Homeopathy to the battle.

[Rolfe]

You still don't get it, Ian.

If it happens, it must be possible.

However, first you have to demonstrate that it happens.

Rolfe.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Not quite the correct response. Obviously it would be sensible not to believe it. But it's the rigidity of skeptical thinking I'm addressing here. Take the 17th century. We had the mechanistic philosophy. All change in the world is accounted for by the push/pull effect. So television would of course be absolutely impossible under that paradigm of thinking.

The issue is not some ponderings on science to come. The 17th century skeptical answer to somebody fabulating about television would be "We know of no way this could be possible." Just as a 21st skeptic would say about faster than light space travel.

However, this is irrelevant to the discussion on homeopathy. Homeopaths are not speculating about some theoretical thing, they are clamoring "IT WORKS!". So just like a 17th century skeptic would say to somebody claiming to have a working television, we are saying to the homeopaths: "Show us!". And just like the 17th century TV maker, they can't.


But you see I suspect that the skeptics of the day wouldn't just think to themselves, "yes it seems that the world operates on mechanistic principles and any such phenomena disobeying such principles (TV or whatever) therefore is very unlikely to exist".

There is no reason to speculate about probability. These people make a testable claim of the real world.

This is how I would have thought if I'd lived in the 17th century (and actually I might well have done since it is likely that reincarnation occurs).

Do explain the likeliness of reincarnation IN ANOTHER THREAD.

The skeptic, you see, goes much further. I imagine the 17th century skeptic would have thought that it's not just very likely the mechanistic philosophy is true, but to deny it was self evidently absurd.

Based on the evidence of the time it was absurd, but anybody with a working TV could quickly have changed that. Likewise, based on present evidence, homeopathy is absurd, but a few successful tests test could soon change that.

How could something affect something else if they are not actually touching?? I suspect that this is why it took so long for Newtons theory of gravitation to be accepted. It is skeptics impeding the march of progress.

Nonsense. As soon as tests were deviced, TOG became widely accepted. Newton became rich and famous in his time.

Ian, do you have anything sensible to say about homeopathy?

Hans

 

[Powa]

It is skeptics impeding the march of progress.

You're right. If it weren't for those skeptic bastards like Newton, Da Vinci, Einstein, Hawking, et al, we would be traveling to other galaxies centuries ago. Is that what you're saying???

 

[Marc]

If my solution is correct, this is the vital observation.

And the solution does indeed go a long way outside the box.

How soon before we're allowed to see if we're right? Would Powa post the relevant link?

Rolfe.

Don't know what the solution is, but I'm happy to say I've figured out how to do it. Was used to the old 4 line answer, took a bit of time to figure out how to do it with 3

 

[Quasi]

Not quite the correct response. Obviously it would be sensible not to believe it. But it's the rigidity of skeptical thinking I'm addressing here. Take the 17th century. We had the mechanistic philosophy. All change in the world is accounted for by the push/pull effect. So television would of course be absolutely impossible under that paradigm of thinking.

But you see I suspect that the skeptics of the day wouldn't just think to themselves, "yes it seems that the world operates on mechanistic principles and any such phenomena disobeying such principles (TV or whatever) therefore is very unlikely to exist". This is how I would have thought if I'd lived in the 17th century (and actually I might well have done since it is likely that reincarnation occurs). The skeptic, you see, goes much further. I imagine the 17th century skeptic would have thought that it's not just very likely the mechanistic philosophy is true, but to deny it was self evidently absurd. How could something affect something else if they are not actually touching?? I suspect that this is why it took so long for Newtons theory of gravitation to be accepted. It is skeptics impeding the march of progress.

