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homeopathy backing paper

geni

Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
geni
Joined
Oct 14, 2003
Messages
28,209
I found a link to this article on a homeopathy discution board. Has anyone come across it before? The only critism that I can come up with of the article is that it has not been peer revived. Other than that I'm stumped.

link
 
This has actually got zip to do with homoeopathy. All the author is claiming is that he has found some sort of "memory" property of water. Of course he's doing it in the hope of being able to provide homoeopathy with a mode of action, but he isn't testing any claimed homoeopathic principle (such as "like cures like", or the more dilute the preparation the stronger the effect).

It's very very reminiscent of the original Benveniste paper (though with substantially fewer authors!), and we all know what happened to that. I've only read the abstract, but I have a creepy sort of feeling this one will go the same way.

Then of course it won't matter, because that isn't how homoeopathy works anyway. ;) And they'll be on to the next nutty idea, quantum entanglement or whatever.

Rolfe.
 
There are many problems. One, they did not test the diluted solutions, using either their own equipment, or outsourcing it to a fair and unbiased lab. In other words, they got the samples from Boiron Laboratories, and simply ran them. It is well known that homeopaths cheat in clinical trials etc., so that is a critical peice of data, and is expected in scientific research. I did not see that anywhere in the article. Second, as it was diluted, the new water would not come into contact with the salt particles, so eventually there would be no salt left, nor the original "modified" water, just distilled water. Third, they are assuming the hydrogen bonding structure is highly stable, which is nonsense, hydrogen bonds are forming and breaking all the time. This whole article is entirely invalid until we see the results from the original samples (the evidence is probably long washed away.)
 
geni said:
The only critism that I can come up with of the article is that it has not been peer revived.
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Physica A is not peer reviewed?
 
Ok Ok that was an asumption that I made becase there was a date givern for when it was recive dbut none for acepatance. I will happily accept your correction.
 
geni said:
Ok Ok that was an asumption that I made becase there was a date givern for when it was recive dbut none for acepatance. I will happily accept your correction.
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It wasn't a correction, it was a genuine question, but on further investigation I can confirm Physica A is peer-reviewed.

Obviously, one paper does not send anyone scurrying to rewrite textbooks. At the moment, this is an interesting result. If replication under stricter conditions is successful, then it becomes more interesting. If, however, time goes by without any confirmation, then it will become progressively less interesting, until it joins the ranks of the many other papers out there that reported odd results but which were never reproduced.

So we shall have to wait and see.
 
Quasi said:
There are many problems. One, they did not test the diluted solutions, using either their own equipment, or outsourcing it to a fair and unbiased lab. In other words, they got the samples from Boiron Laboratories, and simply ran them. (snip....)
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Sounds as if Quasi has read the full paper. Boiron, eh? Did I mention that it was Boiron who paid for Benveniste's original research?

They are making a fortune from selling this shaken-up water, and spend a small fraction of that fortune on funding studies in the hope that someone might find some way of distinguishing the stuff from ordinary water. It's hardly surprising that now and again either an artefact or a spot of wishful thinking comes up trumps.

Consider - none of us would have had any chance of figuring what was wrong with the original Benveniste paper, just by reading it. Even the editor of Nature couldn't find a problem just by reading the manuscript. It was only when he (Maddox), Randi and Stewart went to the lab to see what was going on that the truth was revealed.

I'd put every penny I have on there being a similar explanation for this little lot. Either contamination of the original samples, some other sort of artefact, or simple wish-fulfillment bias.

As an aside, it's scary how easy it is to get false research published. When I was slaving over my PhD work it struck me how simple it would be to tweak the numbers a little to make them look prettier, or even to make up a few - or a lot. So long as what I was presenting was plausible, it would be very unlikely to be challenged. It's only when someone produces something which isn't plausible that investigations tend to get under way. This is why anything really ground-breaking has to be replicated by an independent centre before it's really accepted - but repetition is a thankless task as the kudos will always go to the first discoverer if it's for real, and not too many funding bodies cough up to do stuff that isn't new.

Rolfe.
 
Its like anything else in the fantasy world of the paranormal. Just assume they are cheating, and figure out theories as to how they could cheat. In this paper, it is extremely simple. They did not prepare their own solutions, the homeopathic company did. If I had a DSC I would probably actually try to repeat this, but I do not. The DSC's are extremely sensitive instruments, so it would not surprise me in the least if even a trace of salts were left that this would show up. Like I said earlier, let this be an open test and show us the results for the original solutions.
 
I'm wondering if this is the one that they covered in the "Secret, Strange and True" ep that they ran on TechTV.

After the original paper was published, an experiment was set up to test the idea as part of Randi's challenge. It was "outsourced" to several different university chemistry labs, and failed utterly.
 
Bikewer said:
I'm wondering if this is the one that they covered in the "Secret, Strange and True" ep that they ran on TechTV.

After the original paper was published, an experiment was set up to test the idea as part of Randi's challenge. It was "outsourced" to several different university chemistry labs, and failed utterly.
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I am pretty sure this is the Beneviste study. He was a distinguished academic in France, and agreed to the independant verification of his results as a prerequesite for publishing in the distinguished journal Nature. He ran his study, it passed with flying colors, then failed in two repeats, miserably. I suspect he did it for some short term publicity, as people tend to ignore repeat tests, and the media usually only cares about the paranormal results. But he failed, and it has damaged his career.
 
The TechTV segment mentioned Benvieste, and even did a brief interview with him (sounding very sour-grapes...)

