More homeopathy crap

[Eos of the Eons]

I'm sure many of them laugh all the way to the bank (after accusing "big pharma" of being nothing but money grubbers, of course).

 

[wackyvorlon]

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?

For homeopathy, it's magic. No foolin', sacrificing a goat at night and burying it under the threshold, magic. Specifically, a type of magic that was in vogue in the 18th century termed sympathetic magic. You see it in the belief that if a person takes a dilution of something that causes nausea, for example, it should cure nausea. This is up there with the taking of auspices, scrying and "sin eating".

As a result, any attempt to shoe-horn it into a consistent and logical framework leads to madness with surprising rapidity. If the dose response curve is the inverse of all known substances, does taking two homeopathic pills lower the dose from one? If that is the case, is taking none a greater dose than taking one? etc. If the belief is subjected to anything more than the most cursory glance it fractures into contradiction.

 

[quarky]

Some people need a device to wrap their mind around, a trick that could conceivably focus one's will in a positive direction. That's where the magic is, if anywhere. A ceremonial gesture could be empowered, by the participant, to illicit actual behavioral change.

To some extent, modern medicine can fall into this same area. You need to take a pill to solidify the belief that you'll get better.

This isn't to be confused with medical intervention of the more obvious sort, like an anti-biotic for an infection. Yet there's plenty of pointless medicines being consumed; perhaps especially o.t.c. stuff. Many would likely be better off without it, as per chemistry...but it helps them to feel that they are taking some action to combat their malaise...and its always easier than actually addressing the more obvious source of the woes, like crappy diet; lack of exercise, and so forth.

Gosh, it sounds like I'm defending homeopathy.
Yet, plenty of people take all manner of pointless products, costing more than the relatively less poisonous homeopathic water. They largely escape being labeled as 'nut-cases'.

 

[vIQleS]

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).

This is, of course, where studies come in.

"How"
"It's magic - It just works"
"So it definitely works then?"
"Of course..."
"Ok - so if it works, then we should be able to test it in a RCDB Study then?"
"Oh - Actually no..."

And so forth...