Just to clarify-

1) Are you claiming that if I took a television and a video camera etc. (equipment to set up a small video studio,) and set it up in 1650 somewhere in a gathering of "skeptics" of that era, and gave a demo of how the equipment worked, you believe they would deny that it worked, although it was very clear that it did? 2) Further, is the theory that if I did not bring the equipment back in time, and explained television, electromagnetism etc. to these skeptics, it would be the equivalent to skeptics now opposing homeopathy?
I think that you are walking a very slippery slope here. Why do I know so many people for whom homeopathy has failed miserably, and why do my observations of homeopathy match that of the so called skeptics? Am I missing something here?
I find it very difficult to believe you could sympathize with skeptics of the middle ages, or that you are terribly knowledgeable about the history of science. I could be wrong here, but you clearly do not understand the modern objections to homeopathy (it has no physical effects, and has failed direct testing,) never mind what someone from four centuries ago would have thought. I do not see a historical perspective being productive here, lets drop it.
3) Are we rigid? All we want to see is the homeopath pick the homeopathic solution out of a blind mix of non succinated, chemically identical solutions, or, under blind controlled conditions cure a statistically significant goup of people of the allopathic disease of their choice with better results than control, placebo, and current evience based medicine. This should be the easiest thing to do, as they claim to do it every day. Is this a fair test? What are the problems? What is your explination of the avoidance of homeopaths to do these protocols?
The way I see it, I want to see some good will from homeopaths before I change my mind. And hey, a million bucks too, thats quite a tempting offer. Whats the problem?

PS: The homeopaths would be allowed to practice homeopathy as they see fit, except no drugs or chemicals would be allowed to be used which are not homeopathic as defined by the HPUSA and USP.
This eliminates the "the study did not tailor the treatment to the individual patient" excuse.

 

[Rolfe]

All we want to see is the homeopath .... cure a statistically significant goup of people of the allopathic disease of their choice with better results than .... current evience based medicine.

Never mind the "better results than evidence-based medicine", I'll settle for any robust, reproducible. statistically significant effect at all.

I know they all say that conventional medicine has never cured anyone and does nothing but harm, and the only way to a real lasting cure is through homoeopathy and all that, but heck, just show us any effect, any effect at all, we're not fussy.

Of course they can't.

Because there isn't one.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

To be realistic, I suspect that getting a clinical trial involving real patients up and running to the sort of controlled standards needed for the JREF Prize would be a pretty daunting task - probably impossible, really. (Which doesn't mean it couldn't be done to normal scientific standards suitable for publication in a journal, though.)

However, the other one, just say whether you got the real homoeopathic remedy you were expecting, or the placebo, should be a piece of cake. They nearly all claim to experience striking "proving" symptoms if they take certain remedies. Weaselling about not being able to repeat this often enough to satisfy the statistical requirements for the prize can be met simply by increasing the number of homoeopaths. If 20 out of 20 of them can tell remedy from placebo, that's a winning probability, and heck, even $50,000 each is a reasonable handful of cash. (18 right out of 20 would pass the preliminary test, and even that would be stunningly impressive.)

Not to mention the publicity and the validation of homoeopathy and all the sceptics tucking miserably into their humble pie.

So why aren't these guys fighting each other for the chance of getting on the team?

Guess.

Rolfe.

 

[Frederick Troteville]

Just to clarify-

1) Are you claiming that if I took a television and a video camera etc. (equipment to set up a small video studio,) and set it up in 1650 somewhere in a gathering of "skeptics" of that era, and gave a demo of how the equipment worked, you believe they would deny that it worked, although it was very clear that it did?

No I wasn't claiming that. I was talking about someone merely claiming TV is possible without being able to demonstrate it. They wouldn't be able to demonstrate it would they, because the technology wasn't available.

But to directly answer your question. It certainly seems plausible that they would deny it if they were anything like present day skeptics! They might well say it's a collective hallucination, or trickery, or false memories after the fact. Or they could simply just file away the incident to the back of their minds, as being unknown or unexplained, and then effectively forget about it.

History is littered with such incidents of skeptics absolutely refusing to believe anything, using erroneous arguments to justify their stance, ignoring other peoples eyewitness accounts of what occurred, and yes, very often disbelieving when they directly witness things for themselves. There is a middle path between gullibility and outright rejection of anything unusual. Skeptics are not anymore rational than starry eyed believers.

