetrate water, so submarines must use an extremely low frequency radio wave. However, the terms “extremely low” are inadequate to describe this specific situation because radio waves used by submarines to penetrate water are so low that a single wavelength is typically several miles long!

As for the questions from "Badly shaven monkey"...I've seen some grafting of homeopathic medicines seem to work sometimes, but this is not any more weird that a magnet magnetizing previously unmagnetized iron. As for X-ray in airports affecting homeopathic medicines, many people are fearful of X-rays but it is NOT conclusive that they neutralize homeopathics. As for those machines...no comment.

Finally, please remember that homeopathic manufacturers use a double-distilled water. We start with a relatively clean slate.

REFERENCES:
Demangeat, J.-L, Gries, P, Poitevin, B, Droesbeke J.-J, Zahaf, T, Maton, F, Pierart, C, Muller, RN, Low-Field NMR Water Proton Longitudinal Relaxation in Ultrahighly Diluted Aqueous Solutions of Silica-Lactose Prepared in Glass Material for Pharmaceutical Use, Applied Magnetic Resonance, 26, 2004:465-481.

Elia, V, and Niccoli, M. Thermodynamics of Extremely Diluted Aqueous Solutions, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 879, 1999:241-248.

Elia, V, Baiano, S, Duro, I, Napoli, E, Niccoli, M, Nonatelli, L. Permanent Physio-chemical Properties of Extremely Diluted Aqueous Solutions of Homeopathic Medicines, Homeopathy, 93, 2004:144-150.

Rey, L. Thermoluminescence of Ultra-High Dilutions of Lithium Chloride and Sodium Chloride. Physica A, 323(2003)67-74.

Roy, Rustum, Tiller, William A., Bell, Iris, Hoover, M. Richard. The Structure of Liquid Water: Novel Insights From Materials Research; Potential Relevance To Homeopathy, Materials Research Innovations. 9,4, December 2005. (Rustom Roy has had 13 papers published in NATURE; Tiller was head of the material sciences dept at Stanford for over a decade; Bell is an MD, PhD, homeopath. Quite an impressive team. Roy's newest research provides experimental evidence that shows specific differences between one homeopathic medicine and another...and one potency and another. More later on this...

Mojo

7th June 2007, 11:29 PM

Rather than discuss the clinical research literature or the basic science literature in homeopathy, let's first talk about more fundamental issues in homeopathy...how they may work.

Why waste time and effort trying to explain an effect that may be non-existant?

What could possibly be a "more fundamental issue" with respect to a treatment than whether or not it actually works?

Mojo

7th June 2007, 11:33 PM

I encourage you to try homeopathic Arnica (commonly for shock of injury; for injury to soft tissue)

I don't think I'll bother. Others seem to have tried it already:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=9820349

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=12562974

Hydrogen Cyanide

7th June 2007, 11:34 PM

...For the record, I like the term "nanopharmacology" for a couple of reasons. First, the word "nano" refers to "at least a billionth" and most homeopathic medicines are in this range or further. In actual fact, the vast majority of homeopathic medicines sold in health food stores and pharmacies in the US are at or under the 9X potency (which is in the billionth range). In popular parlance, the word nano has come to mean "very small and yet powerful," and as such, this is an apt description of homeopathic medicines....

Wrong. Most "homeopathic" stuff is at solutions far more diluted than 10-9. They are usually something ridiculous like 30C or your influenza remedy of 200C of duck stuff. Next week I am going to a function (our sons attend the same high school) at the house of a top-notch nanotechnology researcher (who has excitedly described how one researcher he knows has managed to use these little machines to deliver precise doses of medications to tumors), I will try to remember to relay your opinions on homeopathy as being "nanopharmacology". I am sure it will be quite amusing at your expense (which is one of the reasons I would really like to see you present a paper at a nano conference (http://www.nanotech-now.com/events-2007.htm)!).

You really do not understand simple mathematics at all, do you?

As far as your references go... the Roy Rustum was discussed in this very thread. Did you miss it? Also, Rey's "Thermoluminescence" paper has been the subject of many threads on JREF. Take the time to use the Search function to read how that was disassembled.

Oh, and one paper by someone who actually wants homeopathy to work is really not sufficient (author bias). It really does not count until the research has been replicated. Do you understand what that means? It seems that those who want homeopathy to work tend to create data that supports them... but when the controls are tightened and bias essentially removed homeopathy only works as well as a placebo.

Mojo

7th June 2007, 11:42 PM

What is interesting is how few people on this list seem knowledgeable about homeopathy at all.

...

For the record, I like the term "nanopharmacology" for a couple of reasons. First, the word "nano" refers to "at least a billionth" and most homeopathic medicines are in this range or further. In actual fact, the vast majority of homeopathic medicines sold in health food stores and pharmacies in the US are at or under the 9X potency (which is in the billionth range). I'm amazed that you are ignorant of the common use of remedies at 6X. In popular parlance, the word nano has come to mean "very small and yet powerful," and as such, this is an apt description of homeopathic medicines. In other words, you're using it to try to give homoeopathy a spurious appearence of effectiveness and science (wow, look at that long word!).

I suggest that, if you must use it, you should only use "nanopharmacology" for remedies of around 9X, and use the appropriate prefixes for other potencies.

For those of you who know the origin of the word "nano," you know that it derives from the word DWARF or DWARFISH, and the exceedingly small doses that are used in homeopathy are obviously dwarfish.That's what the word it derives from meant in ancient Greek. It's not what the prefix means in English.

Badly Shaved Monkey

7th June 2007, 11:45 PM

What is interesting is how few people on this list seem knowledgeable about homeopathy at all.

Presumptuous and wrong. Several of us have extensive knowledge of the literature. We certainly understand it better than the deovotees.

Further, the best scientists will take the true scientific attitude to the next step and may experiment with the subject themselves. I encourage you to try homeopathic Arnica (commonly for shock of injury; for injury to soft tissue) or homeopathic Oscillococcinum (for flu symptoms).

This is particularly hilarious. While claiming to understand the scientific method and criticising us for not accepting the homeopaths' published evidence you trot out this most simple, fundamental and serious fallacy. The sad thing is that I suspect you don't have any grasp on why this is so important

Likewise, just because we don't yet fully understand how homeopathic medicines work doesn't mean that they don't nor does any disproven theory about the mechanism of action disprove clinical efficacy (we can have this discussion at another time).

I think you have been told this several times by now. Reading comprehension problem? Show that it works then we can wonder [i]why[/i ] it works. We only discuss of homeopaths' notions of the underlying mecahnisms because they are in themselves so amusing. Please try to grasp this point once and for all: there are no fairies at the bottom of the garden, but it is still fun to comment on homeopaths' ideas of their social etiquette and cultural history.

When you consider that homeopathy became popular in the 19th century primarily due to its significant successes in treating epidemics of cholera and typhoid, it seems unlikely that the "placebo response" is an adequate explanation for these successes, especially since these successes were observed all over the world.

You are quite right. I don't expect any one has seriously suggested that the placebo response would be the explanation.

As a "Master of Public Health" I am sure this is right in the centre of your area of expertise.

So, 6. what are the more likely explanations of these alleged successes?

An honest atttempt to answer this question would be quite useful for you.

Rather than assuming that homeopaths had some magical powers, it is more likely to assume that their medicines were effective.

No. It's not magic. The explanations are much more mundane. Answer question 6 and see whether you can show that you understand this.

...may...may...perhaps...may

and the magic powers of the Invisible Pink Unicorn may potentise homeopathic remedies. So, what?

As for the questions from "Badly shaven monkey"...I've seen some grafting of homeopathic medicines seem to work sometimes,

So, what are we to say of the homeopaths who claim it always works for them?

Why should the multibillion dollar lactose/water/alcohol manfucturers continue in business?

As for X-ray in airports affecting homeopathic medicines, many people are fearful of X-rays but it is NOT conclusive that they neutralize homeopathics.

But some homeopaths say they always neutralise the remedies. Others say they never neutralise the remedies.

We have seen above how keen you are to promote personal anecdotal experience. Please recooncile these contradictory experiences. Or learn something valuable from your inability to do so.

As for those machines...no comment.

Coward. This flat refusal to answer is sufficiently revealing in itself.

But you have missed;

3. Do you tell agree that during a homeopathic proving the people involve risk serious and long-term harm being caused?

5. Can you tell us whether "constitutional remedies" work?

Another hopelessly floundering performance from a famous homeopath. Please try harder or learn from your inability to address these questions adequately.

Mojo

7th June 2007, 11:48 PM

How about calling it "nonopharmacology", to reflect the fact that there's often nothing in it?

Badly Shaved Monkey

7th June 2007, 11:48 PM

Please keep my seat warm, guys. I'm away for the weekend.

Badly Shaved Monkey

7th June 2007, 11:50 PM

How about calling it "nonopharmacology", to reflect the fact that there's often nothing in it?

How about calling the tablets "lactose" and the liquids "water/alcohol"?

Badly Shaved Monkey

7th June 2007, 11:54 PM

Finally, please remember that homeopathic manufacturers use a double-distilled water. We start with a relatively clean slate.

Dammit, missed one.

From your self-proclaimed understanding of the chemistry and physics of water,

7. please explain why, in the context of homeopathic pharmacy, this is so utterly irrelevant. (Clue: do the arithmetic to find out the concentrations of substances other than H2O in DDW).

Claiming the benefits of using DDW actually undermines the logic of your position even further. Can you see why?

Hydrogen Cyanide

7th June 2007, 11:57 PM

Just a note of caution: Do not upset a real pharmacologist.

These are people who know how to kill with stuff that cannot be detected!

(Yes, I live near a large university... So I've attended some parties with some very interestingly weird wickedly smart people!)

Mashuna

7th June 2007, 11:58 PM

Rather than discuss the clinical research literature or the basic science literature in homeopathy, let's first talk about more fundamental issues in homeopathy...how they may work. First...I do not know a single physician or patient who didn't take aspirin just because s/he didn't know its mechanism of action (and we only began to understand this just 20 or so years ago).

So rather than check for clinical efficiency, you want to look for possible reasons how this treatment might work. Seems like putting the cart before the horse to me, but ok. Let's see what the next paragraph says.

Likewise, just because we don't yet fully understand how homeopathic medicines work doesn't mean that they don't nor does any disproven theory about the mechanism of action disprove clinical efficacy (we can have this discussion at another time).

Wait, so now not only are we ignoring the clinical results, we also don't understands how it works either? So the best way to investigate homeopathy is to not get worried just because our theories are disproved and the clinical trials have shown no effect :jaw-dropp .

When you consider that homeopathy became popular in the 19th century primarily due to its significant successes in treating epidemics of cholera and typhoid, it seems unlikely that the "placebo response" is an adequate explanation for these successes, especially since these successes were observed all over the world. Other types of MDs, including the allopathic, the naturopathic, the eclectic physicians, osteopaths, or chiropractors, didn't experience similar successes. (For the record, medical historians acknowledge these facts. Are there any medical historians out there? William Rothstein, PhD. is one of many leading and living sources)

This was the only part that looked interesting, although I'd like to see some more detail on the treatments used and the quality of the supporting evidence. It's amazing that the 19th century successes seem to have dropped right off in the modern day.

One metaphor that may help us understand how and why extremely small doses of medicinal agents may work derives from present knowledge of modern submarine radio communications. Normal radio waves simply do not penetrate water, so submarines must use an extremely low frequency radio wave. However, the terms “extremely low” are inadequate to describe this specific situation because radio waves used by submarines to penetrate water are so low that a single wavelength is typically several miles long!

Not wishing to go into too much detail here, but what is it with homeopathy and bad metaphors? You realise that a long wavelength bears no similarity to non-existant medicine - your metaphor makes no sense. It's up there with the quantum entanglement as a metaphor for homeopathy papers.

Michael C

8th June 2007, 01:05 AM

Finally, please remember that homeopathic manufacturers use a double-distilled water. We start with a relatively clean slate.

But how do you know that it's clean, or even relatively clean? How do you know that the distilling of water removes all the "memory" that it had, but water that comes into contact with lactose and then evaporates will transfer its memory to the lactose? There is not one single piece of experimental evidence for this.

As to having tried homeopathic remedies: oh yes, I've tried them. I've been treated by many homeopaths, including a very eminent French one. I took the remedies carefully, as directed. None of them worked. There was not even the slightest effect.

That got me thinking. And I started gathering information. The first time I took a homeopathic remedy I didn't know anything about the "science" behind it. Now I know a lot. The result: no more homeopathy for me!

MRC_Hans

8th June 2007, 01:41 AM

Wow...I seem to have stirred up the hornet's nest.

Well, you can take that as a compliment. Unfortunately, it is a rare occasion for us to have somebody on board who is both a homeopath and literate. And since we are all here for a good discussion, you shouldn't need to get bored ;).

What is interesting is how few people on this list seem knowledgeable about homeopathy at all.

OTOH, several of us are quite well studied on the subject, at least theoretically. You are, however, welcome to teach us; we all love knowledge.

Usually, a good scientist is humble about he/she knows and doesn't know and realizes that there are many mysteries of this world. I hope that people on this list maintain a healthy humility, and I hope that this discussion encourages you to read homeopathic literature, both the theoretical and the experimental, so that you can speak or write with greater knowledge than I see on this list to date.

Well, perhaps you need to convince us that there is any scientific merit to homeopathy. You know, a good scientist is also economic about his/her time; we can't study every subject in detail, just because it's there.

Further, the best scientists will take the true scientific attitude to the next step and may experiment with the subject themselves. I encourage you to try homeopathic Arnica (commonly for shock of injury; for injury to soft tissue) or homeopathic Oscillococcinum (for flu symptoms). Because homeopathic medicines are reasonably safe, there isn't too much about which to worry.

I think you should be aware that even though, as mentioned, quite a few of them have been bordering on illiterate, we have encountered a good deal of homeopaths. One thing they always ask us to is try out some remedy, probably assuming that this will somehow make us see the light.

Now, since one of our observations about homeoapthy is that subjective observations have nothing to do with science, such testings are really totally irrelevant, but several of us have still made such tests, simply to please our homeopathic opponents. I myself have done so twice. Unfortunately, it appears that none of us have observed any effect.

For the record, I like the term "nanopharmacology" for a couple of reasons. First, the word "nano" refers to "at least a billionth" and most homeopathic medicines are in this range or further.

Actually, our point is that they are not in any range at all. There is NO active ingredient in them whatsoever.

In actual fact, the vast majority of homeopathic medicines sold in health food stores and pharmacies in the US are at or under the 9X potency (which is in the billionth range).

In actual fact, what homeopaths usually prescribe, at least according to the many published case stories, is in the range 30C and higher.

In popular parlance, the word nano has come to mean "very small and yet powerful," and as such, this is an apt description of homeopathic medicines.

This is what we are contesting. It is exactly our position that homeopathy is nothing but "popular parlance". Also, since you profess to be a scientist (at least you ask US to be scientific), you should be above misusing scientific terms in order to achieve public appeal.

For those of you who know the origin of the word "nano," you know that it derives from the word DWARF or DWARFISH, and the exceedingly small doses that are used in homeopathy are obviously dwarfish.

No, they are not dwarfish. Unless you are able to prove otherwise, we must maintain that they are non-existent.

Rather than discuss the clinical research literature or the basic science literature in homeopathy, let's first talk about more fundamental issues in homeopathy...how they may work. First...I do not know a single physician or patient who didn't take aspirin just because s/he didn't know its mechanism of action (and we only began to understand this just 20 or so years ago).

That is one route we could take. In that case, let us discuss the concept of "like cures like". This, much more than potentized remedies, is the cornerstone of homeopathy. For homeopathy to work at all, like cures like must be a universal principle. Please provide your evidence for this to be the case. Note that isolated situations where like actually appears to cure like is not enough; homeopathy needs it to be universal.

Likewise, just because we don't yet fully understand how homeopathic medicines work doesn't mean that they don't nor does any disproven theory about the mechanism of action disprove clinical efficacy (we can have this discussion at another time).

Of course not. In principle you cannot prove a negative. So let's prove a positive, instead: Where is your positive proof of clinical efficacy?

Let me also suggest that people on this list try to avoid the knee-jerk anti-homeopathic reactions that you've used in the past. Read what I've written below, find and read some or all of the references, and consider the fact that some or all of what is written below may actually be true.

Let me remind you again, that you are not the first homeopath to present the case for homeopathy here. The apparant knee-jerk reactions are simply people reiterating arguments that we have had to use many times before. The homeopaths preceding you have failed to counter them. Maybe you can do better.

When you consider that homeopathy became popular in the 19th century primarily due to its significant successes in treating epidemics of cholera and typhoid, it seems unlikely that the "placebo response" is an adequate explanation for these successes, especially since these successes were observed all over the world.

Unfortunately, when studying the accounts of the application of homeopathy to cholera and thyphoid epedemics, it becomes obvious that the results of the homeopathic practitioners is not readily comparable with those of other practitioners. They also used much improved hygiene, and their patients were primarily privileged people (because they had to pay for the service), whereas the regular hospitals had to deal with whoever presented.

Finally, I think it is telling that homeopaths seem to need to dig centuries back to produce their success stories. Can't you present something a little more recent?

Rather than assuming that homeopaths had some magical powers, it is more likely to assume that their medicines were effective.

You keep saying this. Who exactly is it who is assuming that homeopaths have magic powers?

The renowned astronomer *snip*

I am afraid that all these "if"s and "maybe"s will not impress us much.

Normal radio waves simply do not penetrate water, so submarines must use an extremely low frequency radio wave. However, the terms “extremely low” are inadequate to describe this specific situation because radio waves used by submarines to penetrate water are so low that a single wavelength is typically several miles long!

And the relevance of this is?

As for the questions from "Badly shaven monkey"...I've seen some grafting of homeopathic medicines seem to work sometimes, but this is not any more weird that a magnet magnetizing previously unmagnetized iron.

Yes, it is indeed more weird. You see, we know exactly why a magnet can magnetize a peice of steel. We know the exact physics.

As for X-ray in airports affecting homeopathic medicines, many people are fearful of X-rays but it is NOT conclusive that they neutralize homeopathics.

But please explain: WHY is it not conclusive? Why have homeopaths not found out conclusively? How difficult is it to take a remedy, test if it works, expose it to x-rays, and test if it still works?

Ahh, yes: You cannot test whether a remedy works.

As for those machines...no comment.

I take it then that you agree that such machines are sham.

