Sorry, I misunderstood that you were only supplying a “recipe” and didn’t necessarily hold any stock in the explanation. I’ve never heard any homeopathic medicine proponents mention anything about lether-bound bibles. Can you give a cite or two where folks are doing so?
>Napier, Hahnemann University hasn’t been in the homeopathy business for a long time.
Certainly not. Hell, they have real doctors, electricity, telephones, pretty much the works. I mean to point out that homeopathy has acquired some veneer of legitimacy through its long history and its having been more integrated with the mainstream at other times. I see homeopathy as somewhere towards the disreputable end of a spectrum that also includes chiropractic, osteopathy, and regular medical practice at various places closer to the “nice” end. And I get allergy desensitization shots knowing full well that many experts suspect they work by the placebo effect. Jeez, there was even a note in Scientific American a few years ago pointing out that there is little experimental evidence to show that chemotherapy is helpful in fighting cancer. So - it’s messy and hard to tell what’s for real, though homeopathy sounds wacky enough to dismiss pretty early on.
Though perhaps I should try to make the same claim regarding bloodletting’s legitimacy and “The Lancet”…
Here’s a few :
one
Samuel Hahnemann, patron saint and prophet of homeopathy suggested ten forceful taps of the glass vial on a leather bound Bible. I’m surprised that the homeopaths aren’t arguing over which translation to use. The decision between New International and King James version must be the key to this mystical phenomenon.
two
"HOWEVER, in between each serial dilution, in order for the dilution to be truly considered Homeopathic, it has to be VIGOROUSLY SHAKEN against either a leather book (Hahneman used his Bible) or the palm of the hand. "
three
There is a story that Hahnemann was holding a test tube of a diluted substance in his hand and was so frustrated at this point that he began to hit it against a leather-bound Bible and discovered that…
four
This is stopped up and shaken vigorously against a rubber or leather pad, this method being known as succussion. Hence the first centesimal.
I’m not noticeably interested in homeopathy, but it seems to me that the original post implied a question I find more interesting. What guidelines would be helpful in evaluating evidence in a field where you’ve got little background information?
Nobody’s well-grounded in everything. People quite knowledgeable in their own field can make ludicrous and public blunders when they speak outside that area; and, on the other hand, people who are indeed knowledgeable in the area under consideration can be altogether incoherent (or, worse, alienating) when they speak to the general public.
And yet, prudent citizens have some responsibility to at least try to come to informed conclusions regarding rather a large range of topics. So: let’s say that for some reason I feel the need to come to a tentative conclusion regarding homeopathic medicine. (Maybe my insurance company has lately decided to pay for it, and in consequence my premiums go up. Or make up your own reason.)
But I haven’t got any competent background in medicine. I don’t even know what journals to look for.
I could certainly use Google; and get lots of information. Some of it even true.
The question I find interesting is: what sorting process might I use to filter through publically available evidence? Some criteria have been proposed in the discussion: for example, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” (A reasonable argument, I think; on the premise that an “extraordinary claim” would be one which can’t be true unless rather a lot of what else we think we know is false. Such a claim is up against extensive prior research, and probably large heaps of evidence.) More ad hoc criteria have also been proposed: specific journal articles, for example. (Highly useful: but the question of interest to me is, as a prudent citizen, how would I go about finding such a list of articles; and how would I gauge the confidence with which I can trust that list?
I was not arguing that the scientific communitiy shouldn’t be skeptical of homeopathy. Rather, it was my assertion that the concept shouldn’t be dismissed simply because the *mechanism * cannot be understood at this time. There is often an “air” of elitism and superiority to scientific criticism that I detest. There have been a significant number of double blind studies and at least a couple of hypotheses about possible mechanisms to explain how homeopathy might work (one involves crystals in water that form when the water is shaken with a substance, and that these crystals reflect certain properties of the substance and replicate with successive dilution). Being able to explain how something occurs has never been an a priori requirement of the scientific method so far as I am aware. Had I lived in the early 1700’s and witnessed so called “ball lighting” it is likely that I would have been dismissed (or scorned or ignored) because we didn’t understand the concept of plasma physics. It is not unreasonable to believe that there are still vast areas of physics that we haven’t yet started to grasp let alone quantitatively analyize.