 

[alfaniner]

No I wasn't claiming that. I was talking about someone merely claiming TV is possible without being able to demonstrate it. They wouldn't be able to demonstrate it would they, because the technology wasn't available.

...

But homoeopathy is available today, and still no one can demonstrate it works!

 

[MRC_Hans]

No I wasn't claiming that. I was talking about someone merely claiming TV is possible without being able to demonstrate it. They wouldn't be able to demonstrate it would they, because the technology wasn't available.

Thus, they would be speaking through their hats.

But to directly answer your question. It certainly seems plausible that they would deny it if they were anything like present day skeptics! They might well say it's a collective hallucination, or trickery, or false memories after the fact. Or they could simply just file away the incident to the back of their minds, as being unknown or unexplained, and then effectively forget about it.

And what about it? If somebody came and showed you something centuries beyond even our present understanding of nature, not to mention our technology, wouldn't we all look for the nearest apparantly rational explanation. What is the relevance of this hypothetical scenario?

History is littered with such incidents of skeptics absolutely refusing to believe anything, using erroneous arguments to justify their stance, ignoring other peoples eyewitness accounts of what occurred, and yes, very often disbelieving when they directly witness things for themselves.

Do you have a point? Any examples?


There is a middle path between gullibility and outright rejection of anything unusual. Skeptics are not anymore rational than starry eyed believers.

How would you know?

Sorry, Ian. No improvement with your new name. Bye.

Hans

 

[Rolfe]

But homoeopathy is available today, and still no one can demonstrate it works!

So why is Ian picking homoeopathy to make his philosophical stand? Of all the things that are absolutely cut-and-dried delusional, homoeopathy takes the proverbial biscuit.

Why not go and hang your argument on something a little bit fuzzier, Ian?

Rolfe.

 

[S. D. Youngren]

very often disbelieving when they directly witness things for themselves.

I don't remember witnessing any succesful homeopathic treatments.

Look. Show us a decent study--you know, like the ones real scientists run--and if we still object, then you can complain.

 

[Quasi]

No I wasn't claiming that. I was talking about someone merely claiming TV is possible without being able to demonstrate it. They wouldn't be able to demonstrate it would they, because the technology wasn't available.

But to directly answer your question. It certainly seems plausible that they would deny it if they were anything like present day skeptics! They might well say it's a collective hallucination, or trickery, or false memories after the fact. Or they could simply just file away the incident to the back of their minds, as being unknown or unexplained, and then effectively forget about it.

History is littered with such incidents of skeptics absolutely refusing to believe anything, using erroneous arguments to justify their stance, ignoring other peoples eyewitness accounts of what occurred, and yes, very often disbelieving when they directly witness things for themselves. There is a middle path between gullibility and outright rejection of anything unusual. Skeptics are not anymore rational than starry eyed believers.

OK, I agree. However, if you could articulate how it might be possible, they might agree that it could be, but they would wait until you had made a prototype, which actually demonstrates what you claim.
My point is that claiming that homeopathy works according to the Organon of Medicine (you can never know the cause of disease, medical practitioners should not study how the body works,) is just kooky, considering that there is an obvious correlation between say, cigarette smoking and lung cancer, HIV and AIDS, cyanide with death, and we know the function of the organs, cells, etc. Are you proposing that the heart does not pump blood? Because that is what Hahnemann claimed in the Organon. So you should agree that Hahnemann was full of it, propose a mechanism of homeopathy which agrees with known science, then show that it works. Any skeptic who follows logic should agree that something is happening when demonstrated in an unambiguous, blind, statistically relevant trial. At this time, homeopaths are refusing to demonstrate homeopathy. What do you want me to say? Show me the proof. This is the point of this argument. Why are homeopaths so afraid to test their hypothesis? I think the reason is obvious, but apparently it is not so for everyone.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Never mind. Homeopathy is passé. It's yesterday. We're now into metahomeopathy:

http://www.amyreiki.com/homeopathy1.html

You can now do Homeopathic healing without the physical medicine. You can be attuned to the energy of the medicine and it will work just as well. You will be taught how to use these energies to make liquid homeopathic tonics to give to yourself or someone else. As with other Homeopathic medicines you will experience the same healing quality and side effects as the original. Here are the medicinal energies included in each level.