Finally, please remember that homeopathic manufacturers use a double-distilled water. We start with a relatively clean slate.

Unfortunately, double destilled water is only clean to about 0.01 ppm, which corresponds to 4C. Below that, the impurities in the water will outnumber the remaining mother tincture.

Roy's newest research provides experimental evidence that shows specific differences between one homeopathic medicine and another...and one potency and another. More later on this...

Then perhaps HE can test whether X-rays influence remedies or not?

A note: In the above, I several times take the liberty of using the word "we". Obviously, I really speak for nobody here but myself, but as we have been covering this ground repeatedly, I know my position is in accordance with several others here. Hence "we".

Hans

Lothian

8th June 2007, 02:28 AM

I've seen some grafting of homeopathic medicines seem to work sometimes, but this is not any more weird that a magnet magnetizing previously unmagnetized ironExcuse my ignorance here I am a little confused. I understood that grafting was a legitimate method of homeopathic pill manufacture. You appear to be giving it a Lukewarm reception.

Can you please clarify.

1. Does homeopathic grafting always work ?

2. In what cases will it not work ?

3. If you graft a pill of C30 (or C200 if you want to work with something stronger) concentrate onto a bottle of blanks, can you tell (without administering them to a patient) whether they have taken on the properties of the master pill ?

Further to this last question and your magnet analogy. I understand that when a piece of magnetised iron is used to magnetise an unmagnetised piece; the magnetism in the original weakens.

How does this principle work with homeopathic grafting ? Does the strength of the original pill like the magnet get weaker?

If so does that mean the mother tincture gets more concentrated or does it mean the pill gets more potentised. In other words will multiple grafting of a C30 pill turn it into a C1 or C100 ?

Thanks in advance for your expert analysis.

MRC_Hans

8th June 2007, 02:38 AM

Further to this last question and your magnet analogy. I understand that when a piece of magnetised iron is used to magnetise an unmagnetised piece; the magnetism in the original weakens.

How does this principle work with homeopathic grafting ? Does the strength of the original pill like the magnet get weaker?

Sorry, but this is wrong. In pratice, it might happen if the permanence of the original magnet is poor, but it is not a case of magnetism being transferred to the new magnet. The energy required to create the new magnet is obtained in other ways (for example from the motion involved in the action). In principle, a magnet can be used to magnetize en indefinite number of magnets, without loosing strenght.

Hans

Mojo

8th June 2007, 02:45 AM

For the record, I like the term "nanopharmacology" for a couple of reasons. First, the word "nano" refers to "at least a billionth" and most homeopathic medicines are in this range or further. In actual fact, the vast majority of homeopathic medicines sold in health food stores and pharmacies in the US are at or under the 9X potency (which is in the billionth range).I'm amazed that you are ignorant of the common use of remedies at 6X. In other words, you're using it to try to give homoeopathy a spurious appearence of effectiveness and science (wow, look at that long word!). In popular parlance, the word nano has come to mean "very small and yet powerful," and as such, this is an apt description of homeopathic medicines.

I suggest that, if you must use it, you should only use "nanopharmacology" for remedies of around 9X, and use the appropriate prefixes for other potencies.

That's what the word it derives from meant in ancient Greek. It's not what the prefix means in English.

Ah. On reading Hans's more recent reply, I see that I may have been a little confused about what you meant by "under the 9X potency". I thought you were talking about remedies more dilute than 9X; you may have meant less dilute. You are not entirely clear; when you say "at least a billionth", do you mean "diluted by a factor of a billion or more" or "diluted by a factor of a billion or less"?

If you were talking about potencies of 9X and less, it still is inappropriate to describe 6X as "nano-" anything. The correct prefix is "micro-".

And, as Hans has pointed out, dilutions far greater than 9X are in common use. There is an appropriate prefix for you to use for most of these: "yocto-", which corresponds to 10-24. At this level or above they're all the same.

Ivor the Engineer

8th June 2007, 02:57 AM

<snip>
When you consider that homeopathy became popular in the 19th century primarily due to its significant successes in treating epidemics of cholera and typhoid, it seems unlikely that the "placebo response" is an adequate explanation for these successes, especially since these successes were observed all over the world. Other types of MDs, including the allopathic, the naturopathic, the eclectic physicians, osteopaths, or chiropractors, didn't experience similar successes. (For the record, medical historians acknowledge these facts. Are there any medical historians out there? William Rothstein, PhD. is one of many leading and living sources)

Ah, I see... So when faced with a cholera outbreak in a refugee camp and with a supply of clean water available, you would recommend mixing the cholera with the clean water at a potency of 6X (nothing to powerful)?

Rolfe

8th June 2007, 04:00 AM

Please keep my seat warm, guys. I'm away for the weekend.
Lucky blighter! I'm not promising to keep the seat warm, because the number of boxes to be unpacked in the New House has just doubled and I think my time may be better spent in having a nervous breakdown, but I may call in from time to time.

Going back to the start of the thread, what struck me as interesting was the reaction the original blog post about a Dr. Strange comic provoked in James Gully, especially if we are correct in assuming he and Dana Ullman are one and the same (and I don't see him denying it). The post and the subsequent discussion were a jokey aside - certainly by homoeopathic unbelievers, but still not a serious attack. And yet suddenly we have this po-faced apologist jumping in as if it was a Lancet editorial he had to respond to!

This seemed to me to be extraordinary behaviour from a busy "professional" homoeopath. Why should he stoop to concern himself about such a minor off-hand comment? How did he know about it in the first place? How long does he spend searching the Internet for sceptical comments on homoeopathy so that he can go in to rebut them? Is this the best use he can find for his time?

Yes, yes, I know, here I am and here we all are, but I find debating with homoeopaths to be amusing. It's a hobby of mine. I certainly don't spend my free time trawling the net for people making dismissive comments about the type of medicine I practice and jumping in to "set them right" - I've got enough work to do simply doing the work!

So, I just think it's an interesting insight that he does this. As I find it interesting the Peter Fisher chose to post a Guardian "Comment is Free" article defending homoeopathy. Can you see Robert Winston posting a similar article promoting IVF, or Magdi Yacoub doing the same regarding heart transplants? Or jumping into Marvel Comics discussions that seem a bit critical of their subjects? Somehow I doubt it. My impression is that in spite of its apparent current popularity, homoeopathy's number is close to being up. Too many people are asking awkward questions. Too many healthcare providers are looking for objective evidence of efficacy and value for money, and starting to hold homoeopathy to the same standards real medicine has to meet. And vague hand-waving along the lines of "people want it" and "70% of our patients said in a questionnaire that they thought they felt at least a little better" (a frankly pathetic result) just aren't going to cut it. So we see a fair bit of defensiveness here.

Even if Mr. Gully/Ullman doesn't want to take up the million dollar challenge, the basic question it poses is still a valid one. Is it possible to distinguish a potentised homoeoapthic preparation from the unpotentised stock solvent, in any way at all? Homoeopaths claim to be able to affect the real world (either by "curing" people, or by inducing proving symptoms in them), in a way which is at least predictable enough to provide a useful and practical means of treating illness. Surely it shouldn't be beyond the wit of any of them to devise a protocol for demonstrating that they can actually tell the tools of their trade from unprepared material?

This is, you see, at the very heart of the debate. The mammalian organism is an extremely complicated affair, possibly the most complicated entity known to science. It has a remarkable capacity for self-repair. It also has many many weird things that can go wrong which are hard or impossible to predict. It is for this reason that we simply can't take all these anecdotal and uncontrolled stories at face value. We all know that most things, left to themselves, get better anyway. We also know that drastic things can strike out of the blue. It's a perfect example of how the post hoc ergo proper hoc fallacy works, especially when you factor in the emotional involvement of the patient in his or her own health, their desire to get better, and the desire of any healthcare worker to get them better.

One thing which distinguishes homoeopaths from real medics is their approach to this problem. Real medicine never assumes that just because B follows A, B has been caused by A. Even when it seems to have happened quite often. Instead it asks, how would A progress if I didn't do anything? What would happen if I did something different? What would happen if both I and the patient thought that the usual thing had been done, but in fact some saboteur had replaced my magic potion with a dummy solution? This way, progress happens. (Something which is entirely foreign to homoeopathy by the way - I simply can't understand those homoeopaths who take pride in the unchanging nature of their practice. It's as if someone was rejecting a brand new top-of-the-range Jaguar because a Model T Ford was just so obvioulsy the pinnacle of the art and couldn't be improved upon.)

Homoeopaths simply don't seem to think like that. Instead of asking, what other explanations could there be for my observation, and honestly looking for these with an open mind, we see a closed-minded leap to the post hoc ergo propter hoc conclusion without a backward glance. The rest of the hand-waving about quantum metaphors and water clusters and so on is simply a backside-covering exercise in post hoc justification.

We can't get a straight answer as to whether airport security scanners deactivate homoeopathic remedies because there's no way to tell whether a remedy is active or not. We can't get a straight answer as to whether or not grafting works because there's no way to test whether the product of the grafting is active or not. We don't know what to think about the eLybra and similar devices, because the products of these machines are indistinguishable in every possible way from the products of classical dilution and succussion.

And remember, Mr. Gully/Ullman, the evidence provided by those who believe that grafting is effective, or that the eLybra works, is exactly the same as the evidence you provide for your brand of homoeopathy. That is, anecdotal, uncontrolled and subjective.

So how about addressing this very simple point? How can you distinguish an active homoeopathic remedy from the inactive stock solvent? Because until you can do that, you can make no progress at all towards answering these very fundamental questions about under what circumstances an alleged homoeoapthic remedy is the real deal or not.

And just as a supplementary, the matter of the water. How do you know that double distilling the water wipes its memory? Where is the experimental database to justify that assertion? How do you know that ordinary tap water isn't just as good (or bad)? And finally, if double distilling is so important, what did Hahnemann use for his preparations, on whose results the whole foundation of the method is based?

Rolfe.

MRC_Hans

8th June 2007, 04:11 AM

Heheh.. JamesGully, meet Rolfe. Now we all know exactly who's seat is going to be kept warm ;).

Hans

Mojo

8th June 2007, 04:29 AM

:popcorn1

Cuddles

8th June 2007, 04:58 AM

When you consider that homeopathy became popular in the 19th century

Homeopathy didn't "become popular" in the 19th century it was invented in the 19th century.

How about calling the tablets "lactose" and the liquids "water/alcohol"?

I vote for calling them alcohol. And drinking them in copious amounts.

JamesGully

8th June 2007, 07:24 PM

Badly Shaven Monkey said that there was discussion elsewhere on this list that provided a critique of Rey's thermoluminesence work. I read a lot of study on this list about his work, but I saw no reasonable or good critique of it. Because it was published in such a high grade physics journal, the ball is in the skeptics' court to provide a specific critique. Please enlighten me.

I appreciate Hans remarks about me (calling me "literate"). Thanx Hans. You're one of the few gentlemen here. There is too much name-calling and knee-jerk reactions.

I was disappointed that nobody made any comment on my reference to the recent discovery of silica fragments falling off from the inner part of glass bottles in the making of the homeopathic medicines. Because homeopaths have always used a double-distilled water, this "contamination" with silica or silicate fragments may help us understand the possibility of a certain physicality to the homeopathic doses even beyond Avogadro's number.

Although Hans doesn't like it when I (or probably anyone else) uses the word "may," I prefer to remain humble in what I know (and don't know) until there is further verification (skeptics should appreciate this type of attitude rather than rebuke it).

The fact that double-distilled water has both silica fragments floating in it along with whatever was the original medicinal substance, I wonder if the structure of the water is changed.

I realize this concept of "structure of water" may be foreign to many people, but think of it this way: what is the chemical difference between a blank CD-ROM and a CD-ROM that has 18 encyclopedias on it? Structure actually is very important.

Another important question is: what is the chemical difference between graphite and diamond? Nothing...and yet, one of one of the softest elements and one is one of the hardest. It isn't the chemical composition that is so important as it is its structure.

As for the CDs: there is NO chemical difference between the two CD-ROMs. The difference between these 2 disks is that information is stored on one and there is no information stored on the other.

The bottomline here is that homeopaths may have found a way to store information in water. I realize that most of the people on this list tend to have a knee-jerk anti-homeopathic reaction, but I challenge you all to explore the possibility that the homeopaths may be right.

In the meantime, please also consider reviewing the other articles that I referenced earlier by the Italian chemistry professor Elia whose work has been published in grade A science journals.

I realize that some of you will try to pick out one error in my thinking, and I do not claim to be a techie...but I urge you to explore AND acknowledge what may be RIGHT in what I've presented here (this may be a rare one for you...but can it happen?).

Yahzi

8th June 2007, 10:03 PM

Obviously, I really speak for nobody here but myself
Don't be so modest.

You're speaking for everybody with a brain.

:)

Yahzi

8th June 2007, 10:07 PM

How can you distinguish an active homoeopathic remedy from the inactive stock solvent?
What? That's easy!

An active remedy is one you pay me for.

:D

Yahzi

8th June 2007, 10:14 PM

I realize this concept of "structure of water" may be foreign to many people, but think of it this way: what is the chemical difference between a blank CD-ROM and a CD-ROM that has 18 encyclopedias on it? Structure actually is very important.
It's not that the concept of structure of water is foreign to us; it is that the concept of structure is foreign to you.

Structure implies, well, structure. Water implies the opposite of structure; liquids are a state characterized by their lack of structure. Indeed, if they had structure, they wouldn't be liquids.

Ice has structure. Because it's, you know, solid. Ice particles don't move around.

Water does not have structure. Because it's, you know, liquid. Water particles move around.

You keep talking about CDs and information. Well, have you ever tried to write your name on water?

I can write my name on a CD with a pen, an old rusty nail, or a complicated CD writing machine. But the only way I can write my name in water, and read it 3 seconds later, is if I freeze the water first.

So it has, you know, structure.

I realize that some of you will try to pick out one error in my thinking
The only difficulty was restricting myself to one.

but I urge you to explore AND acknowledge what may be RIGHT in what I've presented here (this may be a rare one for you...but can it happen?).
Ah, nothing is more ironic than a post that begins with a plea for us to avoid knee-jerk namecalling, and ends with an insult to our integrity.

Mojo

8th June 2007, 10:19 PM

Gravy

9th June 2007, 12:28 AM

I do not answer really stupid questions like that. I'm more interest in controlled clinical trials. Are you? Are you or are you not interested in scientific experiments?

...I'm not as interested in theories as I am in controlled studies.

Said "controlled studies" shown to be bunk. 45 minutes later:

Rather than discuss the clinical research literature or the basic science literature in homeopathy, let's first talk about more fundamental issues in homeopathy...how they may work. First...I do not know a single physician or patient who didn't take aspirin just because s/he didn't know its mechanism of action (and we only began to understand this just 20 or so years ago).

Likewise, just because we don't yet fully understand how homeopathic medicines work doesn't mean that they don't nor does any disproven theory about the mechanism of action disprove clinical efficacy (we can have this discussion at another time).

Seriously, James/Dana, have you no shame? I've never seen such a fast retreat back to the emotional safety of woo-woo "theory." What happened to your challenge to examine controlled studies?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/graphics/2006/03/25/cmbadv25.jpg

Mojo

9th June 2007, 01:08 AM

"When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Yes brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly chickened out."

Michael C

9th June 2007, 01:16 AM

I realize this concept of "structure of water" may be foreign to many people, but think of it this way: what is the chemical difference between a blank CD-ROM and a CD-ROM that has 18 encyclopedias on it?

No, there's no chemical difference between the two CD-ROMs. But there is a vital difference between the CD-ROM with 18 encyclopaedias on it and some water that may or may not have information stored in it: we know exactly how to get the information into the CD-ROM and we know exactly how to get it out again. If we send the CD-ROM to somebody without telling them what's on it, they can find out. But what if we send them a bottle of water? They have absolutely no way of telling if the structure of the water contains information from arnica, nux vomica, pulsatilla or maybe nothing at all. And the best homeopathic laboratories in the world cannot help them.

So I'll repeat my question, because it would be nice to have a straight answer:

How do you know that the distilling of water removes all the "memory" that it had, but water that comes into contact with lactose and then evaporates will transfer its memory to the lactose?

Geckko

9th June 2007, 01:32 AM

Rolfe

9th June 2007, 03:42 AM

Silica? Wow, Kumar lives!

Before speculating as to how homoeopathic remedies might "work", it is first necessary to show objectively that they do have some effect. Medically, we have seen nothing which can't be explained by coincidental recovery and wishful thinking. Individual reports of dramatic miracle cures retreat into statistical noise when any larger trial is done. The best anecdotes James has recounted are so old that nobody can check their veracity. Statistically positive reports are invariably published by homoeopathic proponents and open to much methodological criticism. Nobody has ever been able to design a satisfactory trial which gives repeatable results no matter who is carrying it out.

Proving trials are full of subjectivity and post hoc rationalisation. Where there are control subjects, they invariably report just as interesting symptoms as those given the remedy. While many homoeopaths insist that one only has to take a remedy and experience the proving symptoms to be convinced (and I have done this at the urging of one of them and experienced nothing out of the ordinary), none of them is able to distinguish between a real potentised remedy and the unpotentised stock carrier material in this way.

So why is there any need to propose weird and wonderful theories about the memory of water when we have no proven repeatable phenomenon which needs such an explanation? James, don't you realise that if you had a real effect there, one which you or anyone else could reliably demonstrate, the world's physicists and chemists would be all over it, trying to find out what's going on that apparently contradicts all they think they know about the universe? And hey, they'd start by examining the phenomenon, not by assuming the phenomenon exists and going off at a tangent looking for possible mechanisms which don't really relate to the phenomenon as described (for example, if the phenomenon is described in normal water, they won't be looking in deuterated water). Instead, all we see are one or two homoeopathic enthusiasts clearly in well over their heads, publishing work which is mainly composed of speculation about what might possibly cause a phenomenon they can't actually demonstrate.

First, demonstrate your phenomenon in a way that will convince reasonable people that there's more there than coincidence and imagination. Then we'll see. You could start by showing that you can actually tell a potentised remedy, the basic tool of your trade, from an unpotentised sham. Any way you like. Any way at all. If you can't do it, then what is there to explain?

Because homeopaths have always used a double-distilled water, ....
Please demonstrate that Hahnemann, who after all claimed to have discovered the alleged phenomenon, did all the early investigation of it, and whose work is still held to be the basis of all homoeopathic practice, used double distilled water.

Rolfe.

