Homeopathy theory

[insidespace]

It seems as if "homeopathy" is being given a big thumbs down around here. The "reason" for the rejection of this "science" is that there does not seem to be any real theory for why less is more.

Well, who knows why aspirin works? Everybody knows that no-one knows how. It just works. So, why would anyone conclude that just because no-one knows how homeopathy works, it cannot work at all?

Second, there are a lot of times in "nature" where less is more. EXAMPLE: a vaccination of your arm can protect you against polio, and what it does is give you polio in a little dose. There are polio bacterias in the vaccination, so you get a little dose of it, and it builds up your resistance for the real McCoy.

So, why not dilute some stuff down, and hope that your body will get the message and start producing a resistance to the big dose???????

You know, a black cat at night has a huge advantage -- until a truck comes.

Hope this helps.

[Thing]

Well, I'm convinced.

[hmmm...]

Well I'm not really sure if it's worth replying to this... but what the hell...

1) It is very well known how aspirin works. A 20 second web search will tell you that. Just firing out incorrect statements at random doesn't make for a very satisfying argument.

2) The vaccination analogy is a false one - again, you might want to spend a couple of seconds doing some research before showing your lack of understanding.

Here's a question for you - how can you tell if a homeopathic remedy is actually a homeopathic remedy? They are so diluted that there are no molecules of the intial substance left.
If you want to pay good money for water knock yourself out. A fool and his money soon part company.

[Gravy]

Well, who knows why aspirin works? Everybody knows that no-one knows how.Hmm. My scientist friend who was short-listed for the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on prostaglandins – he knows how aspirin works.

These people also seem to have a clue.

Aspirin works by preventing the production of prostaglandins. Because prostaglandins are involved in so many different body functions, aspirin can have many different types of effects on the body, both positive and negative. According to Vincent E. Pearson, Pharm.D., former clinical coordinator for drug information at Johns Hopkins, aspirin can:
Reduce fever by inhibiting prostaglandins that work to raise body temperature.
Relieve headache and other pain by inhibiting prostaglandins responsible for inflammation and by dampening pain sensations. Even with all the other treatments available, aspirin in combination with other agents is still considered quite effective against migraine.
Reduce swelling by inhibiting prostaglandins that respond to injury sites.
Reduce risk of blood clots and second ischemic stroke. Aspirin inhibits prostaglandins that are responsible for platelets sticking together to form clots. For this reason, anyone who has had a stroke or a transient ischemic attack (TIA), atrial fibrillation (a heart rhythm abnormality that can induce blood clots) or other clotting disorder may be put on aspirin therapy, either alone or in combination with other anti-clotting medications, such as warfarin. (Aspirin has not been shown to be valuable for reducing risk of first stroke.)
Reduce risk of first or second heart attack. The first major study of the effects of aspirin on heart attacks was the Physician's Health Study, organized by Dr. Charles Hennekens of Harvard University. This randomized study followed more than 22,000 healthy male physicians, ages 40 to 84, for about 4 years. It found that men who took low doses of aspirin (325 milligrams every other day) were found to have a 44 percent reduction in risk of a first heart attack, compared with men who did not take aspirin regularly. A similar study involving approximately 40,000 women has been undertaken. Other studies have shown that long-term use of aspirin can reduce the number of second heart attacks.
Treat acute myocardial infarction. Heart attack patients who are treated immediately with aspirin have reduced risks for second heart attack and stroke.
Potentially reduce the risk of colon cancer. Although the data are not consistent, there is some evidence that regular use of aspirin reduces the risk of developing colon cancer and precancerous polyps by up to 60 percent. Although the exact dosages required are not yet known, at least one study has found that just 80 milligrams of aspirin a day, the equivalent of one "baby aspirin," is enough to suppress production of certain prostaglandins suspected to be involved in tumor formation.
Reduce risk of eclampsia in pregnant women who develop preeclampsia. Eclampsia is a serious disorder of pregnancy in which blood pressure soars, possibly causing seizures, coma or even death. Aspirin inhibits the prostaglandins responsible for raising blood pressure.http://www.hopkinshospital.org/health_info/Neurological%20Diseases/Reading/aspirin.htmlAs for how homeopathy works, it doesn't. Less may be more at times, as when a lower dose of medicine is better than a higher dose. But nothing is always nothing, and you gotta have something, if you wanna be with me.

[Fnord]

"A fool and water will go the way they are diverted." -- African proverb.

"A fool and his money are soon very popular." -- P.T. Barnum (attributed).

"A fool and his money are soon parted." -- Thomas Tusser (1524-1580).

"A fool and his money are soon parted, but seldom by another fool." -- Me (among others).

[fls]

It seems as if "homeopathy" is being given a big thumbs down around here. The "reason" for the rejection of this "science" is that there does not seem to be any real theory for why less is more.

The reason that it is rejected is that the idea has been tested and shown not to work any differently from placebo. That is, there is no effect specific to homeopathy.

Well, who knows why aspirin works? Everybody knows that no-one knows how. It just works. So, why would anyone conclude that just because no-one knows how homeopathy works, it cannot work at all?

It's not necessary to know how something works in order for it to be taken seriously. One only needs to show that it has a specific effect.

Second, there are a lot of times in "nature" where less is more. EXAMPLE: a vaccination of your arm can protect you against polio, and what it does is give you polio in a little dose. There are polio bacterias in the vaccination, so you get a little dose of it, and it builds up your resistance for the real McCoy.

This is true. What does it have to do with homeopathy? There is no "little dose" in homeopathy and suggested treatments are not based on causes of disease.

So, why not dilute some stuff down, and hope that your body will get the message and start producing a resistance to the big dose???????

Again, what does that have to do with homeopathy?

Linda

[Zep]

It seems as if "homeopathy" is being given a big thumbs down around here. The "reason" for the rejection of this "science" is that there does not seem to be any real theory for why less is more.

Well, who knows why aspirin works? Everybody knows that no-one knows how. It just works. So, why would anyone conclude that just because no-one knows how homeopathy works, it cannot work at all?

Second, there are a lot of times in "nature" where less is more. EXAMPLE: a vaccination of your arm can protect you against polio, and what it does is give you polio in a little dose. There are polio bacterias in the vaccination, so you get a little dose of it, and it builds up your resistance for the real McCoy.

So, why not dilute some stuff down, and hope that your body will get the message and start producing a resistance to the big dose???????

You know, a black cat at night has a huge advantage -- until a truck comes.

Hope this helps.No, it doesn't help.

I could discuss this subject with you at length using facts, but here's a preliminary question just to set the baseline: Do you actually know anything at all about how homeopathic remedies are made? Be truthful now - better to be educated up front than have your pretensions revealed shamefully later.

[hmmm...]

I could discuss this subject with you at length using facts, .


pfff....well it's hardly fair bringing facts into it.

[bahrketnaten]

Not all homeopathy is the diluted away to nothing variety, to avoid false assumptions definition is needed here.

There are a number of immunologic anaolgies that fit the original homeopathy idea, using a small amount of the same thing to treat the related condition, whether it be the same antigen in vaccine or in allergy desensitization.

BKN

[Gravy]

Not all homeopathy is the diluted away to nothing variety, to avoid false assumptions definition is needed here.The fact that you had to say "not all" speaks volumes about homeopathy. Please do not defend this blatant fraud.

[fls]

Not all homeopathy is the diluted away to nothing variety, to avoid false assumptions definition is needed here.

Then those can be considered just regular pharmacology.

There are a number of immunologic anaolgies that fit the original homeopathy idea, using a small amount of the same thing to treat the related condition, whether it be the same antigen in vaccine or in allergy desensitization.

BKN

Those examples are not analogous to homeopathy. They are based on cause, which homeopathy is not. And they involve using a "small amount" which homeopathy does not. Even if you can find examples where the proposed treatment in homeopathy just happens to be the causative agent and it just happens to be in an amount that could induce a physiologic effect, we already have a name for that. It's called conventional evidence-based medicine. That homeopathy may accidentally stumble upon an evidence-based treatment does nothing to speak to the idea of homeopathy in the first place.

Linda

[Tokenconservative]

It seems as if "homeopathy" is being given a big thumbs down around here. The "reason" for the rejection of this "science" is that there does not seem to be any real theory for why less is more.

Well, who knows why aspirin works? Everybody knows that no-one knows how. It just works. So, why would anyone conclude that just because no-one knows how homeopathy works, it cannot work at all?

Second, there are a lot of times in "nature" where less is more. EXAMPLE: a vaccination of your arm can protect you against polio, and what it does is give you polio in a little dose. There are polio bacterias in the vaccination, so you get a little dose of it, and it builds up your resistance for the real McCoy.

So, why not dilute some stuff down, and hope that your body will get the message and start producing a resistance to the big dose???????

You know, a black cat at night has a huge advantage -- until a truck comes.

Hope this helps.

Your polio vaccine example is exactly where "homeopathic" cures (snake oil) came from. To date, after numerous studies by any number of people, homeopathy comes up just a little more nonsensical than accupuncture.

Tokie

[cyborg]

There are polio bacterias

...

Hope this helps.

Well I'm edumacated. Polio isn't a virus. It's a bacterium.

[sthomson]

Can I create a foundation to send certain JREF forum participants to something akin to a science summer camp? Insidespace can have the benefit of my very first scholarship.

Seminars will include:
* Research: On the Web and in the Library
* The Scientific Method: Dogma or Useful Technique?
* Chemistry Lab for Fun and Profit
* The History of Western Science: From Humours to AEthers

and many more.

[ben m]

There are a number of immunologic anaolgies that fit the original homeopathy idea, using a small amount of the same thing to treat the related condition, whether it be the same antigen in vaccine or in allergy desensitization.

Overused-analogies are what got homeopathy started in the first place. The only point where the vaccine/homeopathy analogy is correct is the "you don't need a lot of it" part.


Not the "less is more" part---remember during the avian-flu near-miss a year or two ago, authorities announced that there wasn't enough vaccine for the whole country? That happened because less is not more. You do need a certain amount of vaccine in order for it to work. Just like, um, every other medicine on Earth.
Not the mysterious part. Go to Pubmed sometime and look at all of the studies in which vaccine components are crystallized, analyzed, sequenced, and so on. There is no point in which "energies" or "mysterious vibrations" are invoked; vaccines work because molecule A binds to molecule B triggering cell C to do X, Y, and Z. Even if the exact pathway is not known, it's at least suspected to be similar to other pathways.
Not the failing-all-tests part. Vaccines are thoroughly double-blind tested, and they are marketed only if they pass these tests.


Vaccines are a well-tested, detectable chemicals which works in ordinary finite doses. How does this form an analogy to an untested treatment based on hypothesized "energies" or "vibrations" in infinitesimal doses?

[juniper_ann]

I think this 14-minute video by James Randi explains it all.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BWE1tH93G9U

I love that video!

[JoeTheJuggler]

It seems as if "homeopathy" is being given a big thumbs down around here. The "reason" for the rejection of this "science" is that there does not seem to be any real theory for why less is more.

Nope. No matter what the theory, homeopathy is rejected because there is no proof that it is effective.



Well, who knows why aspirin works? Everybody knows that no-one knows how. It just works. So, why would anyone conclude that just because no-one knows how homeopathy works, it cannot work at all?

Wrong. Maybe you don't know how aspirin works, but its actions are pretty well known.



Second, there are a lot of times in "nature" where less is more. EXAMPLE: a vaccination of your arm can protect you against polio, and what it does is give you polio in a little dose.
Again, this is wrong. A vaccine still has to have a minimum effective dose. If you take less, you don't get the immune system to produce antibodies. The "less is more" idea doesn't apply.

Also, vaccines work to mimic the surface proteins of known antigens to cause your immune system to produce antibodies to prevent you from getting a disease. A vaccine is not a remedy or cure for a disease you already have. So there is nothing about a vaccination analogous to a homeopathic remedy given to alleviate symptoms.

[insidespace]

Well I was asked if I knew how homeopathy is diluted, so I guess I don't know the "details." Everybody knows though it doesn't take much of some things to work. How does a catapiller know when it finds another catapiller, for instance? *Very* small and tiny amounts of certain chemicals seem to have a "big" effect on animals (and insects). How much sweat does it take to attract a mosquito, I want to know.

Or, everybody knows you can smell a tiny amount of stuff, much less than the most sensitive machine known to man. So if you can smell it I guess it can get to your brain. And in your brain, what does it do? Who knows?

Also, their are mysteries in how human being homo sapiens lives upon the earth. Why are the body rythms based on the sun and moon, especially the 28 day ovulation cycle? What small amount of substance comes from the moon, that gets the ovulation to match the moon phases? Figger that out.

As the polygamist said, its always Sunday somewhere!!!!

Hope that helps.

[danielk]

*Very* small and tiny amounts of certain chemicals seem to have a "big" effect on animals (and insects). How much sweat does it take to attract a mosquito, I want to know.

Yes! You're thinking about this the right way and I believe you are really close to getting it. There's just one point you seem to be missing: Homeopathy does not work with a tiny amount of substance, it supposedly works with no substance at all! That's because matter is made of discrete particles, and if you divide a clump of matter often enough you'll end up at a point where there is just one particle left, and after that: zero, zilch, nada. There's no half particle. Right, atoms can be split but dilution won't do that. And the parts of atoms are nothing like the original atoms anyway. The homeopath's answer to this will be that supposedly the water remembers the "information" of the substance, but they usually neglect to explain how the information is supposed to be stored. Unfortunately for them, as a CS student I don't believe information equals magic.

Not to mention that they don't seem to be able to distinguish unlabeled "remedies" from each other, or from plain water for that matter. If this stuff has any effect at all this should be possible, don't you think? Note that applying the "remedies" to a patient would be a valid test, if properly controlled and repeated often enough.

Or, everybody knows you can smell a tiny amount of stuff, much less than the most sensitive machine known to man. So if you can smell it I guess it can get to your brain. And in your brain, what does it do? Who knows?

It's all just chemistry. Not to say that it isn't amazing -- I'm no expert but I believe the number of molecules necessary to register a smell is very low. But we're nonetheless talking about a quantifiable amount, no matter how small it might be. Oh and by the way, you're definitely wrong about this "the most sensitive machine known to man" claim. I think we can actually detect single molecules, and particles even smaller than that at least indirectly.

Also, their are mysteries in how human being homo sapiens lives upon the earth. Why are the body rythms based on the sun and moon, especially the 28 day ovulation cycle? What small amount of substance comes from the moon, that gets the ovulation to match the moon phases? Figger that out.

Oh, come on, I'd like to think you were a little more imaginative than that. Why are body rhythms based on the sun? Are you serious? Hint: a shining sun means heat (energy) and light (also energy and a means for sensory input). I don't need to be a biologist to figure that one out, really. As to the moon, there's obviously the effect of gravity which is even large enough to cause tides. As to ovulation, I'd rather refer you to someone who knows more about biology than I do.

As the polygamist said, its always Sunday somewhere!!!!

Hope that helps.

Unfortunately not. I think you're underestimating your audience.

[UnrepentantSinner]

It seems as if "homeopathy" is being given a big thumbs down around here. The "reason" for the rejection of this "science" is that there does not seem to be any real theory for why less is more. {snip}

You wouldn't happen to read a lot of Creationist literature would you? The reason I ask is that you title this thread "homeopathy theory" and then do nothing but discuss medicine and offer what amounts to PRATTs regarding it.

I have a few questions for you.

Have you ever heard of Jacques Benveniste (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Benveniste)?
Do you know what succussion is?
Does Avogadro's Number ring a bell?
Where were you when Belgian skeptics tried to commit mass suicide (http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/belgium.html)?

[Blue Mountain]

The title of your thread is includes the word "theory". Here's some theory for you.

The word "dozen" is a measure of an amount. (In case you're unfamiliar with the term, 1 dozen = 12.) Suppose you start out with a dozen eggs. You cut that amount in half. You now have six. Cut it in half again, and you have three. Do it once more, and you have one egg and a broken egg. Cut it in half again, and you have less than one egg. In only four rounds you went from a dozen eggs to less than one.

