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Best Homoeopathy blogs?

Rolfe

Adult human female
Rolfe
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I'm thinking it's time to smarten the Voodoo Society web site up a bit. (On Saturday I found myself in a small minibus taking three sopranos and five contraltos to a music workshop in Edinburgh. I soon discovered that the soprano sitting next to me was a fan of the web site, and I was motivated to do a bit more to it.)

Quite a lot of water has passed under the bridge since I last tried to bring the literature review up to date in 2005. It would be a mammoth task to link to and comment on everything relevant that's been published since then. But fortunately I don't have to do it because others have.

My plan is to add a page of links to good blog pages which debunk the most recent homoeopathic publications, arranged by subject, and with a short comment to let the reader know roughly what the blog is saying, about which publication.

So, I know that posters here have extensive knowledge of these blog pages (Mojo, I'm looking at you....), and I'd appreciate it if you guys would present your candidates for inclusion in this project.

Rolfe.
 
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Well, several of this lot: http://www.badscienceblogs.net/

Especially (alphabetically)

A canna’ change the laws of physics
DC’s Improbable Science
gimpy’s blog
Hawk/Handsaw
the quackometer
What the hell is this?

There'll be good stuff on most of the others as well (you know some of these guys already, I think).

Add to that Orac and Science-Based Medicine.

ETA: And Neurologica.

In many cases the debunking gets done in the comments after Dana or whoever has shown up touting their latest contenders.
 
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Yes, I probably know them, but I haven't been saving links.

So keep the links coming, folks!

Rolfe.
 
Actually, a page setting out the critiques of the handful of papers that homoeopaths cite (e.g. the Reilly asthma studies, Frass et al, the various Jacobs childhood diarrhea studies, Linde et al, etc.) would be really handy. Many of the good critiques are scattered around on various forums and blog comments, often spread out over several posts, which makes them difficult to link to.
 
That's sort of what I had in mind. I'm also interested in the physicists' demolition job on Milgrom.

If I do that, the rest of the site doesn't need much tweaking to get it looking reasonably up to date. I might even gladden the hearts of the RCVS by re-doing the front page links to omit Peter Bowditch, simply because I think there's a better selection of papers available now.

Oh yes, and updating my contact details probably wouldn't go amiss.

Rolfe.
 
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Mojo said:
...the various Jacobs childhood diarrhea studies, Linde et al, etc.) would be really handy. ....
Click to expand...

Notice that Ullman who cites her earlier paper, but not the most recent paper that showed it was ineffective: "DISCUSSION: The homeopathic combination therapy tested in this study did not significantly reduce the duration or severity of acute diarrhea in Honduran children. Further study is needed to develop affordable and effective methods of using homeopathy to reduce the global burden of childhood diarrhea."

Jennifer Jacobs must have had more supervision, because her more recent papers show no improvement with homeopathy. Sadly, her most recent is on dengue fever.
 
Rolfe said:
I'm thinking it's time to smarten the Voodoo Society web site up a bit. (On Saturday I found myself in a small minibus taking three sopranos and five contraltos to a music workshop in Edinburgh. I soon discovered that the soprano sitting next to me was a fan of the web site, and I was motivated to do a bit more to it.)

...snip...
Click to expand...

About bloody time!


;)
 
There is a post on this, today http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=355 Nobody will be surprised to note that Brave Sir Dana (MPH!) has already commented.

This post at Respectful Insolence http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/07/homeopathy_in_thecringeicu_1.php is important because it debunks an article in a real journal. Through the comments, they quantify how much sicker the patients assigned to placebo were, which explains why the homeopathic remedy seemed to work.

Also, there is a 2nd year medical student who writes, occasionally, about sCAM. He has an entry http://medstudt.blogspot.com/2008/11/double-standard.html on homeopathy that is worth reading.
 
Thanks muchly guys. It might be a few weeks till I get anything done to the site - I'm still trying to sort out my new email settings.

