Homeopathy is everywhere!

[T'ai Chi]

A single counterexample is all that is required.

I didn't claim there weren't any, I asked:

"How many skeptics have published science articles of their findings in respectable peer reviewed science journals?"

Just curious.

 

[Darat]

I said "Science ain't done on TV, no matter the credentials of the doers and the double blind etc. procedures.". So you actually asking me to prove a negative here? Um.

Certainly the scientific status of homeopathy isn't determined on TV any more than the scientific status of JE is. TV has little to do with science, but rather selling advertising.

Do you think science is about entertainment rather than gaining unbiased knowledge?

In any case, I'd rather have something submitted to peer review rather than no peer review and something done for entertainment purposes.

For anything to scientifically stick, you have to be in the big boys club; be a scientist, and publish your findings, disclose all of your methods and results, and allows others to try and replicate your results.

Could you be kind enough to share all of this information with us? What? You mean you don't have access to it either??!! Shocking.. [/B]

Well to be blunt, you are wrong, science has and is being done on TV.

Here is a nice popular piece explaining some of the science that has been done on British TV over a period of many years:

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/fas/wavelength/wave18/singh.html

And there are other examples.

 

[SteveGrenard]

1. What do you base your claim that there were "no controls" on this trial?

Ans: The security arrangements, who prepared the solutions and the control solutions, who held them, etc were not mentioned in any account. I did not see the original program but I am told by those who did it was not discernible from that either. It was TV, it was edited, remember? It was a pile of rubbish.



2. Did you watch the program at all?

Ans: No, did you?

3. Why can't a scientific experiment be conducted on TV?

Ans: It CAN BE but this doesn't mean it has any validity. No peer review, editing, etc.


3a. What about Schwartz's HBO experiments? They are not scientific, then?

Schwartz did studies before and after the televisied segment tapings and published all his results in a peer reviewed journal. I didnt see this happening with the Hotizons program or with any Randi challenge in fact. Schwartz studies were done on site at the University of Arziona, not on a TV studio stage.

4. Please show how Randi "engineered" the television stunt to "discredit" homeopathy.

Ans: You're not serious right?

5. How do you know that the scientist had a "preconceived bias against a possibly effective alternative treatment"?

Ans: The scientists were approved, perhaps even selected by Randi and the producers ahead of time. How do we know if they were biased or unbiased? Have we reviewed a record of their opinions on homeopathy before their involvement in this?

6. Do you claim that the test was conducted differently than what you said should be done: "Usually the control substance (e.g. pure water) and the allegedly active substance are put into identical formats and labeled with numbers or letter or coded. The code is held by one person and locked in a safe. Both substance A and B or 1 or 2 or whatever are tested. Then the code is broken."?

Ans: The problem is from descriptions of the program as well as from those who viewed it, we don't know. (see above).

7. Do you maintain that judging was used, and not objective testing?

Ans: "Scientists" were chosen by Randi and the program and asked to give their opinion, their guess, their observation that they could not tell the difference between the control and the active substance. This is judging. You can call it anything you want. Who else besides these referees got to oversee their results? Even judges in courtrooms have judicial oversight. Who
backed them up?



CSICOP/JREF



1. Please point to what the "party line of CSICOP, JREF or the other groups" is.

Ans: Who are the donors to CSICOP and CFI? Is this list available? Anyone connected to the development and manufacture of streptokinase or tissue plasminogen activator
would do ... I will not say more at this time.

2. Please name the "other groups" you mentioned.

Ans: CSICOP has dozens of affiliates. And there are also other
indie groups like The Skeptic Society but I was more thinking along the lines of the CSICOP branches.

3. How do you know the health of Randi?

Ans: Randi had open heart surgery and has a heart condition.
He publicly revealed this information himself on television. otherwise it would be PHI and I would not mention it if I came by it in any other manner.


4. Who are these people who "screamed the loudest and the longest" against the use of aspirin for this?

Ans: You have to read the S.I. for articles on this subject. CSICOP came out very heavily opposed to the validity of large scale studies showing that aspirin was of value. They questionned the fact that aspirin was such a miracle in this area.

