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Ernst £10000 homeopathy challenge

Deetee

Illuminator
Deetee
Joined
Jul 8, 2003
Messages
3,789
I see Prof Ernst has offered £10k to anyone who can prove homeopathy works.
Perhaps this will prompt a bit more of a reaction than the JREF challenge did, seeing as it comes from a specialist in complementary medicine.
 
Perhaps this will prompt a bit more of a reaction than the JREF challenge did
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Perhaps, though I doubt it. I imagine the line will be that there is already plenty of evidence, followed by an avalanche of the same useless studies we see time and again.
 
I dunno, we're apparently three days in and it's the first I've heard of it.
 
I wish he'd have offered the prize for anyone who could distinguish an ultra-dilute remedy from placebo under strictly controlled conditions. That could encompass a therapeutic effect of course, but that one is always hard to quantify as we all know from the plethora of papers already out there. Simply asking the claimants to tell remedy from stock solvent does really concentrate the mind, and it would allow us all to ask why Rustum Roy et al. aren't walking away with the money.

I wonder how Ernst will cope with the almost-inevitable flurry of claims from people citing flaky, poorly-controlled published work, or even a genuine trial that manages to get p<0.05 by a statistical fluke? I would imagine that he has written some carefully-formulated ground rules, but I don't see a mention of that in the article apart from something about the Cochrane collaboration.

Rolfe.
 
Deetee said:
I see Prof Ernst has offered £10k to anyone who can prove homeopathy works.
Perhaps this will prompt a bit more of a reaction than the JREF challenge did, seeing as it comes from a specialist in complementary medicine.
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Well, at least one prominent alt-medder isn't impressed and views it as a stunt. This from an article posted by Lynne “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” McTaggart today:
I was on BBC Wales yesterday, representing the ‘other side’ in a debate with Simon Singh, who was plugging the book he has recently co-authored with Edzard Ernst called Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial.

In a stunt redolent of James Randi, the magician-cum-quackbuster, the twosome have offered anyone £10,000 if they can prove that homeopathy works.

Many of you may be familiar with Edvard Ernst. Once receiving the UK’s first chair of Complementary Medicine at Peninsula University, Ernst, as Robert Verkerk, director of Alliance for Natural health puts it, set about firmly establishing himself ‘as one of CAM’s biggest detractors.” At the European Skeptics Congress in 2003, for instance, Ernst gave the keynote address.

Ernst and Singh’s usual M.O. is to combine a mismash of disparate studies into one ‘meta-analysis’ – a questionable methodology shown to have severe limitations with conventional medicine — and then to hack and slice away any studies that do not fit their own rigid criteria……attempt to use a tool of conventional medicine to study alternative medicine….…alternative medicine rests on a radically different theory of biology….…Homeopathy doesn’t seek to fix the broken wheel; it seeks to fix the car, the garage and the street where it is parked….[etc.]

http://www.theintentionworkshops.com/?p=109
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The comments section looks like it’s still open.
 
Homeopathy doesn’t seek to fix the broken wheel; it seeks to fix the car, the garage and the street where it is parked….
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Well, theres your problem. If the wheel is broken, fixing a street isn't going to help you get anywhere.
 
Rolfe said:
I wish he'd have offered the prize for anyone who could distinguish an ultra-dilute remedy from placebo under strictly controlled conditions. That could encompass a therapeutic effect of course, but that one is always hard to quantify as we all know from the plethora of papers already out there. Simply asking the claimants to tell remedy from stock solvent does really concentrate the mind, and it would allow us all to ask why Rustum Roy et al. aren't walking away with the money.
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Perhaps he wants to avoid the objection (raised by Dana Ullman, for example) that many homoeopathic remedies are used at below 12C, so have detectable amounts of the allegedly active ingredient present. Also Roy's strawman that the only argument against homoeopathy is that the remedies contain no molecules of the active ingredient.
 
richardm said:
I dunno, we're apparently three days in and it's the first I've heard of it.
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I became aware of it last night - went to get my repeat prescription and stuck on the door of the chemists was an A4 poster mentioning it. I'm going back to get a picture of it later on today so I can write a letter of compliant to "Lloyds Pharmacy".
 