Delusions_O_Grandeur

9th June 2007, 06:52 AM

JamesGully:

There really is only one hope left for homeopathy. Test a homeopathic remedy while carrying out proofings simultaneously. Take three randomly composed groups. Use group A to carry out the proofing. After those symptons occuring more often than expected in group A have been determined, see if these *specific* symptons also occur more often than expected in group B. It is imperative that the experimenters doing the proofing are not aware of the results from group B until they are done. If the spikes in group A were caused by chance, you will have little chance to find the same spikes again in group B. Group C will be your placebo control group. Any symptons occuring unusually often in this group are the result of bias, and may not be used to find common spikes between group A and B.

JamesGully

9th June 2007, 07:48 AM

Before I reference some of the clinical trials, I thought I would first focus our discussion on a more difficult subject: how homeopathic medicines may work.

I still find it interesting that no one is responding to my references to the high quality basic science research published in grade A science journals, specifically the work of Rey, Elia, and Roy. Roy's work on the "structure of water" seems to be too technical for some of you. That's OK...I don't expect everyone to understand every area of science, but just because you don't understand how you can "write" on homeopathy doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

P.W. Bridgman, PhD, former professor of physics at Harvard for a couple of decades, and he is a Nobel Laureate. He wrote a book called THE PHYSICS OF HIGH ALTITUDE. He found that whenever one takes water to certain altitudes and freeze it, it freezes in a different pattern based on the high pressure of altitude. However, he found that once water is frozen at one altitude, it "remembers" the structure of the water and refreezes in a similar pattern at a different altitude. Water does seem to have a memory, and you can seem to "write" on it.

Since some of you claim to be literate on homeopathy, I challenge you to answer one of the most basic questions about homeopathy: HOW DOES A HOMEOPATH DETERMINE WHAT A MEDICINE IS EFFECTIVE IN TREATING?

Several years ago, I debated Saul Green, PhD, a chemist and skeptic of homeopathy. He thoroughy embarrassed himself and fellow skeptics by answering this question by saying that it was "folk wisdom." Needless to say, that is not the right answer.

What do YOU think is the right answer?

Michael C

9th June 2007, 08:18 AM

Since some of you claim to be literate on homeopathy, I challenge you to answer one of the most basic questions about homeopathy: HOW DOES A HOMEOPATH DETERMINE WHAT A MEDICINE IS EFFECTIVE IN TREATING?

As far as I know, the process used is that known as "proving". A number of people are given a homeopathic preparation of a substance (30c potency seems to be popular) and any symptoms they report are noted. In the reports of proving that I've seen, the homeopaths and the provers apparently knew what the original substance was, and there seemed to be a lot of subjective analysis of data.

I'll be very grateful if you can give a detailed account of how proving is done, or point me to some references. In particular, two things interest me:

1. Are any provings done using double-blind methods?

2. If you had two homeopathic remedies with dissimilar effects, but had lost the labels on the bottles so that you no longer knew which remedy was in which bottle, could a proving enable you to find out which was which?

Pipirr

9th June 2007, 08:26 AM

I still find it interesting that no one is responding to my references to the high quality basic science research published in grade A science journals, specifically the work of Rey, Elia, and Roy. Roy's work on the "structure of water" seems to be too technical for some of you. That's OK...I don't expect everyone to understand every area of science, but just because you don't understand how you can "write" on homeopathy doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

Dana, for a pithy comment Louis Rey's research, allow me to quote the man who kick-started the 'memory of water' idiocy, Jacques Benveniste:

"This is interesting work, but Rey's experiments were not blinded and although he says the work is reproducible, he doesn't say how many experiments he did."

Quite so.

Perhaps you and your colleagues would like to put some of your large profit margins to good use, and try to repeat his work, using better designed protocols. Heck, if even Benveniste can see the faults, that piece of science must have really stunk.

So how about it? What plans do you have to increase the evidence base for homeopathy? Or are you just going to cling to opinion pieces and speculation by retired professors?

Mojo

9th June 2007, 10:54 AM

Since some of you claim to be literate on homeopathy, I challenge you to answer one of the most basic questions about homeopathy: HOW DOES A HOMEOPATH DETERMINE WHAT A MEDICINE IS EFFECTIVE IN TREATING? You're asking about homoeopathic "provings". A remedy is given to a number of volunteers and they report what they feel. It's often said that homoeopaths then use the remedy to treat patients suffering from a similar pattern of symptoms to those apparently produced by the remedy.

This isn't really how homoeopaths (or classical homoeopaths, at least) treat patients, though. They ask the patient for a detailed description of their symptoms, and then select an appropriate remedy. If this doesn't work, they select another remedy. This is repeated until the patient appear to show an improvement, or appears to get worse (this is described as an "aggravation"). The last remedy given is then identified as the correct one.

So in fact the way homoeopaths determine what a remedy is effective in treating is to apply the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy on an individualised case-by-case basis.

Gravy

9th June 2007, 12:19 PM

Before I reference some of the clinical trials, I thought I would first focus our discussion on a more difficult subject: how homeopathic medicines may work.Still running away? It's been repeatedly explained to you that unless homeopathy can be shown to work, there's no need to hypothesize about its mechanism. Without properly controlled, repeatable results to point to, we may as well be discussing how prayer works or how unicorn bladders function.

I still find it interesting that no one is responding to my references to the high quality basic science research published in grade A science journals, specifically the work of Rey, Elia, and Roy. Roy's work on the "structure of water" seems to be too technical for some of you. That's OK...I don't expect everyone to understand every area of science, but just because you don't understand how you can "write" on homeopathy doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.Please direct me to the properly controlled, repeatable studies that demonstrate the efficacy of homeopathy.

P.W. Bridgman, PhD, former professor of physics at Harvard for a couple of decades, and he is a Nobel Laureate. He wrote a book called THE PHYSICS OF HIGH ALTITUDE. He found that whenever one takes water to certain altitudes and freeze it, it freezes in a different pattern based on the high pressure of altitude. However, he found that once water is frozen at one altitude, it "remembers" the structure of the water and refreezes in a similar pattern at a different altitude. Water does seem to have a memory, and you can seem to "write" on it. You're digging deeper and deeper. Evidence that water "remembers" a compound of which no molecules are present? Well?

Since some of you claim to be literate on homeopathy, I challenge you to answer one of the most basic questions about homeopathy: HOW DOES A HOMEOPATH DETERMINE WHAT A MEDICINE IS EFFECTIVE IN TREATING?A homeopath doesn't, since homeopaths don't use medicine. Feel free to prove me wrong by pointing to those trials and studies.

What seems to be the delay?

Hydrogen Cyanide

9th June 2007, 11:55 PM

"When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Yes brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly chickened out."

Hence the term: Brave Sir Dana

Oh, I notice Mr. Gully is complaining that "no one responded to the "scientific" studies I mentioned" ... actually, we have. You just chose to ignore them. For instance the Rey studies have been discussed often on this forum, all you have to do is use the search feature to find them (hint, look at the bottom of the black banner on top of the page for the word "Search").

Madalch

10th June 2007, 01:00 PM

I was disappointed that nobody made any comment on my reference to the recent discovery of silica fragments falling off from the inner part of glass bottles in the making of the homeopathic medicines. Because homeopaths have always used a double-distilled water, this "contamination" with silica or silicate fragments may help us understand the possibility of a certain physicality to the homeopathic doses even beyond Avogadro's number.
If this were the cause of homeopathic "cures", then any water that's been in a glass container will work as well as any remedy, the only difference being in the kind of glass (fused quartz, borosilicate, etc) used. There'd be no difference between one "remedy" and another, or the water that comes straight out of the kitchen tap and into a glass.

Another important question is: what is the chemical difference between graphite and diamond? Nothing...and yet, one of one of the softest elements and one is one of the hardest. It isn't the chemical composition that is so important as it is its structure.

The chemical difference between diamond and graphite is not nothing. They may have the same elemental composition (pure carbon), but the molecular structure is completely different- graphite contains sheets of sp2 hybridized carbons; diamond contains a lattice of sp3 hybridized carbons.

When we talk about structural differences, we're talking about molecular structures- that's why diamond is different from graphite, and ethanol is different from dimethyl ether (despite them both being C2H6O).

Water does not change its molecular structure. It's an oxygen with two hydrogens bonded to it, with approximately 109 degrees between the two O-H bonds.

Any further structure in the liquid state doesn't last for any significant amount fo time.

Lothian

11th June 2007, 03:41 AM

HOW DOES A HOMEOPATH DETERMINE WHAT A MEDICINE IS EFFECTIVE IN TREATING?I think the replies to this to date have looked at theory rather than practice.

In practice a homeopath will talk to the patient about the individuality of homeopathic treatments and how there are not general homeopathic medicines that always work, rather homeopathy is a delicate balance between medicine and the patient, a balance that needs a homeopath to manage. (Lets face it homeopaths don’t want a customer paying £2.30 a bottle down the local health shop when he can dispense within a £40 session).

What the homeopath will do is prescribe a different combination of placebos each ‘treatment’ and once the patient recovers he will determine that the last prescribed treatments were effective

JJM

11th June 2007, 04:54 AM

Linda (fls) asked what we get out of this. I replied that I learn from many of you.

I must ask- what does GullyUllman get from this? His profound ignorance and immunity to education are manifest; and he is clearly, intellectually outclassed.

Cuddles

11th June 2007, 05:46 AM

As for the CDs: there is NO chemical difference between the two CD-ROMs. The difference between these 2 disks is that information is stored on one and there is no information stored on the other.

Actually this is not quite true. Store-bought CDs have the information stamped onto them in a physical structure, that is true. However, homeopathy seems closer to recordable or re-writeable CDs where a blank CD can be written to and later wiped and used again. These CDs use a chemical dye that exists in two distinct forms which reflect the light in difference ways. When light of a specific frequency is shone on the dye it changes from one form to the other. The whole principle behind CDs is in fact chemistry. The difference between a blank CD-R and one with data is the chemistry.

Of course, the more important thing that you fail to noice is that chemistry is structure. That's all it is. Chemistry is all about the bonds between atoms and molecules. If the structure is different then so is the chemistry. That's the whole point of it. You can't say that something has a different structure but no chemical difference because the difference in structure is a chemical difference.

You claim there is no chemical difference between diamond and graphite? Clearly you have no understanding whatsoever of chemistry. The very big chemical difference between them is that in one each carbon atom has three covalent bonds while in the other each atom has four. I'll leave it as a class exercise for you to determine which is which.

kieran

11th June 2007, 06:05 AM

The fact that double-distilled water has both silica fragments floating in it along with whatever was the original medicinal substance, I wonder if the structure of the water is changed.

I realize this concept of "structure of water" may be foreign to many people, but think of it this way: what is the chemical difference between a blank CD-ROM and a CD-ROM that has 18 encyclopedias on it? Structure actually is very important.

Another important question is: what is the chemical difference between graphite and diamond? Nothing...and yet, one of one of the softest elements and one is one of the hardest. It isn't the chemical composition that is so important as it is its structure.

As for the CDs: there is NO chemical difference between the two CD-ROMs. The difference between these 2 disks is that information is stored on one and there is no information stored on the other.

The bottomline here is that homeopaths may have found a way to store information in water. I realize that most of the people on this list tend to have a knee-jerk anti-homeopathic reaction, but I challenge you all to explore the possibility that the homeopaths may be right.

I can, without wasting too much of my otherwise valuable time, devise extensive tests for whether a CD-ROM is blank or has 18 encyclopedias on it, and also whether a particular substance is graphite or diamond ... If these issues were in debate (and applicable for the JREF prize) then I'd be at the front of the cue to take a test.

Many people have tried to construct tests about whether there is any effect on the water or the patients with homoeopathy - but the best that can be said is that there is a very slight statistical anomaly in some studies. :wink:

Some people speculate about how it might work ... big deal. :xrolleyes

I prefer not to waste my time speculating about how something (for which there is no evidence) may or may not, work. Am I taking a fundamentally stupid or lazy position? :con2:

If there was a shread of reasonable and reproducable evidence then I'd be more than happy to use up time and effort understanding or speculating on how it works. So homoeopaths may be right, but they are just completely inept at illustrating any kind of homoeopathic effect, so it is more likely that they are, in fact, wrong.

Now, what smoke-screen do you wish to move on to in order to cover up your actual lack of any evidence?

Hydrogen Cyanide

11th June 2007, 08:31 AM

I can, without wasting too much of my otherwise valuable time, devise extensive tests for whether a CD-ROM is blank or has 18 encyclopedias on it, and also whether a particular substance is graphite or diamond ... If these issues were in debate (and applicable for the JREF prize) then I'd be at the front of the cue to take a test.

..

...

To determine whether or not a basic CD-R is blank or has data written on it... turn it over, look at the business side of the disk. Since it is a dye that the laser writes on, the written part has a different color. It is subtle, but it is there (turn it about, you'll see a slight difference in reflectivity).

Now try that with a homeopathic remedy. Better yet, take several bottles... take off the labels, and then see if you can tell the difference between Natrum Mur 30C and Oscillococcinum 200C.

Of course, if anyone can really do that, there is a bunch of money to win!

JamesGully

11th June 2007, 09:21 AM

Wow. If that is the best critique that you skeptics can give on the serious basic science studies that I previously posted (no one has mentioned anything about the work by Elia on the thermodynamics of homeopathics), then, there must be some quiet supporters of homeopathy here.

Hydrogen Cyanide mentioned that there are many critiques of the work of the physicist Rey on this list, but when I read many (not all) of the responses on the randi list, I didn't find any reasonably good critiques. Please point me to what you consider to be the best one. I'm open to learning, but there is a lot of people on this list who think that they know what they're talking about, but who simply have not done their homework.

Speaking of H.C....if you will be convinced about homeopathy by a good experiment that will show that specific modern technologies can differentiate one homeopathic medicine from another and even one post-Avogadro's number and another, then I will soone expect you to be a leading advocate for homeopathy. The newest work by Rustum Roy is just that. The newest study will be published shortly, and you get info about it at the webcast press conference that was held last month. The Penn State / University of Arizona research webcast on ultra-dilue sols on May 16 -- a recording of it is attached for your use. Because I'm a newbie, you'll have to cut and paste this url:
infiniteconferencing.com/Events/nch/051607nch/recording-playback.html.

To remind you, Dr. Roy has published over a dozen articles in NATURE.

I'm also glad that some of you acknowledge the importance of STRUCTURE of elements, not just chemical composition. You will learn more about the importance of the structure of water by reading Rustum Roy's work.

Mojo is totally incorrect on the use of "provings" in homeopathy. Provings are either single- or double-blind trials that homeopaths or researchers conduct to determine the symptoms that a substance causes. Every adequately trained homeopath uses information from provings to find a medicine for a person. Good homeopaths prescribe a medicine based on the overall SYNDROME (the totality of physical and psychological symptoms) rather than just the disease.

Gravy wonders why I haven't listed clinical trials. I wonder why Gravy doesn't read previous references! You asked for replicated trials. Here's 3 trials by INDEPENDENT researchers testing Oscillococcinum in the treatment of the flu:
Casanova, P, Gerard R. Bilan de 3 annees d'estudes randomisees multicentriques Oscillococcinum/placebo. Oscillococcinum-rassegna della letterature internationale. Milan : Laboratoires Boiron; 1992:11-16.

J.P. Ferley, D. Zmirou, D. D'Admehar, et al., "A Controlled Evaluation of a Homoeopathic Preparation in the Treatment of Influenza-like Syndrome," British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, March, 1989,27:329-35.

R. Papp, G. Schuback, E. Beck, et al, "Oscillococcinum in Patients with Influenza-like Syndromes: A Placebo Controlled Double-blind Evaluation," British Homeopathic Journal, April, 1998,87:69-76.

Also...MA Taylor, D Reilly, RH Llewellyn-Jones, et al., Randomised Controlled Trial of Homoeopathy versus Placebo in Perennial Allergic Rhinitis with Overview of Four Trial Series, BMJ (August 19, 2000)321:471-476. This trial of 51 patients with perennial allergic rhinitis showed a substantially significant difference in the objective measure of nasal airflow in patients given a 30C potency of the specific substance to which they were most allergic, as compared to those patients given a placebo (P=0.0001). There was, however, no statistically significant difference in visual analogue scales. In reviewing the 4 trials with allergy patients (N=253), the researchers found a 28% improvement in visual analogue scores in those given a homeopathic medicine, as compared to a 3% improvement in patients given a placebo (P=.0007).

As for a replicated basic science trial, Professor Ennis (a FORMER skeptic of homeopathy) was a part of this replication trial: Belon P, Cumps J, Ennis M, Mannaioni PF, Roberfroid M, Ste-Laudy J, Wiegant FAC. Histamine dilutions modulate basophil activity. Inflamm Res 2004; 53:181-8. Four independent laboratories, each associated with a university, conducted a series of experiments using dilutions of histamine beyond Avogadro's number (the 15th through 19th centesimal dilution, that is 10 -15 to 10 -19. The researchers found inhibitory effects of histamine dilutions on basophil degranulation triggered by anti-IgE. A total of 3,674 data points were collected from the four laboratories. The overall effects were highly significant (p<0.0001). The test solutions were made in independent laboratories, the participants were blinded to the content of the test solutions, and the data analysis was performed by a biostatistian who was not involved in any other part of the trial.

JJM

11th June 2007, 11:35 AM

Mr. GullyUllman, I know a sig-line meant for you-
If you can't understand; maybe it's you: http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf (http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf)

It goes with Mark Twain's observation that ignorance gives rise to more confidence than does knowledge.

Lothian

11th June 2007, 12:43 PM

Wow.............Wow indeed, there is all this sound scientific evidence for homeopathy yet a little over 99.9% of scientists refuse to believe in it and denounce it as bunk. I wonder what they are missing? Unless, no, surely not, perhaps, I wonder, no that's daft, it can't be. James, Why do you think proper scientists aren't convinced by the wealth of solid evidence?

Am I right in thinking that Professor Ennis’s replicated basic science trial, is the same trail that spectacularly failed to replicate when conducted properly on the Horizon programme ?

Michael C

11th June 2007, 02:13 PM

Am I right in thinking that Professor Ennis’s replicated basic science trial, is the same trail that spectacularly failed to replicate when conducted properly on the Horizon programme ?