5. How do you know it has cost the patients or their insurers three thousand+ dollars a pop?

Ans: Treatment with TPA costs at least this much. It is a matter of record. I know it from personally being told this by a hospital
pharmacist, however. When a pt is on aspirin, TPA cannot be given so its one less expensive treatment the pt can get for coronary thrombosis. Whether they'll admnit it or not, this irks the makers of TPA.

6. Can you point to where CSICOP refuted the use of aspirin in coronary thrombosis/chest pain victims or as a prophylactic for coronary artery thrombosis?

Ans: Again, I would have to ferret out back issues of SI on this subject;

7. If they did, do they still hold these views?

Ans: The subject sort of died with them as the handwriting on the wall became apparent but somebody brought it up in SI about a year ago again but I dont remember the details.

8. Please point to where you got the information that "many thousands probably died" due to CSICOP and JREF's "efforts to to discredit the treatment for this purpose".

Ans: I agree I am speculating. If you read the original articles on aspirin in SI and you believed them and you had a heart condition you would not have agreed to use aspirin and you would be increasing your risk of sudden cardiac death. Do I have specific cases? No, but some day there should be a congressional inquiry as to why CSICOP immersed itself in this. This is not over.
Everything comes out in the wash sooner or later.

9. Please point to the rule of this board that allows you to post a whole page from another site.

Ans: Fair used as confirmed by Pyrrho. The website itself gives permission for non-commercial and non-advertising. I posted those words above below the text. I was not finished adding to this post when you made your feeble attempt to silence a legitimate reply to the "there aint no evidence" claim based on
b.s.




Larsen: address the questions, providing either a retraction or evidence of your claims:

Its demands like this why you have been on ignore and are still on ignore. I deigned only to answer this because of the importance of the answers, not the questions.

Larsen: state that you refuse to answer.

Ans: I did not refuse to answer. Please retract this.







Larsen: state that, despite the evidence to the contrary, you still wish to believe what you claimed, or

Ans: What is it you think I believe? And why do you charcaterize any provision of information as evidence of beliefs? This is another reason you are on ignore. You dont make any sense.
What evidence to the contrary? The Horizons program. LOL.....
A single, anecdotal trial on a TV program.............................oh well.

 

[Martin]

The security arrangements, who prepared the solutions and the control solutions, who held them, etc were not mentioned in any account. I did not see the original program but I am told by those who did it was not discernible from that either. It was TV, it was edited, remember? It was a pile of rubbish

NARRATOR: So Horizon decided to take up Randi's challenge. We gathered experts from some of Britain's leading scientific institutions to help us repeat Ennis's experiments. Under the most rigorous of conditions they'll see whether they can find any evidence for the memory of water. We brought James Randi over from the United States to witness the experiment and we came to the world's most august scientific institution, the Royal Society. The Vice-President of the Society, Professor John Enderby, agreed to oversee the experiment for us...

The first stage is to prepare the homeopathic dilutions. We came to the laboratories of University College London where Professor Peter Mobbs agreed to produce them for us. He's going to make a homeopathic solution of histamine by repeatedly diluting one drop of solution into 99 drops of water...

For comparison we also need control tubes, tubes that have never had histamine in them. For these Peter starts with plain water...

This stage dilutes the solutions down to one in 100 - that's 1C. We now have 10 tubes. Half are just water diluted with more water, the control tubes, half are histamine diluted in water. These are all shaken, the crucial homeopathic step. Now he dilutes each of the tubes again, to 2C. Then to 3C, all the way to 5C...

Then we asked Professor of Electrical Engineering, Hugh Griffiths, to randomly relabel each of our 10 tubes. Now only he has the code for which tubes contain the homeopathic dilutions and which tubes contain water...