Any more ideas, just post them here.

Rolfe.
 
Can't remember where the arsenic thing was (I think it was in the comments to a blog post rather than the blog post itself).

Meanwhile, the page definitely needs links debunking the attacks on Shang et al, both specific papers and the general lines of attack.

Here's Hawk/Handsaw on two papers that were recently trumpeted as debunking Shang.

The Rutten/Stolper paper:
http://hawk-handsaw.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-know-i-said-life-was-too-short.html
http://hawk-handsaw.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-meta-analysis-delight.html
It remains to be seen whether homeopathy will have the courage to publish the first one, which has been submitted as a letter.

And Ludtke and Rutten:
http://hawk-handsaw.blogspot.com/2008/10/shang-study-remains-firmly-in-water.html

On criticisms of Shang:

Hawk/Handsaw:
http://hawk-handsaw.blogspot.com/2007/11/whats-wrong-with-shang-et-al.html
http://hawk-handsaw.blogspot.com/2008/08/dana-ullman-says-thing-that-is-not.html

apgaylard:
http://apgaylard.wordpress.com/2007/11/28/the-myth-of-the-secret-eight/
 
Oh dear, is there more? I've been so busy up to now with teaching, and another vet being off sick at the same time (she's back now), and then rescuing my fried hard disc and acquiring and setting up a new computer, that I've just got a stack of unopened copies of Veterinary Times sitting on my bookshelf.

Oh well, I'd better have a read. Not sure I can face scanning another two-year correspondence thread though!

I really have to do something. I wish we had more people coming forward to be members though. And one of the Fellows I have listed is actually dead....

Rolfe.
 
OK, I've had a quick scan - but my new mobile phone arrived in the middle of it so I need to start registering SIM cards and so on....

I see what you mean. Maybe I will do a bit of scanning. I see we have some new hom contributors. The latest (22nd December) from Mr. Grant is quite something.

Scientists should do some research before they denounce something. I would advise looking through a high-power microscope, with 10,000 times magnification. Put some sugar tablets into water, use different homoeopathic remedies and watch the changes that occur. See if you think all sugar tablets are the same after that.
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:hb:

Somebody better tell Randi that the million bucks is about to be won.

I do get so fed up with these guys telling me what research I need to carry out to be convinced of their delusions. When I think about the hours and days I've spent reading the published research on both sides of the argument, not to mention the attempt to follow John Hoare's challenge in 2004 and the actual letter published in Homeopathy, I could just weep.

I do think that the bit that needs a response is Hunter's assertion that we are implying that his clients "are all being hoodwinked by charlatans". Nobody is suggesting that at all, even if sometimes we might have doubts about the sincerity of particular individuals. I certainly think Mr. Hunter himself is completely sincere. He's just wrong. Fallacy of the excluded middle, is that?

Oh dear, I may feel another letter coming on....

Rolfe.

PS. Hey, this new phone (a free replacement for one that just up and died) has a 2 megapixel camera, a USB port and a CD of software. I just asked for a phone! (They've changed the jack size on the charger though, so my collection of old chargers won't work with it. There's always something....)
 
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I would advise looking thorough a high-power microscope, with 10,000 times magnification.
Click to expand...


None of that tedious mucking about with Raman spectroscopy, then.

ETA: looking forward to the new letters appearing on the site. :)
 
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Yuri Nalyssus said:
Excellent news, it's a fantastic resource and comes pretty close to the top of the list when doing google searches so it is still getting the message out.
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Well, that one won't be changing its domain or url, because that's the domain name I have owned from way back and I'm consolidating everything on that ISP because I've had excellent service from them. It's the Babylon 5 Mirror Universe and the page about Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky that are going to have to re-earn their ratings. Damn.

[pathetic plea for validation]
Do you still think it's funny? I thought it was hysterical when we first came up with the idea, but of couse I'm too familiar with the content to be able to judge now.
[/pathetic plea for validation]

Rolfe.
 
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