The Horizon trial was similar to the Ennis trial, which was based on trials by Benveniste. Here's a reference to another trial that was unable to replicate the results of Ennis or Benveniste: http://www.vfk.ch/infos/fachliteratur/Baumgartner/Guggisberg2005.pdf

Mojo

11th June 2007, 02:21 PM

Mojo is totally incorrect on the use of "provings" in homeopathy. You're asking about homoeopathic "provings". A remedy is given to a number of volunteers and they report what they feel. It's often said that homoeopaths then use the remedy to treat patients suffering from a similar pattern of symptoms to those apparently produced by the remedy.

Oh well, I guess that's "like cures like" thrown out of the window then...

Mojo

11th June 2007, 02:24 PM

Badly Shaved Monkey

11th June 2007, 02:26 PM

I'm back, but we seem to have broken him.

Shame.

Mojo

11th June 2007, 02:41 PM

To remind you, Dr. Roy has published over a dozen articles in NATURE.

Was the article you're referring to published in Nature? If not, then this is not relevant: it's just an attempt on your part to give this particular paper an authority it may not have.

Baron Samedi

11th June 2007, 02:43 PM

At least to some. This really was the last straw for me. I think I now at last understand why homeopathy is so incredibly persistent. It's persistency is the one thing that had me believe that "there had to be more to it than the placebo effect". I've been readin over the term 'emotional investment' without a second thought until it quite suddenly got stuck in my head and made me remember my experiences with homeopathy.

Healers in general (whether they are doctors or quaks) have a high social standing. Their patients concider them invaluable people in their lives. Homeopathy is an easy way for a person to achieve this standing. Once they have a stable circle of patients who keep telling them they feel better because of their treatments they will put themselves at the same level as a doctor. Because scientific research disproves the efficacy of their remedies they also start to think they know more then conventional doctors because those doctors can't even prove let alone understand how homeopathy cures people while they clearly see that they do. It's really not that hard to simply ignore or put down good scientific research when personal experience is valued above scientific research as a way of life.

Now imagine you're a 50 year old housewife with no higher education and you got all that. What happens when you give that up? From a noble and deeply spiritual healer battleing against sickness and prejudice of scientific researchers you are suddenly reduced to a deluded old woman who sells bottles of water, with virtually no chance of doing anything in the future that comes even close to the glory of her former position.

I tried to explain to my homepathic therapist that based on all the studies I had read that I could no longer believe homeopathy was effective, and that we both had to accept the concequences of that. I had to stop taking medicine, and since she always just wanted to make people's lives better, should close her shop. Well, I just kinda got shut out.

DOG, I just wanted to say what a good explanation you had here, and add in my two cents. You really hit the nail on the head. When I've talked to homeopaths, their successes are usually in the form of self referential follow-ups, as in, the "patient" comes back to the homeopath to say that they feel better. This kind of proof is never valid in any way (and I use the word "proof" very loosely here).

Think about companies who have a link on their web page, "Click here to contact us!" Who clicks that link? People whose comments are really complaints -- no one would ever take the time or energy to write back to say, "Hi, I bought your product and thought it was... well... okay." Same with homeopaths. They might treat 100 people with similar ailments, and of those, 10 come back to say that they feel "better". There's no comparisons against baseline, no control group, no comparisons against treating the ailment with a medicine, nothing but the 10 referrals. They have 10 positive feedbacks, so they continue, firmly in the belief that they did good. Forget about the other 90 people that didn't reply because the homeopathic remedy didn't work, or that the person cannot reply to anyone, period.

And yet, of course, the homeopath tells themselves, "Well, I was able to help just one person out there, and that makes it all worth while." It's that line, that reaching out of just one person, that sounds so noble, and yet shows how flawed their system is.

Badly Shaved Monkey

11th June 2007, 02:51 PM

Mr Ullman,

You have chosen to lecture us on science but have shown no facility whatsoever in handling scientific evidence. Spouting the same old tired and discredited studies does not count and, more importantly, it does not show that you understand their content. Frankly if you did understand them you'd see why we find them funny. Anyway,

8. Explain, in yor own words, why those words of Beneviste's about Rey's experiments are so hilariously fatal to their credibility.

Come on, you like to talk the big talk. Show you can walk the big walk.

You have still not answered the other questions, so here they are again;

1. Can you tell us whether remedies are neutralised by airport X-ray scanners?

2. Can you tell us about 'grafting remedies' and whether you think that works.

3. Do you tell agree that during a homeopathic proving the people involve risk serious and long-term harm being caused?

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

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

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

5. Can you tell us whether "constitutional remedies" work?

6. what are the more likely explanations of the alleged successes reported in 19th century epidemic disease?

7. please explain why, in the context of homeopathic pharmacy, the use of double-distilled water is so utterly irrelevant. (Clue: do the arithmetic to find out the concentrations of substances other than H2O in DDW).

The problem here, is that we can track your evasions perfectly well and keep highlighting them. You are supposed to be one of homeopathy's "Big Hitters". Surely you can do better than this.

Badly Shaved Monkey

11th June 2007, 03:01 PM

I was disappointed that nobody made any comment on my reference to the recent discovery of silica fragments falling off from the inner part of glass bottles in the making of the homeopathic medicines.

Were you? Bits of silica come off glass during washing. I think this is up with revelations like "The Sun is hot" and "Man finds arse with both hands". Undoubtedly true, but hardly relevant to your cause.

Mind you, I expect you can make all your remedies by grafting so the chemistry of water has no relevance to you. I wonder why you keep wanting to discuss these irrelevances. As has already been pointed out, you said you wanted to discuss trials. But, instead you keep banging on with these fairy stories of mechanisms for your non-existent effect.

JamesGully

11th June 2007, 03:36 PM

Mojo says that I haven't answered the question "Does homeopathy work?" My references to the randomized double-blind and placebo controlled trials on influenza don't count? How about my references to the work by Dr David Reilly and team on allergy and asthma? And how about the high quality studies on basophils by Ennis and a 4 university laboratories.

As the for BBC's Horizon trial...that one was totally laughable, laughable. This is one reason that I have no respect for James Randi. He has been informed of the "junk science" that the BBC and ABC's 20/20 created, and rather than stand on the side of good science, he stood on the side of "junk science." The producers of these experiments thought they were getting a replication trial of Ennis' work, but that is NOT what they got. According to Wayne Turnbull, the "lab technician" who did the study, he created his own study...but sadly, because he was ill-informed and inexperience (and unpublished) in basophil research, he created many embarrassing mistakes in the trial. For a full critique of Turnbull work, see:
homeopathic.com/articles/media/index.php (cut and paste it).

Note: Wayne Turnbull was the "scientist" (actually, he is a lab technician with no published research on basophils) who Horizon and 20/20 hired.

Briefly, The Horizon and 20/20 experiments used a chemical, ammonium chloride, that is known to destroy basophils, the type of white blood cell that was under study. The experiment was designed to fail even before any homeopathic medicine was administered. Because this chemical was not used in any of the previous studies that have been published in peer-review scientific journals, this study was "junk science" and that any results from this study are of no value.

• The Horizon and 20/20 experiments also used a chemical called "foetal calf serum" (the blood from a calf foetus). According to experts in basophils and experts who had previously conducted this experiment successfully, this chemical complex is not a "recognized medium" for laboratory experiments of this sort, and its effects on basophils are presently unknown. It should also be noted that the experiment produced by Horizon and 20/20 was created by an employee at a London hospital who didn't know the answers to some simple questions about basophils when asked by Professor Ennis. Also, to be done correctly, this experiment requires "clean" basophils, and the use of foetal calf serum alters the binding reactions of the basophils. Whooops.

• The Horizon and 20/20 experimenter left the blood containing basophils to be collected to sit and sediment for 4 hours. It is known that basophils are extremely fragile, thus, leaving them to sit for 4 hours disturbed their viability and rendered them useless for scientific experimental purposes. Whooops.

I will be curious if people on this list will stand with Turnbull. Come on, stand up and be counted. Stand with an unpublished lab tech or four university laboratories who used respected and well-published PhD scientists.

I've already answer Mr. Monkey's questions about which I care...re-read my previous emails.

As for Roy's research, I previously mentioned that he has had over a dozen articles published in NATURE. This fact suggests that he is a highly respected scientist.

One of the ways that I have observed the fundamentalist thinking of the participants on this list is that you NEVER admit error and NEVER admit to ANY studies or replications of studies. I'm still waiting for some critique of the flu trials, the allergy/asthma trials, the thermodynamics research by Elia, good critique of Rey, and good critique of Roy (not just the character assassination baloney that too many of you love to do)...

You've got some work to do. Now, who of you is brave enough to acknowledge that they MAY be some value and logic and science to homeopathy after all?

Lothian

11th June 2007, 04:35 PM

You've got some work to do. Now, who of you is brave enough to acknowledge that they MAY be some value and logic and science to homeopathy after all?
I am certainly brave enough to acknowledge that they MAY be some value and logic and science to homeopathy after all. I am also brave enough to acknowledge that they MAY be aliens walking the earth disguised as humans.

Obviously the latter is far more likely but the evidence for that is lacking as well.

Now are you brave enough to consider why over 99.9% of scientists do not take homeopathy seriously ?

Deetee

11th June 2007, 04:54 PM

"Mr. Monkey"
I absolutely love it!
:p

Here is Mr Ullman's link (http://homeopathic.com/articles/media/index.php)to his Horizon response.
......which links (http://homeopathic.com/articles/media/new.php) to "Generally sexy information about homeopathy today!"

ETA: Not sure what he means by "today!" though - his latest info dates from 1997.
Any chance of a sexy update, Mr Ullman?

fls

11th June 2007, 05:40 PM

Wow. If that is the best critique that you skeptics can give on the serious basic science studies that I previously posted (no one has mentioned anything about the work by Elia on the thermodynamics of homeopathics), then, there must be some quiet supporters of homeopathy here.

I think what you are seeing is that sometimes we can't be bothered to mount a response to ideas that are without merit. It's not like you have demonstrated an ability to discuss the critques anyway.

Gravy wonders why I haven't listed clinical trials. I wonder why Gravy doesn't read previous references! You asked for replicated trials. Here's 3 trials by INDEPENDENT researchers testing Oscillococcinum in the treatment of the flu:
Casanova, P, Gerard R. Bilan de 3 annees d'estudes randomisees multicentriques Oscillococcinum/placebo. Oscillococcinum-rassegna della letterature internationale. Milan : Laboratoires Boiron; 1992:11-16.

J.P. Ferley, D. Zmirou, D. D'Admehar, et al., "A Controlled Evaluation of a Homoeopathic Preparation in the Treatment of Influenza-like Syndrome," British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, March, 1989,27:329-35.

R. Papp, G. Schuback, E. Beck, et al, "Oscillococcinum in Patients with Influenza-like Syndromes: A Placebo Controlled Double-blind Evaluation," British Homeopathic Journal, April, 1998,87:69-76.

Also...MA Taylor, D Reilly, RH Llewellyn-Jones, et al., Randomised Controlled Trial of Homoeopathy versus Placebo in Perennial Allergic Rhinitis with Overview of Four Trial Series, BMJ (August 19, 2000)321:471-476. This trial of 51 patients with perennial allergic rhinitis showed a substantially significant difference in the objective measure of nasal airflow in patients given a 30C potency of the specific substance to which they were most allergic, as compared to those patients given a placebo (P=0.0001). There was, however, no statistically significant difference in visual analogue scales. In reviewing the 4 trials with allergy patients (N=253), the researchers found a 28% improvement in visual analogue scores in those given a homeopathic medicine, as compared to a 3% improvement in patients given a placebo (P=.0007).

This was not a trial of homeopathy, but of isopathy. There is no "law of similars" involved in the choice of treatment, but rather the selection of a causative agent - an idea at odds with rest of homeopathy. To claim that proof of one is proof of the other is false.

Also, it doesn't even serve as proof of isopathy in this particular study. There was no difference found between the two groups on the main outcome measure. Sure, the researchers pretended that they really meant one of the many other things they measured that happened to be different between the two groups, to be the main outcome measure. But their power calculations put the lie to that claim.

As for the rest of your clinical trials that prove homeopathy, even if you ignore the biases, you are simply picking out, post hoc, those trials which happen to fall above some arbitrary point on a Gaussian distribution as proof that the distribution isn't Gaussian.

So, homeopathy researchers demonstrate yet again that if you violate the assumptions of significance testing it is possible to "produce research findings when they should not be produced".* We get it already. You can stop any time now.

Linda

*Definition of "bias" cribbed from this (http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124).

JamesGully

11th June 2007, 06:04 PM

Linda...In ALL due respect, your reference to "isopathy" as distinct from "homeopathy" stands on sand. The bottomline "problem" that skeptics have with homeopathy is the "potentized dose" (please note that I do not consider the "potentized dose" to be a small or microdose, any more than an atomic bomb is a small bomb just because the very tiny atoms are smashing into each other).

It is interesting how you haven't acknowledged that the "isopathic medicine" used in these trials was sub-Avogadro's number. And why oh why, have these studies been published in the LANCET and the BMJ?

By the way...I am still waiting for SOMEONE to defend Wayne Turnbull and the BBC' Horizon programme or ABC's 20/20. Stand up and call it "good" science or "junk" science!"

I have provided evidence of severe serious and highly respected physicists, chemists, and material scientists that verify that homeopathic medicines are not the same as diluted water or plain water. Further, I have provided evidence (DBPC) that there is a clinical effect from these medicines.

I am getting ready to drop the big big bomb on you folks, and I predict that many of you will be singing another tune. Some of you have suggested that 99.9% of scientists don't believe in homeopathy, as though this is proof of something because it wasn't too long ago that 99.9% of physicians believed in bloodletting and mercury and on and on and on (and "scientists" have been not only the biggest promoters of allopathic medicine but also their best "PR" persons).

No one yet has figured out who is James Gully...and I'm not referring to Dana Ullman. I am not talking about who it is that is writing this. I am asking you: WHO is the real James Gully? Come on...there has got to be someone knowledgeable enough to know WHO he was.

anor277

11th June 2007, 06:24 PM

........................
No one yet has figured out who is James Gully...and I'm not referring to Dana Ullman. I am not talking about who it is that is writing this. I am asking you: WHO is the real James Gully? Come on...there has got to be someone knowledgeable enough to know WHO he was.

Hey, I think I know this. Wasn't he the physician (19th century?) who popularized taking the waters? He was also a suspect in the infamous murder (by poison) of the lover (?) of his (JG's) wife?

I have provided evidence of severe serious and highly respected physicists, chemists, and material scientists that verify that homeopathic medicines are not the same as diluted water or plain water. Further, I have provided evidence (DBPC) that there is a clinical effect from these medicines.

What you have provided (if you mean Roy's paper) is his speculation that they are not the same. Roy has advanced several methods for determining whether they are or not. I wish him luck in his research. The solution structure of water is a fiendishly difficult area to tackle.

fls

11th June 2007, 06:48 PM

Linda...In ALL due respect, your reference to "isopathy" as distinct from "homeopathy" stands on sand. The bottomline "problem" that skeptics have with homeopathy is the "potentized dose".

It has been pointed out to you several times now that the idea behind the "law of similars" is equally problematic.

It is interesting how you haven't acknowledged that the "isopathic medicine" used in these trials was sub-Avogadro's number.

Simply because it wasn't relevant. The results, if positive, do not prove homeopathy anyway. And the results weren't even really positive. They were only presented as though they were.

And why oh why, have these studies been published in the LANCET and the BMJ?

My guess would be because the studies were of reasonable quality on a topic of interest. What should be understood is that evidence-based medicine teaches one how to evaluate research findings independently, so it is the results of the study that are of interest, not the conclusions of the authors.

Further, I have provided evidence (DBPC) that there is a clinical effect from these medicines.

That you can say that with a straight face means you cannot have understood anything that I said.

Linda

Pipirr

11th June 2007, 07:55 PM

No one yet has figured out who is James Gully...and I'm not referring to Dana Ullman. I am not talking about who it is that is writing this. I am asking you: WHO is the real James Gully? Come on...there has got to be someone knowledgeable enough to know WHO he was.

Who cares?

But if you insist, and via Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Manby_Gully):

James Gully was a Victorian quack who practiced water cures. He treated Charles Darwin, but that's not anything to shout about. He also treated "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce, too. It was, I suppose, ironic, that the man who articulated the theory of evolution, and the man that denied the truth of it, both bathed in the same waters of unreason.

James Gully aborted his own child, and later became a suspect in his lover's poisoning. Still, we can be confident that it was not death by homeopathy, as you couldn't kill anybody with that, no matter how much ill will you wished them.

Or perhaps you had another "James Gully" in mind?

JamesGully

11th June 2007, 09:04 PM

Is that the best ya got? Quoting Benveniste!? If you're going to believe him now, then believe his research too. OR better, blind or not, you try doing Rey's work and see if you can create a different result just by thinking about it. Words, words, words, you got 'em. Now all you need is intelligence.

As for "profits," that's a great one. The entire sales of homeopathic medicines in the US is under $300 in retail sales...or $120-$150 in wholesales sales (to the manufacturers). The largest homeopathic company grosses maybe, what, $20-$30 million...that's gross, not net. Heck, that's a pimple on a rat's arss.

As for Big Pharma, in 2002 alone, the profits from the 10 largest Big Pharma companies out of the Fortune 500 were LARGER than the profits of the remaining 490 companies in the Fortune 500 combined! I got that fact from Marcia Angell, MD (former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine)(from her book "The Truth about Drug Companies").

If you want to talk about profits, get real. Get perspective...and once again, get intelligence.

Back to homeopathy...respond with intelligence.

Hydrogen Cyanide

11th June 2007, 10:18 PM

...

If you want to talk about profits, get real. Get perspective...and once again, get intelligence.

Back to homeopathy...respond with intelligence.

You first!!!

Of course, pharmaceutical companies actually spend money on research, materials and insurance.

You just have to pay for double distilled water.

Now answer some questions:

1) One of the "miasms" Hahnemann was claiming to cure was syphilis. What was his success in curing syphilis two hundred years ago? What is the standard of care for treating the actual bacterial disease known as syphilis? How effective would modern homeopathy be with actual syphilis?

2) Cardiac conditions are another big killer of Americans... so your magic potions should work great for them also. My oldest son as a genetic condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with obstruction. He presently takes the beta-blockers (Atenolol) to reduce the pressure on his already damaged mitral valve. My question is how would your homeopathic treatment be better for him than Atenolol?

3) Also, how does your Masters in Public Health (MPH) give any credibility? Does this mean you have actually learned the value of sewage disposal, clean water supplies, pest control in food preparation areas, and vaccines? Are you the one who shows up in a disaster area (flood, hurricane, earthquake, etc) giving out homeopathic remedies instead of clean water, toilet facilities and vaccines for tetanus?