Now I believe that there is roughly a 99% chance that homeopathy is not objectively valid. However, I don’t “scoff” at the concept of testing the theory. Here’s what I say to homeopathy proponents instead: " If you want to establish the validity of your treatments then you must demonstrate them in large scale randomized, double blind studies done by independent testing firms." I don’t dismiss the treatment, but instead demand significant evidence that it is effective.
Also, I forgot to add that no one has yet explained the mechanism by which the so called placebo effect is able to exert it’s powerful influence upon such a wide variety of different body systems, and yet few question but that it exists.
Roland, compare and contrast your last post with the first paragraph of your post just before that. And consider that the scientific community doesn’t doubt for a moment that the placebo effect occurs.
But the problem with homeopathy has always been that it fails to even demonstrate that it does indeed work. Until it can do this, who really cares how it might work? All the possible mechanisms are just fanciful explanations supporting something that has not yet been even shown to exist.
For homeopathy to work the sciences of physics, chemistry and medicine must first be turned upside down and hundreds of years of knowledge re-evaluated. What it claims is so totally at odds with all known science that there is no other way for it to be acceptable. No surprise then that a mountain of solid evidence is asked for. And homeopathy consistantly fails to produce it.
Everybody forgets the good points of homeopathy, so let’s review them:
-Homeopathic drugs have NO side effects. Unlike VIOXX, you don’t get a hear attack from a 10-jillion times diluted dose of spider venom
-Homeopathic drugs are safe-you cannot overdose on distilled water
-Homeopathic drugs are pretty cheap-compare “Nux Vomita” with n VIAGRA, for example
-Homeopathic drugs can be taken with or without food-no stomach irritation!
Now, lets discuss thisina reasonable light. Assuming that most illnesses are self-limiting, (and the placebo effect is real), one can assume that a good percentage of people who take homeopathic drugs will have good results (i.e. they 'get better").Of course, some will get worse, and some will die as a result of homeopathic therapy…but heck, allopathis thereapy also kills some people!
Again, I repeat the question: Have any homeopathis doctors been sued for malpractce?
Wrong! They are very expensive, considering they contain no active ingredients! If you think paying $500 a gallon for distilled water is cheap, I have a bridge I can offer you for a mere $10,000.
If it weren’t for the fact that congress critters like Orrin Hatch were bribed by the billion-dollar dietary supplement industry to exempt them from laws covering real drugs (that require them to be shown both safe and effective), they could all be sued, or charged criminally, for fraud and false advertising.
It seems that I have failed to make a simple point clear. All I am saying is that observations, data or even a hypothesis (in this case the hypothesis would be that serial dilution of certain subtances can produce therapeutic benefits) shouldn’t be dismissed simply because we don’t understand the mechanism. There have been a certain number of published studies that seem to show that it has benefits. We should focus on the data (which may very well be flawed) rather than the mechanism.
Roland,
Your point is valid. I am evidenciary based. Show me convincing evidence that something works and I’ll believe it works, whether I understand why it works or not. I do not know why acupuncture works for the things it has been shown effective for, and I doubt it really has to do with flow of chi, but I believe that it does. Some good stories turned out to be false too - in med school theophylline was used as an example of a drug that worked by way of a phophodiesterase cascade on airway muscles. It fit all the physiology that we knew. It just wasn’t true - its effects were more on the CNS and directly on the diaphragm the on the airways.
Of course it is easier to believe that something works when it makes sense that it would. That’s just human nature. But you are right that it isn’t the best science.
Apparently not. From the Skeptic’s Dictionary:
(Emphasis mine.)
Indeed. But this is a problem that seems to be more talked about than real. And by talking this problem up, you tend to get lumped with those homeopaths who like to talk this problem up so they can pretend they are not getting a fair hearing from the scientific community, when the reality is they are getting as fair a hearing as the evidence they are able to produce entitles them.