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Irritating Arguments Homeopaths Use

Weak Kitten said:
skepticalnotcynical could you please turn the red text to something less eye straining? If you need it to be another color could you please use purple or blue? Thank you.
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Well, that was the reason I choose red. To strain your eye. :D
(just kidding, I was just experimenting with the settings)

1. You didn't answer anything???
2. How about the colour green?
 
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X, I agree with you. Plus I've known about the logical fallacies before. But in my case, I need to work harder 'cause I don't really have any credentials (yet) to add some gravity to my arguments. Especially my family, they think just because I've finished high school so I'm not as wise as the adults.(maybe, but to me they're quite ignorant). Anyway, I'm glad to hear those explanations. All of you guys make me feel accepted.:)

From where I come from, critical thinkers are as rare as psychics in the real world.:p
 
Ian said:
skepticalnotcynical,

Understand that some people are so far over the rainbow that no amount of rational argument and evidence will change their minds. There are people, who do not have a diagnosed mental illness, who will insist that the earth is flat no matter how much evidence you provide. Also, Rasmus and others here are correct that the onus probandi rests on the person who says "it is" because it is impossible to prove a negative.
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Yes Ian, I understand. Glad to have met people like you guys in this forum, cause I don't really get to meet a lot of rational people around my place.



Gao said:
So then wouldn't it mean that the other substances in the water that have memory, not the water itself?
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Nope, "they" maintain that the other substances leaves an imprint on the water-thus the 'water' memorizes it.
 
skepticalnotcynical said:
1. Distilled water contains no memory of any substance, that's why the water only has the memory of a particular substance after succussion.
(heard this in a talk)
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I'm not getting this at all. It seems that based on memory and succussion (dilution with the shakes), that Distilled water would be the most powerful and all encompassing sort of homeopathic medicine ever.
 
gabeygoat said:
I'm not getting this at all. It seems that based on memory and succussion (dilution with the shakes), that Distilled water would be the most powerful and all encompassing sort of homeopathic medicine ever.
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I think it's not shaken the right way if you're not doing it as part of the homeopathic ritual.

Also, to claim that the process of distilling the water could erase the omnious memory doesn't seem terribly far fetched. (At least not when compared to the rest of homeopathy ...)
 
The most common argument I hear homeopaths make is for them to make false correlations between homeopathy and vaccination. They fail to realize that there is a difference between a small amount and none. They also fail to explain how the immune system responds to their crazy concoctions in the way it does to a weakened virus. I would bet a lot of them are anti-vax anyway, but I have never seen any data on that.
 
Avery Dashwood said:
I would bet a lot of them are anti-vax anyway, but I have never seen any data on that.
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I heard Edzard Ernst speak at Cheltenham Skeptics in the Pub on Tuesday, he mentioned that this is something his unit investigated during the MMR scare. I googled for the paper:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1124112/

We obtained the email addresses of the three health professions from these websites: www.homeopath.co.uk/directory, www.chiro-online.com/interadcom, www.internetgp.com/gpsites/alphabet.htm. We also visited the private homepages of homoeopaths and chiropractors on the internet. We sent a letter in which a mother asked for advice about the MMR vaccination for her 1 year old child to all the addresses. We explained to all those who responded that the query was, in fact, part of a research project, giving them opportunity to withdraw their answers. The study was approved by the local ethics committee.

We contacted 168 homoeopaths, of whom 104 (72%) responded, 27 (26%) withdrawing their answers. We contacted 63 chiropractors, of whom 22 (44%) responded, six (27%) withdrawing their responses. No general practitioners responded. The table shows that only a few professional homoeopaths and a quarter of the chiropractors advised in favour of the MMR vaccination. Almost half of the homoeopaths and nearly a fifth of the chiropractors advised against it.
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skepticalnotcynical said:
Hi. I need some 'scientific' COUNTER-ARGUMENTS and/or 'logical arguments' for certain claims homeopaths make. These claims are a bit harder for me to debunk, and I haven't really come upon a decent counter-argument. I'm very skeptical on those claims, and to be fair, I also ask for evidence/explanation if those claims are true.
...

*You can also post other 'hard to debunk claims' (the deeper stuff), and their counter-arguments if possible.
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'Deeper stuff'?
You'll find the search engine here to be an excellent source of threads dedicated to this subject

Mojo said:
Posting in odd colours is another irritating thing that homoeopaths do.
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skepticalnotcynical said:
I assure you Mojo, I'm not a homeopath. And I don't intend to be one. :D
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Try using the default settings. :)

skepticalnotcynical said:
X, I agree with you. Plus I've known about the logical fallacies before. But in my case, I need to work harder 'cause I don't really have any credentials (yet) to add some gravity to my arguments....
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Welcome to the Forum.


skepticalnotcynical said:
...Nope, "they" maintain that the other substances leaves an imprint on the water-thus the 'water' memorizes it.
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You seem very familiar with homeopathic practitioners' arguments. I'm sure you'll find the forum's search engine most rewarding.
 
skepticalnotcynical said:
Nope, "they" maintain that the other substances leaves an imprint on the water-thus the 'water' memorizes it.
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Consider the size of a water molecule (H2o) and the size of say a molecule of helenalin (a chemical found in Arnica, a homeo favourite) C15H18O4

Saying that leaves an imprint on the water is like covering your car in tennis balls then saying the car left "an imprint" on the tennis balls. The scale is messed up.