Next the time-consuming task of taking these solutions down to true homeopathic levels. UCL scientist Rachel Pearson takes each of the tubes and dilutes them down further - to 6C. That's one drop in 20 swimming pools. To 12C - a drop in the Atlantic. Then to 15C - one drop in all the world's oceans. The tubes have now been diluted one million million million million million times. Some are taken even further down, to 18C. Every tube, whether it contains histamine or water, goes through exactly the same procedure. To guard against any possibility of fraud, Professor Enderby himself recodes every single tube. The result is 40 tubes none of which should contain any molecules of histamine at all. Conventional science says they are all identical, but if Madeleine Ennis is right her methods should tell which ones contain the real homeopathic dilutions. Now we repeat Ennis's procedure. We take a drop of water from each of the tubes and add a sample of living human cells. Then it's time for Wayne Turnbull at Guys Hospital, to analyse the cells to see whether the homeopathic water has had any effect. He'll be using the most sophisticated system available: a flow cytometer...

But to be absolutely rigorous we asked a second scientist, Marian Macey at the Royal London Hospital, to perform the analysis in parallel. Our two labs get to work. Using a flow cytometer they measure how many of the cells are being activated by the different test solutions...

Now at last it's time to break the code. On hand to analyse the results is statistician Martin Bland...

The results are just what you'd expect by chance. A statistical analysis confirms it. The homeopathic water hasn't had any effect.

From the Horizon transcript.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Well to be blunt, you are wrong, science has and is being done on TV.

To be equally as blunt as you, you are wrong.

That isn't science with a capital S, that is just some experiments. Made for TV experiments don't constitute scientific results.

ie:

"the experiment must be interesting enough to hold the public's attention; the experiment must work on live TV; the experiment must be comprehensible by a lay audience; viewers must be able to take part from home and report results over the phone; the conclusion must be ready before the end of the 30 minute programme. "

Gee, I'd think that that is lowering the bar of science somewhat, but call me crazy. While the idea of a TV experiment provides some good data, it seems mainly an effort to get the public interested in science and publicize the scientists' own field; two things which are good, but ultimately, not really 100% science.

Science is not entertainment or even edutainment. Science is done in labs and written about in journals.

 

[CFLarsen]

Steve,

1. What do you base your claim that there were "no controls" on this trial?

Ans: The security arrangements, who prepared the solutions and the control solutions, who held them, etc were not mentioned in any account. I did not see the original program but I am told by those who did it was not discernible from that either. It was TV, it was edited, remember? It was a pile of rubbish.

By whom were you told, Steve?

If TV is edited, why did you have such problems acknowledging that Crossing Over was edited as well?

2. Did you watch the program at all?

Ans: No, did you?

No. However, I have not made a lot of claims about a program I haven't seen. You have.

3. Why can't a scientific experiment be conducted on TV?

Ans: It CAN BE but this doesn't mean it has any validity. No peer review, editing, etc.

But results can be found on TV, right?

3a. What about Schwartz's HBO experiments? They are not scientific, then?

Schwartz did studies before and after the televisied segment tapings and published all his results in a peer reviewed journal. I didnt see this happening with the Hotizons program or with any Randi challenge in fact. Schwartz studies were done on site at the University of Arziona, not on a TV studio stage.

Moving the goal posts. I asked about the HBO experiments, not what happened afterwards. Please answer the question: Was Schwartz' HBO experiments scientific or not?

4. Please show how Randi "engineered" the television stunt to "discredit" homeopathy.

Ans: You're not serious right?

Yes, I am. Please answer the question.

5. How do you know that the scientist had a "preconceived bias against a possibly effective alternative treatment"?

Ans: The scientists were approved, perhaps even selected by Randi and the producers ahead of time. How do we know if they were biased or unbiased? Have we reviewed a record of their opinions on homeopathy before their involvement in this?

How do you know the scientists were approved and perhaps even selected by Randi? This is a very serious allegation, Steve. It borders on fraud, and I very much hope you can back this accusation up with evidence.

Did the protocol not exclude any bias on the scientists? If not, how so?

6. Do you claim that the test was conducted differently than what you said should be done: "Usually the control substance (e.g. pure water) and the allegedly active substance are put into identical formats and labeled with numbers or letter or coded. The code is held by one person and locked in a safe. Both substance A and B or 1 or 2 or whatever are tested. Then the code is broken."?