In chemistry, Avogadro's number is the number of molecules in a given amount of a substance, in the same way that a dozen = 12. It's a pretty big number, actually: about 602,214,179,000,000,000,000,000, or 6.02214 x 10^23.

Now consider a 1C solution. That's diluted 1 part in 100, or one part in 10^2. Do it again, and now you have one part in 10,000 (1 in 10^4). Once more and you have one part in 1,000,000 (1 in 10^6). See the pattern? Every C in the dilution adds two zeros to the exponent.

Ergo, it follows that an 11C solution has one part in 10^22, while a 12C solution has one part in 10^24. But wait! Rememer Avogadro's number? It's 6 x 10^23. Ergo, at 12C and beyond, there is no chance that a single molecule of the original substance is in the preparation.

And please do not try citing studies that show the existence of water memory. James Randi, whose organization owns this message board, was part of a team that showed up the flaws in the most famous of those studies, the one conducted in the 1980s by Jacques Benveniste. See the tagged Wikipedia article for more information.

In order to accept homeopathy, we'd have to throw out all of modern physics and chemistry. I, for one, don't want to give up my computer and internet connection.

[Niobe]

Also, their are mysteries in how human being homo sapiens lives upon the earth. Why are the body rythms based on the sun and moon, especially the 28 day ovulation cycle? What small amount of substance comes from the moon, that gets the ovulation to match the moon phases? Figger that out.

Ohhh it burnnss :eusa_wall:

Cycles aren't 28 days. On average, sure. Mine hovers around 30, other women 25 and everything between and up. This is of course in a modern society where women aren't constantly pregnant or lactating or starving to be able to sustain the menses.

The thing that does affect period length (aside from actual pregnancy) is pheromones from other women, not essence of moon.

[arthwollipot]

"Essence of moon"

Heh.

[MRC_Hans]

Not all homeopathy is the diluted away to nothing variety, to avoid false assumptions definition is needed here.No, but most is diluted to below the level where a physical effect can be attributed. Also the dilution is not the only issue against homeopathy, it is just the one that is simplest to explain. The basic principle of like cures like is also unsuppoerted.

There are a number of immunologic anaolgies that fit the original homeopathy idea, using a small amount of the same thing to treat the related condition, whether it be the same antigen in vaccine or in allergy desensitization.

BKNNo, those are isopathy. Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to lump homeopathy and isopathy together, but homeopaths, from Hahnemann (the founder, in case you don't know the history of homeopathy) and onwards are adamant that isopathy is fundamentally different. And since it's their theory, I guess we need to respect that.

Hans

[MRC_Hans]

Hmm. My scientist friend who was short-listed for the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on prostaglandins – he knows how aspirin works.

These people also seem to have a clue.

As for how homeopathy works, it doesn't. Less may be more at times, as when a lower dose of medicine is better than a higher dose. But nothing is always nothing, and you gotta have something, if you wanna be with me.Ahh, cool. As always Gravy provides da facts. Bookmarked for next time some homeopath pulls out that old line.

Hans

[fls]

Well I was asked if I knew how homeopathy is diluted, so I guess I don't know the "details." Everybody knows though it doesn't take much of some things to work. How does a catapiller know when it finds another catapiller, for instance? *Very* small and tiny amounts of certain chemicals seem to have a "big" effect on animals (and insects). How much sweat does it take to attract a mosquito, I want to know.

Or, everybody knows you can smell a tiny amount of stuff, much less than the most sensitive machine known to man. So if you can smell it I guess it can get to your brain. And in your brain, what does it do? Who knows?

Again, what does that have to do with homeopathy? Homeopathy does not involve small or tiny amounts of certain chemicals.

Also, their are mysteries in how human being homo sapiens lives upon the earth. Why are the body rythms based on the sun and moon, especially the 28 day ovulation cycle? What small amount of substance comes from the moon, that gets the ovulation to match the moon phases? Figger that out.

Ovulation doesn't match the moon phases. We already know how the sun-based body rhythms work. None of that has anything to do with homeopathy.

Linda

[Georg]

fls nailed it perfectly with this one:

The reason that it is rejected is that the idea has been tested and shown not to work any differently from placebo. That is, there is no effect specific to homeopathy.

It's not necessary to know how something works in order for it to be taken seriously. One only needs to show that it has a specific effect.

Linda

It is moot to discuss about how homoeopathy works, as long as there is no evidence that it works at all (better than placebo, that is).
So, insidespace, just show the evidence that it indeed works better than placebo, grab the million, the Nobel price and have a laugh at those silly skeptics.
If you do so, I´ll happily admit that I was wrong with my assertion (that 200 years should be enough to show a specific effect), and apologise to every sugarpill-swallower that I have mocked so far in my life.

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

Ergo, it follows that an 11C solution has one part in 10^22, while a 12C solution has one part in 10^24. But wait! Rememer Avogadro's number? It's 6 x 10^23. Ergo, at 12C and beyond, there is no chance that a single molecule of the original substance is in the preparation.

<snip>

I've been thinking about that last bit and I think all you could say is that it is highly unlikely that a single molecule of the original substance is in the preparation.

Once you get down to a few molecules dilution seems an inappropriate way to think about what is going on. It becomes the chance that molecules, freely floating around in the solvent, end up in the contents of the pipette being put into the next container full of solvent.

(Though 'no chance' is probably close enough for most discussions.)

[MRC_Hans]

I've been thinking about that last bit and I think all you could say is that it is highly unlikely that a single molecule of the original substance is in the preparation.

Once you get down to a few molecules dilution seems an inappropriate way to think about what is going on. It becomes the chance that molecules, freely floating around in the solvent, end up in the contents of the pipette being put into the next container full of solvent.

(Though 'no chance' is probably close enough for most discussions.)The absolutely correct way of stating it is that under Avogadro's limit, the presense of the original substance is mathematically dependent on the dilution rate. Over Avogadro's limit, it becomes stochastic.

As has also been pointed out in previous discussions, the Avogadro limit is really purely theoratical. Even the most rigorous laboratory procedures and the most pure raw materials and dilutants will not be able to keep the content under any form of control beyond about 0.1 ppm. Which corresponds to about 4C. Above that potency, the exact content is basically unknown.

Hans

[JJM]

In his book "Homeopathy" http://www.amazon.com/Homeopathy-Really-Jay-W-Shelton/dp/159102109X/ref=sr_1_6/002-3231758-0948863?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190808238&sr=8-6 Jay Shelton provided calculations (p. 272). Assuming a soluble compound of molecular weight 28, a person would need to take 2,300 drops of 24C tincture to get one molecule of the original "remedy." Considering the assumptions involved, I also think "highly unlikely that a single molecule of the original substance is in the preparation" is appropriate.

[insidespace]

Well I was asked about Beinvenido somebody, and Alverado number, and I don't know these things. However, I *do* know that ovulation cycles paralllel the moon, not the sun. Does the sun come up every 28 days??? And no-one has ever explained how the moon does it, have they?

Everyone admits that a small amount of something can have a big effect. You say there is nothing in the water left over. How would you know? Can you find a really small molecule? If not, how can you say that there isn't some molecule or other floating aroiund in there? And if so, can't it attach to an "important" part of the brain or whatever organ is involved, and start to build resistance, like the small amount of polio bacterias.

Sometimes, in order to "see" the "light" you have to close your "eyes."

Does this hellp you understand?

[cyborg]

However, I *do* know that ovulation cycles paralllel the moon, not the sun.

No they don't.

Does the sun come up every 28 days???

No.

And no-one has ever explained how the moon does it, have they?

How the moon does what?

Everyone admits that a small amount of something can have a big effect.

Operative word: can - compare with, "doesn't".

Operative word: small - compare with, "none".

If not, how can you say that there isn't some molecule or other floating aroiund in there?

Strictly speaking one cannot.

How precisely this helps your case I do not know because if you arguing on the side of uncertainty then it is then equally uncertain what a homeopathic dilution actually is and hence claims that there is ever 'more' dilution occurring, or even any at all, seem to be based on this assumption that they can know something about the molecules in the water.

If you want to insist we cannot speak intelligently as to the composition of such a solution then it is hardly fair to give the benefit of the doubt to homeopaths now is it?

And if so, can't it attach to an "important" part of the brain or whatever organ is involved, and start to build resistance,

Can't it attach to an "unimportant" part and fail to build anything useful?

like the small amount of polio bacterias.

*Sigh* Polio is not a bacterium.

Sometimes, in order to "see" the "light" you have to close your "eyes."

Meaningless.

Does this hellp you understand?

No.

[Rolfe]

You're awfully big on things that "everybody knows". Who is this "everybody" who knows so many things that just ain't so?

Benveniste. The late Professor Jacques Benveniste to be exact. And is work on extremely dilute solutions of IgE and what happened next.

Avogadro. The (equally late) Amadeo Avogadro, and most specifically the number named after him. What this has to do with how often you can serially dilute a solution before you have nothing left.

You might try to find out about these things, which are integral to the theory of homoeopathy, and which by the way are familiar to almost every poster here, before you start to sound off about the subject.

It has already been pointed out to you that the human menstrual cycle is of variable length in different individuals, and can be very irregular. There is also no connection to the actual phase of the moon - different women will menstruate at completely different lunar phases. The fact that a cycle is approximately the same length, on average, as a lunar month, is pure coincidence.

Nobody has ever explained how the moon does what? Comes up in the sky? Exhibits its phases? Sorry, this is schoolboy stuff. Any elementary physics book will tell you. If you mean the moon influencing menstruation, the fact is, it doesn't. The length of the human menstrual cycle just happens to be, on average, about 28 days. No mystery.

Homoeopathic remedies are indistinguishable from the solvent or the carrier material. The chance of even one molecule of the mother tincture still being there is beyond negligible. So ignorantly wittering on about "why can't" something or other happen isn't really very relevant. "Why can't" the green cheese in the moon support a population of mice, tell me that?

Just to clarify what was said earlier. Polio is not a bacterium. It is a virus. And you need a very definite amount of vaccine to get any effect. I'm just on lunch after giving a morning lecture on immunology and vaccination, and I can tell you, I was very very clear that the full dose had to be given, otherwise the vaccine would not be effective. And it's one hell of a lot more than one molecule, I can tell you that.

Understand? You're typing about something you yourself have virtually no understanding of. It would be helpful if you actually did a bit of information-gathering and enabled yourself to present a coherent and informed case. At the moment, you're not doing that.

Rolfe.

[Ivor the Engineer]

Well I was asked about Beinvenido somebody, and Alverado number, and I don't know these things. However, I *do* know that ovulation cycles paralllel the moon, not the sun. Does the sun come up every 28 days??? And no-one has ever explained how the moon does it, have they?

Everyone admits that a small amount of something can have a big effect. You say there is nothing in the water left over. How would you know? Can you find a really small molecule? If not, how can you say that there isn't some molecule or other floating aroiund in there? And if so, can't it attach to an "important" part of the brain or whatever organ is involved, and start to build resistance, like the small amount of polio bacterias.

Sometimes, in order to "see" the "light" you have to close your "eyes."

Does this hellp you understand?

Well if it could then there would be an observable difference between placebos and homeopathic remedies overall. There is not.

P.S. The moon thing is nonsense. (Very rough) correlation does not equal causation.

[Ryan O'Dine]

...SNIP...
Or, everybody knows you can smell a tiny amount of stuff, much less than the most sensitive machine known to man. So if you can smell it I guess it can get to your brain. And in your brain, what does it do? Who knows?
...SNIP...


People are doing a wonderful job educating insidespace. I thought I'd just tackle the, "So if you can smell it I guess it can get to your brain" part.

Actually, nothing of the substance itself is getting to your brain when you smell something. The way it works is that the odor molecule temporarily latches on to a receptor on a cell lining the nasal passages. A receptor is like a little lock to which the odor molecule is a key. When the key goes into the lock, the cell is induced to fire off a signal which travels along a nerve and eventually arrives at various places in your brain where it’s analyzed. That is to say, the signal is analyzed -- not the odor molecule itself.

Meanwhile, the odor molecule is release from the receptor either to be exhaled, or inhaled and absorbed by the lungs where more likely than not, it simply works its way through the excretion process.

Even if the odor molecule gets into the bloodstream and passes through blood vessels in the brain, it’s very unlikely it will pass something called the “blood-brain barrier,” whose purpose is to let only a very select variety of molecules through to the brain tissue. And even if it passes this barrier, the brain would have no way of analyzing a free-floating molecule, or recognizing it as “the scent of a rose on a dewy morn,” for example.

[insidespace]

Well I went on Wikipeda and I looked up "menstruation" and there is certainly enough evidence of the "moon" connected to it, that I can't believe how everybody is denying same. The "moon" (actually just a satellite, nothing so special) has a lot of influence over the earth, everybody knows. Why are there more murders committed at a full moon time? Just because there is more "light" from the moon? No way, because if light kept murderers from murdering, why install streetlights????

Now the "big" question is I guess "how?" does the "luna" do it? Just from light? Seems unlikely. From gravity? Well, maybe. I guess if the moon can pull the oceans around it can pull the molecules in the blood. But I bet there is more, because moon "dust" is certainly floating around the earth and coming down. They say there is moon dust in every part of the earth. What "exactly" is in this dust? Can't it trigger some emotional or "physical" reactions? I bet it can.

It seems that behind every "old wives tale" there is an "inconvenient truth." So in this case we have the "moon," combined with ovulation, combined with "lunacy" and murder, combined with "very small amounts of stuff" sufficient to "cause" (note it may be an "association" not a "cause" -- look it up) "big" changes in the human organism, about which less is known than mankinds' so-called "intelligient machines."

Now, back to this homoeopathy, which I have not actually "tried" but which seems to be such a problem. I know for a fact that there are a lot of things with no "possible" reason to work. Glucosomine heals joints, no argument, but I can't find any reason. Even thinking you are better makes some people better I think. So, how much "stuff" is involved there?

You know, no-one has figured out how fish can sleep when they need to swim to keep oxygen flowing in there gills. I guess they are not "scientists."

Hope that helps you understand.

[Locknar]

Said in my best Dr Hibbard (from The Simpsons) voice...."oh dear lord!"

I sincerely doubt anyone can be so totally devoid of knowledge…with the exception of the gal from “The View” who didn’t know if the Earth was round or flat.

Insidespace is obviously just yanking everyone’s chain…

[fls]

Insidespace,

Not everyone is as naive as you on matters of science. The reason you see a disparity in opinion between what you can conceive and what scientists can conceive is that their imagination is not powered by five minutes spent at wikipedia.

Linda

[Psiload]

Well I went on Wikipeda and I looked up "menstruation" and there is certainly enough evidence of the "moon" connected to it, that I can't believe how everybody is denying same. The "moon" (actually just a satellite, nothing so special) has a lot of influence over the earth, everybody knows. Why are there more murders committed at a full moon time? Just because there is more "light" from the moon? No way, because if light kept murderers from murdering, why install streetlights????

Now the "big" question is I guess "how?" does the "luna" do it? Just from light? Seems unlikely. From gravity? Well, maybe. I guess if the moon can pull the oceans around it can pull the molecules in the blood. But I bet there is more, because moon "dust" is certainly floating around the earth and coming down. They say there is moon dust in every part of the earth. What "exactly" is in this dust? Can't it trigger some emotional or "physical" reactions? I bet it can.

It seems that behind every "old wives tale" there is an "inconvenient truth." So in this case we have the "moon," combined with ovulation, combined with "lunacy" and murder, combined with "very small amounts of stuff" sufficient to "cause" (note it may be an "association" not a "cause" -- look it up) "big" changes in the human organism, about which less is known than mankinds' so-called "intelligient machines."

Now, back to this homoeopathy, which I have not actually "tried" but which seems to be such a problem. I know for a fact that there are a lot of things with no "possible" reason to work. Glucosomine heals joints, no argument, but I can't find any reason. Even thinking you are better makes some people better I think. So, how much "stuff" is involved there?

You know, no-one has figured out how fish can sleep when they need to swim to keep oxygen flowing in there gills. I guess they are not "scientists."

Hope that helps you understand. Is there any urban myth, folklore, pseudoscience, etc.. too far-fetched for you to embrace? Anything at all?