4) In what way does duck bits diluted to something impossible to do on this planet actually supposed to work?

5) What is Avogadro's Number and why would it be important in a discussion on homeopathy?

6) Who, where and when have Rey's thermoluminescence study ever been replicated?

7) What does 10-9 mean, and does it have anything to do with homeopathy?

8) Why is this sentence in FDA regulations (http://www.fda.gov/ora/compliance_ref/cpg/cpgdrg/cpg400-400.html)pertaining to homeopathy: "Homeopathic products intended solely for self-limiting disease conditions amenable to self-diagnosis (of symptoms) and treatment may be marketed OTC. Homeopathic products offered for conditions not amenable to OTC use must be marketed as prescription products. "

9) Which leads to this question: Do you have prescribing privileges? Can you actually practice medicine with your vaulted Masters in Public Health?

Badly Shaved Monkey

11th June 2007, 11:29 PM

Is that the best ya got? Quoting Benveniste!? If you're going to believe him now, then believe his research too. OR better, blind or not, you try doing Rey's work and see if you can create a different result just by thinking about it.

You perennially confuse quoting an authority and discussing the actual concepts.

The fact that Beneviste was the source of those criticisms of Rey is merely an amusing irony. It is the lack of blinding that renders Rey's work not worth discussing.

Badly Shaved Monkey

11th June 2007, 11:36 PM

I've already answer Mr. Monkey's questions about which I care...re-read my previous emails.

That's just pathetic. You have not answered the questions and you have flatly refused to answer the tricky ones.

You have been told why Rey's experiments are an irrelevance, please move on from this. The reason why you do not make any progress is that you keep hanging on to ideas that have been defeated or shown to be inadmissible.

Let's concentrate on just one;

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.

kieran

12th June 2007, 12:44 AM

Since some of you claim to be literate on homeopathy, I challenge you to answer one of the most basic questions about homeopathy: HOW DOES A HOMEOPATH DETERMINE WHAT A MEDICINE IS EFFECTIVE IN TREATING?

Several years ago, I debated Saul Green, PhD, a chemist and skeptic of homeopathy. He thoroughy embarrassed himself and fellow skeptics by answering this question by saying that it was "folk wisdom." Needless to say, that is not the right answer.

What do YOU think is the right answer?

Oh I see ... how "embarrassing" for Sean to have come out with such an idiotic remark ...

... of course the glaringly obvious answer is .... folk stupidity!

kieran

12th June 2007, 01:02 AM

I have provided evidence of severe serious and highly respected physicists, chemists, and material scientists that verify that homeopathic medicines are not the same as diluted water or plain water.

Evidence ... verify ...

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." [Inigo Montoya, 1987]

There are as many "severe(???) serious and highly respected physicists, chemists, and material scientists" that can "verify" the exact opposite. Neither is proven, but the weight of evidence is strongly against the homoeopathic claims as (1) they are require extreme statistical sommersaults and (2) they cannot be reproduced unless the required magic wands are waved.

Further, I have provided evidence (DBPC) that there is a clinical effect from these medicines.
This is from the same paragraph as the above sentence, are you trying to connect them by association? No one here will argue that there is no clinical effect when homoeopathic "medicines" are used ... however, this effect is completely indistinguishable from the placebo effect, thus indicating that the medicine is not the cause. It is much more likely to be either the "pampering" that surrounds the "medicine" or the patients susceptibility.

Cuddles

12th June 2007, 02:27 AM

Awww, homeopaths can be so cute when they pretend they're winning an argument.:rub:

Ivor the Engineer

12th June 2007, 02:32 AM

JamesGully has made claims for homeopathy that would be able to be tested against conventional ideas about disease which would require no blinding, but careful oversight.

Simply hop on a plane to Africa and treat two similar groups of people, one with homeopathy and the other with conventional drugs, who have confirmed cases of Cholera or Syphilis. Whichever group has the most survivors after the trial period is determined to be operating on the correct theory.

I wonder if Channel 4 would be interested in this as a concept for a new TV show?

fls

12th June 2007, 02:52 AM

Is that the best ya got?

I don't think anyone here is pulling out their best - it hasn't been necessary (which is disappointing).

Back to homeopathy...respond with intelligence.

As a strategy (or is it a tactic?), responding with intelligence to homeopaths, seems to have little effect. Any other suggestions?

Linda

Mojo

12th June 2007, 03:44 AM

Pipirr

12th June 2007, 05:15 AM

As for "profits," that's a great one. The entire sales of homeopathic medicines in the US is under $300 in retail sales...or $120-$150 in wholesales sales (to the manufacturers). The largest homeopathic company grosses maybe, what, $20-$30 million...that's gross, not net. Heck, that's a pimple on a rat's arss.

As for Big Pharma, in 2002 alone, the profits from the 10 largest Big Pharma companies out of the Fortune 500 were LARGER than the profits of the remaining 490 companies in the Fortune 500 combined! I got that fact from Marcia Angell, MD (former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine)(from her book "The Truth about Drug Companies").

If you want to talk about profits, get real. Get perspective...and once again, get intelligence.

Back to homeopathy...respond with intelligence.

What are the profit margins from selling water? If the homeopathic industry is as business-savvy as it's products are useless, surely they have some money left over. Money that could be put to good use replicating the studies that it is so fond of quoting.

I found this comment on the 'Homeopathic' website (http://homeopathic.com/articles/media/2020_ullman_to_abc2.php):

[NOTE: The ABC's producer says that he doesn't have a "snowball's chance in you know where of getting the folks around here to pick up the tab" for a good study and that he plans to try to get a lab to do it for gratis. However, he was not successful in doing so. Instead, he approached Guys Hospital in London and paid them close to $5,000.

It cost just $5,000 dollars to get Guy's Hospital to do the assay? Boiron can't even stump that? Look, you complain endlessly about how the Horizon and 20/20 programs failed to follow the Ennis protocol. How about passing a hat around, getting the cash and getting it done again.

Build up your evidence base, Dana, with replicated and well-conducted studies. Instead, after 200 years, all you've got is vague speculations about water structure, and unreplicable or unblinded experiments.

Crispy Duck

12th June 2007, 05:43 AM

I started reading Dana Ullman's response to an ABC 20/20 program on homeopathy. I stopped when I got to this bit, under "What Stossel got wrong":

ABC's 20/20 provided misinformation about the small doses used in homeopathy. Stossel asserted on air that the "6C" potency of a homeopathic medicine is equivalent to one drop in 50 swimming pools, that the 12C potency is like one drop in the entire Atlantic Ocean, and that the 16C potency is like one drop in a million earths. In actual fact, the total amount of water used to make a 6C potency is around six test tubes (or around 6 ounces of water). A 12C potency requires around 12 ounces of water. Because 20/20 had a London hospital make up the 16C of Histamine, they knew that this pharmaceutical process only required less than a quart of water (16 test tubes worth!). 20/20 seemingly and incorrectly assumed that each dilution required "exponential" (100-fold) increases the size, when, in fact, it only required repeated dilutions in a small test tube. (It seems that 20/20 is already so embarrassed by the statistics they gave, they have already omitted reference in their transcripts of the 20/20 show to the 16C potency.)

No need to read any further than that, really, but if you feel the need, it's at http://homeopathic.com/articles/media/2020_response_critique.php

It seems like genuine ignorance of the maths involved, rather than a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the extreme nature of the dilutions. What do you think, Mr Gully?

kieran

12th June 2007, 06:20 AM

Crispy Duck, I think you should have emphasised the "like" and "equivalent" in your quote as follows for full effect ... " is like one drop" and "is equivalent to one drop". This must be the most obvious strawman I've seen for a long time.

Anyway, wo wrote this ridiculous pile of twaddle. How desperate are they to cling onto their fantasy world? Apparently the web-site is the "Homeopathic Educational Services", I suppose the question is, have they been applying homoeopathic dilution to their own education?

JamesGully

12th June 2007, 07:37 AM

Michael C

12th June 2007, 07:52 AM

Provings are either single- or double-blind trials that homeopaths or researchers conduct to determine the symptoms that a substance causes.

If a double-blind proving using 30c potencies (this seems to be standard, see http://www.homeopathycourses.com/html/hmcProvings.html) can determine the symptoms that a substance causes, it should be easy to use the proving process to provide undeniable evidence that homeopathic dilutions actually have an effect. A group of homeopaths could determine the composition of a certain number of samples of different remedies (which would be labelled simply with randomly assigned code numbers) using the technique of proving.

It would be possible to construct a test of this nature with conditions that are totally satisfying to the homeopaths. The homeopaths would choose the substances to be use in the test: these would be substances that are considered to produce clearly-defined and easily distinguishable symptoms. The homeopaths would choose the people to do the provings: they could choose people that they know well, so that they would be able to predict how these people would react to the different substances. They could do as many provings as they deem necessary.

Would this test work? Could the homeopaths determine which remedy was in which sample?

Pipirr

12th June 2007, 08:08 AM

I could not help but notice that NO ONE (!) has asserted that Wayne Turnbull's experiment on basophils for Horizon or 20/20 was good science (mind you, anyone who does must or should also have some expertise in working with basophils...but sure, you are welcome and even encouraged to ask other experts).

Okay, here are a few more quotes with which I am sure that you are familiar.

In response (http://homeopathic.com/articles/media/2020_milgrom_to_turnbull.php) to complaints about the way the procedures were carried out, Wayne Turnbull said:

"John runs a highly respected homeopathic pharmacy and I am absolutely certain that such inaccuracies in potency would never pass muster in his establishment. So why were they allowed in yours?" Unfortunately the answer to this question is because you allowed it to happen. Francis, John and yourself were actively encouraged to express any comments, reservations or objections that you had at the time. We were more than willing to listen. I believe we went out of our way to express this position.

In other words, you were there, you said nothing, things came out against you, therefore you have no cause for complaint.

Dropped the ball on that one, no?

As for the BBC Horizon program, James Randi presciently wrote the following words.

As powerful, comprehensive, and evidential as the BBC "Horizon" program was... history tells us that the homeopathic community will rally, regroup, and begin obfuscating wildly to neutralize this damning research. They certainly cannot deny those behind it: top-notch medical, biophysical, and biochemical authorities, using the very best experimental standards, and adopting a firm statistical conclusion. But they will squirm and mumble, wriggle and grumble, complaining that it just had to be something wrong with the experimental procedure, not the theory itself.

And here you are, complaining at length in your website about procedures not being followed, while the theory is still sound.

In the end, the results from two tv shows will not be enough evidence against homeopathy. Of course, if the results had been favourable, you'd be singing a different song. What matters, in the end, is that Benveniste's work was unrepeatable. Madeline Ennis' work was unrepeatable. Louis Rey's work was poorly conducted, and (after 3-4 years) has not yet been repeated.

Where is the body of evidence? Where are the sound, repeated, peer-reviewed studies? 200 years, and still just experimental noise.

Badly Shaved Monkey

12th June 2007, 08:25 AM

Further to what Piprr just said and in response to James Gully, the point is that this experiment is exactly the sort of fragile and needlessly complicated model that is vulnerable to all sorts of extraneous influences that homeopaths keep choosing.

Of course it is not good science, nor is it a good model for homeopathy, but it was replicated by Randi et al because homeopaths chose it in the first place.

But all of this silly business of in vitro fiddling about is irrelevant to the question of whether homeopathy works. Do we have to keep reminding you that homeopathy means "like cures like" and this whole use of content-free solvent or sugar was only dreamed up by Hahnemann so he didn't make his patients so ill with his raw materials.

Let's 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.

Badly Shaved Monkey

12th June 2007, 08:30 AM

I suppose it is also worth reminding Dana, or anyone who is actually bothering to read and understand these posts, that when he quibbles over the minutiae of experimental models, we are meant to be talking about a medical therpay that is so robust that anyone who can manage to buy a pot of sugar tablets can achieve remarkable and robust clinical effects. The only problem is that when the labels are switched and sugar tablets that never pretended to have any power are used instead then the effects are just the same.

Yes, Dana, we know that you can find the odd positive study where the end-points have been chosen badly and the data have been dredged enthusiastically or the authors just get lucky. Of course, you'll get the odd positive study. You do know that when the roulette wheel stops spinning the ball has to end up somewhere. That's why replication is the key and no positive homeopathic trial has ever been successfully replicated.

We also know some other things about how homeopaths achieve their alleged successes. As Geni has said previously: homeopathy- more a set of excuses than a system of medicine.

Michael C

12th June 2007, 08:39 AM

Regarding the work of M. Ennis, I already posted this link to the results of a study that tried to repeat her tests: http://www.vfk.ch/infos/fachliteratur/Baumgartner/Guggisberg2005.pdf. The study was conducted by scientists from the KIKOM (Institute for Complementary Medicine in Berne) and Ennis herself helped with methodological issues.

Here is the conclusion:

We were not able to confirm the previously reported large effects of homeopathic histamine dilutions on basophil function of the examined donor. Seemingly, minor variables of the experimental set up can lead to significant differences of the results if not properly controlled.

Mojo

12th June 2007, 08:46 AM

I am still waiting for James Randi to publically acknowledge that neither the Horizon or the 20/20 "test" were really good tests of homeopathy.

It wasn't, and neither was the Ennis study, because it didn't actually test homoeopathy.

It is more than tad ironic that I make reference to good research, as in the allergy/asthma studies, and then show how homeopathic medicine influence basophils (which increase in numbers during allergic disorders), but no one here is even knowledgeable of this connection. Whooops.

It is more than a tad ironic that a proponent of a medical "system" (for want of a better word) that prides itself on "treating the whole patient" is so happy to extrapolate from experiments carried out on white blood cells to the entire organism. Even scientists acknowledge that there is a difference between in vitro and in vivo.

If you want to test homoeopathy, you need to test whether it does what it claims to do. It claims to cure patients, unless the goalposts have been moved even further than usual here.

And here's a study of homoeopathy as it's actually practised for asthma: Individualised homeopathy as an adjunct in the treatment of childhood asthma: a randomised placebo controlled trial (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=12668794). CONCLUSIONS: This study provides no evidence that adjunctive homeopathic remedies, as prescribed by experienced homeopathic practitioners, are superior to placebo in improving the quality of life of children with mild to moderate asthma in addition to conventional treatment in primary care.

fls

12th June 2007, 09:07 AM

However, there IS a body of high quality research, and I have made some references to this research, but few of you read it, or read only the abstract, or still don't get it.

It is more than tad ironic that I make reference to good research, as in the allergy/asthma studies, and then show how homeopathic medicine influence basophils (which increase in numbers during allergic disorders), but no one here is even knowledgeable of this connection. Whooops.

I really expected more intelligence from this group of skeptics.

I'd be curious to see what kind of response you would make to an increase in intelligence (i.e. the knowledge and experience (expertise) required to understand the argument) from the skeptics. The only points that you respond to directly are those which are fairly easy for you to refute or to turn into a strawman (let's call it a low level of expertise). As the arguments from skeptics become more skilled, direct and knowledgeable (let's call it mid-level expertise), you begin to obfuscate with red herrings, additional strawmen, and references to invalid research. The most pertinent and detailed arguments (high-level expertise) you have ignored completely. How would you respond if we brought out our A Game? Stop posting altogether?

As for Big Pharma putting money into research...they actually put more money into salaries and advertisement than research (in order to convince us that they are helping us)...read Marcia Angell's book to enlighten yourself on the "science" of modern drugs.

You are confusing the business of developing and marketing drugs with the science behind the use of therapeutics.

Marcia Angell's book is a useful read, but I would add the caveat that it is one-sided - that is, it purposely shows us the backside of what we are used to looking at from the front. The two together are meant to form a complete picture (I think).

Linda

Delusions_O_Grandeur

12th June 2007, 10:45 AM

Thanks for pointing me to the Guggisberg study. (http://www.vfk.ch/infos/fachliteratur/Baumgartner/Guggisberg2005.pdf) I was getting ready to poke professors at the faculty of medicine to attempt the Ennis study, but I no longer have to try unless somebody can point out a serious flaw in the Guggisberg study.

Homeopathy may have been proven to be bunk, the memory of water may be highly questionable, but if there's any reasonable chance to find evidence anywhere, I'm going to start poking researchers on the campus again.

does the JREF have a web repository to neatly pile up all scientific studies grouped per supernatural phenomenon by the way?

Pipirr

12th June 2007, 10:59 AM

I am getting ready to drop the big big bomb on you folks....

Ready yet?

JamesGully

12th June 2007, 11:03 AM

Mojo...the basophil study doesn't test the "system of homeopathy," but it did test homeopathic doses. That was significant, especially since this research was replicated by four university labs.

Linda...yeah...I'm glad you are encouraging people to read Marcia Angell's remarkable book. I bet we have more in common than you'd like to believe.

Good for Michael C...finally, someone who is beginning to do some homework. Yes, doing replications is vital, and I'm glad that some people who are involved in homeopathic research are honest researchers and show both positive and negative results. I want SCIENCE to win. For the record, this experiment was very different than the one done by Benveniste. Don't confuse them.

Now that we can see that Stephan M. Baumgartner (one of the authors of the above trial) is an honest researcher, I encourage you to review his other work:
--ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17544864&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

-- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=16230858&ordinalpos=6&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

-- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17057391&ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Plus...do a PubMed search for many other trials that he has conducted. The vast majority of his trials show that homeopathic nanodoses (and beyond nanodoses) have significant biological activity.

Isn't THAT your biggest bugaboo on homeopathy? Don't you simply assume that homeopathic medicines are just "placeboes." You assume that because you haven't (yet) reviewed the "body of evidence" that strongly suggest that the placebo explanation is "inadequate."

Hey, Rolfe. You seem to be an admirable guy. I'd love to hear your input on some of this discussion. I simply ask that you do some homework first. Review the literature. Go beyond the superficial.

Let's try to keep this discussion academic, not personal.

JamesGully

12th June 2007, 11:16 AM

Wow...I just found and read the source of the Benveniste quote about the work of Louis Rey...in the June 12, 2007, online issue of Drug Discovery published by NATURE: nature.com/drugdisc/news/articles/d130603-1.html

What is so impressive is that this journal has just announced that Louis Rey is publishing new research in Physica A, and yet, NATURE was able to get a quote from Benveniste's grave (he died in 2004). NATURE is now claiming to talk to people in the grave. Hmmm. Or...maybe they are simply dredging up old critique of older research.

