Irishman said:
Um, what accusation? I asked a question. Then I stated a fact. There was no “accusation” there.
He didn’t ask me for a cite. Please reread his message.
I read through Dr. Elias’ paper. While is work seems to show a change of some sort in a solution after an extremely diluted alternate solution was added, I should point out two things.
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The results of this change was extremely small, and there is no way to tell how this would effect the human body. They were very preliminary studies at best.
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Like most, if not all, homeopathic studies, we have yet to see this work replicated by anyone yet.
Let me rephrase. Why did you say that Sue was posting under PUNdit’s name? Can you show me how you know that? And what was your reason for stating such? Is this an attempt to stir up trouble? I do not see why you said that. The only reason I can come up with is to bring up an old issue and sore point on the board. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but I’ve noticed a tendency for people to take these comments in the wrong way, and let old animosities arise again. I’m curious why you mentioned it at all. I can’t see a reason, other than stir up trouble.
But you are correct that the call for a cite wasn’t to you. I was mistaken on that point.
Can someone help me here? I am a chemist but claim no special knowledge of calorimetry outside of what was imparted to me as an undergraduate. Here is what I get out of the paper: (Comments, anyone?)
–He discusses other dilutions (i.e. 1CH, 3CH and 30CH) but only finds these “excesses” for the 3 CH dilution that is approx. 25 uM (25 micromolar or 2.5E-5 M) of NaOH or HCl upon treatment with HCl or NaOH, respectively. These excesses are relative to bi-distilled water and not non-homeopathically prepared solutions of NaOH or HCl of the same concentrations. In case you are unaware of the implicaions of this, this is a big problem.
–The only excesses he finds upon titration with acid or base is for 3 CH NaOH or HCl, respectively. This isn’t all that surprising except to Elia. Why doesn’t he report the results for 30CH, that might wow the reader if he gets an appreciable excess averaged over 200 trials versus a control.
–There is no response for other solutes that don’t normally exotherm upon treatment with acid or base (i.e. ethanol, lactose, glucose, urea, sodium chloride, potassium chloride or lithium chloride). Once again, this is not all that surprising. It would at least be a promising development if Elia could demonstrate an effect on something that normally wouldn’t give a big exotherm.
–The calorimetric “titrations” are being performed on solutions with measurable amounts of HCl (at least 25 mM solutions) being titrated with NaOH. There is no effort to run this reaction with a control again (i.e. against “non-homeopathically” prepared HCl. No attempt is made to discount any other phenomenon (i.e. heat of reaction between 25 uM HCl and 0.01 M NaOH, and some other possibilities) before declaring that:
“It can be hypothesized that pH-dependent phenomena are present due to order-disorder transitions, related to modifications in the structure of the solvent induced by succussions and dilutions”
and
“the calorimetric titration curves unravel two pH-dependent phenomena, probably related to order-disorder
transitions of the solvent water.”
and
“The overall features make to retain that succussions and/or dilutions can alter physico-chemical properties of water, probably transferring mechanical energy on the water”
–A lot of terms are introduced and never defined or reactants are not specified, such as:
- “treated” water, of figure 3. Treated how, and by what?
- It is never specified what is titrated in the calorimetric “titrations”, I can only assume that it was the 3 CH HCl, but I can’t tell after a quick reading of the paper.
- As far as I can tell, Table 1 is virtually meaningless due to the fact that the titrated solution is simply denoted by the name H2O 3CH M. This has no meaning except that it is probably something that was diluted to 3CH (25 uM in the case of NaOH and HCl). The reader must assume that those that were treated with the “titrating solution” of HCl were “homeopathic” NaOH and those that were treated with the “titrating solution” of NaOH were “homeopathic” HCl. This is sloppy at best.
- It appears that Elia doesn’t bother to label the homeopathic solutions in any special way other than to denote the dilution of 3CH. Elia doesn’t say 3CH NaOH or 3CH HCl, at least not consistently.
Finally, it appears that this isn’t a “paper” as traditionally they are thought of. This was rather a write up of a presentation Elia made at some workshop. I can’t tell if it was subjected to peer review or not. Normally this is not a huge deal, except for the fact that it makes extraordinarily remarkable claims. It is odd that something hasn’t been submitted to some of the journals Elia normally contributes to like those published by the Royal Society or the ACS, or even Nature or Science for that matter. This paper would never make it without some major revisions, but since he has done “over 3000 reactions”, he must have thought to use controls, no?
Anyway, these are my observations, and, as I said, I am a chemist, but not a calorimetry guru. As far as I can tell, Elia can see, not surprisingly, acid-base interactions at the micromolar level, assuming his instrumentation is accurate at that level, and not being a calorimetry guru, I really don’t know how to assess that without wasting even more time and electrons. Anybody read anything differently or can anyone put this data in a different light? Any reason why we shouldn’t put this paper on the junk heap with all the other weak attempts at disproving chemistry and physics as we know them?
Jon
Irishman said:
I didn’t. I asked who it was this time. Then, in response to your first message, I noted that I asked a question. But still you don’t seem to be getting it…
Again, I didn’t “state,” I asked. What part of this are you having trouble understanding?