For brevity's sake, please list the extraordinary claims to which you don't subscribe. I'd imagine it must be a pretty short list... although probably not as short as the bus you rode to school.

[Denver]

Well I went on Wikipeda and I looked up "menstruation" and there is certainly enough evidence of the "moon" connected to it, that I can't believe how everybody is denying same. The "moon" (actually just a satellite, nothing so special) has a lot of influence over the earth, everybody knows. Why are there more murders committed at a full moon time? Just because there is more "light" from the moon? No way, because if light kept murderers from murdering, why install streetlights????


Since we're in a wikipedia mood:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect

"...the claims of a correlation of lunar phases to human behavior do not hold up under scientific scrutiny. Over the past 30 years, a large body of evidence has emerged debunking this correlation."

"Another theory claims that the moon has a perceived relationship to fertility is due to the corresponding human menstrual cycle, which averages 28 days. However, only about 30 percent of women have a cycle length within two days of the average. Furthermore, the cycle of lunar phases is 29.53 days long, so the cycles would soon get out of synchronization."

[LordoftheLeftHand]

Everyone admits that a small amount of something can have a big effect. You say there is nothing in the water left over. How would you know? Can you find a really small molecule? If not, how can you say that there isn't some molecule or other floating aroiund in there? And if so, can't it attach to an "important" part of the brain or whatever organ is involved, and start to build resistance, like the small amount of polio bacterias.

This is your stumbling block right here.

If you take 1 molecule of salt and drop it into a bucket of water, and shake it up real good, you only have 1 molecule of salt in the bucket. If you then pour this bucket into 1000 medicine bottles, only one of the bottles has any salt. If you then label the bottles "Homeopathic Salt Water" and sell them to 1000 people, how many people did you rip off?

LLH

[Ivor the Engineer]

I bet PMS is linked to murder:)

[fls]

Now I'm curious.

Rolfe, BadlyShavedMonkey, Hans and all the rest of you that get into conversations about homeopathy, are there any discussions that don't start with "you dismiss it because you don't know anything about it"? Do they all project their own ignorance on to others?

Linda

[Ladewig]

Said in my best Dr Hibbard (from The Simpsons) voice...."oh dear lord!"

I sincerely doubt anyone can be so totally devoid of knowledge…with the exception of the gal from “The View” who didn’t know if the Earth was round or flat.

Insidespace is obviously just yanking everyone’s chain…

I concur. Insidespace, please stop trying to pull our collective legs.

[this charming man]

Well I went on Wikipeda and I looked up "menstruation" and there is certainly enough evidence of the "moon" connected to it, that I can't believe how everybody is denying same. The "moon" (actually just a satellite, nothing so special) has a lot of influence over the earth, everybody knows. Why are there more murders committed at a full moon time? Just because there is more "light" from the moon? No way, because if light kept murderers from murdering, why install streetlights????

Now the "big" question is I guess "how?" does the "luna" do it? Just from light? Seems unlikely. From gravity? Well, maybe. I guess if the moon can pull the oceans around it can pull the molecules in the blood. But I bet there is more, because moon "dust" is certainly floating around the earth and coming down. They say there is moon dust in every part of the earth. What "exactly" is in this dust? Can't it trigger some emotional or "physical" reactions? I bet it can.

It seems that behind every "old wives tale" there is an "inconvenient truth." So in this case we have the "moon," combined with ovulation, combined with "lunacy" and murder, combined with "very small amounts of stuff" sufficient to "cause" (note it may be an "association" not a "cause" -- look it up) "big" changes in the human organism, about which less is known than mankinds' so-called "intelligient machines."

Now, back to this homoeopathy, which I have not actually "tried" but which seems to be such a problem. I know for a fact that there are a lot of things with no "possible" reason to work. Glucosomine heals joints, no argument, but I can't find any reason. Even thinking you are better makes some people better I think. So, how much "stuff" is involved there?

You know, no-one has figured out how fish can sleep when they need to swim to keep oxygen flowing in there gills. I guess they are not "scientists."

Hope that helps you understand.

:eek:

Does this mean that the whole time I was out vanquishing werewolves, I was actually killing hyper-PMSing women?

[Belz...]

Well, who knows why aspirin works? Everybody knows that no-one knows how. It just works. So, why would anyone conclude that just because no-one knows how homeopathy works, it cannot work at all?

Insidespace, this is why people who don't know squat about anything shouldn't start threads with the intention of educating other people who are far, far more knowledgeable.

[Belz...]

How does a catapiller know when it finds another catapiller, for instance? *Very* small and tiny amounts of certain chemicals seem to have a "big" effect on animals (and insects).

Let's see how *No* amount of certain chemicals affect the same animals, shall we ?

Well I was asked about Beinvenido somebody, and Alverado number, and I don't know these things. However, I *do* know that ovulation cycles paralllel the moon, not the sun. Does the sun come up every 28 days??? And no-one has ever explained how the moon does it, have they?

Okay, I think this is the single most wrong paragraph I've ever seen.

THE MOON REVOLVES AROUND THE EARTH IN A REGULAR FASHION. How is that difficult to understand ?

[JonnyFive]

Well, who knows why aspirin works? Everybody knows that no-one knows how. It just works. So, why would anyone conclude that just because no-one knows how homeopathy works, it cannot work at all?

Second, there are a lot of times in "nature" where less is more. EXAMPLE: a vaccination of your arm can protect you against polio, and what it does is give you polio in a little dose. There are polio bacterias in the vaccination, so you get a little dose of it, and it builds up your resistance for the real McCoy.

So, why not dilute some stuff down, and hope that your body will get the message and start producing a resistance to the big dose???????

I think you misunderstand how vaccinations and medication work. The mechanism by which aspirin works, as pointed out by other posters here, is quite well understood. So is the mechanism behind vaccination. It is not about your body "getting" anything - it is about conditioning the immune system to respond to a specific threat. A vaccine does not generally "give" you the disease in a medically meaningful way (e.g. symptoms present).

Polio is a viral disease, not a bacterial disease.

The stuff about the full moon is rubbish. Creative curve fitting does not constitute rigorous proof.

The issue with homeopathy isn't simply that the mechanism of operation makes no sense, but that it can't be shown to actually do anything in properly blinded trial.

ETA: Oh, and while the average menstrual cycle sort-of-kind-of coincides with the length of the lunar cycle, it in no way coincides with the timing of the lunar cycle. How, then, does that help your proposition about the moon's influence on our lives?

[Belz...]

Well I went on Wikipeda and I looked up "menstruation" and there is certainly enough evidence of the "moon" connected to it, that I can't believe how everybody is denying same.

Evidence, please. I grow weary of your assertions.

The "moon" (actually just a satellite, nothing so special) has a lot of influence over the earth, everybody knows.

Yeah, it has its own gravity because it's huge. Plus it's pretty. That's it.

Why are there more murders committed at a full moon time?

There aren't, so your question is nonsensical.

Just because there is more "light" from the moon? No way, because if light kept murderers from murdering, why install streetlights????

Because "moonlight" is special!! :rolleyes:

Well, maybe. I guess if the moon can pull the oceans around it can pull the molecules in the blood.

Uh-huh... yeah sure, man.

But I bet there is more, because moon "dust" is certainly floating around the earth and coming down. They say there is moon dust in every part of the earth. What "exactly" is in this dust? Can't it trigger some emotional or "physical" reactions? I bet it can.

Gosh you are terribly incoherent.

Tell you what, space. Go to school, and come back in 15 years once you're done with college.

You know, no-one has figured out how fish can sleep when they need to swim to keep oxygen flowing in there gills. I guess they are not "scientists."

I think you're having sharks confused with other fish.

Hope that helps you understand.

Does the town fool help anybody understand anything ?

[Rolfe]

Now I'm curious.

Rolfe, BadlyShavedMonkey, Hans and all the rest of you that get into conversations about homeopathy, are there any discussions that don't start with "you dismiss it because you don't know anything about it"? Do they all project their own ignorance on to others?

Linda


Yes, there was one poster quite recently who came into the Science section and remarked that we knew a lot about the subject, before going on to present woo arguments 2, 3 and probably 4 (you should try it, you should help the homoeopathic researchers do better studies and I can't remember what else). This was unusual.

I've seldom come across quite such concentrated ignorance as Insidespace though.

I'd still like to know who this "everybody" is, who knows so many things that just ain't so.

Rolfe.

[Ashles]

I know it's been pointed out a couple of times already but I think it bears repeating...

Insidepace is a troll. He does not really believe the things he is saying.

For more evidence read his other posts. And his made up expressions and sayings.

[nathan]

Well I went on Wikipeda and I looked up "menstruation" and there is certainly enough evidence of the "moon" connected to it, that I can't believe how everybody is denying same.
haha, that's a good one. I suspect that if you told any woman that you can predict her periods a year in advance, she'd laugh in your face (unless she's using hormonal birth control, which quite clearly regulates the cycle)

The "moon" (actually just a satellite, nothing so special) has a lot of influence over the earth, everybody knows.
Unless you're talking about the ground/humus/stuff plants grow in, it's 'the Earth', capital E. Why is that such a common error?

Why are there more murders committed at a full moon time? Just because there is more "light" from the moon?
Where is your evidence that murder rate is POM dependent? It is well known (to use your turn of phrase :)) that studies of murder rate have shown no such correlation.

No way, because if light kept murderers from murdering, why install streetlights????
... brain failing to make head or tail of this train of thought, I think it left the rails some time ago.

[ponderingturtle]

It seems as if "homeopathy" is being given a big thumbs down around here. The "reason" for the rejection of this "science" is that there does not seem to be any real theory for why less is more.

Well, who knows why aspirin works? Everybody knows that no-one knows how. It just works.

You might want to let the Nobel prize commision in on this as they gave the nobel prize to John Vane (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1982/vane-autobio.html) in 1982 for exactly this.

[ponderingturtle]

Also, their are mysteries in how human being homo sapiens lives upon the earth. Why are the body rythms based on the sun and moon, especially the 28 day ovulation cycle? What small amount of substance comes from the moon, that gets the ovulation to match the moon phases? Figger that out.


So are you now claiming that all women have a synchronized ovulation cycle because they are all synced up to the moon?

[ponderingturtle]

Well I was asked about Beinvenido somebody, and Alverado number, and I don't know these things. However, I *do* know that ovulation cycles paralllel the moon, not the sun. Does the sun come up every 28 days???
Neither does the moon. The moon comes up roughly every 24 hours you are in essence claiming that the amount of the earths shadow on the moon has a direct physiological effect on people.

[Madalch]

Does this mean that the whole time I was out vanquishing werewolves, I was actually killing hyper-PMSing women?

And this is why women should shave their legs- to prevent such a mistake of identity.

[fls]

Neither does the moon. The moon comes up roughly every 24 hours you are in essence claiming that the amount of the earths shadow on the moon has a direct physiological effect on people.

I think you mean how much of the moon's lit surface is facing the earth. The Earth's shadow on the moon is a lunar eclipse.

Linda

[ponderingturtle]

I think you mean how much of the moon's lit surface is facing the earth. The Earth's shadow on the moon is a lunar eclipse.

Linda

D'oh!

[insidespace]

Well as a firm "believer" in "evolution" I can honestly say that the moon cycle and the menstruation cycle may have been together at some previous time when (or even before) cave-men (or women, since this is about them) walked the earth. Did the moon *always* rotate like to does today? I doubt it sincerely.

Maybe at one time in the distant past, when our ancestors looked to the heavens and wondered what it meant, the moon rotated in a 29 day or whatever cycle, maybe even with the darkside toward us. Note to further research: Maybe the early cave-men could see things on the dark side that we cannot, by the way (just a thought).

So, you ask me to believe that the moon had *nothing* to do with it, yet the moon effects all sorts of live, including even, sea-life. The moon decides when the small floating animals in the sea rise and fall. It also decides when the birds decide to migrate from the cold weather to the warm (so they can find food). It decides when the sea turtles come out to lay there eggs too.

How does it do it, when it is (presumably) just a ball of rock, an earth satellite? Query: Are there other satellites of earth that we just can't see, perhaps because the sun is in the way?????

And everbody knows that moon dust is not a "figure" of speech. So, tell me why it is not important to understand, that even a small amount of a substance can kill you, like cobra venom (how many molecules of *that* is needed?)

I think scientists are just beginning to understand the inner workings of "inner space," so who are we to doubt them?

A computer is a nice thing to have, but with the power gone it's just a paperweight.

Does this help your understanding?

[JonnyFive]

A computer is a nice thing to have, but with the power gone it's just a paperweight.

Absolutely ridiculous! Everybody knows it can also be used as a squirrel-crushing device!

Why, you probably don't even know that COMPUTER was originally an acronym:

Case
Of
Massive
Power
Used
To
Eliminate
Rodents

[cyborg]

Well as a firm "believer" in "evolution" I can honestly say that the moon cycle and the menstruation cycle may have been together at some previous time when (or even before) cave-men (or women, since this is about them) walked the earth.

Again: think about it. If he lunar cycle was more linked to mensuration then why is it that periods are not actually synchronised to it? (Or why is it women's periods start on different says of the month?) Why then are the lengths not precisely 28 days?

Did the moon *always* rotate like to does today? I doubt it sincerely.

That depends on your concept of "likeness".

Go back enough and the moon rotated a bit slower in a higher orbit.

Go back enough and the moon was only being formed in the solar system and wasn't rotating about anything.

Go back enough and the atoms in the moon were only just being formed within stars.

Go back enough and they were only twinkles in the eye of the singularity that kicked it all off.

Maybe at one time in the distant past, when our ancestors looked to the heavens and wondered what it meant, the moon rotated in a 29 day or whatever cycle, maybe even with the darkside toward us.

How would that be significant?

Note to further research: Maybe the early cave-men could see things on the dark side that we cannot, by the way (just a thought).

How would that be significant?

So, you ask me to believe that the moon had *nothing* to do with it, yet the moon effects all sorts of live, including even, sea-life.

But I am not a sea animal.

It also decides when the birds decide to migrate from the cold weather to the warm (so they can find food).

Odd. I would have thought the cold weather and the warm weather would rather dictate that.

How does it do it, when it is (presumably) just a ball of rock, an earth satellite?

Do you have a magical watch where if you wind it backwards you can go into the past?

Query: Are there other satellites of earth that we just can't see, perhaps because the sun is in the way?????

There are plenty but with more mundane reasons than that.

And everbody knows that moon dust is not a "figure" of speech. So, tell me why it is not important to understand, that even a small amount of a substance can kill you, like cobra venom (how many molecules of *that* is needed?)

A small amount of moon dust kills like cobra venom? Please do eludicate.

I think scientists are just beginning to understand the inner workings of "inner space," so who are we to doubt them?

Eh?

A computer is a nice thing to have, but with the power gone it's just a paperweight.

Why is this relevant?

Does this help your understanding?

No.

[this charming man]

Well as a firm "believer" in "evolution" I can honestly say that the moon cycle and the menstruation cycle may have been together at some previous time when (or even before) cave-men (or women, since this is about them) walked the earth. Did the moon *always* rotate like to does today? I doubt it sincerely.

Maybe at one time in the distant past, when our ancestors looked to the heavens and wondered what it meant, the moon rotated in a 29 day or whatever cycle, maybe even with the darkside toward us. Note to further research: Maybe the early cave-men could see things on the dark side that we cannot, by the way (just a thought).

So, you ask me to believe that the moon had *nothing* to do with it, yet the moon effects all sorts of live, including even, sea-life. The moon decides when the small floating animals in the sea rise and fall. It also decides when the birds decide to migrate from the cold weather to the warm (so they can find food). It decides when the sea turtles come out to lay there eggs too.

How does it do it, when it is (presumably) just a ball of rock, an earth satellite? Query: Are there other satellites of earth that we just can't see, perhaps because the sun is in the way?????

And everbody knows that moon dust is not a "figure" of speech. So, tell me why it is not important to understand, that even a small amount of a substance can kill you, like cobra venom (how many molecules of *that* is needed?)

I think scientists are just beginning to understand the inner workings of "inner space," so who are we to doubt them?

A computer is a nice thing to have, but with the power gone it's just a paperweight.