If you still think that NATURE is objective on homeopathy, you must be deaf, dumb, and blind. In contrast, the NEW SCIENTIST commonly reports on high quality basic science research on homeopathy. I encourage you all to go to newscientist.com and read the variety of articles (not all positive!) that they've published over the years. Be brave because you're going to get humble (humilty is one of the highest qualities of a good scientist). We can all benefit from it.

Badly Shaved Monkey

12th June 2007, 11:55 AM

I would say, "At the risk of repeating myself", but it's not a risk it's a certainty. Here we go again.

Let's 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.

Badly Shaved Monkey

12th June 2007, 11:57 AM

You assume that because you haven't (yet) reviewed the "body of evidence" that strongly suggest that the placebo explanation is "inadequate."

No. Many of us have reviewed the evidence. Homeopathy is a placebo at best. I think you can work out what it is at worst.

Pipirr

12th June 2007, 12:19 PM

Wow...I just found and read the source of the Benveniste quote about the work of Louis Rey...in the June 12, 2007, online issue of Drug Discovery published by NATURE: nature.com/drugdisc/news/articles/d130603-1.html

What is so impressive is that this journal has just announced that Louis Rey is publishing new research in Physica A, and yet, NATURE was able to get a quote from Benveniste's grave (he died in 2004). NATURE is now claiming to talk to people in the grave. Hmmm. Or...maybe they are simply dredging up old critique of older research.

Well, that is odd. A slow news week over at Nature...? ;)

If you still think that NATURE is objective on homeopathy, you must be deaf, dumb, and blind. In contrast, the NEW SCIENTIST commonly reports on high quality basic science research on homeopathy.

Personally, when comparing Nature and New Scientist, I prefer to make the following distinction:

one is a peer-reviewed journal, and one is not.

JamesGully

12th June 2007, 12:36 PM

fls

12th June 2007, 12:38 PM

Isn't THAT your biggest bugaboo on homeopathy? Don't you simply assume that homeopathic medicines are just "placeboes." You assume that because you haven't (yet) reviewed the "body of evidence" that strongly suggest that the placebo explanation is "inadequate."

Ah, I forgot about the "vague references to much better evidence waiting in the wings". So is that what we get for our A Game? You'll let us in on your secret cache?

Hey, Rolfe. You seem to be an admirable guy. I'd love to hear your input on some of this discussion. I simply ask that you do some homework first. Review the literature. Go beyond the superficial.

Rolfe may be too busy to weigh in, as she has talked about moving into a new house.

Let's try to keep this discussion academic, not personal.

Too late. You've already demonstrated your bad faith several times over.

Linda

fls

12th June 2007, 12:43 PM

Since I made a duplicate post, I may as well get your opinion on this, Mr. Ullman.

I hope to run a marathon, so I've increased the length of my runs. I run in my neighbourhood (lots of cul-de-sacs and crescents) and I used to just stop in at my house whenever I needed a drink of water. Now that I go further away, I've been carrying a bottle with me in my hand. I've noticed that I'm much more tired at the end of my runs than I used to be, especially if my bottle is emptied, so I've been trying to figure out why. It occurred to me that the water in my bottle gets a lot of shaking and that it may be similar to succussion. So what am I succussing? Air! And what are the symptoms caused by air? Vitality! By the time I have finished the bottle, I am close to eliminating all symptoms of vitality from my body, which explains why I am tired.

Since I don't actually wish to eliminate all the vitality from my body, do you have any suggestions for how I may prevent the potentiation of the water? Are their particular movements that don't lead to succussion that I should practise - a back and forth sloshing, for example? Or perhaps homeopaths have specially designed fanny packs (I cannot be the first to have noticed this)?

Linda

Mojo

12th June 2007, 12:47 PM

If you still think that NATURE is objective on homeopathy, you must be deaf, dumb, and blind. In contrast, the NEW SCIENTIST commonly reports on high quality basic science research on homeopathy.

New Scientist is a magazine that provides a weekly commentary on current developments in science. As such it often reports material that is somewhat speculative. It isn't peer reviewed, and doesn't publish the actual research.

Badly Shaved Monkey

12th June 2007, 03:01 PM

Hey Monkey...I already told you that I do not know about those machines. Do you know about EVERY technology in conventional medicine?

I finally got it: Many of the people on this list are the nerds that the mean kids verbally and sometimes physically attacked. My condolences...but this doesn't mean that you can now try to verbally abuse others who don't agree with you. Grow up.

Your decision to continually repeat the same (off-topic) questions will not get an answer...and the fact that you think that these machines "are" homeopathy (rather than one tool that some people use to find a homeopathic medicine) is a part of your ill-informed understanding of homeopathy. Get cured of this by reading the references to which I have been referring you (and others).

Hmmm...still dodging the question. Why is that? You seem also not to have missed the most essential point- what are we to make of the anecdotal evidence of people who use those ludicrous devices? Their clinical experience is exactly on a par with yours. Do you have any reason not to take it at face value? If not, why not?

By the way, I have not said or implied that these machines "are" homeopathy. That's your failure of reading comprehension tripping you up again. Nor are these machines intended to "find" a remedy. They are intended to make remedies, indeed the clue is in the name of one of the machines, the "Remedy Maker". They claim to operate by mysterious principles, but have clearly been thrown together from real electrical components.

The topic, by the way is "More Fun with Homeopath Dana Ullman, MPH(!)". I'm certainly having fun and you are standing in for Dana Ullman here, so that's pretty much on-topic.

I would have hoped by now that you had got the message that these various ill-thought out chemistry experiments have nothing at all to do with the practice of homeopathy. Why do you keep referring to them? You said you wanted to discuss clinical trials but have done precious little of that.

But, homeopaths' evidential base is grounded in their clinical experience. Clinical experience gained using, for instance, remedies made by expensively retailed electrical machines that seem to be sold without any need to demonstrate their claimed effects.

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?

Badly Shaved Monkey

12th June 2007, 03:05 PM

p.s.

Do you know about EVERY technology in conventional medicine?

Of course not, but I can expect to make a reasoned assessment of the likelihood of a technology doing what it claims to do. I can also expect to make a reasoned judgement of evidence gathered using such technology.

Come on, you must try harder.

Rolfe

12th June 2007, 05:14 PM

Hey, Rolfe. You seem to be an admirable guy. I'd love to hear your input on some of this discussion. I simply ask that you do some homework first. Review the literature. Go beyond the superficial.

Let's try to keep this discussion academic, not personal.
I have to say that I have practically gone blind reviewing the literature on homoeopathy. I have yet to see one shred of genuine evidence that the claimed effects are anything more than a combination of coincidental recovery and wishful thinking.

I find it fascinating that such dramatic stories are told of amazing individual "miracle cures" - and yet as soon as any sort of controlled study is done these dramatic, wonderful effects retreat into the borders of statistical noise. (Hey, would that maybe be because the dozens of people who didn't happen to experience a convenient coincidental recovery don't get on the testimonials pages?)

I find it quite amazing that not one single one of all these hundreds of thousands of homoeopaths out there can demonstrate that they can, in any way at all, distinguish between a potentised remedy (the very tools of their trade) and an unpotentised sham.

I find it remarkably telling that there is no way to answer the simple questions such as, do airport security scanners deactivate homoeopathic remedies, or, does grafting produce active remedies, or, do any of the wacky devices BSM has mentioned produce active remedies, or even, if a homoeopathic pharmacy was scamming its clients and selling them ordinary untreated sugar pills, how could we tell?

Why is that, do you think? Simple. Because there is no way to distinguish between a properly-prepared potentised remedy and the unpotentised carrier material.

If you can't do that, then you don't even have a starting point.

By the way, you never did answer my invitation to show that Hahnemann, the inventor, discoverer and founder of homoeopathy, on whose pioneering work all subsequent work in the subject is based, and whose findings (and provings) are still in use today, always used double distilled water.

Rolfe.

Delusions_O_Grandeur

12th June 2007, 05:19 PM

P.W. Bridgman, PhD, former professor of physics at Harvard for a couple of decades, and he is a Nobel Laureate. He wrote a book called THE PHYSICS OF HIGH ALTITUDE. He found that whenever one takes water to certain altitudes and freeze it, it freezes in a different pattern based on the high pressure of altitude. However, he found that once water is frozen at one altitude, it "remembers" the structure of the water and refreezes in a similar pattern at a different altitude. Water does seem to have a memory, and you can seem to "write" on it.

I can't find "The physics of high altitude" by Bridgman. I did find the book "The physics of high pressure". I couldn't find the contents of the book on the web though. Are you sure he actually confirmed that water freezes in a different pattern depending on it's pressure/temperature history? A simmilar efffect occures in magnetizable substances. Magnetization can depend on the history of the magnitude of magnetization. This is called hysteresis.

So my question to the people who know a lot about physics would be: "Does water show any sign of hysteresis in any temperature/pressure range at all?" This has little to do with homeopathy but I *am* curiuous.

JamesGully

12th June 2007, 06:50 PM

Hey Delusions de Grandeur...
That's very interesting. I'm sure that water is not the only memory storage device in nature.
As for Bridgman's book...I mis-named it. It is THE PHYSICS OF HIGH PRESSURE.
The good news about our dialogue here is that several of you have publically stated that you will consider homeopathy as valid if there is some technology that can differentiate one homeopathic medicine from another, even at post-Avogadro number doses. Cool...because THIS is the subject of Rustum Roy's forthcoming article. I previously gave a link to a webcast discussion of this new research. Did anyone out there get a chance to hear/see it?
As for airport scanners...as I previously said, there is no hard evidence that it creates any problem. However, because some homeopaths prefer to be conservative (that's right!), they prefer to avoid things that may neutralize their medicines, especially since there's no every day easy-to-access technology that will tell them whether or not their medicines have been neutralized or not (Roy discusses several technologies, not just one, that measure homeopathics).
As for Monkey...I do not know about those machines, and I do not comment on things about which I do not know.
By the way, I find it interesting that you folks feel comfortable referring to studies in the alternative medicine peer-review literature when it is a "negative" study, but when they publish a "positive" study, you call these same journals "quack literature." Hmmmm.
I'm waiting for someone to report on the research of Stephan Baumgartner, PhD. His research on plants using beyond Avogadro number doses is very provocative.
Rolfe...which study(s) did you read here? Do you really mean to say that none of his work, including his review of basic science replication trials, was unconvincing? It is easy not to see when you close your eyes.

Pipirr

12th June 2007, 07:19 PM

The good news about our dialogue here is that several of you have publically stated that you will consider homeopathy as valid if there is some technology that can differentiate one homeopathic medicine from another, even at post-Avogadro number doses. Cool...because THIS is the subject of Rustum Roy's forthcoming article. I previously gave a link to a webcast discussion of this new research. Did anyone out there get a chance to hear/see it?

If there is such a technology, it would be very, very interesting indeed. However, it would not necessarily add validity to homeopathy as a system of medicine. For that, there needs to be good clinical evidence. Still, I will await Rustum Roy's forthcoming article with interest. And of course skepticism...

I'm waiting for someone to report on the research of Stephan Baumgartner, PhD. His research on plants using beyond Avogadro number doses is very provocative.

Yes, it is provocative. I'll take a look, but I don't think I can access the content of the German journals. The following sentence, from one of the abstracts (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=PubMed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=16230858&ordinalpos=15&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum), was a good start:

Independent replications of preclinical investigations of homeopathic potencies are rare. However, they are a necessary tool to determine the relevant factors modulating the effects of homeopathic potencies in preclinical systems.

Not that experiments on wheat seedlings validate homeopathy as a system of medicine, of course. But the desire to replicate studies is commendable.

Hydrogen Cyanide

12th June 2007, 11:30 PM

...The good news about our dialogue here is that several of you have publically stated that you will consider homeopathy as valid if there is some technology that can differentiate one homeopathic medicine from another, even at post-Avogadro number doses. Cool...because THIS is the subject of Rustum Roy's forthcoming article. I previously gave a link to a webcast discussion of this new research.

Cool... can you post of a link of the actual verification of this research. Because, well... webcasts are not exactly indexed at www.pubmed.gov (http://www.pubmed.gov).

...
By the way, I find it interesting that you folks feel comfortable referring to studies in the alternative medicine peer-review literature when it is a "negative" study, but when they publish a "positive" study, you call these same journals "quack literature." Hmmmm.
I'm waiting for someone to report on the research of Stephan Baumgartner, PhD. His research on plants using beyond Avogadro number doses is very provocative.

Actually I'm waiting for you to answer MY questions! I am beginning to think you put me on "ignore".

Oh, good grief... citing Stephan Baumgartner is now really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Putting "baumgartner s" into www.pubmed.gov (http://www.pubmed.gov) brings up several cites that he is not the primary author on!...

For instance: No positive result was stable enough to be reproduced by all investigators. A general adoption of succussed controls, randomization and blinding would strengthen the evidence of future experiments (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17544864&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum).

The rest are at best could be call "reaching for a conclusion we really wanted", and not even in a second rate journal.

Now do a better job of answering this veterinarian's question!

...
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?

And at least attempt this long unemployed aerospace engineer's questions!

You first!!!

...
Now answer some questions:

1) One of the "miasms" Hahnemann was claiming to cure was syphilis. What was his success in curing syphilis two hundred years ago? What is the standard of care for treating the actual bacterial disease known as syphilis? How effective would modern homeopathy be with actual syphilis?

2) Cardiac conditions are another big killer of Americans... so your magic potions should work great for them also. My oldest son as a genetic condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with obstruction. He presently takes the beta-blockers (Atenolol) to reduce the pressure on his already damaged mitral valve. My question is how would your homeopathic treatment be better for him than Atenolol?

3) Also, how does your Masters in Public Health (MPH) give any credibility? Does this mean you have actually learned the value of sewage disposal, clean water supplies, pest control in food preparation areas, and vaccines? Are you the one who shows up in a disaster area (flood, hurricane, earthquake, etc) giving out homeopathic remedies instead of clean water, toilet facilities and vaccines for tetanus?

4) In what way does duck bits diluted to something impossible to do on this planet actually supposed to work?

5) What is Avogadro's Number and why would it be important in a discussion on homeopathy?

6) Who, where and when have Rey's thermoluminescence study ever been replicated?

7) What does 10-9 mean, and does it have anything to do with homeopathy?

8) Why is this sentence in FDA regulations (http://www.fda.gov/ora/compliance_ref/cpg/cpgdrg/cpg400-400.html)pertaining to homeopathy: "Homeopathic products intended solely for self-limiting disease conditions amenable to self-diagnosis (of symptoms) and treatment may be marketed OTC. Homeopathic products offered for conditions not amenable to OTC use must be marketed as prescription products. "

9) Which leads to this question: Do you have prescribing privileges? Can you actually practice medicine with your vaulted Masters in Public Health?

...It is easy not to see when you close your eyes.

Actually, I am pretty sure my eyes are open. I am willing to believe if you would actually answer the questions I posted above (which have been posted to you several times).

All we really need to "open our eyes" is if you can tell the difference between 30C Natrum Mur and 30C something else. What could be simpler? Take one bottle of a homeopathic remedy and differentiate between another... You can do it! Go for it, and win big bucks!

That has got to be better than trolling the blogosphere looking for negativity towards homeopathy!

Badly Shaved Monkey

12th June 2007, 11:39 PM

As for airport scanners...as I previously said, there is no hard evidence that it creates any problem. However, because some homeopaths prefer to be conservative (that's right!), they prefer to avoid things that may neutralize their medicines, especially since there's no every day easy-to-access technology that will tell them whether or not their medicines have been neutralized or not (Roy discusses several technologies, not just one, that measure homeopathics).

No. That's being extremely disingenuous. Many homeopaths absolutely asser that the X-ray scanners (along with a whole host of other things) neutralise their remedies. This is not being conservative about a possibvle effect. It is an absolute assertion of an effect accepted as fact.

There is no "hard" evidence. Very funny. There is no hard evidence for anything in homeopathy.

Once again, I need to point out that the fundamental issue is not whether X-rays do affect homeopathic remedies, though it is frankly pathetic that this, along with everything else about homeopathy, has not been subjected to the simple tests that would resolve the question, but that homeopaths assert diametrically opposite and mutuallly contradictory things based on their "clinical experience" and you cannot see a problem with that. What is most appalling is that you do not, or claim you do not, see any problem with this.

Try this as a quote;

http://www.homeowatch.org/policy/screening.html

"Never allow your remedies to be X-rayed (airport entries). Never place your remedies on or within 3 feet of equipment that radiates a strong magnetic field (T.V., microwave, magnets). Any electrical writing, outlet or switch will have a weak magnetic field, and remedies should be located 6 or more inches away. Homeopathic remedies possess dynamic electromagnetic fields of varying amplitude, depending on their potencies. These fields become distorted and unpredictable when strongly affected by other magnetic fieldsNever allow your remedies to be X-rayed (airport entries). Never place your remedies on or within 3 feet of equipment that radiates a strong magnetic field (T.V., microwave, magnets). Any electrical writing, outlet or switch will have a weak magnetic field, and remedies should be located 6 or more inches away. Homeopathic remedies possess dynamic electromagnetic fields of varying amplitude, depending on their potencies. These fields become distorted and unpredictable when strongly affected by other magnetic fields"

Butu

http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/homeopathy_emergency_kit_gina.htm

"x-ray airport scanners do no harm to the remedies. "

Yet;

http://www.soak.com/topic/homeopathy/article/tshow/51177/storage+of+homeopathic+remedies

" An airport x-ray scan at security check points will reverse the effects of a remedy, too, so keep them in a pocket instead of luggage. "

That's the great thing about homeopathy, you can just make up new rules as you go along and no one can say you are wrong to do so. I wish the rest of medicine worked like that. Drug development would be so simple and cheap.

As for Monkey...I do not know about those machines, and I do not comment on things about which I do not know.

So must make exactly the same point all over again. It really isn't all that relevant how these boxes of electrical bits claim to work. I am asking you repeatedly to affirm whether you accept, at face value, the clinical experience of homeopaths who use them, because that is exactly parallel with the only evidence you have for any of your claims for homeopathy. This is not even an issue of nasty sceptics being horrible about your fictitious medicines, this is asking you for your opinion about your own people who use exactly the same methods of assessment that you do and indeed exactly the same methods your guru Hahnemann did. If you can't accept their clinical experience then you have you have a serious problem with the entire body of homeopathic clinical experience. So, I ask again, do you accept their clinical experience or not?

i.e.;

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.

