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More homeopathy crap

Science doesn't know how medicine actually works anymore than homeopathic stuff.
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Awwww... That is grade A certified ********. Scientists do know more about homeopathic stuff because it doesn't ****ing work. Every single pathetic argument those idiots come up with defies some major aspect of chemistry and physics in a manner that some legitimate scientist would have noticed. I will provide some delicious information from a Nature paper tomorrow that actually determined the memory of water to be in the femtosecond range.
shawmutt said:
That's so wierd, I was thinking of doing something similar--getting a group together, buying a bunch of the crap CVS sells, and having a ritual suicide in front of the pharmacy.

Thanks for the link, I'm going to email it to him now.
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Wasn't Ziccam marketed as homeopathic?
 
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So...

I offered to eat 100 comfort forte pills and be monitored throughout the day. She said it's not possible to overdose on homeopathy, and taking more of the remedy will not change the outcome.

I agree, but for different reasons ;)

If the dose of homeopathy has nothing to do with the results, how does the homeopath know how much to give a sucker patient?

I'm done with it, I just can't argue against that level of logic.
 
Yeah - in order to over dose on H, you need to take LESS of it...

Have you not been paying attention?

:p
 
Unless you are doing a proving in which case it's dangerous to take more, sometimes.
 
shawmutt said:
So...

I offered to eat 100 comfort forte pills and be monitored throughout the day. She said it's not possible to overdose on homeopathy, and taking more of the remedy will not change the outcome.

I agree, but for different reasons ;)

If the dose of homeopathy has nothing to do with the results, how does the homeopath know how much to give a sucker patient?

I'm done with it, I just can't argue against that level of logic.
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Lets go the science route. Im fairly certain you can wheedle something out of your friend that overtly defies some law of science.
 
The "science doesn't know how real medicine works" line is a strawman argument. It implies that the reason people dismiss homeopathy is because we don't know the mechanism for it.

That's not true. People dismiss homeopathy because study after study after study shows it doesn't have any effect. He needs to understand that his first assumption is incorrect.
 
vIQleS said:
Yeah - in order to over dose on H, you need to take LESS of it...

Have you not been paying attention?

:p
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So, if I take absolutely no drop of arsenicum alba D30, I'll keel over dead immediately? ;)
 
Rocko said:
That's not true. People dismiss homeopathy because study after study after study shows it doesn't have any effect. He needs to understand that his first assumption is incorrect.
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Why do we even need to mention studies? Homeopathy is the medical equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.
 
Does he know what homeopathy is and why water from the sink is the same thing? It's not all bad if doing nothing is all you need to get better (most colds and even ear aches resolve on their own), but if you get cancer then you should really rely on something that will kill the cancer before it kills you.

Criticalist:
I have put these two together because they are factually incorrect. In fact in the vast majority of drug classes we a have clear understanding of the mechanism of action based upon well understood and verified scientific principles. A few examples:

Penicillin: -- Acts by binding to proteins in bacterial cells walls.
Analgesics - Inhibit prostaglandins
Diuretics - Inhibit cellular pumps in kidney cells membranes.
Steroids - act upon intracellular glucocorticoid receptors

In fact, ask him to do just what he told you. Open a pharmacology textbook, and ask him to name a single drug where we have no idea at all of its mechanism of action. The only things that may come close would be general anaesthetics, and in those cases the fact of their efficacy can hardly be disputed.(and there are quite a few reasonable theories)

In contrast ask him to produce a single suggested mechanism of action of homeopathy that is consistent with what we know to be true about how the world works.
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Exactly. Only, at TAM this last weekend I was told not to use the word "mechanism" since that is only a "word" with no "meaning" and that if I use it then I don't know what I'm talking about (told to me by a supposed fellow skeptic).

I used it in the same context you did to try to explain why Cold FX (bottled ginseng carbohydrate) is so bogus (the manufacturers refuse to explain the mechanism of action of the the "trade secret" "active ingredient" on the body). Yeah, I'm still bristling about that. Since he also accused me of then "dismissing all alt med" because of my disdain for this supplement that is allowed to be irckingly sold with medical claims.
 
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I don't understand that all Eos. Why on earth would it be wrong to use the word "mechanism", and how can it have no meaning? The phrase "mechanism of action" in relation to how drugs work is standard phraseology and its meaning is perfectly clear. I wonder what this fellow skeptics point was?
 
technoextreme said:
Why do we even need to mention studies? Homeopathy is the medical equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.
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Because that's how we know it doesn't work. Why bother getting involved in a potentially lengthy debate over the mechanism for homeopathy when all the evidence points to there not being a mechanism to find?
 
Do you want to know why studies are irrelevant? Chemistry. The molecule is an integer quantity, and we know that A cannot act upon B without A actually being present in some form.

Homeopathy violates chemistry, physics and even simple causality. Performing studies to determine whether it works is like performing a study to determine whether, on average, the tooth fairy gives higher payout for molars than for incisors.

To perform even a single trial on a homeopathic remedy is in itself a farcical act, and should rightly earn the derision of any sane person.
 
wackyvorlon said:
Homeopathy violates chemistry, physics and even simple causality. Performing studies to determine whether it works is like performing a study to determine whether, on average, the tooth fairy gives higher payout for molars than for incisors.
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That argument is well and good for some, but when a person's rational thought is laced with magical thinking (which, let's face it, the majority of folks have some sort of magical belief), it tends not to work so well.