Does this help your understanding?


If I am not mistaken, isn't venom used to make anti-venom?
So...wouldn't a small amount of venom help save one from death?

Also here is a rough map for your "sun in the way" question.

Earth.....Moon.................................... .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .........................................Sun


give or take a few ......

[Madalch]

Well as a firm "believer" in "evolution" I can honestly say that the moon cycle and the menstruation cycle may have been together at some previous time when (or even before) cave-men (or women, since this is about them) walked the earth. Did the moon *always* rotate like to does today? I doubt it sincerely.
If, as you would have us believe, menstrual cycles are correlated with the lunar phases, please explain why some women "peak" near the full moon and other near the new moon (ignoring the fact that they cycles are of different length, and thus the above will only be true for short periods of time). Also explain why different mammals have different menstrual cycles, if terrestrial mammals share the same moon.

Maybe at one time in the distant past, when our ancestors looked to the heavens and wondered what it meant, the moon rotated in a 29 day or whatever cycle, maybe even with the darkside toward us.

The dark side -is- toward us, once every month (look up the term "new moon"). Unless you're Pink Floyd fan, in which case we'll say it's all dark.

Note to further research: Maybe the early cave-men could see things on the dark side that we cannot, by the way (just a thought).
I wonder what kind of telescopes they used.

The moon decides when the small floating animals in the sea rise and fall. It also decides when the birds decide to migrate from the cold weather to the warm (so they can find food). It decides when the sea turtles come out to lay there eggs too.
It boggles the mind that you think the moon is actually deciding things for us. How does a ball of rock make a decision?

I think scientists are just beginning to understand the inner workings of "inner space," so who are we to doubt them?
I don't know about you, but -I- am a scientist, and I'll not have you tell me who I can and cannot doubt.

[Belz...]

I know it's been pointed out a couple of times already but I think it bears repeating...

Insidepace is a troll. He does not really believe the things he is saying.

For more evidence read his other posts. And his made up expressions and sayings.

I've never understood why some people do this. They want attention, but not for anything of merit. Like the teenager who gets attention for completing a difficult videogame while using the cheat codes...

[Spektator]

Wait a minute, wait a minute...why should caterpillars want to find each other? I mean, caterpillars are not sexaually mature, they can't mate, and they compete for food, so there's no real reason for them to seek each other out.

Moths and butterflies may produce pheromones to attract mates, however.

Sorry--I just flashed on insidespace's comment that caterpillars have mystical ways of finding each other, and I suppose everybody knows that nobody knows how they do it. Or something.

[Belz...]

Did the moon *always* rotate like to does today? I doubt it sincerely.

That's a safe bet. The damn thing's receding.

How does it do it, when it is (presumably) just a ball of rock, an earth satellite? Query: Are there other satellites of earth that we just can't see, perhaps because the sun is in the way?????

Query: what are you on ?

Does this help your understanding?

That's your "it's true :)" isn't it ?

[fls]

Well as a firm "believer" in "evolution" I can honestly say that the moon cycle and the menstruation cycle may have been together at some previous time when (or even before) cave-men (or women, since this is about them) walked the earth. Did the moon *always* rotate like to does today? I doubt it sincerely.

Me too. I think it the past it was more of a pirouette.

Maybe at one time in the distant past, when our ancestors looked to the heavens and wondered what it meant, the moon rotated in a 29 day or whatever cycle, maybe even with the darkside toward us. Note to further research: Maybe the early cave-men could see things on the dark side that we cannot, by the way (just a thought).

That's just silly. I think aliens probably gave them rides to the moon and back.

So, you ask me to believe that the moon had *nothing* to do with it, yet the moon effects all sorts of live, including even, sea-life. The moon decides when the small floating animals in the sea rise and fall. It also decides when the birds decide to migrate from the cold weather to the warm (so they can find food). It decides when the sea turtles come out to lay there eggs too.

I'm pretty sure the dust bunnies under my bed come from the moon.

How does it do it, when it is (presumably) just a ball of rock, an earth satellite? Query: Are there other satellites of earth that we just can't see, perhaps because the sun is in the way?????

I wouldn't be surprised if there are several hundred satellites of earth at this very moment.

And everbody knows that moon dust is not a "figure" of speech.

Oh wait. That might be where the dust bunnies come from.

So, tell me why it is not important to understand, that even a small amount of a substance can kill you, like cobra venom (how many molecules of *that* is needed?)

Three. I looked it up.

I think scientists are just beginning to understand the inner workings of "inner space," so who are we to doubt them?

The first horror movie I saw as a child was called "The Creature From Inner Space". It scared me for years afterward, although it's laughably bland compared to what my children watch now. They make fun of me because I'm still freaked out about the Dr. Who episode with the weeping angels.

A computer is a nice thing to have, but with the power gone it's just a paperweight.

Mine is a loom.

Does this help your understanding?

Yes, thank you.

Linda

[this charming man]

That's your "it's true :)" isn't it ?


I was going to ask if this pos(t)er was related to/ is Ms. Wilson.

[Locknar]

fls - Nicely done :)

[this charming man]

I wouldn't be surprised if there are several hundred satellites of earth at this very moment.

But that's unpossible.


...I would guess a thousand or more

[ponderingturtle]

That depends on your concept of "likeness".

Go back enough and the moon rotated a bit slower in a higher orbit.

Go back enough and the moon was only being formed in the solar system and wasn't rotating about anything.

This is not true, the moon was in a lower faster orbit in the past and is slowly moving away in to a higher slower orbit.

It is currently lengthening its orbital radius by 3.8cm per year.

Talk Origins link (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE110.html)

Of course this would not produce a perceptible change from an un aided human view point in the hundreds of thousands of years that anatomically modern humans have existed.

[cyborg]

It would seem I got it precisely backwards then.

[fls]

But that's unpossible.


...I would guess a thousand or more

Oh, yeah. I was thinking (and guessing) of ones that were still active, but there's no reason to make that restriction.

Linda

[Ivor the Engineer]

The first horror movie I saw as a child was called "The Creature From Inner Space". It scared me for years afterward, although it's laughably bland compared to what my children watch now. They make fun of me because I'm still freaked out about the Dr. Who episode with the weeping angels.

Linda

I think you mean Destination Inner Space. I won't give the release date, 'cause I'm a Gentleman (most of the time).

[insidespace]

Well I am sorry if I "offended" any-one here, as it seems there is a "pack mentality" of persons who think otherwise than me.

But, FLS seems to understand the point I am trying to make. She said that there are three molecules of cobra venom that could kill you, so a *much* lesser dose would be needed to *cure*you as an anti-venom, farstesh?

It seems as if you proved my point by disagreeing.

I am sorry the "scientist" was offended. I meant to say I "believe" in the scientists much more than I believe in a man-god who was allegedly crucified in the middle east about 2 millenia ago, despite their being a "pack" of people who seem to hold this man-god in an impossible position of reverence. I for one do not see how such a thing is possible.

So if the "scientists" are the first to say "I don't know," about a lot of things, how can they know whether a molecule, or half a molecule, could work???

Remember, most of the tree is underground.

Does this help clarify?

[Blue Mountain]

This is a public service announcement.

Please don't feed the troll.

Thank you.

[cyborg]

Well I am sorry if I "offended" any-one here, as it seems there is a "pack mentality" of persons who think otherwise than me.

This is not what you expected?

But, FLS seems to understand the point I am trying to make. She said that there are three molecules of cobra venom that could kill you, so a *much* lesser dose would be needed to *cure*you as an anti-venom, farstesh?

No.

So if the "scientists" are the first to say "I don't know," about a lot of things, how can they know whether a molecule, or half a molecule, could work???

Half of nothing does nothing.

Remember, most of the tree is underground.

Most of the universe is outside.

Does this help clarify?

No.

[danielk]

Well I am sorry if I "offended" any-one here, as it seems there is a "pack mentality" of persons who think otherwise than me.

Haha, I don't believe you offended anyone. Spare us the psychobabble, you'll have to do much better than that to convince anyone who ever completed high school.

So if the "scientists" are the first to say "I don't know," about a lot of things, how can they know whether a molecule, or half a molecule, could work???

Because scientists actually have a pretty clear idea of what we know and what we don't know.

Remember, most of the tree is underground.

Chuckle. You must imagine yourself to sound impressively profound. Hint: you don't.

Does this help clarify?

Yes, but not in the way you might like.

[Rolfe]

You just don't have a clue, do you?

Does this help? I won't say "your understanding", because you don't have any.

By the way, how much less than three is "much less"? What's an anti-venom? Does it have any molecules at all of venom in it? (Back to that immunology lecture I gave this morning. Insidespace should have been there.)

(Earth satellites concealed on the other side of the sun - what is this troll on?)

Rolfe.

[this charming man]

ok ok ok

It is now my hypothesis that this poster is the child of Amy Wilson and Kumar.

[schlitt]

Agreed. This person is either trolling, or incapable of logical thought. Either way it is a waste of time conversing with them.

[ponderingturtle]

I think you mean Destination Inner Space. I won't give the release date, 'cause I'm a Gentleman (most of the time).

The release date does not nessaracily reflect the date she watched it. It would only provide a boundry.

[ChristineR]

Insidespace, you have no understanding of how homeopathy works. While it is true that only a few molecules of substances like venom, odors, and hormones can have a profound effect on the body, larger doses of all of these have a larger effect. Of course there is a saturation point beyond which the body cannot respond anymore, i.e. if you're dead of snakebite, another snakebite doesn't do very much.

Homeopathy on the other hand teaches that effects get stronger as the number of molecules is reduced. Oh, and the effect is the exact opposite of what you'd normally effect. Got it?

[sts60]

A few odds and ends I didn't notice get fully covered yet...

The "moon" (actually just a satellite, nothing so special) has a lot of influence over the earth, everybody knows. Why are there more murders committed at a full moon time? Just because there is more "light" from the moon? No way, because if light kept murderers from murdering, why install streetlights????

Nope. The claim of more murders during the full Moon is wrong (http://skepdic.com/fullmoon.html). And on an anecdotal level, I've noticed no unusual activity when I do my fire/EMS gig during the full Moon.

Just from light? Seems unlikely. From gravity? Well, maybe. I guess if the moon can pull the oceans around it can pull the molecules in the blood.

Tidal effects on the human body are not only immeasurably small, and overwhelmed by local gravitational variations, but a moment's thought would lead you to realize that a daily variation (lunar tides) would have nothing at all to do with a approximately monthly cycle.

But I bet there is more, because moon "dust" is certainly floating around the earth and coming down. They say there is moon dust in every part of the earth. What "exactly" is in this dust? Can't it trigger some emotional or "physical" reactions? I bet it can.

How exactly could an approximately constant exposure to lunar or other meteoric material be the driver behind any such cycle?

Query: Are there other satellites of earth that we just can't see, perhaps because the sun is in the way?????

No. Perhaps because the Earth orbits the Sun, not the other way around.

So if the "scientists" are the first to say "I don't know," about a lot of things, how can they know whether a molecule, or half a molecule, could work???

Here's your fundamental problem in a nutshell (assuming you're not simply trolling). You appeal to the general notion of things not fully understood by science, but you have literally no grasp of what is understood vs. what is not understood. And your grasp of the most fundamental principles of the world around us is woefully lacking ("half a molecule" being the most recent example), so you have neither a starting point nor an ending point for your ideas - just half-remembered and wholly-misunderstood notions you wave around as if they meant something.

I know that's kind of harsh, and I'm sorry, but before you can ask a meaningful question you've got to build yourself some sort of foundation upon which to frame those questions. That requires both a willingness to learn the basic concepts and to critically evaluate your own claims.

[Ivor the Engineer]

The release date does not nessaracily reflect the date she watched it. It would only provide a boundry.

I shall not say any more. I'm already on 'virtual' ignore.

I am a bad, bad person.

[fls]

The release date does not nessaracily reflect the date she watched it. It would only provide a boundry.

The description for Destination Inner Space sounds right. It would have to be several years after the release that I saw it, but that would make sense because it was the second feature at the drive-in (I can't remember what the main attraction was that night). My parents would watch the movies while us kids fell asleep in the back. That probably dates me more than the movie release date. :)

Linda

[insidespace]

As far as I know, Mr. Scientists, anti-venom is a potion that saves your life when you get bit, like by a dangerous serpent as a cobra, whose venom, as we agreed above, is so potent it can take three molecules to do you in!! So the anti-venom has *less* than three molecules, or *it would do you in too.*

It seems like a simple matter of division.

If anti-venom is say 10 percent as strong as the real McCoy, then the anti-venom potency is 3/10 molecules. Even yours truly can do *that* calculation!!!!

It seems as if Ms. FLS or whomever, has proved me right, whereas all the pack of dogs tried their darndest to prove me wrong.

O well I wont crow over being right. The point is and advancement of "science" and human understanding against the vastness of the cosmos.

NOTE TO ALL: I am a "confirmed" evolutionist and "believe" in evolution without the need of "devine" interference.

[Tanstaafl]

I must say, you're more amusing than the average troll.

It's true! :)

[Ivor the Engineer]

See what I mean, 'virtual' ignore.

Truely, a cruel punishment.

[fls]

But, FLS seems to understand the point I am trying to make. She said that there are three molecules of cobra venom that could kill you, so a *much* lesser dose would be needed to *cure*you as an anti-venom, farstesh?

Yeah. The process by which a single molecule of cobra venom is placed in each vial of anti-venom is quite fascinating.

So if the "scientists" are the first to say "I don't know," about a lot of things, how can they know whether a molecule, or half a molecule, could work???

That reminds me of that old joke....

What do you call half a butanol molecule?

Answer: A good time.

(I slay me.)

Remember, most of the tree is underground.

I thought that was icebergs?

Does this help clarify?

Like ghee.

Linda

[sthomson]

Insidespace: Please define what you mean by "cave man" or "cave woman". These are historically inaccurate terms and display a somewhat tenuous grasp our archaological record.

[dudalb]

Insidespace: Please define what you mean by "cave man" or "cave woman". These are historically inaccurate terms and display a somewhat tenuous grasp our archaological record.

Wow, I see an Insurance commerical coming on....

[geoman]

Insidespace: Please define what you mean by "cave man" or "cave woman". These are historically inaccurate terms and display a somewhat tenuous grasp our archaological record.

cave man: cavern-dwelling male Homo sapiens possessing gravity-altering canine companion

[JJM]

{snip} That reminds me of that old joke....

What do you call half a butanol molecule?

Answer: A good time.

(I slay me.)

LindaI get it- one can make ethel palpitate! However, be careful because the reaction can "run away" resulting in ethel pregnate.

[Belz...]

Well I am sorry if I "offended" any-one here, as it seems there is a "pack mentality" of persons who think otherwise than me.

Key word: seems. Just because EVERYONE disagrees with you doesn't mean they're out to get you. Maybe you're just wrong.

But, FLS seems to understand the point I am trying to make. She said that there are three molecules of cobra venom that could kill you, so a *much* lesser dose would be needed to *cure*you as an anti-venom, farstesh?

No. ... Really no.

It seems as if you proved my point by disagreeing.

There is no point to prove or disprove.

Remember, most of the tree is underground.

Not the trees I know.

[Belz...]

This is a public service announcement.

Please don't feed the troll.

Thank you.

Trolls need to eat too, Blue. And since they feed on attention, we need to give them at least some. Otherwise they might realise how pathetic and useless their existence is and seek to end it. And we wouldn't want that, would we ?




Bah! Who am I kidding!!

[sts60]

As far as I know, Mr. Scientists, anti-venom is a potion that saves your life when you get bit, like by a dangerous serpent as a cobra, whose venom, as we agreed above, is so potent it can take three molecules to do you in!! So the anti-venom has *less* than three molecules, or *it would do you in too.*

It seems like a simple matter of division.

If anti-venom is say 10 percent as strong as the real McCoy, then the anti-venom potency is 3/10 molecules. Even yours truly can do *that* calculation!!!!....
OK, I get the joke. Funny stuff. :)

[Belz...]

As far as I know, Mr. Scientists, anti-venom is a potion that saves your life when you get bit, like by a dangerous serpent as a cobra, whose venom, as we agreed above, is so potent it can take three molecules to do you in!! So the anti-venom has *less* than three molecules, or *it would do you in too.*

It seems like a simple matter of division.