And to answer, why not read what I said in the post? Sue should already know this stuff. If I’m talking to Sue (thru her husband), then that’s one thing. If I’m talking to her husband without her, then he may not know the same things. As I said in that message: “Because Sue should know that homeopathy is completely worthless, except as a placebo. I don’t know what PUNdit’s background is.” Get it?
Frankly, the only one stirring up trouble here is you.
Indeed. Perhaps you are. In fact, if you had this question and really didn’t understand, you could have simply e-mailed me and asked.
Okay. I guess I’m just being overly sensitive here. I’m being guilty of the problem I’m trying to address. And maybe I should have used email instead.
I’m sorry. I’ll shut up now.
[[Many conditions for which homeopathy is and has been used are anything but self-limiting: smallpox and cholera epidemics, uterine prolapse, cystocele, asthma, serious mental illness (numerous large 19th century mental hospitals were built and operated as homeopathic institutions), tuberculosis, tumors.]]
Sorry. I just choked on the claim here that homeopathy has shown to be effective against smallpox and cholera.
And on David’s point - Sue and David have discussed/debated medical issues in the past so it makes sense he’d want to know who he was talking to, here.
Jeez, people, am I going to have to come back here and whup some ass?
- Jill
And it works for TB, too? WHY do they keep this shit SECRET from the public health experts?
Jill cried to the heavens:
But Jill, don’t you realize it’s being suppressed by the Evil Anti-Homeopathy Conspiracists and the Giant Cancer Industry? They’re the same ones who are hiding the 100 MPG carburetor and the Roswell spacecraft in Hangar 18, not to mention the Secret Cure for Breast Cancer . . .
Actually Jill and andros, the hit and run, homeopathy “expert”, Shirley Reischmean, made the point that:
This was posted on the now defunct homeopathy thread. As you can see by this resounding endorsement, it must be that the AMA (satan) is causing us in the U.S. to have an infrastructure that provides conventional medicine to most inhabitants of this land. This shady practice denies Americans access to homeopathy. In my opinion, this has to be changed if we are to rid ourselves of evidence based practitioners who are simply in it for the money;). (As opposed to the practitioners of alt.med quackery)
Jon
I’ll buy that. 
Jill said:
Yes!
JillGat’s gonna whup ass? Doesn’t that fall under the catagory of Accupressure?? 
I’m sorry I haven’t posted sooner to clear up some points. I don’t check this board all that often, and with end of school year activities going on, I have been busier than usual (had to go pick up my son at college, been several awards banquets for my daughter, etc.)
David, there are two very easy ways to tell if Sue is contributing to my post. The first is to look at my sig line. If it is PUN with Sue, then Sue wrote it or contributed to it. If it is my regular sig line or just PUN (I don’t put my sig in if it is a second post on the same topic) then it is strictly me. The second way is to look at the subject line. If it is “Cecil is wrong” then there is a good chance you are responding to Sue, if it is anything else there is no chance.
As to my background, I have a good basic biology and lab background. I have done lab work (as a lab assistant or research assistant) in breast cancer research and in research into developing a fire resistant fuel for the military (yes, that sounds ridiculous, but it was for the military.) I have been Al ( ya know Dr. John Doe et al) on about a dozen papers.
As I said in my original post, I know little or nothing about Homeopathy. I have never known a Homeopath, or AFAIK known anyone that received homeopathic treatment. I was not trying to defend anyone, or really stir up any trouble. I just thought that a person should not be able to say that Homeopathy had done poorly in double blind studies and not cite the studies.
To David B. thanks for the link and quote but if I were interested in playing Devil’s advocate, I would point out that you still haven’t provided cites to actual double blind studies. You have given links to and quotes from people who claim the studies are flawed or show homeopathy to be worthless. Again, I am only playing Devil’s advocate here, but it seems to me a Homeopath could say these people have an agenda, so they say the studies that show homeopathy doesn’t work are good, but the ones that show it does work are flawed.
PUN
**
Jill’s choking on “smallpox and cholera”–I’m having trouble visualizing using homeopathy on uterine prolapses. What, you drink a potion and the uterus then magically sucks itself back up into the abdomen? Does it work on cows and sheep, too? Dairy farmers and sheep ranchers everywhere will be delighted to hear about this, I’m sure.
PUNdit: The thing here is that it’s the homeopaths who need to provide the evidence that it does work.
But, that aside, I am a bit confused by your post. The references I quoted gave specific journals and studies that tested for these things. While I admit it’s not a direct link to the studies themselves, if you (or a homeopath) were interested in looking into it further, you could do so given the information I posted. In fact, if a homeopath came in here and claimed they were wrong, I would ask them to prove it (and, while they’re at it, provide some evidence that homeopathy is valid).
While doing research to confirm what Cecil of course already knew, I did find information about one study in which the homeopathic remedy did initially appear to be more effective against allergies than the tap water was. Unfortunately, upon laboratory analysis, the supposed dilute homeopathic remedy turned out to be laced with an ample dose of a known antihistamine. Whoops!
Jill
ROFL, Jill! Thanks, I needed that!
Jill: That reminds me of the vaunted Chinese exhibitions of surgery done with acupuncture – without happening to mention that the patient received morphine or other pain killers before being brought into view!
PUNdit replied:
(Bolding mine)
Thank you PUNdit, for clarifying. That addressed the big part of my complaint. So Sue is posting under your name in the “Cecil is Wrong” thread? Or just joint posting/contributing?