Ans: The problem is from descriptions of the program as well as from those who viewed it, we don't know. (see above).

So, your claim was completely unfounded. Do you retract it?

7. Do you maintain that judging was used, and not objective testing?

Ans: "Scientists" were chosen by Randi and the program and asked to give their opinion, their guess, their observation that they could not tell the difference between the control and the active substance. This is judging. You can call it anything you want. Who else besides these referees got to oversee their results? Even judges in courtrooms have judicial oversight. Who
backed them up?

Now you are saying directly that the scientists were chosen by Randi. Please show your evidence of this.

Please explain how the scientists could have cheated.

1. Please point to what the "party line of CSICOP, JREF or the other groups" is.

Ans: Who are the donors to CSICOP and CFI? Is this list available? Anyone connected to the development and manufacture of streptokinase or tissue plasminogen activator
would do ... I will not say more at this time.

What are you talking about?? Please answer the question or retract it.

2. Please name the "other groups" you mentioned.

Ans: CSICOP has dozens of affiliates. And there are also other
indie groups like The Skeptic Society but I was more thinking along the lines of the CSICOP branches.

Please answer the question.

3. How do you know the health of Randi?

Ans: Randi had open heart surgery and has a heart condition.
He publicly revealed this information himself on television. otherwise it would be PHI and I would not mention it if I came by it in any other manner.

How would "taking a kiddie aspirin" help the repercussions of open heart surgery?

4. Who are these people who "screamed the loudest and the longest" against the use of aspirin for this?

Ans: You have to read the S.I. for articles on this subject. CSICOP came out very heavily opposed to the validity of large scale studies showing that aspirin was of value. They questionned the fact that aspirin was such a miracle in this area.

No, Steve. You made the claim that these people exist. You claimed to know who they were. Please tell us who these people are, by name. Also, provide the references of your claims of CSICOP "very heavily" opposing this.

5. How do you know it has cost the patients or their insurers three thousand+ dollars a pop?

Ans: Treatment with TPA costs at least this much. It is a matter of record. I know it from personally being told this by a hospital pharmacist, however. When a pt is on aspirin, TPA cannot be given so its one less expensive treatment the pt can get for coronary thrombosis. Whether they'll admnit it or not, this irks the makers of TPA.

You have not provided your evidence of your claim. Please do so, or retract your claim.

6. Can you point to where CSICOP refuted the use of aspirin in coronary thrombosis/chest pain victims or as a prophylactic for coronary artery thrombosis?

Ans: Again, I would have to ferret out back issues of SI on this subject;

Please do so. Until you get back, the question remains.

7. If they did, do they still hold these views?

Ans: The subject sort of died with them as the handwriting on the wall became apparent but somebody brought it up in SI about a year ago again but I dont remember the details.

Again, you have not been able to back up your claim. Please provide the evidence hereof, or retract the claim.

8. Please point to where you got the information that "many thousands probably died" due to CSICOP and JREF's "efforts to to discredit the treatment for this purpose".

Ans: I agree I am speculating. If you read the original articles on aspirin in SI and you believed them and you had a heart condition you would not have agreed to use aspirin and you would be increasing your risk of sudden cardiac death. Do I have specific cases? No, but some day there should be a congressional inquiry as to why CSICOP immersed itself in this. This is not over. Everything comes out in the wash sooner or later.

Again, you have not been able to back up your claim. However, in this case, you retract your claim and admit that it was purely speculation.

9. Please point to the rule of this board that allows you to post a whole page from another site.

Ans: Fair used as confirmed by Pyrrho. The website itself gives permission for non-commercial and non-advertising. I posted those words above below the text. I was not finished adding to this post when you made your feeble attempt to silence a legitimate reply to the "there aint no evidence" claim based on
b.s.

By posting the words, you also admitted that your post violated copyrights.

Larsen: address the questions, providing either a retraction or evidence of your claims:

Its demands like this why you have been on ignore and are still on ignore. I deigned only to answer this because of the importance of the answers, not the questions.