If anti-venom is say 10 percent as strong as the real McCoy, then the anti-venom potency is 3/10 molecules. Even yours truly can do *that* calculation!!!!

It seems as if Ms. FLS or whomever, has proved me right, whereas all the pack of dogs tried their darndest to prove me wrong.

O well I wont crow over being right. The point is and advancement of "science" and human understanding against the vastness of the cosmos.

NOTE TO ALL: I am a "confirmed" evolutionist and "believe" in evolution without the need of "devine" interference.

Just no, Space.

[Rasmus]

Three. I looked it up.

I found quotes of several miligrams. I also found where it said that the antivenom would be produced by injecting horses with non-fatal doses of the venom and then harvesting their anti bodies.

I suspect you were joking, or are refering to some theoretical worst case scenario - but be that as it may, care to elaborate how you arrived at just three molecules?

(FWIW: The anti-venom is not somne kind of deluted or inactive snake venom. Whilst an overdose would be harmful it seems that it is not nearly as dangerous as the snake venom itself. more here (http://www.engin.umich.edu/%7ECRE/web_mod/cobra/avenom.htm); the following pages were way over my head, though.)

[this charming man]

I found quotes of several miligrams. I also found where it said that the antivenom would be produced by injecting horses with non-fatal doses of the venom and then harvesting their anti bodies.

I suspect you were joking, or are refering to some theoretical worst case scenario - but be that as it may, care to elaborate how you arrived at just three molecules?

(FWIW: The anti-venom is not somne kind of deluted or inactive snake venom. Whilst an overdose would be harmful it seems that it is not nearly as dangerous as the snake venom itself. more here (http://www.engin.umich.edu/%7ECRE/web_mod/cobra/avenom.htm); the following pages were way over my head, though.)

Rasmus look up; I think that one may have went over your head.
:)

look at her other responses; the whole thing needs to be understood in it's entire context. ;)

[fls]

I get it- one can make ethel palpitate! However, be careful because the reaction can "run away" resulting in ethel pregnate.

Heh. Thanks for making my joke funny. :)

Linda

[fls]

I found quotes of several miligrams. I also found where it said that the antivenom would be produced by injecting horses with non-fatal doses of the venom and then harvesting their anti bodies.

Cool. Now you know more about anti-venom than you did before the start of this thread.

I suspect you were joking, or are refering to some theoretical worst case scenario - but be that as it may, care to elaborate how you arrived at just three molecules?

Three is a magic number.

Linda

[Rasmus]

Cool. Now you know more about anti-venom than you did before the start of this thread.

I am very grateful!

Three is a magic number.

Ah, I was hoping there would be some hypothetical situation were three molecules would indeed be enough.

Oh well ...

[Rasmus]

Rasmus look up; I think that one may have went over your head.
:)

look at her other responses; the whole thing needs to be understood in it's entire context. ;)

D'oh!

To my defense: This was the only reply where I simply didn't know the right answer myself. Hence it didn't register as sarcasm.

[Madalch]

I get it- one can make ethel palpitate! However, be careful because the reaction can "run away" resulting in ethel pregnate.
That would be humourous, except you've misspelled both "ethyl palpitate" and "ethyl lactate".

[JJM]

That would be humourous, except you've misspelled both "ethyl palpitate" and "ethyl lactate".You are mistaken. "Ethyl" is a chemical term, "Ethel" is a woman's name. I know that "pregnate" is not a technical term; but it conveys the idea.

What do you think "palpitate" means, in this context, how do you spell it?

Thanks for reading. I wish my comment had been more obviously, simply humorous.

[JoeTheJuggler]

I get it- one can make ethel palpitate! However, be careful because the reaction can "run away" resulting in ethel pregnate.

I suppose that's conceivable.

[Gravy]

You might want to let the Nobel prize commision in on this as they gave the nobel prize to John Vane (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1982/vane-autobio.html) in 1982 for exactly this.Ah, I had the pleasure of carousing with Sir John and his wife Daphne. He was a good friend of my scientist friend, mentioned above. Charming, funny, worldly people.

[arthwollipot]

Personally I think this thread is hilarious. Please, everybody, keep feeding the troll! I am amused by its antics. It's like front row seats at the zoo during feeding time.

[Tanstaafl]

I suppose that's conceivable.


:D

[UnrepentantSinner]

I know it's been pointed out a couple of times already but I think it bears repeating...

Insidepace is a troll. He does not really believe the things he is saying.

For more evidence read his other posts. And his made up expressions and sayings.

Well I was asked about Beinvenido somebody, and Alverado number...

Ashles, that was all I needed for evidence. Unfortunately I was asleep and missed all the posting today.

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

I agree with Arthwollipot - this is fun!

I was sidetracked for a moment, because I thought that the Avocado number was the number you had to check in the supermarket before you found one that was ripe. :)

If I understand one of the comments earlier, it's just possible that you might have bought the one bottle that actually contains a single molecule of whatever. However, if you smell the mixture you're in danger of sniffing up that molecule.

Presumably that makes the bottle contents considerably more potent...... :)

I just love the JREF - so Educational!

YBW

[Mojo]

I was sidetracked for a moment, because I thought that the Avocado number was the number you had to check in the supermarket before you found one that was ripe.


Observations I have so far made are consistent with this having a value of 6.022 x 1023.

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

Thanks Mojo,

Obviously I don't have the maths for that. :)

YBW

[Mashuna]

I was sidetracked for a moment, because I thought that the Avocado number was the number you had to check in the supermarket before you found one that was ripe. Observations I have so far made are consistent with this having a value of 6.022 x 1023.

That is also, coincidentally, the amount of time in seconds between an avocado being too hard to cut with a saw, and being so ripe it disintegrates in your hand when you pick it up. They're kind of like supermarket pears in that regard.

[arthwollipot]

Pears are worse.

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

I'm glad to see that we're giving this thread the appropriate level of gravitas. :)

YBW

[Mashuna]

I'm giving this thread gravitas, just diluted to the appropriate level of 6.022 x 1023.

Whee! Party balloons!

[cyborg]

As far as I know, Mr. Scientists, anti-venom is a potion that saves your life when you get bit, like by a dangerous serpent as a cobra, whose venom, as we agreed above, is so potent it can take three molecules to do you in!! So the anti-venom has *less* than three molecules, or *it would do you in too.*

Do you think at any point you might like to go and find out how anti-venom actually works?

Just a thought.

O well I wont crow over being right.

You can't since your premise as to how anti-venom works is wrong.

NOTE TO ALL: I am a "confirmed" evolutionist and "believe" in evolution without the need of "devine" interference.

So what?

[Zep]

NOTE TO ALL: I am a "confirmed" evolutionist and "believe" in evolution without the need of "devine" interference.But nearly everything has had devine influence! He was good, wasn't he!

http://www.angelfire.com/ny/nyuk/images/andydevine.jpg

[Cuddles]

Also here is a rough map for your "sun in the way" question.

Obviously it's not the Sun getting in the way, it's all those little dots.

[Rolfe]

Thanks for reading. I wish my comment had been more obviously, simply humorous.


Never mind, JJM. I got it.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

What's an anti-venom? Does it have any molecules at all of venom in it? (Back to that immunology lecture I gave this morning. Insidespace should have been there.)


I keep asking. And I keep not getting an answer. (Not from insidespace anyway.)

Well, there are NO molecules of venom in an antivenom. Fancy that.

That's why it's so powerful, of course.

Rolfe.

[Curnir]

Hello "Insidespace". Since it's gralpelday in the country I am curently staioned at I "feel" the need to ask you if you've ever been in a car.

Have you ever been in a car?

If "you" have, you should know that noone knows how to make cartires. It's true :)

And remember, a moose in the woods is better than ten on your lawn.

Does that help clarify things for you?

[bahrketnaten]

Agreed. This person is either trolling, or incapable of logical thought. Either way it is a waste of time conversing with them.

Yeah, how many sweeping general liaisons can one thread tolerate anyway?

BKN

[nathan]

It would seem I got it precisely backwards then.
<barbie>Orbital dynamics is hard</barbie>

[Mancunian]

Well I was asked about Beinvenido somebody, and Alverado number, and I don't know these things. However, I *do* know that ovulation cycles paralllel the moon, not the sun. Does the sun come up every 28 days??? And no-one has ever explained how the moon does it, have they?

Everyone admits that a small amount of something can have a big effect. You say there is nothing in the water left over. How would you know? Can you find a really small molecule? If not, how can you say that there isn't some molecule or other floating aroiund in there? And if so, can't it attach to an "important" part of the brain or whatever organ is involved, and start to build resistance, like the small amount of polio bacterias.

Sometimes, in order to "see" the "light" you have to close your "eyes."

Does this hellp you understand?
Why do you "ramdomly" put words in "quotes"? It's really "irritating".

[eir_de_scania]

Why do you "ramdomly" put words in "quotes"? It's really "irritating".
You just answered your own question, methinks.;)

[Madalch]

I was sidetracked for a moment, because I thought that the Avocado number was the number you had to check in the supermarket before you found one that was ripe.


Nah- a mole contains Avagardo's number of particles.

A millimole contains 6.022 x 10^20 particles
A micromole contains 6.022 x 10^17 particles
A nanomole contains 6.022 x 10^14 particles
A picomole contains 6.022 x 10^11 particles

If you have 6.022 x 10^8 particles, that's a femtomole.
If you have 602200 particles, that's an attomole.
If you have 602 particles that's a zeptopmole
If you have Avacado's number, that's a guacamole.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Nah- a mole contains Avagardo's number of particles.

A millimole contains 6.022 x 10^20 particles
A micromole contains 6.022 x 10^17 particles
A nanomole contains 6.022 x 10^14 particles
A picomole contains 6.022 x 10^11 particles

If you have 6.022 x 10^8 particles, that's a femtomole.
If you have 602200 particles, that's an attomole.
If you have 602 particles that's a zeptopmole
If you have Avacado's number, that's a guacamole.
:)
That alone made this thread worthwhile!

[Zep]

I have a mole named after me?? Great!

[Mojo]

Observations I have so far made are consistent with this having a value of 6.022 x 1023.That is also, coincidentally, the amount of time in seconds between an avocado being too hard to cut with a saw, and being so ripe it disintegrates in your hand when you pick it up.


No, that's 6.022 x 10-23 seconds.

There's only 3.154 x 107 seconds in a year, so 6.022 x 1023 seconds is somewhere around 20,000,000,000,000,000 years.

Is anyone getting a feeling for the sort of numbers involved in homoeopathic dilutions yet?

[arthwollipot]

Nominated (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3006210&posted=1#post3006210)

Nah- a mole contains Avagardo's number of particles.

A millimole contains 6.022 x 10^20 particles
A micromole contains 6.022 x 10^17 particles
A nanomole contains 6.022 x 10^14 particles
A picomole contains 6.022 x 10^11 particles

If you have 6.022 x 10^8 particles, that's a femtomole.
If you have 602200 particles, that's an attomole.
If you have 602 particles that's a zeptopmole
If you have Avacado's number, that's a guacamole.

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

Thank you Madalch - that made my day - if Arthwollipot hadn't nominated that, I would have - so maybe I'll second the nomination.

[insidespace]

Well well aren't we enjoying our little selves? I like a good "joke" now and then, too. Is this "joke" on "me?"

Well, it seems like I stirred up the proverbial "hornets nest" in this homoeopathey thing, although I never did homoeopathy myself. I wonder why its such a big problem to deal with?

I looked on the Web and there are plenty of people who swear by this "less is more" thing. The anti-venom lady said there are no cobra venom molecules in cobra venom anti venum, but how does she know that?

I thought a "molecule" or part of one was "so" small that it could not been seen. So, how in the wide world would you know if such a thing were in a bottle or not? No-one has been able to answer that "question."

Like, the people here know everything there is to know? That must be pretty dull, sitting around and telling each other how much you know, and that there are no mysteries any more to bother with.

I for one believe in the indominable human spirt which tries to fathum the outermost reaches of the mysterious universe.

Well, I think by the way we should "try" the experiment on the single molecule and see if you can see it!!!

You know, summer does not last forever, and frankly, most people don't want it to.

Hope this helps.

[Belz...]

Well, it seems like I stirred up the proverbial "hornets nest" in this homoeopathey thing, although I never did homoeopathy myself. I wonder why its such a big problem to deal with?

Because it doesn't work but people claim it does ?

I thought a "molecule" or part of one was "so" small that it could not been seen. So, how in the wide world would you know if such a thing were in a bottle or not? No-one has been able to answer that "question."

Irrelevant. One molecule will not have a significant effect. You've been told this.

Like, the people here know everything there is to know? That must be pretty dull, sitting around and telling each other how much you know, and that there are no mysteries any more to bother with.

Argument form ignorance.

[Ashles]

I looked on the Web and there are plenty of people who swear by this "less is more" thing. The anti-venom lady said there are no cobra venom molecules in cobra venom anti venum, but how does she know that?

I thought a "molecule" or part of one was "so" small that it could not been seen. So, how in the wide world would you know if such a thing were in a bottle or not? No-one has been able to answer that "question."

Does inside space actually have to add the words "I AM A TROLL" before people will accept it?

[Belz...]

Oh, I've already accepted it.

Nobody could be that stupid.

[fls]

Well well aren't we enjoying our little selves? I like a good "joke" now and then, too. Is this "joke" on "me?"

Because what this thread is missing is a grammar nazi....

The question mark should be outside the quotation marks.

Well, it seems like I stirred up the proverbial "hornets nest" in this homoeopathey thing, although I never did homoeopathy myself. I wonder why its such a big problem to deal with?

I'm not having a problem and it doesn't look like you are either.

I looked on the Web and there are plenty of people who swear by this "less is more" thing. The anti-venom lady said there are no cobra venom molecules in cobra venom anti venum, but how does she know that?

I thought a "molecule" or part of one was "so" small that it could not been seen. So, how in the wide world would you know if such a thing were in a bottle or not? No-one has been able to answer that "question."

Specially trained eyes. (http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/see_a_photon.html)

Like, the people here know everything there is to know? That must be pretty dull, sitting around and telling each other how much you know, and that there are no mysteries any more to bother with.

I dunno. There's gotta be at least six left, as Sue Grafton is only up to "T".

I for one believe in the indominable human spirt which tries to fathum the outermost reaches of the mysterious universe.

That almost sounds like it means something.

Well, I think by the way we should "try" the experiment on the single molecule and see if you can see it!!!

Do polymers count? Cuz we can see some of those.

You know, summer does not last forever, and frankly, most people don't want it to.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons my oldest son is looking at out-of-state colleges, to the detriment of our pocketbook.

Hope this helps.

As always.

Linda

[ponderingturtle]

Oh, I've already accepted it.

Nobody could be that stupid.

You need to get out more.

[insidespace]

Thank-you for "correcting" my grammar (actually punctuation). It was correct at first I think:

I said:
Well well aren't we enjoying our little selves? I like a good "joke" now and then, too. Is this "joke" on "me?"

The rule says:
Rule 3 When you have a question outside quoted material AND inside quoted material, use only one question mark and place it inside the
quotation mark.
Example Did she say, "May I go?"
http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp

[cyborg]

Is this "joke" on "me?"

"Yes".

[Southwind17]

Thank-you for "correcting" my grammar (actually punctuation). It was correct at first I think:

I said:
Well well aren't we enjoying our little selves? I like a good "joke" now and then, too. Is this "joke" on "me?"

The rule says:
Rule 3 When you have a question outside quoted material AND inside quoted material, use only one question mark and place it inside the
quotation mark.
Example Did she say, "May I go?"
http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp

I'll happily give you a list of grammatical and punctuation errors and their corrections in said text if you're open to being educated. Just let me know.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Thank-you for "correcting" my grammar (actually punctuation). It was correct at first I think:

I said:
Well well aren't we enjoying our little selves? I like a good "joke" now and then, too. Is this "joke" on "me?"

