Homeopathy does work

[Donks]

Well that's not quite true. We know that there are homeopathic effects, there is argument about how and what, not existence of effect.

What effects? Wishful thinking and coincidental recovery?

 

[Rolfe]

Do you really think that all homeopaths know that what they're doing is bunk? Surely there are True Believers out there.

Well, that's the corollary to what I said in the other thread about my homoeopathic professional colleagues appearing to be so sincere. When you've just pointed out to them that if they're right about what they believe in they can have an excellent shot at a million-dollar prize, and they sidle away making shifty excuses, it puts the whole thing into perspective.

Barb has said that she personally is a very insensitive "prover" and very seldom notices proving effects, therefore she would have no expectation of being able to win the prize herself. She never gave a coherent answer when asked why she thought it was that the people who did consider themselves good provers never had a go.

The only homoeopath I ever saw get close to it was a woman called Anna Bryant, on Homoeopathy Home. She was quite interested, and seemed likely to give it a go, but then she got all nervous about the possible effect on her health of having to prove 5 or 6 remedies in a row (or the same remedy 5 or 6 times). Oh dear, is it worth making myself very ill 5 or 6 times, even for a million dollars? At this point she started asking how many trials she'd have to do for the definitive test, and bottled.

Several people suggested that she could stop the remedy as soon as she was sure that's what she had, before she got "very ill", but apparently it doesn't work like that. It was also suggested that she recruit some friends and that they spread the work so that each of them only had to do two or three trials, but that didn't go down well either.

When people started asking how it was possible for her to go on claiming that homoeopathy was completely safe and never produced side effects if this was what she was expecting just from taking some OTC pills when she wasn't ill, the line went totally dead.

Rolfe.

 

[Dirk Gently]

What effects? Wishful thinking and coincidental recovery?

Well that could account for some, for sure, but they don't account for every positive result.

Horses, dogs and other animals don't read skeptic forums, but for some reason, they still respond to homeopathic treatments better than placebo. Try it on your own pets next time they ail for anything.

 

[Donks]

Well that could account for some, for sure, but they don't account for every positive result.

Horses, dogs and other animals don't read skeptic forums, but for some reason, they still respond to homeopathic treatments better than placebo. Try it on your own pets next time they ail for anything.

I knew I had forgotten one. Observer bias. Or maybe we can ask a vet. Where could I find one. I know! Perhaps Rolfe or BSM can address this.

 

[geni]

Well that could account for some, for sure, but they don't account for every positive result.

Horses, dogs and other animals don't read skeptic forums, but for some reason, they still respond to homeopathic treatments better than placebo. Try it on your own pets next time they ail for anything.

Would you mind standing a bit further away from me? Thank you I don't like being colateral damage.

As to your claim:

A) you are forgetting about observer bias.

b) do you have any double blind placebo controled studies top back up your claim?

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I've discovered that I can no longer read Kumar's posts on their own. I can only read them in the context of other's replies. I have to have them diluted and successed otherwise it leads to an overwhelming desire to fly to Pakistan and take a hammer to his computer.

Indonesia would, I think, be the better locus for the hammering.

 

[delphi_ote]

Well that could account for some, for sure, but they don't account for every positive result.

Horses, dogs and other animals don't read skeptic forums, but for some reason, they still respond to homeopathic treatments better than placebo. Try it on your own pets next time they ail for anything.

a) As was asked before, where is your evidence for these claims? Did you hear it from a friend?

b) You really are following Dirk Gently's "The impossible often has an integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks." philosophy aren't you? You do realize that was a joke, right?

 

[Ashles]

Well that could account for some, for sure, but they don't account for every positive result.

Horses, dogs and other animals don't read skeptic forums, but for some reason, they still respond to homeopathic treatments better than placebo. Try it on your own pets next time they ail for anything.

Plus animals respond to very subtle cues from owners. A relaxed owner who believes homeopathy will work will send calming cues to the animal.

Still, I'll let the actual trained expereinced vets who know all about homeopathy provide you with a more detailed answer.

By the way when you said:

I have no idea what you are talking about. I came for Dr MAS and stayed for the laughs.

Does that mean that you are a fan, or a student of Dr. MAS?

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Well that could account for some, for sure, but they don't account for every positive result.

Horses, dogs and other animals don't read skeptic forums, but for some reason, they still respond to homeopathic treatments better than placebo. Try it on your own pets next time they ail for anything.

Oh, dear. We have a true believer in our midst.

Well, try this on for size and see why I despise homeopaths;

http://www.internationalskeptics.co...3655&highlight=hyperthyroidism#post1870403655

Now do you want to start dealing with the many serious questions that no homeopath has so far managed to answer? We have a little list here;

http://www.internationalskeptics.co...d=40064&highlight=questions+homeopaths+answer

Please feel free to get stuck in.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Plus animals respond to very subtle cues from owners. A relaxed owner who believes homeopathy will work will send calming cues to the animal.

I used to give more scope for that excuse, but my every dealing with vet homs has led me to the firm conclusion that they lie to themselves and the owners and the owners lie to themselves.

 

[Rolfe]

Horses, dogs and other animals don't read skeptic forums, but for some reason, they still respond to homeopathic treatments better than placebo. Try it on your own pets next time they ail for anything.

You're joking, aren't you? The only controlled trials that have been done on homoeopathy for animals have come up with total and complete nothing. Not even the "well maybe there's something there at the borders of statistical noise" which is what the human claims of miracle cures are reduced to by the time anyone has actually tried looking in an objective manner.