On the western science bias : an analogy I like from Snake Oil. Imagine you were arranging a concert and needed 2000 chairs. So you go a chair warehouse and the guys says "Based on my years of experience I can tell you that is exactly 2000 chairs". You count them and get 1760 and he says "That's why I don't count. It's biased and gives the wrong answers". Science is essentially "counting" for more complex problems. People have spent a lot of time showing how we can be fairly sure we get the right answers and not just the ones we want or expect.
 
Avery Dashwood said:
The most common argument I hear homeopaths make is for them to make false correlations between homeopathy and vaccination. They fail to realize that there is a difference between a small amount and none. They also fail to explain how the immune system responds to their crazy concoctions in the way it does to a weakened virus.
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It doesn't, and homoeopathy doesn't even try to do this. The basis on which it is claimed to work is totally different from the mechanism of vaccination.

Vaccination works by stimulating the immune system to produce antibodies to the disease causing organism, by administering antigens specific to the organism. Any symptoms the vaccine produces are unwanted side-effects.

Homoeopathy claims to work by administering remedies that produce symptoms similar to those exhibited by the patient. The remedy administered will almost never have anything to do with whatever caused the patient's symptoms. Indeed, because homoeopathy was invented by Hahnemann before germ theory was discovered, homoeopathy doesn't even consider microorganisms to be the cause of disease; in homoeopathy disease is caused by made-up entities called "miasms".
 
skepticalnotcynical said:
X, I agree with you. Plus I've known about the logical fallacies before. But in my case, I need to work harder 'cause I don't really have any credentials (yet) to add some gravity to my arguments. Especially my family, they think just because I've finished high school so I'm not as wise as the adults (maybe, but to me they're quite ignorant). Anyway, I'm glad to hear those explanations. All of you guys make me feel accepted.:)

From where I come from, critical thinkers are as rare as psychics in the real world.:p
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In an ideal world, your credentials (or lack thereof) would not matter.

Quite simply: arguments and claims must stand or fall on their own merits, not the merits of the person making the argument/claim.

Not that many people appreciate that, and with family involved it gets even more difficult.

I'd caution you merely to say that you don't believe homeopathy is effective, and not allow yourself to get drawn into debate beyond that. It isn't worth the fight (with family), unless your family is taking it for serious health concerns.
 
pakeha said:
'Deeper stuff'?
You'll find the search engine here to be an excellent source of threads dedicated to this subject
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Yup.


pakeha said:
Try using the default settings. :)
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Nahh, too boring..:p


pakeha said:
Welcome to the Forum.
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Thanks.


pakeha said:
You seem very familiar with homeopathic practitioners' arguments. I'm sure you'll find the forum's search engine most rewarding.
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Well, I'm focusing on homeopathy right now. So before I start a debate, I want to prepare as much as I can.



Wudang said:
Imagine you were arranging a concert and needed 2000 chairs. So you go a chair warehouse and the guys says "Based on my years of experience I can tell you that is exactly 2000 chairs". You count them and get 1760 and he says "That's why I don't count. It's biased and gives the wrong answers".
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I'll think I'll use this analogy. :cool:



pakeha said:
Homepaths provide guidance based on sympathetic magic. ..."
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The scariest part is, when people actually fall for it.


X said:
In an ideal world, your credentials (or lack thereof) would not matter.
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True, but it would make the average person pay more attention. At least in this pathetic planet.
Plus, I'd feel 'worthy' :(


X said:
I'd caution you merely to say that you don't believe homeopathy is effective, and not allow yourself to get drawn into debate beyond that. It isn't worth the fight (with family), unless your family is taking it for serious health concerns.
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Well...The fight has long been started..:p (not close with family btw) And I don't care of being offensive if it's for the better good.
Anyway, my dad took some homeopathy treatment for his eczema. The fact that the eczema was suppressed (I don't think he realizes it can't be cured), it made him believe in homeopathy even more. And what made me really :mad: is when he advised my mum to tell her friend to seek homeopathic treatment for his son, who was diagnosed with PSORIASIS!!! :jaw-dropp
 
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It may be boring to use the default, but non-standard colours and fonts make your posts hard to read. You will get more responses if you make your posts easier to read, and as an added bonus, people will be more inclined to believe what you say about not being a homoeopath; people with non-mainstream beliefs tend to be the ones drawn to the non-standard colours and fonts.
 
Agatha said:
It may be boring to use the default, but non-standard colours and fonts make your posts hard to read. You will get more responses if you make your posts easier to read, and as an added bonus, people will be more inclined to believe what you say about not being a homoeopath; people with non-mainstream beliefs tend to be the ones drawn to the non-standard colours and fonts.
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Well, thanks for the advice. I'm new in the forum thing so I don't really have any experience. About the colour being hard to read, that I can understand. And to get more responses, I guess I'll have to trust an experienced person for now. But isn't 'being a little different tending to be a non-mainstream believer', a little far-fetched?? But hey, I guess I've gotta trust you guys on this one too-till I get some scientific evidence.:p

Anyway, I thought that certain colours would invoke certain responses. I thought I was simply using some psychology here. Oopss-well, now you know.

I'll change to default after this, and yunno what, I guess I should've posted this thread on the "Medicine" section. (well, we learn from experience):D
 
Agatha said:
It may be boring to use the default, but non-standard colours and fonts make your posts hard to read. You will get more responses if you make your posts easier to read, and as an added bonus, people will be more inclined to believe what you say about not being a homoeopath; people with non-mainstream beliefs tend to be the ones drawn to the non-standard colours and fonts.
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^^^This.
 
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