The rule says:
Rule 3 When you have a question outside quoted material AND inside quoted material, use only one question mark and place it inside the
quotation mark.
Example Did she say, "May I go?"
http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp
But you're only quoting a single word. In the example, the entire question is quoted.

The real problem is that you completely misused quotation marks. There's no reason to put them around "joke" and "me" in the sentence you wrote. So trying to reason the proper placement of them relative to the question mark is pointless. Just lose the quotation marks. (You could make a case that they're legit around "joke" as in "your so-called joke.")

[fls]

Thank-you for "correcting" my grammar (actually punctuation). It was correct at first I think:

I said:
Well well aren't we enjoying our little selves? I like a good "joke" now and then, too. Is this "joke" on "me?"

The rule says:
Rule 3 When you have a question outside quoted material AND inside quoted material, use only one question mark and place it inside the
quotation mark.
Example Did she say, "May I go?"
http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp

The question isn't "me", but "is this joke on me". That means only one question mark applies.

ETA: I use Grammar Nazi for a pattern of behaviour where the writing, rather than the message, is nitpicked. This includes punctuation, spelling, syntax, etc. I don't know if general use is broader or narrower than that, or whether there is something approaching consensus on this issue, yet. I wonder if William Saffire has written on it.

Linda

[Madalch]

Thank you Madalch - that made my day - if Arthwollipot hadn't nominated that, I would have - so maybe I'll second the nomination.
I'm amazed that people like that joke...my students loathe it.

But I'll bask in the nomination anyway.

[nathan]

The real problem is that you completely misused quotation marks.
Maybe he stole ferj's apostrophes?

[Belz...]

Thank-you for "correcting" my grammar

I'm "sure" you're "welcome".

I said:
Well well aren't we enjoying our little selves? I like a good "joke" now and then, too. Is this "joke" on "me?"

The rule says:
Rule 3 When you have a question outside quoted material AND inside quoted material, use only one question mark and place it inside the
quotation mark.
Example Did she say, "May I go?"
http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp

Thanks for proving her point.

[insidespace]

Egg-zak-to-mundo Jose, the "me" was a "question," as was the sentence. The intent of the "author" is the "key." Ha ha.

Now, returning to the "topic" at hand, it seems to be that people here think that you can't have a substance that has only one molecule (or less) and it has an effect? Right?

So, you mean that the "water" that it came in, is not somehow "changed" by having the substance (whatever it is, i.e. cobra venum) in it, so that when you take it out, the water still is different?

I think for instance water from a mountain stream tastes different from water from your tap, even though everything bad has been removed and they are both pure water. I don't think any "machine" can tell the difference in that water, principally because they are both just water on the machine's dial. However, when you drink them they tasted different. I think that deserves an explanation, just like earlier when the subject of smell came up and someone said the brain does not get the actual substance. Which misses the point entirely because you could consider the nerves going to your nose just part of the brain. Which side of the "blood brain barrier" are the nerves, anyway.

The same question is pointed out when someone dies. Just before they die they weigh the same as after, yet something has gone. What is that something? A machine can't detect it, but it is there and then gone. Isn't it the same as the water stuff?

It seems like you don't agree among yourselves, so how can I be expected to agree with everything that is said?

Like the african said to the eskimo, all snow looks alike.

Does this help you understand?

[Tanstaafl]

Hope this helps.


Yes, indeed. It's been a crappy week at work, and I needed a good laugh. You're always good for that.

Now that your cover is blown here, you really should come over to the humor section. Or can you only be funny when you're pretending to be serious?

[Curnir]

I think this will answer some of your questions.

this space intentionally left blank.

well it at least holds a homeopathic amounts of answers.

I hope it helped to clarify things for you.

[fls]

Now, returning to the "topic" at hand, it seems to be that people here think that you can't have a substance that has only one molecule (or less) and it has an effect? Right?

I think it'd be pretty cool if our body had the power to detect a single molecule.

So, you mean that the "water" that it came in, is not somehow "changed" by having the substance (whatever it is, i.e. cobra venum) in it, so that when you take it out, the water still is different?

Depends upon whether someone labelled the container.

I think for instance water from a mountain stream tastes different from water from your tap, even though everything bad has been removed and they are both pure water. I don't think any "machine" can tell the difference in that water, principally because they are both just water on the machine's dial. However, when you drink them they tasted different.

Now there's a cool gadget. I'm picturing something like a meat thermometer.

I think that deserves an explanation, just like earlier when the subject of smell came up and someone said the brain does not get the actual substance. Which misses the point entirely because you could consider the nerves going to your nose just part of the brain. Which side of the "blood brain barrier" are the nerves, anyway.

Hmm...kinda DMZ I think.

The same question is pointed out when someone dies. Just before they die they weigh the same as after, yet something has gone. What is that something? A machine can't detect it, but it is there and then gone. Isn't it the same as the water stuff?

It wasn't 'til near the end of the movie that I realized 21 grams wasn't referring to drugs. I thought Naomi Watts was some sort of coke addict.

It seems like you don't agree among yourselves, so how can I be expected to agree with everything that is said?

What's your favourite colour?

Like the african said to the eskimo, all snow looks alike.

Is that why some write their name in it?

Does this help you understand?

I'll need your answers.

Linda

[-Fran-]

I think this will answer some of your questions.

this space intentionally left blank.

well it at least holds a homeopathic amounts of answers.

I hope it helped to clarify things for you.

:D


Well, this whole thread has been hilarious so far! :D

[JoeTheJuggler]

If you have Avacado's number, that's a guacamole.

And nine animals in holes is a Wack-a-mole

[JoeTheJuggler]

Egg-zak-to-mundo Jose, the "me" was a "question," as was the sentence. The intent of the "author" is the "key." Ha ha.


Ha-ha. Clever troll. :boggled:

[Belz...]

So, you mean that the "water" that it came in, is not somehow "changed" by having the substance (whatever it is, i.e. cobra venum) in it, so that when you take it out, the water still is different?

I think for instance water from a mountain stream tastes different from water from your tap, even though everything bad has been removed and they are both pure water.

If they are PURE water, then they both taste the same.

The taste you are refering to comes from OTHER molecules, not H2O.

[Madalch]

I think for instance water from a mountain stream tastes different from water from your tap, even though everything bad has been removed and they are both pure water. I don't think any "machine" can tell the difference in that water, principally because they are both just water on the machine's dial.

Neither tap water nor water from a mountain spring are pure water; even triply-distilled laboratory grade water has some levels of impurities.

It's the impurities that you're tasting, and yes, there are machines that can tell them apart.

Like the african said to the eskimo, all snow looks alike.
Does this help you understand?
I understand perfectly.
You're the African.
We're the Inuit.
And you're trying to tell us all about snow- a substance you've never seen.
A perfect analogy.

(Yes, I know that some parts of Africa get snow. But very few of them.)

[JoeTheJuggler]

I think for instance water from a mountain stream tastes different from water from your tap, even though everything bad has been removed and they are both pure water.

What?

Aside from stuff we intentionally put into our municipal water supplies (notably chlorine and fluoride), there are trace amounts of all sorts of stuff (including for example arsenic). ("Trace" meaning in the PPM or PPB--actual measurable quantities and not hypothetical ingredients like those in homeopathic remedies in the 24X and up range.)

Depending on what mountain stream you're talking about, there's everything in there from bacteria and trace amounts of minerals to fish pee and . . . fish.

[sthomson]

I think for instance water from a mountain stream tastes different from water from your tap, even though everything bad has been removed and they are both pure water. I don't think any "machine" can tell the difference in that water, principally because they are both just water on the machine's dial. However, when you drink them they tasted different. I think that deserves an explanation...

Water from a mountain stream is sometimes chemically different that water out of a tap. To say otherwise is ignorant.

[Ryan O'Dine]

I think for instance water from a mountain stream tastes different from water from your tap, even though everything bad has been removed and they are both pure water. I don't think any "machine" can tell the difference in that water, principally because they are both just water on the machine's dial. However, when you drink them they tasted different. I think that deserves an explanation, just like earlier when the subject of smell came up and someone said the brain does not get the actual substance. Which misses the point entirely because you could consider the nerves going to your nose just part of the brain. Which side of the "blood brain barrier" are the nerves, anyway.

The same question is pointed out when someone dies. Just before they die they weigh the same as after, yet something has gone. What is that something? A machine can't detect it, but it is there and then gone. Isn't it the same as the water stuff?

It seems like you don't agree among yourselves, so how can I be expected to agree with everything that is said?

Like the african said to the eskimo, all snow looks alike.

Does this help you understand?

As the poster who spoke of how the brain smells, I’ll point out that we know a huge amount of what goes on when someone smells something, as I tried to point out. Yes, there are mysteries. The problem is, you can’t claim homeopathy should be taken seriously just because there are mysteries. You have to show how homeopathy explains things better than what we already know. So far, you haven’t.

I’ll also point out that machines can smell plenty of things that humans can’t. Otherwise, we’d have people sniffing bags at airports rather than wasting money on expensive chemical detectors.

And finally, picture a tv set. Now picture the tv set dropped from a twenty story building. Now bring all the pieces back together and weigh them. Would you agree it weighs the same as the intact tv? Yet something is gone -- it doesn’t work anymore. What was that something?

[fls]

And finally, picture a tv set. Now picture the tv set dropped from a twenty story building. Now bring all the pieces back together and weigh them. Would you agree it weighs the same as the intact tv? Yet something is gone -- it doesn’t work anymore. What was that something?

I think you're forgetting something. As we all know, gravity doesn't work in a vaccuum. (http://www.randi.org/forumlive/showthread.php?p=2799790#post2799790) The broken TV lets all that gravity in, so it will weigh more.

Linda

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

[Tanstaafl]

When it hit the ground, the TV was succussed without any active ingredient in it, causing the transistors and integrated circuits to lose their memory.

ETA: Ah, Linda beat me to it. But I still like my theory better. That makes it true! :)

[-Fran-]

And finally, picture a tv set. Now picture the tv set dropped from a twenty story building. Now bring all the pieces back together and weigh them. Would you agree it weighs the same as the intact tv? Yet something is gone -- it doesn’t work anymore. What was that something?

You know, it's possible you might have made his brain explode with this one :D

[Tanstaafl]

And finally, picture a tv set. Now picture the tv set dropped from a twenty story building. Now bring all the pieces back together and weigh them. Would you agree it weighs the same as the intact tv? Yet something is gone -- it doesn’t work anymore. What was that something?


This reminds me a little bit of the old theory in electronics that smoke is what makes all electronic components work.

You can verify this too, because as long as the smoke stays inside, they work. Once you see the smoke coming out of them, they don't work any more.

[Ryan O'Dine]

I love you people
:Banane03:

[DRBUZZ0]

Not all homeopathy is the diluted away to nothing variety, to avoid false assumptions definition is needed here.


Correct. In some of the "less potent" homeopathy preperations you may have a dilution factor as low was 15x. In these cases you may verywell have a couple of molecules. Depending on the ingredient, it's even possible that it might be detectable in scientific tests. Probably not the standard analytical kind, but there are ways of measuring things down to parts per quintillion...



There are a number of immunologic anaolgies that fit the original homeopathy idea, using a small amount of the same thing to treat the related condition, whether it be the same antigen in vaccine or in allergy desensitization.

BKN

You could make some analogies... they'll be entirely misleading and baseless though. But it's common in the homeopathic community. IE: Giving someone a small amount of X will cause them to aquire a tolerance for it. Yes, that's true, but if you actually follow the homeopathy logic beyond the most superficial version it's apparent that it doesn't seem to workout

[Mojo]

As we all know, gravity doesn't work in a vaccuum. (http://www.randi.org/forumlive/showthread.php?p=2799790#post2799790)


:eye-poppi

[insidespace]

Well I'm not born yesterday or the day before, so although a "fool" is born every "minute" (ref: P.T. Barnem), not all "fools" are on this website. Gravity can "permeate" through a "vacuum" (note: there IS no true vacuum, even space has *some* particles in it, and the "vacuum" your vacuum cleaner makes has even more!!). True, the greatest scientists have not figured out how gravity can do this, but, perhaps someone here can "enlighten" us.

Earlier I used aspirin to say that science does not have all the answers, and everyone shot back, yes we know about aspirin. So try this: why do we sleep? If anyone can explain *that* one I would try to listen.

The mountain stream and the tap water are an example that held up. No-one could tell me how to measure the taste in the mountain stream either. So how are you so "sure" that a "machine" can tell? And my example about "smell" would be better if I had used dogs. Dogs can smell better than any machine. Why? If all they are really smelling is "molecules" then it would seem a "molecule counter" would do just as well. Dogs "smell" through solid substances like steel or plastic, and no-one knows how.

The TV is different that the dead person because you *could* put the TV back together if you had enough experience, but no-one can say that you can make the dead come back to life!!! Or, is there a "person" here who claims to be able to do it?????

Like the mountain climber said, the mountain has many bottoms but only one top.

Does this help you understand?

[insidespace]

Oh and I just found this quote from an adjacent thread about water:

While it's one of the most important and abundant chemical compounds on Earth, water is still a puzzle to scientists. Much research has been done to uncover the structure of water beyond the H2O scale, which is thought to be responsible for many of water’s unique properties. However, the nature of this structure, governed by hydrogen bonds, is currently unknown.

That would seem to contradict the "molecules are everything" idea. The "nature" of the structure is currently unknown. So isn't it possible the water from a mountain stream or very dilute water has some unknown structure?

[danielk]

OK insidespace, although it's almost obvious by now that you're a troll I'll bite anyway just for the fun of it.
not all "fools" are on this website.
Indeed.
Gravity can "permeate" through a "vacuum"
We know. That was just a little inside joke. Just forget it.
(note: there IS no true vacuum, even space has *some* particles in it, and the "vacuum" your vacuum cleaner makes has even more!!).
Yawn.
True, the greatest scientists have not figured out how gravity can do this, but, perhaps someone here can "enlighten" us.
How exactly gravity works is indeed still unknown, as far as I'm aware. However, stumbling around in the dark of woo isn't going to lift this secret.
Earlier I used aspirin to say that science does not have all the answers, and everyone shot back, yes we know about aspirin.
Shot back? Dude it's not our fault that you make up your examples as you go.
So try this: why do we sleep? If anyone can explain *that* one I would try to listen.
Dunno. Maybe because we get tired? I suppose the reason we get tired in the first place is that we descended from lifeforms which depended on the presence of sunlight to function (energy input!). The abilities to store energy and use other sources for energy came later, which allows us to stay awake at night if we insist on it. But we never overcame the necessity for sleep, so I'd guess it's a pretty fundamental part of the physiology we inherited.

In any case, if you really want to know you should rather ask a biologist. I'm sure (s)he will give you a more definitive answer.
The mountain stream and the tap water are an example that held up. No-one could tell me how to measure the taste in the mountain stream either.
Are you frickin' stupid? Look, taste is very similar to smell in that it requires the presence of different molecules (or ions) for us to be able to detect a difference. Your assertion that the water from a tap and a mountain stream is chemically equivalent is totally unfounded.
So how are you so "sure" that a "machine" can tell? And my example about "smell" would be better if I had used dogs. Dogs can smell better than any machine.
I don't think dogs can smell better than any machine. Have you ever heard of a mass spectrometer? Dogs just happen to be more convenient around an airport, and are probably more cost efficient as well. This could very well change some day, though.
Why? If all they are really smelling is "molecules" then it would seem a "molecule counter" would do just as well.
Not just a counter, but a device to tell different molecules apart.
Dogs "smell" through solid substances like steel or plastic, and no-one knows how.
Dogs smell through allegedly solid substances like steel or plastic, and no-one knows I don't know how, and I never bothered to find out. And I just made that up anyway.
There. Fixed it for you.
The TV is different that the dead person because you *could* put the TV back together if you had enough experience, but no-one can say that you can make the dead come back to life!!! Or, is there a "person" here who claims to be able to do it?????
I think we actually can bring clinically dead people to live if the body isn't severely damaged already (which is unfortunately the case most of the time). In any case, if you could put a body back together exactly like it was when alive, down to each single molecule, the result would be a person, alive, and in the state (s)he was at the time you took the snapshot. Unfortunately it's pretty hard to do that. And you would have replicated any illness, too. :p
Like the mountain climber said, the mountain has many bottoms but only one top.
Yawn.
Does this help you understand?
When will you begin to understand what we are trying to tell you?