It's even easier to get a "placebo" effect in animals than it is in human patients, and if you want to know how I (and Badly Shaved Monkey) know this, it's because we're vets. With human patients, you're dealing with the actual person who is experiencing the illness. With animal patients, you're dealing with the patient through an intermediary who is not themselves experiencing the illness, but is interpreting the animal's behaviour. As in:

Homoeopath (confidently): Oh yes, he's a lot better, isn't he!
Owner (dubiously): Well, maybe....
Homoeopath (even more confidently): Of course! Look at that wagging tail, that damp nose, I can tell he really knows we're trying to help him!
Owner (convinced): Oh, isn't that wonderful!
Dog: I feel terrible, you freaking morons!

It's amazing how often homoeopaths assert that homoeopathy "works" on animals, but there's absolutely no objective evidence of any such thing, only some vets who know how much money there is in magic sugar pills, and how easy it is to persuade an owner that there has been some improvement when there hasn't.

Rolfe.

 

[Ashles]

I used to give more scope for that excuse, but my every dealing with vet homs has led me to the firm conclusion that they lie to themselves and the owners and the owners lie to themselves.

Really? You don't think there is any owner influence?

Oh well I suppose we can never rule out it's all lies, I just liked thinking maybe a bit of it was a 'genuine' external effect from behaviour, even if just calming.

 

[wahrheit]

...
Dog: I feel terrible, you freaking morons!

Thanks, you made my day!

 

[Rolfe]

Really? You don't think there is any owner influence?

No, I really don't.

Tell you a quick story, told to me by the vet involved.

Owner takes his dog to the vet, with a severe skin problem. Owner is rather reluctant to spend a lot of money on diagnostic tests, but the vet does his best, makes a provisional diagnosis and goes for trial therapy and so on. After some time the dog is clearly no better and the owner is getting fed up. Vet has also run out of differential diagnoses. So all in all he's not too sad when the owner announces that he's off to the local homoeopath.

A couple of months later, vet is a little surprised to see the same owner back in his consulting room with the dog. His initial assumption that the guy has given up on homoeopathy is corrected when the owner informs him that he "just had to bring the dog in to let you see for yourself what an amazing miracle the homoeopathy has accomplished."

As the vet told me, in fact the dog was if anything slightly worse than when he'd seen it for the last time.

Just a nice example of the truth that if you're honest with a pet owner when a treatment isn't having an effect, they'll believe you. But if you wheedle and sweet-talk them into believing that the animal is better, they'll also believe you, even in the face of quite strong contrary evidence.

Of course there are other ploys, such as the one (sorry, pinching your story here BSM) where the homoeopath tells the owner what a hard fight they have ahead of them, but "we'll see it through together". This prior to suggesting multiple repeated appointments for the weeks it would take for a skin ailment to first get a lot worse, then get better on its own - an ailment that could be treated in a few days (without the getting worse part) by normal medicine.

Whoever said, the veterinary homoeopath lies to the owner, and the owner then lies to himself, had it spot on.

Rolfe.

 

[Dirk Gently]

No, I really don't.

Tell you a quick story, told to me by the vet involved.

Owner takes his dog to the vet, with a severe skin problem. Owner is rather reluctant to spend a lot of money on diagnostic tests, but the vet does his best, makes a provisional diagnosis and goes for trial therapy and so on. After some time the dog is clearly no better and the owner is getting fed up. Vet has also run out of differential diagnoses. So all in all he's not too sad when the owner announces that he's off to the local homoeopath.

A couple of months later, vet is a little surprised to see the same owner back in his consulting room with the dog. His initial assumption that the guy has given up on homoeopathy is corrected when the owner informs him that he "just had to bring the dog in to let you see for yourself what an amazing miracle the homoeopathy has accomplished."

As the vet told me, in fact the dog was if anything slightly worse than when he'd seen it for the last time.

Just a nice example of the truth that if you're honest with a pet owner when a treatment isn't having an effect, they'll believe you. But if you wheedle and sweet-talk them into believing that the animal is better, they'll also believe you, even in the face of quite strong contrary evidence.

Of course there are other ploys, such as the one (sorry, pinching your story here BSM) where the homoeopath tells the owner what a hard fight they have ahead of them, but "we'll see it through together". This prior to suggesting multiple repeated appointments for the weeks it would take for a skin ailment to first get a lot worse, then get better on its own - an ailment that could be treated in a few days (without the getting worse part) by normal medicine.

Whoever said, the veterinary homoeopath lies to the owner, and the owner then lies to himself, had it spot on.

Rolfe.

That's too anecdotal for me.

 

[Dirk Gently]

Is homeopathy a placebo response? Controlled trial of homeopathic potency, with pollen in hay fever as a model. Reilly DT et al., Lancet 1986, Oct18;2(8512):881-6

David Taylor Reilly's groundbreaking paper describing his double blind randomised crossover trial demonstrating the physiological effect of potentised pollen on human hay fever sufferers. This is a solid and extremely well constructed trial showing the effect of remedies on the body. The mechanisms are still unclear, but the effect is shown here to be very real.

 

[Dirk Gently]

Plus animals respond to very subtle cues from owners. A relaxed owner who believes homeopathy will work will send calming cues to the animal.

what studies are you referring to?

 

[Ashles]

That's too anecdotal for me.

So you agree we should ignore all anecodotes told by homeopaths too?

No problem. You're our kind of homeopathic supporter.

Right, let's see, what evidence are you left with...

 

[Ashles]

what studies are you referring to?

I'm referring to the fairly well documented phenomenon of animals responding to very subtle cures from owners.

You've heard of Clever Hans I presume?

 

[Ashles]

Double post.