To summarize, there were a few back and forth emails between him, his wife, and me. After pointing out a few glaring logical inconsistencies, linking a lot of data, and rebutting a lot of crap, they stopped responding. I failed my quest to deal with the issue like a nice guy, because the more I got into it with them the more ridiculous their arguments were getting. When the stupid burns, I tend to get a bit disgruntled.

Their overall premise is the belief in magical healing "energy". This led the discussion all along other sCAM methods.

There were a few real big inconsistencies. One was the belief in one "power" over another. They were real big on chakras and yoga healing and magic water and energy work and..., but had no response when I talked about the televangelist on my TV with similar claims and "miraculous" healing (as I stated before, they are atheist/agnostic). Another was only agreeing with organizations that agreed with their world view. "Big insurance" and "big government" were wise and correct in covering sCAM remedies and funding NCCAM--while "big pharma" and "big government" was evil and greedy.

I don't know if either of them is talking to me anymore, but I stopped worrying about it.
 
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Criticalist said:
I don't understand that all Eos. Why on earth would it be wrong to use the word "mechanism", and how can it have no meaning? The phrase "mechanism of action" in relation to how drugs work is standard phraseology and its meaning is perfectly clear. I wonder what this fellow skeptics point was?
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His point, in his words to me, was "you don't know what you're talking about." after telling me "mechanism" was "just a word". I guess he likes Cold FX or something, and since it is altie stuff you don't have to know how it works? I guess HE was the one that didn't know what he was talking about, which was quite humorous to me when he started getting mad at me. This was at TAM!

He later saw me at the skepchick party and said he "forgave me". I kind of rolled my eyes and said the same thing back-with a taste of sarcasm. We agreed we could co-exist, but still weren't very friendly after that. He claims to have a biology background. However, he also believed things like ginseng could somehow "boost the immune system" (I said something about allergies then). I feel he was mad because he didn't have a leg to stand on.

I STILL want to know how things like homeopathy or even herbals (like ginseng) are supposdely actually able to affect the body! What is the mechanism?

Therefore, I will continue to use the word mechanism (I learned how to use it in my bio-tech courses) and ask how these things are supposed to act on the body to cause an effect.

Mechanism is one word that alties and altie supporters clearly don't understand. They also don't understand the word evidence.
 
shawmutt said:
That argument is well and good for some, but when a person's rational thought is laced with magical thinking (which, let's face it, the majority of folks have some sort of magical belief), it tends not to work so well.

To summarize, there were a few back and forth emails between him, his wife, and me. After pointing out a few glaring logical inconsistencies, linking a lot of data, and rebutting a lot of crap, they stopped responding. I failed my quest to deal with the issue like a nice guy, because the more I got into it with them the more ridiculous their arguments were getting. When the stupid burns, I tend to get a bit disgruntled.

Their overall premise is the belief in magical healing "energy". This led the discussion all along other sCAM methods.

There were a few real big inconsistencies. One was the belief in one "power" over another. They were real big on chakras and yoga healing and magic water and energy work and..., but had no response when I talked about the televangelist on my TV with similar claims and "miraculous" healing (as I stated before, they are atheist/agnostic). Another was only agreeing with organizations that agreed with their world view. "Big insurance" and "big government" were wise and correct in covering sCAM remedies and funding NCCAM--while "big pharma" and "big government" was evil and greedy.

I don't know if either of them is talking to me anymore, but I stopped worrying about it.
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The usual claims regurgitated from alt medders to sell their crap, which also makes them HUGE hypocrites. And people eat it up!!

This default line of thinking is easier than trying to actually use their brains though, unfortunately.

Still, they then need to demonstrate what this "energy" is and how it supposedly affects the body. But, a request for this kind of evidence causes their brains to short circuit and fizzle. Energy is like, um, magic. You can't see it or feel it or find it. I then ask about air... we can feel it and breathe it, and bottle it, and demonstrate the exchange of gasses within our bodies. This doesn't apply to magic healing energy though, it is completely and totally undetectable by "science", or man, or any type of detection system. It is like gods, it is something beyond simple humans like us. You just gotta BELIEVE!!

Sigh. Unfortunately you cannot reason with people that don't understand logic or what the scientific method is. That is how religion and alt medders persist, and will always be around to irk folks who want to know how something actually works (and can see why some things are just blatantly crap).
 
Believing in magic can have some positive benefits. Unfortunately, it only seems to be beneficial if you don't believe its magic. It seems our brains enjoy forays into the irrational.
Pity it can't be approached as such. Homeopathy is hilarious, but they aren't laughing.
 
shawmutt said:
There were a few real big inconsistencies. One was the belief in one "power" over another. They were real big on chakras and yoga healing and magic water and energy work and..., but had no response when I talked about the televangelist on my TV with similar claims and "miraculous" healing (as I stated before, they are atheist/agnostic).
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Always amazes me how these people decide which type of 'magic' to believe in given that none are able to be demonstrated objectively.

On the one hand they will often believe in apparently inconsistent magic, for example chackra points AND Q'i meridians yet refuse to believe in modalities which seem to be equally implausible, for example homeopaths will dismiss voodoo as being too far fetched.

Weird.

Yuri
 
Eos of the Eons said:
he also believed things like ginseng could somehow "boost the immune system" (I said something about allergies then).
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Allergies and auto-immune disorders - always excellent comebacks to idiots talking through their fundaments about "boosting the immune system", a phrase with as much medical meaning as my other favourite, "flushing out toxins". :D

Yuri
 
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