~~ Paul

 

[Loki]

Paul,

As with other Homeopathic medicines you will experience the same healing quality and side effects as the original.

This is absolutely, 100% true!

 

[Rolfe]

Never mind. Homeopathy is passé. It's yesterday. We're now into metahomeopathy:

http://www.amyreiki.com/homeopathy1.html

They've been heading that way for a while. Lots of stories about how remedies were wrongly dispensed and still worked, or just writing down the name of the remedy and the patient got better, or even the healing happening as soon as the practitioner thought of the correct remedy (Milgrom, 2002).

It's magic (Walach, 2000 admits this as a serious scientific explanation), so in fact despite the classical practitioners' insistence on the necessity for getting the right remedy, it's really about the practitioners getting their "intention" to heal right (Thoresen, 2003).

Of course, the word "metahomeopathy" has been used in another context as well - Meta-homeopathy research page. This is actually very funny.

Rolfe.

 

[Bonzo]

If I set myself up in business as a homeopathic healer, can I bill all the people I don't give medicine to? Sounds lucrative.

 

[xouper]

You can now do Homeopathic healing without the physical medicine.

Have any of the evil, greedy, money grubbing homeopathic drug manufacturers engaged in a conspiracy to supress or ridicule this notion yet? Wouldn't that be a fun irony?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rolfe, you bastige! Every single meter in my office completely exploded as soon as I started to read your first reference above. There are springs and gears and quantumozoids all over the place. It's a total disaster.

Previously, others and myself have argued for a
reinterpretation of the concept of Vital Force in terms
of modern non-deterministic complexity theory (see
reference 2). In this view, Vital Force is seen as an
emergent property of billions of living cells, the totality
of which generates an all-encompassing field that, by
sustaining itself, organises the elements of that totality
into an entity capable of resisting local entropic
dissipation. By its very nature, this all-encompassing
field is not localised in any one cell, organ, body-part,
or consciousness: it is the resultant of the total
organism. A metaphor for Vital Force was developed
based on the gyroscope.
...
The stage is therefore set to develop a quantum
mechanical metaphor for homeopathy. But homeopathy
is practised on living beings not electrons, atoms,
and molecules. It might therefore seem perverse to
attempt a description of homeopathy in terms of
quantum theory. In the previous sections, I have
attempted to demonstrate that not only does
quantum theory involve non-locality, complementarity,
and entanglement at the microscopic level of
atoms and molecules, but that via the weak interpretation
of quantum theory these concepts could
operate at the level of macroscopic phenomena. The
following discussion outlines some ideas that could
link homeopathy to quantum theory and suggests the
shape and possible direction such an interpretation
might take.

~~ Paul

 

[Rolfe]

Rolfe, you bastige! Every single meter in my office completely exploded as soon as I started to read your first reference above. There are springs and gears and quantumozoids all over the place. It's a total disaster.

Ooh, good!

I got plenty more where that came from.

The reference Milgrom cites a lot in that masterpiece is the Walach one also linked to in the previous post. However, the Milgrom article is only the first of a three-parter - see Milgrom 2003a and Milgrom 2003b. Also refer to Weingärtner 2003.

It all seems to have its roots in a paper of which Walach is the third author (Atmanspacher et al. 2001), which introduces the fascinating and original concept of "weak quantum theory". (Thanks to Wipeout for this particular gem.) The irony of one of the authors hailing from the Max Planck Institute, and the paper summarily ditching Planck's constant, seems lost on the publishers.

Rolfe.