Of which you have provided precious little. As far as I know, the only one ignoring me is Clancie. If you have evidence of others, please provide this, or retract the claim.

Larsen: state that you refuse to answer.

Ans: I did not refuse to answer. Please retract this.

No, I will not. You have still not answered a substantial part of the questions. They stay, until you:

• address the questions, providing either a retraction or evidence of your claims, or
• state that, despite the evidence to the contrary, you still wish to believe what you claimed, or
• state that you refuse to answer.

Ans: What is it you think I believe? And why do you charcaterize any provision of information as evidence of beliefs? This is another reason you are on ignore. You dont make any sense.
What evidence to the contrary? The Horizons program. LOL.....
A single, anecdotal trial on a TV program.............................oh well.

It is not a question of what I think you believe. I hold you accountable for your claims.

 

[JamesM]

"Scientists" were chosen by Randi and the program and asked to give their opinion, their guess, their observation that they could not tell the difference between the control and the active substance. This is judging. You can call it anything you want

Steve,
from the chunk of the Horizon transcript Martinm has posted, we know that flow cytometry was used to measure the basophil activation. BTW, if anyone wants to learn a little more about the technique, there is a good set of webpages provided by the University of Wales College of Medicine's department of haematology here - well worth a look.

While it is possible that the "scientists" just looked at a fluorescence spectrum and made a subjective guess as to whether the cells were activated or not (the transcript is indeed frustratingly vague on this point), that would appear to be unnecessary, as it is possible to carry out a statistical analysis, which the programme alludes was also carried out. It's also worth noting that in the accompanying webchat, Randi says

we designed all of our tests in such a way that personal biaises or preferences cannot enter into the process.

As to who the claimant was - on the webchat Randi says

Dr Ellis [sic] changed her mind about participating in the Horizon experiments.

and from the programme transcript:

Horizon decided to take up Randi's challenge

So it looks like the claimant was Horizon.

 

[T'ai Chi]

as it is possible to carry out a statistical analysis, which the programme alludes was also carried out.

What does "statistical analysis" mean specifically? Do we have any other details of specfically what was done?

 

[BTox]

I find the notion of homeopathy far fetched as well and pesonally have a difficult time udnerstanding its claims or how it could possibly work. However, in the interests of answering Claus' question, well his assertion, about nothing having been proved in the 200 years since Samuel Hahnemann developed his theories concerning this subject, it is important to understand that there are even recent research findings which need to be dealt with and confirmed in the lab (as opposed to a Randi engineered television stunt to discredit) if in fact they are replicable at all.

As I understand it, basic research is currently being conducted on three levels :

- confirming the activity of high dilutions; ;

- developing research devoted to the pharmacology of homeopathic dilutions;

- comprehending the mechanisms of action of homeopathic medicines.

I have yet to see any well-controllled and properly conducted clinical trials that show homeopathy is any more effective than placebo.

For the life of me I cannot fathom how anyone with the slightest science understanding could entertain for even a second the possibility that homeopathy is a viable health treatment system. The basic premise that diluting a noxious agent that produces certain symptoms to nothing and then using this dilution to treat diseases that produce similar symptoms is beyond absurd.

If you have any doubts, check out this thread. The one who calls himself "Hahnemannian" is a homeopathic physician. Any questions?

homeopath proving homeopathy works

 

[JamesM]

What does "statistical analysis" mean specifically?

One can measure the magnitude of, for example, the fluorescence of each cell as an 'event' and use - ahem - the Poisson distribution to analyse them.

Do we have any other details of specfically what was done?

Unfortunately not.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

Science is done in labs and written about in journals.

You made a mistake, I have shown that your statement "Science ain't done on TV, no matter the credentials of the doers and the double blind etc. procedures." is wrong, science has been and is being done "on TV".