You also missed the new question that would be very useful for establishing your credibility when you comment on clinical trials.

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?

kieran

13th June 2007, 12:14 AM

Oohhhh, there is so much of this that is just gagging for the comment: "Back at ya!" ... which to choose .... mmmmm .... I'll take this one ...

It is easy not to see when you close your eyes.

:covereyes

Please stop fannying around on the fringes of observability and explain all the ridiculous anomalies regarding homoeopathy that have been pointed out to you in the past 5 or 6 pages. I'm not asking for a obscure reference to a weak study, or speculation as to how your fantasies may or may not work. Just explain why, if this thing works as you say it does, its results cannot be distinguished from pure water? There should be a mountain of peer reviewed and repeatable studies that mean that this issue is no longer in doubt ... but there are not ... but there are not ... but there are not ...

That is the crux of the matter. Without being able to settle on an answer that allows us to move on, then everything else is just pointless speculation.

People are selling this crap and other poor sods are putting their faith in it, sometimes with serious consequences (as they should be seeking real medical care as soon as possible). All this while you insist on piffling on about ideas that are so far to the edge of your fantasy world that it borders on the irrelevant ...

For instance, if we start to meander down your water "memory" route ...

If water has a "memory", is it also intelligent? Is it clever and selective? How does it only remember the bits we hope it remembers? Why isn't all natural water extremely poisonous as it has all come into contact with toxins and probably contains traces of these? How do you actually purify water for homoeopathic medicines, how do you check you have completely wiped its "memory"?

But I'm not keen on heading off on that particular tangent, it is only a smoke-screen to distract for the glaringly obvious issue you seem to be "closing your eyes" to, so I'll say it again as your attention seems to stray back to, and indeed always focus on, the pointless stuff too easily ...

Just explain why, if this thing works as you say it does, its results cannot be distinguished from pure water? :confused:

Michael C

13th June 2007, 12:20 AM

As for airport scanners...as I previously said, there is no hard evidence that it creates any problem. However, because some homeopaths prefer to be conservative (that's right!), they prefer to avoid things that may neutralize their medicines, [...]

Homeopaths, having absolutely no knowledge if airport scanners have any effect on the remedies, decide that they might have an effect. I fear that the shaking up of the pills in the container while I'm walking, the pollution in the air that come into contact with the pills each time I open the container, the plastic of the container, the radiation produced by my mobile phone and the fact that I drank peppermint tea could all possibly destroy the effect of the remedies. How can the homeopaths reassure me?

...especially since there's no every day easy-to-access technology that will tell them whether or not their medicines have been neutralized or not (Roy discusses several technologies, not just one, that measure homeopathics).

That's easy. I can discuss them too: it doesn't mean that they work. But if Roy has access to a technology that actually measures homeopathics, he can win a million dollars. And that would be just the beginning. So I'll wait for that.

Rolfe

13th June 2007, 02:03 AM

Finally, please remember that homeopathic manufacturers use a double-distilled water.
Because homeopaths have always used a double-distilled water, ....
OK, let's concentrate on something very simple.

Please demonstrate that Hahnemann, the inventor/discoverer of the entire homoeopathic method, who carried out all the seminal work in the subject and whose findings and provings are still the bedrock of modern practice, used double-distilled water.

[You know what this reminds me of? A similar thread where another homoeopath (Sarah-I I think) was asked why all water isn't just hoaching with the memories of everything it ever came into contact with, and she blustered that homoeopaths always used something ultra-pure called "nuclear water". Nobody could discover what the hell "nuclear water" actually was. In the end she was asked the question about whether Hahnemann had access to this "nuclear water", and if he used it, at which point she backed down to say that Hahnemann had just used "pure spring water", and that was just fine, you didn't have to use "nuclear water" at all.]

You know where this is going, don't you? Hahnemann didn't use double-distilled water. The question of water remembering its past lives apparently didn't even occur to him. So, if double-distilled water is now so necessary, why? If this is true, does that not invalidate everything Hahnemann thought he discovered? And thus the entire bedrock of homoeopathy is fatally undermined.

Which brings us back to that basic question once again. How do you tell the difference between a properly prepared remedy and an improperly prepared one? Whether it's the question of the source of the water used for the dilutions, or possible exposure to inactivating forces, or the validity of non-standard methods of preparation such as grafting or computerised machines, how can anyone make any statement at all concerning these points if there is no way to distinguish an active remedy from an inactive one?

We hear weird and wonderful theories about how water has this amazing memory, but they seem to be made up to order and altered at will whenever an awkward question is posed (such as the sudden need for some special sort of water that Hahnemann most definitely didn't use being discovered whenever the matter of the past lives of water is raised). The fact is that it is simplicity itself for anyone with the right equipment to tell a written-on CD from a blank, or a CD of the Nutcracker Suite from a CD of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

BSM quoted an assetion from a homoeopath that:
Homeopathic remedies possess dynamic electromagnetic fields of varying amplitude, depending on their potencies.
OK, how does this person know this? Such fields should be capable of being detected and measured, and these measurements used to distinguish a real remedy from a chemically-identical non-remedy. Has this person actually measured these fields? Has anyone? Answer, no. The idea of "dynamic electromagnetic fields" has simply been invented as a means of impressing and convincing the uncritical.

Homoeopaths do it all the time. You, James, are doing it, though you seem to have the sense to couch your ideas as speculations rather than statements of hard fact.

Roy may talk a fine talk, but he hasn't demonstrated zip as far as any sort of property possessed by a routinely-prepared homoeopathic remedy is concerned. Let alone addressed the question of how such a property might influence a biological system, and how it chimes in with "like cures like".
.... there's no every day easy-to-access technology that will tell them whether or not their medicines have been neutralized or not....
News flash. There's no technology of this sort at all, no matter how sophisticated or esoteric, so that is a very disingenuous statement. If one were to be discovered and demonstrated then that would be a different matter, but I'm with Michael C. When it happens, show me. Oh yes and don't forget to show the JREF as well, for a million dollars.

Alternatively, you could produce a well-controlled and well-blinded clinical study that really does show a clinical effect of homoeopathic remedies (as opposed to the positive effects we all know are to be gained from the "therapeutic consultation"). I'm tired of looking at unblinded, anecdotal and partisan studies that simply don't show anything beyond coincidental recovery and wishful thinking. I'm past even describing them as poorly-designed, because no group of people could be that dim so consistently for so long. It's quite clear that homoeopathic studies are being deliberately designed to highlight the effects of the therapeutic consultation, and/or to allow a data-dredge to find some significance, somewhere, that can be positively spun.

These are the problems. With a method which is even as we speak being used to treat real people with real diseases, people who are being assured that this will "cure" them. With no real evidence that the remedies do anything at all, no way to tell a remedy from a non-remedy, and no idea as to any possible mode of action.

All you have is speculation, maybes, and a helluva lot invested in these flaky and barely relevant maunderings of people like this Roy character.

How much are you making a year from "treating" people? How confidently do you assure them that your methods are valid and robust?

I think it's despicable.

Rolfe.

Lothian

13th June 2007, 02:26 AM

If there is such a technology, it would be very, very interesting indeed. However, it would not necessarily add validity to homeopathy as a system of medicine. For that, there needs to be good clinical evidence.
This is the key to convincing people.

Even if water had a memory, even if you could tell two different C30 doses apart it does not validate homeopathy. Legs and wings share an evolutionary predecessor, and bats are mammals. That doesn’t mean that pigs can fly.

Never mind wasting time on crappy glass chips or Benveniste’s promising, Willy Wonka, results on electronic transmission of homeopathic medicines via a phone line. Show us your flying pig.

Name one homeopathic medicine with sub Avogadro dilution that constantly beats placebo in trials. Just one.

Cuddles

13th June 2007, 02:48 AM

In contrast, the NEW SCIENTIST commonly reports on high quality basic science research on homeopathy. I encourage you all to go to newscientist.com and read the variety of articles (not all positive!) that they've published over the years. Be brave because you're going to get humble (humilty is one of the highest qualities of a good scientist). We can all benefit from it.

I agree. Everyone should read New Scientist on homeopathy. Let's have a quick look at the search results shall we?

2007 - nothing.
2006 - 2 articles, both critical of homeopathy.
2005 - 2 articles, one critical and the other just saying Ennis' work has not been explained or replicated.
2004 - nothing.
2003 - 2 articles, one reporting a test in mice but with a skeptical bent, the other reporting on water memory, but also skeptical of it.
2002 - 1 book review, skeptical. 1 article, reporting problems with the Horizon trial but saying nothing about homeopathy itself.
2001 - 2 articles, one in favour of homeopathy, the other noncommital.
2000 - nothing.
1999 - nothing.
1998 - a failed lawsuit by Beneviste, but nothing on homeopathy itself.
1997 - 1 article, critical of homeopathy.

Note: I have not counted interviews and opinion pieces.

So, the news magazine (not journal) that you claim supports you so much has in fact had an average of 1 article per year on homeopahty in the last decade, all except one of which were not in favour of homeopathy. Most of those that were not actually critical were simply reporting results that were published elsewhere rather than actually saying anything themselves. And this is your idea of what will humble us? It seems that it is you that needs to do more research.

malbui

13th June 2007, 03:16 AM

So, the news magazine (not journal) that you claim supports you so much has in fact had an average of 1 article per year on homeopahty in the last decade, all except one of which were not in favour of homeopathy. Most of those that were not actually critical were simply reporting results that were published elsewhere rather than actually saying anything themselves. And this is your idea of what will humble us? It seems that it is you that needs to do more research.

Ah, but this is homeopathic science reporting. One positive word among thirty million is much more powerful than lots of reports all saying good things. ;)

Ivor the Engineer

13th June 2007, 03:28 AM

Rustum Roy's latest(?) from his web-site (http://www.rustumroy.com/):

http://www.rustumroy.com/Silver%20water%20paper%20MRI%20vol%2011%20is%201.p df

Badly Shaved Monkey

13th June 2007, 05:02 AM

Let us suppose that I have a marvellous machine, a black box that I say can make antibiotics just by my typing in the name of the drug on a keyboard or saying the name into a little microphone. All I need to do is put a bottle of sugar tablets in the appropriate slot and out comes the bottle all prepped with its antibiotics. Now, I don't bother showing that the machine does what I say it does, I don't bother to explain any of the principles said to lie behind its operation and I don't bother about whether I can do quality control on my treated tablets to see if they do what I say they do.

I make a lot of money selling both the machines and also my "antibiotic" tablets to poor people and poor countries as treatments for serious and life-threatening diseases. If people still die, I will sugggest they probably 'asked' the machine for the wrong antibiotic, or possibly got the tablets too close to an X-ray scanner or had sucked an ExtraStrong mint, because it is well know that these will neutralise the subtle chemistry in the tablets.

A kindly homeopath, gently polishing his halo and adopting his most beatifically saintly smile, asks a famous doctor, who is well known for making public statements about medicine, whether it is reasonable for antiobiotics to be made in this way and whether we should believe the supposed stories of successful treatments using the tablets made by my machine. But, that doctor says he has no idea and couldn't possibly comment on whether this was a reasonable way for people to obtain treatment. He also gives no indication that such machines or their medicines should be put through any form of testing to see whether they work before being sold to the gullible sick. In short he finds himself unable to make any comment at all.

What would be our opinions of such a doctor?

Do we think that all medicines should be allowed to be made by unaccountable and unregulated people using devices that cannot be demonstrated that they work?

On a completely unrelated subject, "James" has still not answered some rather important 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.

You also missed the new question that would be very useful for establishing your credibility when you comment on clinical trials.

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

13th June 2007, 05:16 AM

Rustum Roy's latest(?) from his web-site (http://www.rustumroy.com/):

http://www.rustumroy.com/Silver%20water%20paper%20MRI%20vol%2011%20is%201.p df

These aren't even "ultra-dilute" in the sense implied by homeopaths, the concentrations employed were 10-30ppm, i.e. 10-30uM, which is well up in the range of conventional pharmaceuticals.

I don't think I've dropped a whole load of decimal points here, but someone please correct me if I'm beiong a bit slow today.

Drugs are often administered in the mg/kg range, which is 1 in a 1-million dilution in the body by weight, i.e uM final concentrations for MW=1. But bearing in mind that most drug substances have quite high molecular weights the actual molarity of the concentrations achieved in the body can be very small indeed. This is chemistry and pharmacy not homeopathic solutions and is irrelevant to what we are discussing. Are his other papers irrelevant for similar reasons? (As well as being irrelevant because most remedies are taken as lactose tablets and 'grafting' allegedly is an effective way to make remedies and and silly boxes of electronics are allegedly able to make remedies.....)

As I said, I may be being a bit slow here so please feel free to pitch in and correct me.

Lothian

13th June 2007, 05:23 AM

BSM I think that you may have wrongly concluded that these machines have not been tested and shown to work. See below. How do I know if the gadget really works?

Answer

If you can dowse with a pendulum ask it, "Does the Voice Potentiser work"?
If you cannot please ask someone to dowse the question for you.

Pipirr

13th June 2007, 06:06 AM

This comment, from the introduction of Rustum Roy's paper (http://www.rustumroy.com/Silver%20water%20paper%20MRI%20vol%2011%20is%201.p df), is disingenuous.

Further support for the obvious safety of
consuming metallic silver (AgO) is in the worldwide
consumption of (so-called) silver colloids, often made at
home in primitive electrochemical cells by probably
some millions of citizens, again with no ill effects.

People with argyria (http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/PhonyAds/silverad.html) would strenuously disagree; the risk of producing silver compounds, other than colloids, in a primitive home made apparatus, is definitely there.

Pipirr

13th June 2007, 06:26 AM

These aren't even "ultra-dilute" in the sense implied by homeopaths, the concentrations employed were 10-30ppm, i.e. 10-30uM, which is well up in the range of conventional pharmaceuticals.

And well in the detectable concentration range. Silver concentrations were determined using ICP analysis, so no major breakthrough there.

This is not a paper on detecting the memory of compounds in water diluted beyond Avogadro's number.

Oh, when will Hahnemann be proven right?

steenkh

13th June 2007, 10:11 AM

Badly Shaved Monkey

13th June 2007, 01:58 PM

This comment, from the introduction of Rustum Roy's paper (http://www.rustumroy.com/Silver%20water%20paper%20MRI%20vol%2011%20is%201.p df), is disingenuous.

People with argyria (http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/PhonyAds/silverad.html) would strenuously disagree; the risk of producing silver compounds, other than colloids, in a primitive home made apparatus, is definitely there.

It is a strangely informal piece for something that is supposed to be a scientific paper.

Badly Shaved Monkey

13th June 2007, 02:09 PM

The irony is that all the objections homoeopaths have about the basophil studies would never have occurred if the results had been positive. If Randi had had to cough up with the million dollars, homoeopaths all over the world would have exulted and nobody would have pointed out that there were serious flaws in the experiments.

Anyway, it seems that nobody are replicating the original basophil experiments anymore. How can that be?

And the other homeo-friendly experiments, like the ones that allegedly shows that water can have memory also seem to be unreproduceable ... well, well!

While we're on the subject of bizarrely fragile and corruptible experimental models, some readers may not have come across this, so I am including a link to it;

http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowPDF&ArtikelNr=72211&Ausgabe=229441&ProduktNr=224242&filename=72211.pdf

I'm struggling to remember, while on this subject, who was the homeopathic researcher who had a widely touted study that won a prize but then the host institution smelled a rat and withdrew the prize and investigated the authors for fiddling their results? I think it was Austrian.

Rolfe

13th June 2007, 02:57 PM

It is a strangely informal piece for something that is supposed to be a scientific paper.
Just what I was thinking. The gushing fan-boy attitude and the frank advocacy of the wondrous benefits of what he's studying don't belong in a serious paper by a mile. What was that journal he claimed had accepted it, and who publishes it anyway? If it's really a reputable journal I'd bet a fair bit that it wasn't accepted in that form. I mean, anybody can produce slick pdfs these days, and it isn't an actual journal-page pdf.

And the fact that some silver preparations are excellent antiseptics is hardly news.

Rolfe.

Pipirr

13th June 2007, 03:19 PM

Just what I was thinking. The gushing fan-boy attitude and the frank advocacy of the wondrous benefits of what he's studying don't belong in a serious paper by a mile. What was that journal he claimed had accepted it, and who publishes it anyway? If it's really a reputable journal I'd bet a fair bit that it wasn't accepted in that form. I mean, anybody can produce slick pdfs these days, and it isn't an actual journal-page pdf.

Considering the speculative nature of the paper and the fact that some dubious comments had gotten past review, I assumed that having a Nobel prize gives an author some latitude.

But guess how much?

The paper:

Materials Research Innovations, 2007, vol 11 No 1. "Ultradilute Ag-aquasols with extraordinary bactericidal properties: role of the system Ag–O–H2O".

A journal of that name was discontinued by Elsevier in 2003. However, Materials Research Innovations still exists. This webpage (http://www.in-cites.com/journals/MaterialsResearchInnovations.html)describes their interesting publication and review policy, and their reason for being:

Starting a new journal may be justified if, like in all science, it really breaks new ground. M.R.I’s raison d’etre is that it, itself, is an innovation.

The second reason is that virtually the entire active research community—especially mature scientists—are dissatisfied with the peer-review system for two reasons. (The younger generation,having experienced no other and unaware of other national or international science-funding policies, grumbles but acquiesces, being subdued by absurdly incorrect arguments such as: "There is no other system.")

The traditional peer review (TRP) system simply can’t handle, in a reasonable way, the reporting of genuine innovation; any step-function (as distinct from the usual incremental) advances. Peer-review, by unanimous acclamation, has failed this test. Alfred North Whitehead spotted this weakness 50 years ago. "Advance in detail is permitted; fundamental novelty is barred," he wrote in the 1950s.

The third area where there is acknowledged failure of the peer-review system, is the huge waste of time of authors and reviewers and in the delay to publication schedule.

So peer review as we know it, is not to be used. What is? Something called Super Peer Review (SPR).

What is SPR? Traditional peer "review" is review of the content of papers. TPR obviously has been unable to provide any guarantee of quality or even reality. We remind the reader that all the cases of out-and-out fraud (including e.g. the series of fabricated papers a là Alsabti), or major errors have all been in peer-reviewed journals (e.g. cold-fusion; polywater; and the much worse, very recent "harder than diamond" fiasco. There, a non-existent-will-o-the-wisp claim has been cited 6,000+ times and caused the waste of thousands of person-years of work in proving it wrong; etc., etc.).