[Professor Yaffle]

Mountain stream water tastes much better than tap water and would do so even if it was tap water flowing down the mountain stream and mountain water coming straight out of your tap. It is all about the context.

Edit: unless of course you come from somewhere that has really bad tasting tap water.

[DRBUZZ0]

Oh and I just found this quote from an adjacent thread about water:

While it's one of the most important and abundant chemical compounds on Earth, water is still a puzzle to scientists. Much research has been done to uncover the structure of water beyond the H2O scale, which is thought to be responsible for many of water’s unique properties. However, the nature of this structure, governed by hydrogen bonds, is currently unknown.

That would seem to contradict the "molecules are everything" idea. The "nature" of the structure is currently unknown.

uncover the structure of water? Research on the structure of water?

As far as chemicals go it's pretty damn simple. It's ionic bonds between hydrogen and oxygen. It has some unusual properties, for example it expands when it freezes. That's understood well though because of the odd shape and polar charges of the molecule. I said "unusual" properties; not "unheard of" properties.

If you want to go below the molecular level then you have hydrogen and oxygen. Pretty standard stuff. Hydrogen is especially easy. All it is is a proton and an electron. The hydrogen and oxygen in water is just hydrogen and oxygen. It's not any different than the atoms in alcohol or carbon dioxide or any other compound which contains hydrogen and oxygen.

If you want to talk about things on a sub-atomic level, then eventually you get down to the component particles of subatomic particles and the quantum levels down to where particles and waves are hard to tell apart. This, admittedly, is an area of some conjecture, where some things have not been conclusively established.

But that has nothing to do with water. All things become difficult to measure when you get to that small a level.


So isn't it possible the water from a mountain stream or very dilute water has some unknown structure?

no. Mountain stream water probably tastes better than the tap water (at least in many areas) because it doesn't have any chlorine in it or any of the bad tasting minerals in it. (Although some mountain stream water does). A good tasting spring is simply water which is relatively pure, containing no sulfur or anything else which would be unpleasing to taste.

The only thing "dilute" in it is a few traces of calcium, magnesium, iron... a few other things. Very very small amounts. But having a few traces of minerals tends to give the water a better taste than 100% pure water (distilled water) which can taste a bit "stale"

That's pretty much all there is to it. Penn and Teller did an episode on bottled water. It was quite funny.

[DRBUZZ0]

The mountain stream and the tap water are an example that held up. No-one could tell me how to measure the taste in the mountain stream either. So how are you so "sure" that a "machine" can tell?

That's because taste is a human factor and subjective. You can tell pretty well by analyzing the chemicals in it. Just as you can tell if a pizza will taste good by knowing the ingredients and baking method. However you can't build a machine to tell if something it "good tasting pizza" It's a subjective thing. Even if some tastes are nearly universally disliked and some universally liked, it's still a human issue.


And my example about "smell" would be better if I had used dogs. Dogs can smell better than any machine.


Depends on what you mean by "better" a gas-chromatograph/mass spectrometer could more accurate determine chemicals than a dog, but it would be bulky to lug around and you would need to take samples and run them through the machine. A dog is mobile, has built in air sampling and can be trained to ignore smells that it isn't interested in. it also can tell the general direction a smell is coming from by moving it's head around.

Yes, you could acomplish this with a machine, but dogs are avaliable and work very well and have other helpful traits.



Why? If all they are really smelling is "molecules" then it would seem a "molecule counter" would do just as well.


Again, you could make something that would emulate the receptors in a dog's nose. It would be a lot of work to recreate a very highly effective biological system with little added benefit. It's not easy to make an air sampler walk around and be of reasonable size.


Dogs "smell" through solid substances like steel or plastic, and no-one knows how.


No they cannot smell through a solid air-tight seal. What they are smelling is the residual smell which may have been deposited beforehand. The example is that bears (which have even better smelling than dogs) can smell canned food. They are not smelling the food in the can though, but are smelling the traces of it on the can from when the can was made in the factory.

The cans are washed and everything, but even the tiny tiny amount left is enough to smell. However, if that can was taken to a laboratory and throughly and repeatedly cleaned with solvents, then the bear would not be able to smell the canned food.


The TV is different that the dead person because you *could* put the TV back together if you had enough experience, but no-one can say that you can make the dead come back to life!!! Or, is there a "person" here who claims to be able to do it?????


Well, that depends on how you define "dead." if a person's heart has stopped beating then you can "bring them back to life." with CPR or a defibrillator, IF they have not sustained too much cardiac damage and if its very shortly after.

When the body dies, the cells begin to stop functioning and chemical processes change. Proteins quickly break down and organs stop functioning and then tissues die.

How long this takes depends on the type of cells. If it's something like a heart of kidney, and you keep it reasonably cold, it might be viable for a day. If it's the brain, it's going to die much faster. Nerve tissue has the shortest tolerance for lack of oxygen and will start to have irreversible damage within minutes.

However, it's not impossible that a person who has just "died" could be reanimated with a ventilator and by restarting the heart. This would give you a "braindead" body though, because while the other tissues might be able to restart, the brain is, again, the most sensitive to this.

Reassembling a television is easy. Capacitors and resistors and cathode ray tubes are pretty much macroscopic and not defendant on tiny chemical structures.

If you want to bring somebody back from the dead, you would have to go into each and every cell and reform all the structures on a nanoscopic biochemical level. This is far far far beyond any current capabilities. Working with stuff on that level is just barely becoming possible and again... for EVERY SINGLE CELL. And that's assuming that there has been no significant microbial decay, which makes it all the more difficult.

If a human body were as simple as a television. IE: Connect the intestines to the stomach. Connect the head to the neck, the spine to the brain... Then it would be easy.


Like the mountain climber said, the mountain has many bottoms but only one top.

Does this help you understand?

um... I don't think I'm lacking any understanding.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Well I'm not born yesterday or the day before, so although a "fool" is born every "minute" (ref: P.T. Barnem), not all "fools" are on this website. Gravity can "permeate" through a "vacuum" (note: there IS no true vacuum, even space has *some* particles in it, and the "vacuum" your vacuum cleaner makes has even more!!). True, the greatest scientists have not figured out how gravity can do this, but, perhaps someone here can "enlighten" us.
What are you talking about? You're not for real, are you?

Scientists have never postulated that gravity requires atmosphere, so I don't think anyone's trying to "figure out" how gravity can "permeate" through a vacuum.


Earlier I used aspirin to say that science does not have all the answers, and everyone shot back, yes we know about aspirin. So try this: why do we sleep? If anyone can explain *that* one I would try to listen.

Context: You were trying to explain why it's not necessary to understand how homeopathics work (and assuming that they do work) when you said that we don't understand how aspirin works. The aspirin thing would have been a legitimate way of pointing out that we don't need a theory to explain how homeopathics work if we had evidence that they work (which we don't).

In fact, I admit that there are probably real medicines whose exact action is not known. (As I pointed out earlier, though, we can nearly always limit the number of possible sites of action in the body to a few specific ones, and given enough money, we could probably determine the actions of any drug that has been proven effective.) I also admit that we don't need to have a theory of how a drug works to accept that it does work. What we need is double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trials that yield consistent and significant results at a decent confidence level. Homeopathy doesn't have that, AND there's no plausible theory for how it works.

Why we sleep is an unrelated question. Otherwise, absolutely any field where science does not yet have all the answers would somehow be an argument in support of homeopathy. It is not.

In fact, ignorance is never evidence.


The mountain stream and the tap water are an example that held up. No-one could tell me how to measure the taste in the mountain stream either.

Wrong. Several of us pointed out that the taste is dependent on other things in the water. Your assumption that mountain stream water and tap water are both pure water is flat out and egregiously wrong.

Dogs "smell" through solid substances like steel or plastic, and no-one knows how.

We do know how smell works. Molecules in the air fit into different combinations of receptor cells, triggering action potentials that the brain interprets as smells. Dogs have a much more extensive system of receptors and a bigger portion of their brains devoted to smell than humans.

If something is encased in steel or plastic, for smell to happen molecules must still pass through into the air. That's a fact and it's known.

Even if it weren't, see above--ignorance is not evidence of anything.

Even long before we knew a lot of the details about olfaction, we could certainly do reliable experiments to show that it IS a real phenomenon--that dogs for example can detect substance that human noses cannot. (The kind of solid, hard evidence that is lacking for homeopathy.)

You keep raising topics trying to say things that science doesn't know. (And usually using examples that are wrong.)

How do any of these things in any way support homeopathy?

[Mashuna]

That would seem to contradict the "molecules are everything" idea. The "nature" of the structure is currently unknown. So isn't it possible the water from a mountain stream or very dilute water has some unknown structure?

How do you get this very dilute water? Do you take some normal water, then add water?

[Curnir]

The TV is different that the dead person because you *could* put the TV back together if you had enough experience, but no-one can say that you can make the dead come back to life!!! Or, is there a "person" here who claims to be able to do it?????


Oh this is cute.

You didn't get the joke.

Heh heh heh.

[Mojo]

How exactly gravity works is indeed still unknown, as far as I'm aware. However, stumbling around in the dark of woo isn't going to lift this secret.


But work it does. And this means that there is a crucial difference between the theory of gravity and the "theory" of homoeopathy. The theory of gravity describes an observed phenomenon. Theories of homoeopathy either describe a phenomenon that cannot be observed or (increasingly these days, it seems) attempt to explain why it cannot be observed.

[SYLVESTER1592]

Is this the sequel to the more fun with homeopaths thread?

Insidespace, Dude,... before taking another trip to Whoos-R-us:
:nosmoking Lay of the ganja and step away from the bong... :nosmoking

SYL:)

[JoeTheJuggler]

But work it does. And this means that there is a crucial difference between the theory of gravity and the "theory" of homoeopathy. The theory of gravity describes an observed phenomenon. Theories of homoeopathy either describe a phenomenon that cannot be observed or (increasingly these days, it seems) attempt to explain why it cannot be observed.


Exactly.

You don't need a theory to be able to observe a phenomenon, so attempting to point out undisputable, actual phenomena for which there are no comprehensive explanations, is irrelevant.

That said, the topic is "homeopathy theory". Despite the fact that homeopathy does not work (i.e. there is no observable phenomenon in need of explanation), Hahnemann and modern homeopaths do offer a theory or theories.

These theories are unparsimonious (they raise more questions than they purport to answer), conflict with known science, and are often flat out self-contradictory.

[JoeTheJuggler]

On TV sets, gravity and vacuums.

I think you're forgetting something. As we all know, gravity doesn't work in a vaccuum. (http://www.randi.org/forumlive/showthread.php?p=2799790#post2799790) The broken TV lets all that gravity in, so it will weigh more.

Linda

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)


I didn't follow your link at first, and assumed you were talking about InsideSpace's scientific musings on the ferj-prediction thread (my bolding):

The universe is always vibrating. SEE, the string theory. So, I can't imagine what you are trying to say. NOTE: I don't see why calling it a "logical extrapolation" solves any problem you have. What is logical to one person is mystical to another. The uncontacted tribes in New Ginny have never seen a television and would think it is mystical. Yet we all know (most of us anyway) that the television is a perfectly logical device that causes electrons to flow through the air in a special pattern which comes up looking like somebody!!!

[snip]


As to "defining" these vibrations, all I can say is that a vibration is a back and forth movement that has amplitude and speed. It comes and goes, like the waves or the flapping of a shirt in the breeze. Everybody has them, even in space, where you can't hear anything unless it is direct-connected to your ears (because sound, unlike light, cannot function without gravity).


So we've got electrons flying through the air rather than vacuum tubes in a TV, no gravity in space, and sound waves propagated through gravity.

Now I understand homeopathy theory! :)

[Curnir]

No gravity in space?

Oh my this is a thread that gives and keeps on giving.

Mirth that is. :D

[fls]

Well I'm not born yesterday or the day before, so although a "fool" is born every "minute" (ref: P.T. Barnem), not all "fools" are on this website. Gravity can "permeate" through a "vacuum" (note: there IS no true vacuum, even space has *some* particles in it, and the "vacuum" your vacuum cleaner makes has even more!!). True, the greatest scientists have not figured out how gravity can do this, but, perhaps someone here can "enlighten" us.

Gravitons, duh.

Earlier I used aspirin to say that science does not have all the answers, and everyone shot back, yes we know about aspirin. So try this: why do we sleep? If anyone can explain *that* one I would try to listen.

It is obviously to keep the mattress industry employed.

The mountain stream and the tap water are an example that held up. No-one could tell me how to measure the taste in the mountain stream either. So how are you so "sure" that a "machine" can tell? And my example about "smell" would be better if I had used dogs. Dogs can smell better than any machine. Why? If all they are really smelling is "molecules" then it would seem a "molecule counter" would do just as well. Dogs "smell" through solid substances like steel or plastic, and no-one knows how.

I'm sure it's something to do with quantum tunnelling.

The TV is different that the dead person because you *could* put the TV back together if you had enough experience, but no-one can say that you can make the dead come back to life!!! Or, is there a "person" here who claims to be able to do it?????

Of course there is (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=82036). This is the home of the Million Dollar Challenge, after all.

Like the mountain climber said, the mountain has many bottoms but only one top.

The bottoms are more interesting. The Caves episode of the Planet Earth series was most fascinating.

Does this help you understand?

Symmetry is intact.

Linda

[DRBUZZ0]

As far as I know, the current hypotheses which best explain at least part of how gravity works, or which are good contenders for explaining it range from the idea of distortions in space time propagating through a dimension which is not directly perceivable. Or by gravitons or through a mechanism related to string theory, in which gravity may be based on how string vibrations can effect dimensions. and so on...

Some of the modern physics has yet to be entirely fleshed out and tested for accuracy, but as far as I am aware, no reputable physist has ever proposed that it has any damn thing to do with homeopathy or diluting stuff to put in medicine...

[streamlet]

I'm struck by how much of Insidespace's ignorance I don't share, just because I watch popular television. I'm no scholar, but I know the mega-basics of antivenom from watching Jeff Corwin wrangle snakes on Animal Planet, and I know about mass spectrometers from CSI.

This feels like a meaningful observation... but probably isn't. :tv::tv:

[JJM]

Gravitons, duh.More important- can you hear in a vacuum? It seems to depend on whether the vacuum is turned on.
It is obviously to keep the mattress industry employed.Yawn.
I'm sure it's something to do with quantum tunnelling.Quantum tunneling has long-ago been shown ineffective. One is never certain where it will come out.
The bottoms are more interesting. That is oten true. One needs to learn to appreciate what is on display.
Symmetry is intact.

LindaAble was I, ere I saw Minnesota.

[Madalch]

As far as chemicals go it's pretty damn simple. It's ionic bonds between hydrogen and oxygen.
Polar covalent bonds. Definitely not ionic.

[DRBUZZ0]

Polar covalent bonds. Definitely not ionic.

sry. my bad. Don't know what I was thinking.

[Southwind17]

As far as I know, the current hypotheses which best explain at least part of how gravity works, or which are good contenders for explaining it range from the idea of distortions in space time propagating through a dimension which is not directly perceivable. Or by gravitons or through a mechanism related to string theory, in which gravity may be based on how string vibrations can effect dimensions. and so on...

Some of the modern physics has yet to be entirely fleshed out and tested for accuracy, but as far as I am aware, no reputable physist has ever proposed that it has any damn thing to do with homeopathy or diluting stuff to put in medicine...

Is this true, that there's no accepted explanation for how gravity works? I've pondered gravity before, and each time told myself that I really must read up on the subject. Sounds like I might be wasting my time, if I did. I previously assumed it was something to do with the attraction of molecules, like surface tension, but I can easily see now how that doesn't even come close.

I don't seek to de-rail this thread down a gravitational path, but is there really no known explanation?

[fls]

I don't seek to de-rail this thread down a gravitational path, but is there really no known explanation?