 

[SteveGrenard]

While the older forms of "provings" where homeopathic remedies are concerned are quaint and non-scientific and highly anecdotal,
looking at end points and not placebo controlled proof, the modern era of theorizing about how or why these remedies work centers around the work of the French Researcher Jacques Benveniste who proposed that water, once imbued with a dissolute or dissolved solute, which is then diluted out of existence, somehow retains a chemical memory of that substance which becomes stronger with shaking of the water sample and further dilution. The fact that the effect becomes stronger with greater and greater dilution defies all known conventional principles of chemistry. The following article, with its intro paragraph only posted here, goes into this in more detail; it mentions the Horizons program and where it may've gone wrong which is what I was saying, apparently Ennis had said and even the consulatnts hired to carry out the experiment ultimately had to admit: insignificant sample size.


introductory paragraph excerpted from:

http://www.whatmedicine.co.uk/articlesWater7.htm


Does Water Have a Memory?
By Dr Julian Kenyon Medical Director
Dove Clinic for Integrated Medicine

<snipped>
The question as to whether water has a memory or not is highly controversial from a scientific point of view. Homeopathy claims that water does have a memory, as medications are given which could not have any original molecules of the substance in the medicine. Also, from my own clinical experience in homeopathy, it does work consistently, and I only use a collection of twenty so called, polycrest remedies, that is remedies with wide indications. A recent Horizon programme entitled 'Homeopathy - The Test', attempted to de-bunk homeopathy from a scientific point of view. This was largely centred around repeating the work of Jacques Benviniste in 1988, who showed repeatable effects in particular cells from the blood (basophils-sg), when exposed to so called non-material dilutions of substances which modulate the activity of the immune system. A critic of Benviniste's work, Madeline Ennis, of Queens University, Belfast Medical School, repeated Benviniste's experiment and used an automated counting system, and measured several thousand samples. To her utter disbelief, she got the same results as Jacques Benviniste.

<snipped>

 

[T'ai Chi]

You made a mistake, I have shown that your statement "Science ain't done on TV, no matter the credentials of the doers and the double blind etc. procedures." is wrong, science has been and is being done "on TV".

Some experiments, yes, but not Science.

I noticed you had no comments about:

"the experiment must be interesting enough to hold the public's attention; the experiment must work on live TV; the experiment must be comprehensible by a lay audience; viewers must be able to take part from home and report results over the phone; the conclusion must be ready before the end of the 30 minute programme. "

Care to comment on how such things like this are scientific in any way?

 

[T'ai Chi]

For the life of me I cannot fathom how anyone with the slightest science understanding could entertain for even a second the possibility that homeopathy is a viable health treatment system. The basic premise that diluting a noxious agent that produces certain symptoms to nothing and then using this dilution to treat diseases that produce similar symptoms is beyond absurd.

The fact that you cannot fathom, etc., is irrelevant to the scientific question of homeopathy being effective.

These things need to be scientifically tested.

 

[RSLancastr]

[/sense]

Dang those homeos! Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to be married...

[sense]

 

[T'ai Chi]

Does anybody know what the p-value was from that statistical test?

Does anybody know the exact name of that statistical test?

Does anybody have any graphs/charts/tables of the data from that highly scientific study?

Anybody?

Please?

Share?

 

[SteveGrenard]

In response to laments that there are no controlled studies worthy of whatever (e.g. unable to fathom, etc), the following is from the Memroial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (NYC) website:

http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/11571.cfm?RecordID=533&tab=HC

LITERATURE SUMMARY AND CRITIQUE

Over 100 clinical trials of homeopathic preparations are published. Several report statistically significant effects of homeopathic preparations, but subjective endpoints are often used. A handful of meta-analyses and systematic reviews find insufficient evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy, although Linde et al (1997) conclude that its clinical effects cannot be completely attributed to placebo effect.
(6) (7) (8) (9) (12) (14) (15)


REFERENCES

(1) Weiser M, et al. Homeopathic vs conventional treatment of vertigo: a randomized double-blind controlled clinical study. Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 1998;124:879-85.

(2) Kayne S. Complementary Therapies for Pharmacists. London UK: Pharmaceutical Press; 2002.

(3) Callinan Paul. Family Homeopathy, A Practical Guide for Home Treatment. New Canaan: Keats Publishing; 1995.

(4) The NCAHF Position Paper on Homeopathy (http://www.ncahf.org/pp/homeop.html).

