"Quantum" homoeopathy: physicists required

[shpalman]

I've submitted my eLetter - let's see if it appears.

 

[my_wan]

http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/4/1/7 never mentioned "transactional". One instance was in the references.

Review of http://vetpath.co.uk/voodoo/milgrom1.pdf
Starting with invalid assertions;

If Bell’s inequality is violated, then non-locality has to be accepted.

This assertion (without reference) assumes a priori an assumption of the Copenhagen Interpretation (CI). That being that subatomic particles don't have definite properties until they are measured. So he is using an assumption of CI to interpret an experiment designed to falsify CI and claiming it is the only conclusion to be drawn from the assumption of nonlocality. Given that entangled particles must be generated by the same emitter if you drop this assumption of literal interpretation in CI there is nothing to say that this property did not exist throughout the experiment. Frisbees thrown in opposite directions will be correlated but no nonlocal claim can be made of them. EPR did fail to falsify CI as intended but it is only by retaining the assumptions of CI that EPR can claim to prove nonlocality. What fallacy would you call it when you say it was the first empirically consistent interpretation therefore the correct one (even though it appears it may no longer be empirically valid).

I'm pointing out the implicit use of CI because he goes on to say;

The transactional interpretation

This is the interpretation that will be used throughout the rest of this paper. To summarize, the beauty of it is that it takes the ’bull’ of non-locality firmly by the horns.. [/snip]

Here by drawing this connection between nonlocal, as used in the transactional interpretation (TI), he is implying that he can retain the above implied assumptions of CI. What he never mentions is the other logical effects of TI. Primarily TI invalidates the same (indeterminate) assumption of CI that was used in combination EPR to prove nonlocality in the first place. It is replaced by an a priori assumption of lonlocality. The nonlocality of TI is of a different character than that of CI/EPR because it specifically rules out indeterminacy. Without this indeterminacy there is no case for experimental blinds having any effect on experimental outcomes. The indeterminacy of CI is not even related to the Uncertainty Principle. As an anology would you assume that water molecules flowing down a creek that diverted around a rock before it got to the rock had nonlocal knowledge of that rock? In a sense you could say it did.

So here by obfuscation he has claimed consistency with TI by implying a connection with CI that TI specifically refutes. This is likely the reason he uses TI in his original paper but disregards mention in later discussions. He felt that implying the tenuous relationship he could later concentrate on those implications that suited him.​

 

[my_wan]

I can continue my critique to show that his mechanism not only depends on the CI but a sectarian interpretation of CI.

 

[Rolfe]

My Wan, I have to say that I understood not one word of that. But thank you anyway, from the bottom of my heart!

Rolfe.

 

[my_wan]

Give me till later tonight and I will try to make it clearer without presuming prior knowledge about QM or the various interpretations. If there are any specific questions you can post them in the meantime.

Right now my frogs are hungry and in need of a better encolosure...

 

[Tez]

The paper is empty verbal trash. If Milgrom (or anyone) wants to come to my office (Huxley 6M74, his institution) and have me explain why I'd be happy to do so. First I'll be asking him to compute correlation functions of basic observables on a few simple entangled states I write down to ensure he actually knows rudimentary QM.

 

[MichelQC]

The conclusion sums it up.

Let me see if I undertand this correctly. The whole point of this writer's diarrhea is to use Quantum mechanics to explain why homeopathy doesn't work? I already knew that it did not work!

 

[TonyL]

Oh, the pain! I decided to check the references about the new formulation of quantum mechanics that provides a framework for macro entanglement. Not only was it complete gobbledygook with no real math or connection to actual (experimental) quantum mechanics, it lead me to a rather large body of similar literature by multiple authors. It's painful to think that there are that many people out there producing literary masturbation around a few half understood concepts from quantum mechanics. These things are truly painful to read.