Well, at least one prominent alt-medder isn't impressed and views it as a stunt. This from an article posted by Lynne “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” McTaggart today
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Oh good Lord, not Lynne McTaggart. That's the Lynne McTaggart who is involved with our favourite materials scientist Rustum Roy in trying to change water structure with the power of the mind.

I see Andy Lewis from the Quackometer got his comment in first: probably not much more to add to that, I would think.
 
Mojo said:
Perhaps he wants to avoid the objection (raised by Dana Ullman, for example) that many homoeopathic remedies are used at below 12C, so have detectable amounts of the allegedly active ingredient present. Also Roy's strawman that the only argument against homoeopathy is that the remedies contain no molecules of the active ingredient.
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Well, possibly. But since such a high proportion of the remedies used are ultradilute, I don't see much problem in starting with those. And it hardn'y matters whether or not there are molecules there, the point is, can they tell the difference between the potentised remedy and the stock solvent? Having a measurable therapeutic effect would be one way to do that, so it's really just an extension of the trial. Alowing the homoeos to use proving symptomes or thermoluminescence or Raman spectroscopy if they thought they could do it.

It's really quite hard to prove a small therapeutic effect by a clinical trial, to the degree of certainty that such a sum of money should really be demanding. It's quite easy to produce a spurious effect either by a badly-designed trial or by a statistical fluke though, which would be my main concern.

Rolfe.
 
Ernst and Singh now have their challenge online

trickortreatment.com/challenge.html

As you can see, the success criteria are pretty straightforward - publication as a cochrane review. Tough - but fair.
 
lecanardnoir said:
Ernst and Singh now have their challenge online

trickortreatment.com/challenge.html

As you can see, the success criteria are pretty straightforward - publication as a cochrane review. Tough - but fair.
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Here’s the link
http://www.trickortreatment.com/challenge.html

And here’s what it says:
Ernst-Singh £10,000
Homeopathic Challenge​

Trick or Treatment?
Alternative Medicine on Trial

By Professor Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh

We challenge homeopaths to demonstrate that homeopathy is effective by showing that the Cochrane Collaboration has published a review that is strongly and conclusively positive about high dilution homeopathic remedies for any human condition.

Or, we challenge homeopaths to have such a review published within 12 months of the first publication of extracts from Trick or Treatment? (8 April, 2009).

The Prize will be £10,000 – it will be paid by Ernst and Singh out of their own pockets to the first person or persons to present such evidence.
To apply for the prize, please send by recorded delivery a hard copy of the Cochrane Review in question and any supporting information to:

Ernst & Singh
Homeopathic Challenge,
PO Box 23064,
London, W11 3GX.​

We will respond to your application within 28 days. More Information about the some of the terms used in the Challenge:
  • Cochrane Collaboration - the world’s most independent, authoritative and respected body on judgements concerning the effectiveness of treatments.
  • Strongly - an effect size similar to conventional treatment for same condition.
  • Conclusively - based on a sufficiently large number (more than 5) of high quality (Jadad score of 4 or 5 with sample size over 100) randomised double blind clinical trials.
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More from Lecanardnoir here:
http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2008/06/10000-if-you-can-show-homeopathy-works.html
 
From the challenge text:

We challenge homeopaths to demonstrate that homeopathy is effective by showing that the Cochrane Collaboration has published a review that is strongly and conclusively positive about high dilution homeopathic remedies for any human condition.
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My bold. I think that bolded part supports Rolfe.
 
Strongly - an effect size similar to conventional treatment for same condition.
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They could always try the old trick of using a condition for which there is a "conventional" treatment that is ineffective.
 
Mojo said:
They could always try the old trick of using a condition for which there is a "conventional" treatment that is ineffective.
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Indeed - that is imprecise phraseology by Singh/Ernst.
Do not forget the "ineffective comparator" effect, that secret weapon of the quack armoury
 
Mojo said:
Never heard of the guy.
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She said "many", not "all". Even a search of the forums shows he's a prominent figure in this field of study. He's given various CAM treatments a fair crack of the whip, and so far they've performed abysmally. This looks like his next step - getting the practioners to put their money where their mouths are. More power to him, especially with the JREF challenge coming to an end in 2010.
 
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I think Mojo meant he had never heard of EdVard Ernst.

Which none of the rest of us have either, I imagine.

Rolfe.
 
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