In contrast, super peer review (SPR), instead is based on sound epistemology. It recognizes that the quality of any research is the product of the quality of the person doing it and the quality of the work done.

The interesting test of the M.R.I concept was: Who would be willing to sign on as editors? The answer was: one of the most distinguished assemblages of such for any materials journal, worldwide. Next, could we find a leading publisher? We were fortunate that indeed such a world-class publisher as Springer-Verlag of Heidelberg took up this challenge.

Super peer review is based on reviewing the authors, not the particular piece of work. Moreover, that review can be done easily and on objective criteria.

What is the major criterion? That the author (at least one) shall have published in the open, often peer-reviewed (!!) literature, a large (30-50 papers) body of work. The reasoning is simple. Every author is eager to get his work on the record. If they have a track record to preserve, they are hardly likely to risk it by publishing flawed work.

One further deterrent is that part of the system also is, that any other author with similar credentials, if she/he thinks the original paper is flawed in any way, will be able to publish a response without further review.

The only other criterion is that the work be "new," "a step-function advance," etc. For that purpose, M.R.I. requires that every author address this question explicitly in the text itself: How does this work relate to previous work and why is it an Innovation?

Well, that explains a few things. But who was it that wrote all that?

None other than:

Materials Research Innovations
Dr. Rustum Roy, Editor-in-Chief
Springer-Verlag, publisher.

Zing.

Mojo

14th June 2007, 12:25 AM

So peer review as we know it, is not to be used. What is? Something called Super Peer Review (SPR). Or "appeal to authority", as it is more usually known.

kieran

14th June 2007, 02:08 AM

So this super peer review ... "recognizes that the quality of any research is the product of the quality of the person doing it and the quality of the work done."

There is something (albeit very little) to be said for this - however, the balance in super peer review is completely wrong. Work carried out by a genius deserves more attention than work carried out by a moron. However, if the work is sh!te then it is still sh!te.

There is nothing wrong with the conventional peer review system in this respect ... peer reviewers are anonymous but the authors are not, if a reviewer receives a piece of work by a respected figure, then they will be more likely to look deeper when they have doubts, so that people with good reputations (i.e. proven track records for quality) will be able to push more off-beat ideas than those who do not. But if the idea is not good then the reviewer should eventually treat it as such, regardless of the author.

malbui

14th June 2007, 02:15 AM

There is something (albeit very little) to be said for this - however, the balance in super peer review is completely wrong. Work carried out by a genius deserves more attention than work carried out by a moron. However, if the work is sh!te then it is still sh!te.

I remember talking about this a few years ago with a bloke I used to sit next to at football, who was head of department at a respected UK university and well-known in his particular field of specialised chemistry. His viewpoint was simple: he was only as good as his last piece of research. No matter how many good and ground-breaking papers he'd authored over the last thirty years, he couldn't rely on his reputation to get away with publishing sh!te.

Mosquito

14th June 2007, 05:32 AM

Just to let you know that 200C translates to a percentage of (I may get the math wrong, corrections are welcome) to 10-399% (it is written out in full at http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/homeopathy2.htm). I believe that means that there may be one molecule of duck stuff in the amount of water that would exist on several dozen Earths.

I haven't bothered to read the other many pages of answers, I just wanted to chip in that your lack of (critical) thinking in this part disappoints me.

200C would be like 10-398%, I suppose, but that is only one order of magnitude wrong (unless *I* am wrong, that is ;) ).

The big problem here is that there are (only) about 1080 elementary particles in the entire visible universe (give or take a few orders of magnitude, which does not matter to my argument here). I am pretty sure you know this, as you are a long time contributor to this forum, and you are *not* an ignoramus.

This leads to you either having a rather weird definition of "several dozens" or you think the Earth is substantially bigger than it is.

The truth is that any molecule of "duck stuff" or anything else is at least a 10-78% of all matter in the visible universe, and you are off by some 320 orders of magnitude, maybe more! :eye-poppi That is not very good presicion...:p

The universe is big, but with these kinds of numbers, one just get numb to the realities of them ;)

At about 12C we have a "less than one molecule pr mol"-dilution (or something like that, anyhow).

Somewhere around 40C we have a "less than one elementary particle pr universe"-dilution. As you know; 200C dwarfs 40C into the ridiculous...

Mosquito - pedantic, so correct me...

MRC_Hans

14th June 2007, 07:04 AM

Mmmm, I made a spreadsheet for this somewhere. I'll dig it up. However, this is really a discussion about whether homeopathic "dilutions" are totally, utterly, utterly, completely insanely ridiculous, or if we should leave out one "utterly".

Hans

MRC_Hans

14th June 2007, 07:23 AM

Hey Delusions de Grandeur...
That's very interesting. I'm sure that water is not the only memory storage device in nature.

False statement. Uou are implyingthat water is indeed a memory storage device. No evidence exists for this. None at all.

As for Bridgman's book...I mis-named it. It is THE PHYSICS OF HIGH PRESSURE.

And how is this relevant for the topic at hand?

The good news about our dialogue here is that several of you have publically stated that you will consider homeopathy as valid if there is some technology that can differentiate one homeopathic medicine from another, even at post-Avogadro number doses.

You reading comprenension must be below par. What people have publicly stated is that ONE of the things invalidating homeopathy is the lack of any way to differentiate a valid homeopathic remedy from a non-valid one.

Several other things have, however, been mentioned that ALSO invalidated the claims of homeopathy.

Cool...because THIS is the subject of Rustum Roy's forthcoming article. I previously gave a link to a webcast discussion of this new research. Did anyone out there get a chance to hear/see it?

Why should't we just wait for the publication of his peer-reviewed report?

.. Oh, right: It will never materialize.

As for airport scanners...as I previously said, there is no hard evidence that it creates any problem. However, because some homeopaths prefer to be conservative (that's right!), they prefer to avoid things that may neutralize their medicines,

So, why are they conservative about x-rays? Why not sunlight, radio waves, loud noises, flower scents? I mean, if they are just making wild guesses, then .....

especially since there's no every day easy-to-access technology that will tell them whether or not their medicines have been neutralized or not

There is not only no technology at all, there is no methodology whatsoever. None at all.

(Roy discusses several technologies, not just one, that measure homeopathics).

Discussing does not cut the cake.

As for Monkey...I do not know about those machines, and I do not comment on things about which I do not know.

You are a high-profile homeopaths and you don't even have an opinion on this important part of contemporary practice? Interesting....

By the way, I find it interesting that you folks feel comfortable referring to studies in the alternative medicine peer-review literature when it is a "negative" study, but when they publish a "positive" study, you call these same journals "quack literature." Hmmmm.

Just provide your evidence. Evidence.

Hans

fls

14th June 2007, 07:29 AM

At a certain point in the dilution series, it changes from a measure of the average number of parts per million/billion/trillion to the probability that the single part left in the solution is contained within the drop selected for the next dilution. Maybe instead of presenting the dilution as one part per the number of particles in the known universe, we should present it as the probability that the single part is contained within the final solution?

Linda

fls

14th June 2007, 07:31 AM

This thread is more fun when Mr. Ullman posts.

Linda

Mojo

14th June 2007, 07:48 AM

As for Bridgman's book...I mis-named it. It is THE PHYSICS OF HIGH PRESSURE.
And how is this relevant for the topic at hand?

Maybe high pressure aids spallation (http://www.hpathy.com/homeopathyforums/forum_posts.asp?TID=2557&PN=1). ;)

Hydrogen Cyanide

14th June 2007, 09:30 AM

I haven't bothered to read the other many pages of answers, I just wanted to chip in that your lack of (critical) thinking in this part disappoints me.

200C would be like 10-398%, I suppose, but that is only one order of magnitude wrong (unless *I* am wrong, that is ;) ).

The big problem here is that there are (only) about 1080 elementary particles in the entire visible universe (give or take a few orders of magnitude, which does not matter to my argument here). I am pretty sure you know this, as you are a long time contributor to this forum, and you are *not* an ignoramus.

This leads to you either having a rather weird definition of "several dozens" or you think the Earth is substantially bigger than it is.

The truth is that any molecule of "duck stuff" or anything else is at least a 10-78% of all matter in the visible universe, and you are off by some 320 orders of magnitude, maybe more! :eye-poppi That is not very good presicion...:p

The universe is big, but with these kinds of numbers, one just get numb to the realities of them ;)

At about 12C we have a "less than one molecule pr mol"-dilution (or something like that, anyhow).

Somewhere around 40C we have a "less than one elementary particle pr universe"-dilution. As you know; 200C dwarfs 40C into the ridiculous...

Mosquito - pedantic, so correct me...

Thanks for the correction, after all I did invite it. I realized later that I goofed on the percentage which should have been 10-398.

I was actually unaware of the actual numbers of particles in the universe. It makes homeopathy use of 200C even more stupid and silly with the actual number!

"Dammit, captain, I am only an engineer, not an astrophysicist!". :p

Edit to add: I also only gave Brave Sir Dana the attention to detail he so richly deserves: Not much, or better yet "only in homeopathic doses".

Badly Shaved Monkey

14th June 2007, 02:01 PM

This thread is more fun when Mr. Ullman posts.

Linda

I think we mave have broken our homeopath again. We hadn't even been playing very rough.

Do they come with a warranty so we can get our money back or does this count as "fair wear and tear"?

Badly Shaved Monkey

14th June 2007, 02:10 PM

Maybe instead of presenting the dilution as one part per the number of particles in the known universe, we should present it as the probability that the single part is contained within the final solution?

To keep that simple and save a load or repetitive typing: for all practical purposes let's just call it 0.

Mojo

14th June 2007, 04:14 PM

I think we mave have broken our homeopath again. We hadn't even been playing very rough.

Do they come with a warranty so we can get our money back or does this count as "fair wear and tear"?

A blast from the past (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=849053#post849053).

Badly Shaved Monkey

14th June 2007, 11:30 PM

Service Announcement
We have recently been made aware of cases where attempts have been made to reprogramme Kumarbot by coarse use of facts, evidence and references to reality. Kumarbot was not designed to withstand such brutal software enhancements and BIOS failures are likely.

There's always the bloody small print. I'd forgotten about that clause. I think our money's gone.

steenkh

15th June 2007, 12:41 AM

Mmmm, I made a spreadsheet for this somewhere. I'll dig it up.
This results from this spreadsheet has been useful before, but it seems to have disappeared at the latest reorganisation of the JREF board. How about linking to it on your own homoeopathy page?

MRC_Hans

15th June 2007, 01:14 AM

OK; I'm late (very busy, currently), but as Mr. JG is also only posting at considerable intervals, I suppose I'm not entirely out of circulation.

Badly Shaven Monkey said that there was discussion elsewhere on this list that provided a critique of Rey's thermoluminesence work. I read a lot of study on this list about his work, but I saw no reasonable or good critique of it. Because it was published in such a high grade physics journal, the ball is in the skeptics' court to provide a specific critique. Please enlighten me.

Wasn't it about sample size and controls? The problem with thermoluminiscence is that it is extremely sensitive, essentially capable of detecting just a few atoms, and the detected substances are very common as contaminants. Therefore the missing controls are crucial.

I was disappointed that nobody made any comment on my reference to the recent discovery of silica fragments falling off from the inner part of glass bottles in the making of the homeopathic medicines. Because homeopaths have always used a double-distilled water, this "contamination" with silica or silicate fragments may help us understand the possibility of a certain physicality to the homeopathic doses even beyond Avogadro's number.

Why should the finding of yet another source of contamination provide an explanation? All you get is yet more disturbances you need to explain away.

Although Hans doesn't like it when I (or probably anyone else) uses the word "may," I prefer to remain humble in what I know (and don't know) until there is further verification (skeptics should appreciate this type of attitude rather than rebuke it).

The problem with the word "may" is that it can be used for anything. I can also say that homeopathic remedies may work by entrapped spirits, and it would be fully as valid as your theses.

The fact that double-distilled water has both silica fragments floating in it along with whatever was the original medicinal substance, I wonder if the structure of the water is changed.

Why?

I realize this concept of "structure of water" may be foreign to many people, but think of it this way: what is the chemical difference between a blank CD-ROM and a CD-ROM that has 18 encyclopedias on it? Structure actually is very important.

Structure is indeed important. However, the term structure when referring to liquids means something quite different than when referring to solids.

Another important question is: what is the chemical difference between graphite and diamond? Nothing...and yet, one of one of the softest elements and one is one of the hardest. It isn't the chemical composition that is so important as it is its structure.

Again, this is solid state physics. You cannot make any direct inferrences to liquids.

The bottomline here is that homeopaths may have found a way to store information in water.

"May". However, we're in June now ;).

I realize that most of the people on this list tend to have a knee-jerk anti-homeopathic reaction, but I challenge you all to explore the possibility that the homeopaths may be right.

We have already done that. Now I challenge you to explore the possibility that homeopaths may be wrong.

Hans

MRC_Hans

15th June 2007, 01:41 AM

Before I reference some of the clinical trials, I thought I would first focus our discussion on a more difficult subject: how homeopathic medicines may work.

Such a discussion may be interesting, provided someone can come up with a plausible theory. So far, nobody has.

I still find it interesting that no one is responding to my references to the high quality basic science research published in grade A science journals, specifically the work of Rey, Elia, and Roy. Roy's work on the "structure of water" seems to be too technical for some of you. That's OK...I don't expect everyone to understand every area of science, but just because you don't understand how you can "write" on homeopathy doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

All those studies have been addressed in the past, and I think you know this. Reasonable critique levelled at a study meand that it must, at best, retain the status "inconclusive", thus pending repetition and/or further research.

P.W. Bridgman, PhD, former professor of physics at Harvard for a couple of decades, and he is a Nobel Laureate. He wrote a book called THE PHYSICS OF HIGH ALTITUDE. He found that whenever one takes water to certain altitudes and freeze it, it freezes in a different pattern based on the high pressure of altitude.

Ehr, surely you mean low pressures?

However, he found that once water is frozen at one altitude, it "remembers" the structure of the water and refreezes in a similar pattern at a different altitude. Water does seem to have a memory, and you can seem to "write" on it.

Or the observed effect is due to something else. One of the problems with the many studies of freezing patterns is that there a numerous structures observable in any frozen sample. I have yet to see a study that accounted for the distribution of such structures. .. To put it in a slightly more blunt way: If you examine a sample of frozen water, you can pick out practically any pattern you would like to see.

Since some of you claim to be literate on homeopathy, I challenge you to answer one of the most basic questions about homeopathy: HOW DOES A HOMEOPATH DETERMINE WHAT A MEDICINE IS EFFECTIVE IN TREATING?

Well, to get an idea of my knowledge of homeopathy, you might read my article here: http://www.hans-egebo.dk/skeptic/Homeopathy%20article.htm

I have invited other homeopaths to comment on it and point out any factual errors in it. So far there have been no takers. Perhaps you ...?

However, the short answer is that the classical homeopath "takes" the case, mapping the totality of the patient's symptom profile. He then uses the Materia Medica (or, nowadays, some software) to find a remedy the proving profile of which matches the patient's profile. Thisi s supposed to be the similum and is administered to the patient. In strictly classical homeopathy it is administered as a single dose, but most modern homeopaths ask the patient to take repeated doses over some time.

If the patient recovers, the homeopath writes it down as yet anothe victory of homeopathy.

If the patient gets worse, the homeopath calls it homeopathic aggravation and a sign that the patient should continue the treatment.

If there is no improvement after a time, the homeopath conducts a new taking and prescribes another remedy (some homeopaths don't take the trouble to do a taking, but just finds another remedy).

This continues till the patient recovers and the homeopath can record yet another cure for homeopathy (or the patient finds another doctor, or dies, or leaves the country, in which case the homeopath simply forgets about the case).

Several years ago, I debated Saul Green, PhD, a chemist and skeptic of homeopathy. He thoroughy embarrassed himself and fellow skeptics by answering this question by saying that it was "folk wisdom." Needless to say, that is not the right answer.

I am getting tired of your ad hominems. You should attack the argument, not the man. He did not embarrass anybody. It is not Dr. Green's duty, or mine, or any other skeptic's, to know how homeopathy works. It is your duty, as a proponent of the practice.

What do YOU think is the right answer?

See above, but a perfectly valid answer would be: "I haven't the slightest idea. You tell me."

Hans

MRC_Hans

15th June 2007, 01:45 AM

Mojo is totally incorrect on the use of "provings" in homeopathy. Provings are either single- or double-blind trials that homeopaths or researchers conduct to determine the symptoms that a substance causes.

Please provide reference to some proving reports that use double blinding during the entire process.

Hans

MRC_Hans

15th June 2007, 02:08 AM

Linda...In ALL due respect, your reference to "isopathy" as distinct from "homeopathy" stands on sand. The bottomline "problem" that skeptics have with homeopathy is the "potentized dose" (please note that I do not consider the "potentized dose" to be a small or microdose, any more than an atomic bomb is a small bomb just because the very tiny atoms are smashing into each other).
It is interesting how you haven't acknowledged that the "isopathic medicine" used in these trials was sub-Avogadro's number. And why oh why, have these studies been published in the LANCET and the BMJ?

Not on sand at all. Hahnemann made a sharp distiction between hoemopathy and isopathy. That it has been made on sub-Avogadro dilutions may be interesting if we are discussing it as an isopathy trial, but since we are currently discussing homeopathy, it is totally irrelevant.

By the way...I am still waiting for SOMEONE to defend Wayne Turnbull and the BBC' Horizon programme or ABC's 20/20. Stand up and call it "good" science or "junk" science!"

TV programs will always at best be "popular" science. That dosn't mean that it is intrinsically invalid, however.

I am getting ready to drop the big big bomb on you folks, and I predict that many of you will be singing another tune.

We can't wait. :s2:

Some of you have suggested that 99.9% of scientists don't believe in homeopathy, as though this is proof of something because it wasn't too long ago that 99.9% of physicians believed in bloodletting and mercury and on and on and on (and "scientists" have been not only the biggest promoters of allopathic medicine but also their best "PR" persons).

Yes, 99.9% of scientists can be wrong. However, it requires some rather heavy evidence.

No one yet has figured out who is James Gully...and I'm not referring to Dana Ullman. I am not talking about who it is that is writing this. I am asking you: WHO is the real James Gully? Come on...there has got to be someone knowledgeable enough to know WHO he was.

I haven't the slightest idea. Any particular reason I should care?

Hans