 

[Fredrik]

Let me see if I undertand this correctly. The whole point of this writer's diarrhea is to use Quantum mechanics to explain why homeopathy doesn't work? I already knew that it did not work!

No, he's arguing that the reason why attempts to prove that homeopathy works always fail, isn't that homepathy doesnt work, but instead a quantum mechanical effect that he claims is only present when the experiment is double-blinded to prevent the experimenter from cheating.

 

[shpalman]

Oh, the pain! I decided to check the references about the new formulation of quantum mechanics that provides a framework for macro entanglement... These things are truly painful to read.

That's why it took me so long to get around to writing my eLetter - trying to read that stupid Weak Quantum Theory paper. In the end I found a thread on here (t=24036) started by "zombified" which made me feel better.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

[post deleted as not being suitable for the young and impressionable!]

 

[Molinaro]

He says that QM should only apply to microscopic particles.
He then uses it on macroscopic objects.
He says that what he is presenting is a metaphore.
He then goes ahead and draws conclusions from it anyway, ignoring that he was starting out with a metaphore.

 

[Rolfe]

That's why it took me so long to get around to writing my eLetter - trying to read that stupid Weak Quantum Theory paper. In the end I found a thread on here (t=24036) started by "zombified" which made me feel better.

Milgrom is winning so long as he's apparently unchallenged by anyone who actually knows what they're talking about in the QM field. Now we can all see why nobody really wants to touch that nonsense with the proverbial barge pole, but it's a genuine problem. His witterings about running it past a Nobel Prizewinner who says it's all kosher don't help either.

I have several homoeopaths who repond to any challenge by simply stating that Dr. [Rolfe] is trapped in an outdated Newtonian paradigm, and doesn't understand how the seminal work of the great Dr. Milgrom has proved that homoeopathy works by the principles of quantum physics.

What we really need is a neat article, reasonably comprehensible to the medical reader, on the subject of why Milgrom hasn't proved diddly-squat. Something we can refer people to every time this preposterous claim is made. Something a bit like those blog entries but written in a calm and dispassionate style without the ridicule and sarcasm the subject so eminently deserves.

Any volunteers?

Rolfe.

 

[Tez]

What we really need is a neat article, reasonably comprehensible to the medical reader, on the subject of why Milgrom hasn't proved diddly-squat. Something we can refer people to every time this preposterous claim is made. Something a bit like those blog entries but written in a calm and dispassionate style without the ridicule and sarcasm the subject so eminently deserves.

Any volunteers?

Rolfe.

No way Jose - although I see the need, its not my passion (and I always have several actual research papers to write up).

Two of my colleagues authored a paper which has some relevance, and which may help you in these arguments:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.1232

If you know enough that you wanted to write an article and were worried about getting it correct, then I would certainly be prepared to go through it and help check it etc.

 

[Mojo]

His witterings about running it past a Nobel Prizewinner who says it's all kosher don't help either.

I've been wondering who this could be. Here's a Nobel prizewinner who seems keen on the idea of using "quantum" to explain how non-existent phenomena work.

 

[shpalman]

Two of my colleagues authored a paper which has some relevance, and which may help you in these arguments:

arXiv:0705.1232v2

Excellent, thanks for that. At last something sane for me to read.

 

[Tez]

I've been wondering who this could be. Here's a Nobel prizewinner who seems keen on the idea of using "quantum" to explain how non-existent phenomena work.

i presume your link is Josephson since its to cambridge.

He's a complete disaster. I dont care what the hell he does with his idiotic ideas, but he still takes regular unsuspecting physics students, who then need to be rescued after a year...

 

[Fredrik]

Milgrom is winning so long as he's apparently unchallenged by anyone who actually knows what they're talking about in the QM field.
...
I have several homoeopaths who repond to any challenge by simply stating that Dr. [Rolfe] is trapped in an outdated Newtonian paradigm, and doesn't understand how the seminal work of the great Dr. Milgrom has proved that homoeopathy works by the principles of quantum physics.