"There is no known explanation" is one of those stock woo phrases (like "you can't prove a negative") that is meaningless. It would be more useful to say "the possibilities are not yet fully constrained", but somehow I doubt that's going to catch on. :)

It is always useful to understand what we do know, the facts that we are trying to explain, the constraints on the possibilities (for example, if it is mediated by a force carrying particle, what properties that particle must have), ways that we could further constrain the possibilities (i.e. what experiments could rule out a particular explanation), etc. That knowledge won't go to waste as the details get filled in.

Linda

[Southwind17]

"There is no known explanation" is one of those stock woo phrases (like "you can't prove a negative") that is meaningless. It would be more useful to say "the possibilities are not yet fully constrained", but somehow I doubt that's going to catch on. :)

Yes, I agree, this sounds like 'politician' speak too, in other words, 'read my lips, then assume the opposite'! 'No known explanation' to me, however, just sounds like a humble acknowledgement. It can, of course, be supplemented with information about what we do know, or believe, just to demonstrate that we're not completely clueless.

It is always useful to understand what we do know, the facts that we are trying to explain, the constraints on the possibilities (for example, if it is mediated by a force carrying particle, what properties that particle must have), ways that we could further constrain the possibilities (i.e. what experiments could rule out a particular explanation), etc. That knowledge won't go to waste as the details get filled in.

True. So, in a nutshell, what's gravity, as we currently understand it?

[fls]

Yes, I agree, this sounds like 'politician' speak too, in other words, 'read my lips, then assume the opposite'! 'No known explanation' to me, however, just sounds like a humble acknowledgement. It can, of course, be supplemented with information about what we do know, or believe, just to demonstrate that we're not completely clueless.

That's why it's meaningless to say "no known explanation" - it imparts no information and is entirely arbitrary.

True. So, in a nutshell, what's gravity, as we currently understand it?

My book recommendation is Fabric of the Cosmos, by Brian Greene.

Linda

[Ryan O'Dine]

The TV is different that the dead person because you *could* put the TV back together if you had enough experience, but no-one can say that you can make the dead come back to life!!! Or, is there a "person" here who claims to be able to do it?????


Not to belabor this, but it seems to me you're misrepresenting your own argument. Here's what you originally said...

The same question is pointed out when someone dies. Just before they die they weigh the same as after, yet something has gone. What is that something? A machine can't detect it, but it is there and then gone. Isn't it the same as the water stuff?

I believe your point was that just as the difference between the living and the dead is undetectable and has no weight, so too the difference between an active homeopathic solution and plain water is undetectable and has no weight.

My analogy merely pointed out that your analogy was badly flawed, and didn’t make your case. As far as I can tell, neither of our analogies had anything to do with bringing the dead back to life.

[DRBUZZ0]

Yes, I agree, this sounds like 'politician' speak too, in other words, 'read my lips, then assume the opposite'! 'No known explanation' to me, however, just sounds like a humble acknowledgement. It can, of course, be supplemented with information about what we do know, or believe, just to demonstrate that we're not completely clueless.

True. So, in a nutshell, what's gravity, as we currently understand it?

If you want to be technically accurate about it, gravity is understood but not *fully* understood. The most fundamental mechanism by which gravity propagates is not entirely established. There's string theory and other stuff on the bleeding edge of physics, and while the explanations so far seem to work, they have yet to be narrowed-down and tested. (and with string theory, testing the theory is an issue onto itself)

Gravity is basically a property of mass. It is a force which causes objects with mass to be attracted. In newtonian physics it is described as simply a force like any other. Newtonian physics does not explain the mechanism by which it acts but only what it does. And it does so accurately.

However relativity introduced the concept that gravity is not simply a force between two objects but is actually the effect of a distortion of space (and by consequence time) The force which is observed is not as simple as just a linear "force" it's the result of any body with mass "Pulling" on space/time inward. Because of this, although Newtonian physics is accurate in describing the primary action of gravity, especially at low levels, it does not add the variable of space distortion. In cases of very massive objects, such as neutron stars, the apparent gravitational force is not the only significant effect of gravity: so is the local distortion.


It's sometimes described as how a weight would cause a rubber sheet to become stretched and indented. This isn't really all that accurate, since it's a two dimensional and a bit simplistic. You can think of it as a "pucker" in space. While this greatly expands the understanding of gravitational forces it does not explain how exactly the gravity propagates and how objects "know" where others are. A similar problem existed with electromagnetic forces and this is actually one of the thgings that got quantum physics started. With gravity it's not quite as simple as photons though, it may be a particle called a "graviton" but that's somewhat theoretical. String theory offers some insite into how dimensions which cannot be directly perceived may play a roll.


Anyways... nothing NOTHING to do with homeopathics.

[danielk]

String theory offers some insite into how dimensions which cannot be directly perceived may play a roll.

Pun intended? ;)

[Jeff Corey]

Well I'm not born yesterday or the day before, so although a "fool" is born every "minute" (ref: P.T. Barnem)...

... Dogs can smell better than any machine....

1. It's Barnum, and he never said that. A competitor with another fake Cardiff Giant, David Hannum, said it. And he said sucker, not fool,
2. My dog doesn't smell better than a machine. He has no nose.
Can't you get anything right?

[Gord_in_Toronto]

1
<< SNIP >>

2. My dog doesn't smell better than a machine. He has no nose.
Can't you get anything right?

I looked around for the closest machine when I read this and saw my toaster. Sniff. Sniff. It definitely smells better than my dog.

[JJM]

{snip} 2. My dog doesn't smell better than a machine. He has no nose. {snip}I once had a dog with no nose- he smelled pretty good, for a dog.

[Jeff Corey]

I was referring to this... http:///www.youtube.com/watch?v=in7yLZJ7A6Y

[Mojo]

1. It's Barnum, and he never said that. A competitor with another fake Cardiff Giant, David Hannum, said it. And he said sucker, not fool.


They do seem to be born pretty frequently, though.

[Mojo]

I was referring to this... http:///www.youtube.com/watch?v=in7yLZJ7A6Y


NB: Possibly not safe for Germans.
Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! ... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.

[Madalch]

NB: Possibly not safe for Germans.
Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! ... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
Das ist nicht funny!

(snicker....choke...thump)

[danielk]

Not safe for Germans? Unless it's just me, I think it's pretty safe. I'm unable to parse these, er, words. Of course that might just be the joke. :confused:

[JoeTheJuggler]

You know, it's possible you might have made his brain explode with this one :D

If it contains a vacuum, wouldn't it implode rather than explode? :)

(Can't believe I let that go for so long.)

[Curnir]

Not safe for Germans? Unless it's just me, I think it's pretty safe. I'm unable to parse these, er, words. Of course that might just be the joke. :confused:

yff5Sp6bN6k

[Southwind17]

If it contains a vacuum, wouldn't it implode rather than explode? :)

(Can't believe I let that go for so long.)

You've not studied the ballistic reports that emanated from the JFK assasination investigation, have you?! ;) Remember the watermelon experiment?

[Belz...]

Well I'm not born yesterday or the day before, so although a "fool" is born every "minute" (ref: P.T. Barnem), not all "fools" are on this website. Gravity can "permeate" through a "vacuum" (note: there IS no true vacuum, even space has *some* particles in it, and the "vacuum" your vacuum cleaner makes has even more!!). True, the greatest scientists have not figured out how gravity can do this, but, perhaps someone here can "enlighten" us.

Okay.

1) You don't know what sarcasm is.
2) You don't know anything.

[Belz...]

Gravitons

Assuming they exist, of course.

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

Gravity - Pah! Doesn't the Earth suck?

Gravitons - too small to see? sounds a bit homoeopathic to me. :)

How many gravitons does it take to make 1 gravity, then?

Beltz - you just have to have faith :)

Or am I getting my Woos mixed up here?

I think I need a lie down.

YBW

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

Actually, isn't it time to remind us all of the article in the Onion some months ago?

Intelligent Falling! Tarah!

There's no such thing as gravity - it's an intelligent designer pushing....... IIRC

YBW

[Belz...]

Beltz

Who the hell is "Beltz" anyway ?

[JonnyFive]

Who the hell is "Beltz" anyway ?

I think he's your evil twin or something. He has a pointy goatee and cackles a lot.

Oh wait, that's you. Beltz is the one that's clean-shaven, and doesn't kick puppies into traffic (he does, however, touch kittens inappropriately, so it's not all squaresville there). Sorry about the mixup.

[DRBUZZ0]

You've not studied the ballistic reports that emanated from the JFK assasination investigation, have you?! ;) Remember the watermelon experiment?

On that subject, what is so racist about implying that black people like watermelon?

Of course black people like watermelon. EVERYONE likes watermelon. I'm Caucasian and I like watermelon. How could anyone of any ethnicity not like it?

Okay, sure it can get your hands sticky because the watermelon juice, which is mostly but not entirely water, gets on them, but I still think it's my favorite melon by far.

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

Maybe Beltz is nothing to do with you, huh?

Sheesh!

You might have thought that a Tea would be welcome....

:)

YBW

[arthwollipot]

I love this thread.

And I don't like watermelon.

[Southwind17]

On that subject, what is so racist about implying that black people like watermelon?

Of course black people like watermelon. EVERYONE likes watermelon. I'm Caucasian and I like watermelon. How could anyone of any ethnicity not like it?

Who's implying it?

Actually, it's interesting you should raise this point. I read in the paper yesterday that Lewis Hamilton is on track to be the first 'black person' to win an F1 championship. Why do journalists and newspapers see the need to point this out? What's the relevance? Is it implying that, until now, black people haven't been capable of winning an F1 championship or something similar? I've never read anything along the lines of Michael Schumacher being the first person with a mole on his left buttock (we're pretty close mates - not!) to become an F1 champion, for example. What's the difference?

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

Well - I never realised that Michael Schumacher had/has a mole on his left buttock - it just goes to show that the E in JREF is really working. :)

YBW

[Zep]

Maybe Lewis Hamilton has a mole on his left buttock too...

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

Does this mean that all you need to become an F1 champion is a mole on your left buttock?

Hmmm. As we're supposed to be discussing Homoeopathy Theory, I believe, then presumably NO buttock mole ought to make you more likely to win?

[Zep]

Sorta. There is somewhere a homeopathic remedy that will either cure a mole on your left buttock, or give you one.

Then you will be able to be an F1 champion driver.


:hypnotize

[Southwind17]

Does this mean that all you need to become an F1 champion is a mole on your left buttock?

Hmmm. As we're supposed to be discussing Homoeopathy Theory, I believe, then presumably NO buttock mole ought to make you more likely to win?

'Homoeopathy Theory' eh! Freudian slip, all this talk about men's buttocks?!

[Zep]

'Homoeopathy Theory' eh! Freudian slip, all this talk about men's buttocks?!Sit on it!

[Southwind17]

Sit on it!

;)

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

With like curing like, I suppose it goes something like this:

Wanting to be F1 champion has to be an obsession for some people, so therefore it's an illness.

However - being F1 champion is obviously the cure.
Reduced doses of being F1 champion makes the cure even more powerful.
So not being F1 world champion has to be the strongest dose of all... and as my brain is leaking out of my ears right now, I guess I'll have to stop.

Presumably, the mole is a side effect? Or bottom effect? :)

YBW

[Southwind17]

Jeez - I hope MS himself doesn't become aware of this and send his Rotweilers after me! Maybe I should have chosen Tim Henman, say. I'm not afraid of poodles!

[arthwollipot]

Hey - I just realised that very little money is the "cure" to my broke-ness!

I'm going to be the richest man in the world!

[Southwind17]

Hey - I just realised that very little money is the "cure" to my broke-ness!

I'm going to be the richest man in the world!

You got it buddy, and I've got a great idea to help you get there soon ...!!!

[ponderingturtle]

How do you get this very dilute water? Do you take some normal water, then add water?

No, alcohol.

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

Surely you dilute water with water, and alcohol with alcohol.

It's a waste otherwise - at least for the alcohol :)

Arthwollipot - how do you get dilute money onto a sugar pill? I really want to try this! :)

YBW

[Zep]

Surely you dilute water with water, and alcohol with alcohol.

It's a waste otherwise - at least for the alcohol :)

Arthwollipot - how do you get dilute money onto a sugar pill? I really want to try this! :)

YBWNo no! You CAN dilute water with alcohol, and alcohol with water. It's the shake-rattle-and-roll that makes the difference. You can also use warm cow's piss if "it is indicated".

To dilute money into a sugar-pill, first put the money in a vial of water. Then tip that water into more water (it will be the Mother Tincture - MT), and start the dilution process. Don't worry that nothing dissolves - that's immaterial! ;) Take the final dilution and put a drop on the pillule. Viola!

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

I realise that you can, but I thought it was a waste to diilute alcohol with anything but alcohol! :)

However, I confess that my intentions weren't really homoeopathic - now there's an interesting concept, homoeopathic intentions!

I wonder - and worry, naturally - that what you're really going to get by putting money in water (or alcohol, of course) is a dilution of all of the impurities on the money.

Oh - sorry. For a minute there I forgot we're all behaving like Homoeopaths. :)

Of course it will work!

Presumably when (sorry, if) it doesn't work, it'll be because you didn't sucuss it correctly - I'm sure I read somewhere that you're supposed to tap the vial against a bible to do the process correctly?

I think I need to lie down again.

YBW

[Southwind17]

Oh - sorry. For a minute there I forgot we're all behaving like Homoeopaths. :)

You speak for yourself (oh, and Zep!). ;)

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

It's OK now.

I've taken the medication - homoeopathic of course :) - and will be going home in about half an hour or so.

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

Actually, it was a bottle of lemon-flavoured water.

Now what's that a cure for - jaundice?

[catbasket]

Well I'm not born yesterday or the day before, so although a "fool" is born every "minute" (ref: P.T. Barnem) ...

Insidespace, boy are you on a roll!

It's "sucker", not "fool".
It's "Barnum", not "Barnem".
In any case, P.T. Barnum didn't say "There's a sucker born every minute", it was most likely David Hannum.

HistoryBuff (http://www.historybuff.com/library/refbarnum.html)

Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_minute)

[-Fran-]

If it contains a vacuum, wouldn't it implode rather than explode? :)

(Can't believe I let that go for so long.)

Yeah, you're getting slack ;)

[DRBUZZ0]

If it contains a vacuum, wouldn't it implode rather than explode? :)

(Can't believe I let that go for so long.)

Well, yeah.... but not if the vacuum is highly diluted. Then it does the opposite. Obviously you need to study homeopathy better...

[JoeTheJuggler]

Well, yeah.... but not if the vacuum is highly diluted. Then it does the opposite. Obviously you need to study homeopathy better...

Highly diluted vacuum! :)

Great name for a band anyway. . .

No wait--the best way to know about homeopathy is to remain ignorant of it. Well, that's what most of its patrons do anyway.

[Jeff Corey]

Insidespace, boy are you on a roll!

It's "sucker", not "fool".
It's "Barnum", not "Barnem".
In any case, P.T. Barnum didn't say "There's a sucker born every minute", it was most likely David Hannum.

HistoryBuff (http://www.historybuff.com/library/refbarnum.html)

Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_minute)
Postmature ejaculation. Check out post 195.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Actually, it was a bottle of lemon-flavoured water.

Now what's that a cure for - jaundice?

I think it causes scurvy.

It's part of the new homeopathic chemical weapons program.

Let's see, I guess homeopathic oxygen would work for nerve gas. . . .

[DRBUZZ0]

I think it causes scurvy.

It's part of the new homeopathic chemical weapons program.

Let's see, I guess homeopathic oxygen would work for nerve gas. . . .

LOL!

[Madalch]

Arthwollipot - how do you get dilute money onto a sugar pill? I really want to try this!

But that will only cure you of the condition of having money (like most homeopathic remedies).

What you need to do is figure out how to dilute poverty.....

[Zep]

But that will only cure you of the condition of having money (like most homeopathic remedies).

What you need to do is figure out how to dilute poverty.....India seems to have that down pat. Hence the plethora of homeopaths there!

[YouBelieveWHAT?]

Sadly, that's very true.

[catbasket]

Postmature ejaculation. Check out post 195.

Pah! You only beat me to it by two days. And I gave nice shiny links. I win by virtue of placing my hands over my ears and shouting "I win, I win ...". ;)