(5) Cassileth B. The Alternative Medicine Handbook. New York: W.W. Norton & Company; 1998.

(6) Jacobs J, et al. Homeopathic treatment of acute otitis media in children: a preliminary randomized placebo-controlled trial. Pediatr Infect Dis J 2001;20:177-83.

(7) Fisher P, Scott DL. A randomized controlled trial of homeopathy in rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatology (Oxford) 2001;40:1052-5.

(8) Oberbaum M, et al. A randomized, controlled clinical trial of the homeopathic medication TRAUMEEL S in the treatment of chemotherapy-induced stomatitis in children undergoing stem cell transplantation. Cancer 2001;92:684-90.

(9) Vickers AJ, et al. Can homeopathically prepared mercury cause symptoms in healthy volunteers? A randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial. J Altern Complement Med 2001;7:141-8.

(10) Vickers AJ. Clinical trials of homeopathy and placebo: analysis of a scientific debate. J Altern Complement Med 2000;6:49-56.

(11) Vickers AJ, Zollman C. ABC of complementary medicine. Homoeopathy. BMJ 1999;319:1115-8.

(12) Vickers AJ, et al. Can homeopaths detect homeopathic medicines? A pilot study for a randomised, double-blind, placebo controlled investigation of the proving hypothesis. Br Homeopath J 2001;90:126-30.

(13) Vickers AJ. Independent replication of pre-clinical research in homoeopathy: a systematic review. Forsch Komplementarmed 1999;6:311-20.

(14) Linde K, et al. Are the clinical effects of homeopathy placebo effects? A meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials. Lancet 1997;350:834-43.

(15) Ernst E. A systematic review of systematic reviews of homeopathy. Br J Clin Pharmacol 2002;54:577-82.

(16) Paterson IC. Homeopathy: what is it and is it of value in the care of patients with cancer? Clin Oncol (R Coll Radiol) 2002;14:250-3.

(17) Ernst E. Homoeopathy: inaccuracies, misunderstandings and half-truths in allopathic doses. Clin Oncol (R Coll Radiol) 2002;14:254-5.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Steve, allow me to respond as some might:
( )

Those studies show nothing because I don't want to even acknowledge that there might be a speck of evidence, even though these studies clearly show there is something going on.

All of the experiments were lacking something, this vague something that only us skeptics know about. There could have been tighter controls. The actual experiment could have been designed better. There needs to be more replication. There needs to be magicians present so we can do card tricks and tell the scientists what they are doing wrong. The sample sizes need to be larger. The study didn't have enough funding, or if it did, it had too much, or from the wrong people. In short, there need to be things done to fix the problems, the same problems that could be said about every experiment ever done.

The phrase "subjective endpoints" has the word "subjective" in there, therefore it is bunk. The phrase "meta-analyses" is bad, because we don't understand the statistical issues of meta-analyses, therefore it is bunk.

The journals that they are published in aren't as well-known as they could be. They need to be published in SI or Skeptic, or in Randi's commentary.

References 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, and 15 are no good, because they all contain the word "homeopathy" in the body of the text.

Therefore, all of this is bunk. You are presented no evidence. All bunk. I debunk. I like debunking bunk while in my bunk-bed. Therefore there are no significant studies because I choose to not hear of any.

 

[Darat]

Some experiments, yes, but not Science.

I noticed you had no comments about:



Care to comment on how such things like this are scientific in any way? [/B]

Why should I comment on something that is irrelevant to the point I was making i.e. that your statement "Science ain't done on TV, no matter the credentials of the doers and the double blind etc. procedures" was and is wrong?

 

[JamesM]

The following article, with its intro paragraph only posted here, goes into this in more detail; it mentions the Horizons program and where it may've gone wrong which is what I was saying, apparently Ennis had said and even the consulatnts hired to carry out the experiment ultimately had to admit: insignificant sample size.

Steve,
you don't happen to know the names of the Russian scientists associated with "Telos", mentioned in the article, do you? It would help immensely in tracking down their publications.