What we really need is a neat article, reasonably comprehensible to the medical reader, on the subject of why Milgrom hasn't proved diddly-squat.

I don't know if I can agree with this. I believe that anyone who is ignorant enough to believe that Milgrom has proved something, is determined to stay ignorant, and wouldn't care if a physicist published a reply in a refereed journal.

Also, how do you refute something that isn't even wrong? His claim is a lot like saying that magnetism is the reason the tooth fairy lives on the moon.

A physicist who writes something about it can of course say "This guy isn't making any sense, and he has proved nothing except that he doesn't understand quantum mechanics". But would anyone publish that?

What else can be added to the article? Perhaps a detailed analysis of exactly how Milgrom has misunderstood quantum mechanics, but then the article wouldn't be about science. It would just be an article about one man's delusions, and would a science journal publish that?

And who would this physicist write the article for? If it contains technical arguments, it will only be understood by those who could tell that Milgrom is delusional simply by reading his abstract.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't know if I can agree with this. I believe that anyone who is ignorant enough to believe that Milgrom has proved something, is determined to stay ignorant, and wouldn't care if a physicist published a reply in a refereed journal.

That isn't the point.

When debating homoeopaths in professional journals, or in "even-handed" debating forums, they repeatedly trot out the "you're so stupid you don't understand quantum physics, and how the great Dr. Milgrom of Imperial College has proved, by his ground-breaking research, that homoeopathy works by quantum mechanics" line.

This is difficult to bat away in an easy stroke, because not only does one have to point out that Milgrom has done no "research" whatsoever - all his papers are just speculative words without a single datum point - one has to try to show that one understands where Milgrom is wrong (or at least off the radar screen of sanity) as regards QM. The problem is that the neutral or uninformed listener thinks this stuff is impressive.

If it was possible to say, "now look here Mr. Gregory, are you not aware of the seminal paper of Professor Shpalman's, where he has conclusively shown that dear Lionel doesn't know QM from a hole in the head and what's more can't spell either," it would make life so much easier.

Rolfe.

 

[shpalman]

That isn't the point.

When debating homoeopaths in professional journals, or in "even-handed" debating forums, they repeatedly trot out the "you're so stupid you don't understand quantum physics, and how the great Dr. Milgrom of Imperial College has proved, by his ground-breaking research, that homoeopathy works by quantum mechanics" line.

While the "heroic" Milgrom says that it's only a metaphor.

This is difficult to bat away in an easy stroke, because not only does one have to point out that Milgrom has done no "research" whatsoever - all his papers are just speculative words without a single datum point - one has to try to show that one understands where Milgrom is wrong (or at least off the radar screen of sanity) as regards QM. The problem is that the neutral or uninformed listener thinks this stuff is impressive.

And a scientist like me is likely to go in cautiously trying to work out what's meaningful and what's nonsense, and what would be meaningful if it had been expressed better, and what's a garbling of a couple of unrelated concepts... and it doesn't come across as being very convincing sometimes.

If it was possible to say, "now look here Mr. Gregory, are you not aware of the seminal paper of Professor Shpalman's, where he has conclusively shown that dear Lionel doesn't know QM from a hole in the head and what's more can't spell either," it would make life so much easier.

Rolfe.

Well that's only Doctor Shpalman, and I'm still waiting for my eLetter to appear. The problem is deciding on what level to criticise Milgrom, and being careful to note that some of what he writes down is (presumably) copied out of books so isn't entirely wrong, even if it's misunderstood and misapplied horrendously. The stuff about the gyroscope in PPR Part 7 (Forschende Komplementärmedizin 11 (4) 212-223 (2004)) for example - the equations seem to be ok but he doesn't quite understand what they would be describing if they meant anything.

Up until a couple of weeks ago I'd never heard of Lionel Milgrom and the horrible things he's done to quantum mechanics, so at least spreading awareness of this towards other scientists is a good thing.