But the study that the segment was about was more recent. I believe these shows are available on archive; if not, they repeat em pretty often. Look for "The Million Dollar Molecule".
 
Just thought I'd mention something about peer-review.

Submitted to a peer-reviewed jounal does not equal peer-review.

Accepted by a peer-reviewed jounal does not equal peer-review.

Published in a peer-reviewed jounal does not equal peer-review.

Peer-review is when other scientists attempt to verify your thesis and PUBLISH the results.

Peer-review does not mean that you are right. I have seen theories being absolutely devastated by peer- review. *)

The only vindicating term is "validated by peer-review".

Hans

*)
The theory that AIDS is a result of life-style and has no connection to HIV was peer-reviewed some years ago. - And it was torn to shreds.
 
Rolfe said:
As an aside, it's scary how easy it is to get false research published. When I was slaving over my PhD work it struck me how simple it would be to tweak the numbers a little to make them look prettier, or even to make up a few - or a lot. So long as what I was presenting was plausible, it would be very unlikely to be challenged. It's only when someone produces something which isn't plausible that investigations tend to get under way. This is why anything really ground-breaking has to be replicated by an independent centre before it's really accepted - but repetition is a thankless task as the kudos will always go to the first discoverer if it's for real, and not too many funding bodies cough up to do stuff that isn't new.
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To illustrate your point, here is what paiute posted in this thread:
Chemistry experiments are not done blinded. I speak here of organic synthetic experiments, anyway. If you react A and B, you might expect to get C based on precedent. You analyze the mixture for the presence of C based on expected properties or by comparison to authentic standard of C.

A blinded reaction might be done by submitting the reaction mixture to a second chemist for analysis without telling them that C is expected to be in the pot. The problem is that identification of unknowns is a nontrivial problem.

The corrective mechanism is instead publishing the recipe and letting interested parties try to reproduce the synthesis of C.

My favorite example of how this all works is found in Tetrahedron Letters (1982), 23(21), 2213-16, where Cornforth reports his failure to replicate the results published by one Samir Chaterjee:
"Attempts were made to verify the 1st 3 stages of a claimed synthesis of the aconitine skeleton (S. Chatterjee, 1979). Chatterjee reported [details snipped]. The authors were unable to reproduce these reports in any single particular, whether of yield, chem. nature of products, or phys. properties of the substances claimed; it is concluded that Chatterjee did not obtain the reported products of these 3 stages or any later stage. [Cornforth's results snipped.]"

Fun reading. You can feel Cornforth's (later Sir Cornforth) anger at pissing away his time attempting to use bogus recipes.
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Liam
 
Bikewer said:
The TechTV segment mentioned Benvieste, and even did a brief interview with him (sounding very sour-grapes...)

But the study that the segment was about was more recent. I believe these shows are available on archive; if not, they repeat em pretty often. Look for "The Million Dollar Molecule".
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Even if this phenomana were true, it is irrelevant- just show us a simple clinical trial of the overall practice of homeopathy.
The problem with peer reviewed literature is that, to a certain extent, the peer reviewers have to trust you are being honest. Further, the conclusion section does not conclude "homeopathy works." But they leave a lot to the imagination. Of course, those in love with homeopathy will use this article to back up their claims, and avoid any direct testing. I am really surprised that not one government official has called for an open test of homeopathy. It would be simple, direct, and cost effective to disprove it in one swoop.
 
Aren't you talking about a syndication of the BBC Horizon programme, first shown in November 2002? There is a complete transcript available.

It was actually an attempted replication of the Madeleine Ennis experiment, which was like Benveniste's except that she used histamine to degranulate the basophils rather than IgE. And she used an electronic cell counter rather than manual counting under a microscope, which should have put the kibosh on the "wishful thinking" bias of Benveniste's effort - you can't "wishful think" an electronic counter, which is what saves a lot of good science, no matter how much you want the result to be different, the damn machine refuses to co-operate.

Her role is very strange - she did publish, but she hasn't thrown away her career over it. If she really thinks she can replicate it, why hasn't she gone for the million bucks herself, or even asked Randi or someone to look at her technique to see why she got these odd results?

The programme annoyed me too, because although the results were negative, the impression given was that homoeopathy was almost a recognised respectable medical method (well, nearly), and only lacked a plausible mode of action. So, not this mode of action, but what they didn't really highlight was that there isn't actually any action either. It was all left a bit sort of spooky, well, who knows?

They let Benveniste away with murder (didn't reveal he was trying to provide homoeopathy with a mode of action all along, or that he now thought he could transfer the "memory of water" across the internet), and they didn't challenge the preposterous "miracle cures" paraded by the homoeopaths. There were relatively few sceptics, and they tended to be basic science people saying "it can't possibly work". A few medics or vets saying, look, it DOESN'T actually work, wouldn't have gone amiss in my opinion.

Oh, some of this rant plagiarised from this critique here.

Rolfe.
 
arcticpenguin said:
Here's a new article purporting to show an effect of a homeopathic remedy: Ameliorating effect of microdoses of a potentized homeopathic drug, Arsenicum Album, on arsenic-induced toxicity in mice

Palash Mallick , Jayati Chakrabarti(Mallick) , Bibhas Guha and Anisur Rahman Khuda-Bukhsh
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2003 3:7 (published 22 October 2003)

The full article is available in PDF format by following the link.

They claim to have run controls.
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Funny how those folks in India manage to show effects with homeopathy in mice using the familiar n=5 mice per cell. Looks like an Icky-May effect to me...
 
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