The Other Medicine (BBC Radio 4)

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/other_medicine.shtml

Well, the first programme wasn't too bad, but the second was has been tooth-itchingly awful. Soft questions gently batted by the woos.

One of the alleged scientific investigators describes his trial of acupuncture vs conventional drugs in which the acupuncture did slightly better, but only 'real' acupuncture was used, the comparator was conventional drugs not sham acupuncture. In other words, the acupuncture arm of the trial got all the usual woo-woo long consultations and generally lovey-doveyness while the GP arm got none of it. Ye gods! The researcher (Andrew Vikcers) has a staff appointment at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital.

It was interesting to hear the classic "I don't need evidence because I know it works" being trotted out on several occasions. Sadly it may be only we hardened cynics that find this laughable and the programme has totally failed to challenge this self-evident nonsense.

 

[Sarah-I]

I thought it was a good and very fair programme.

Science cannot prove anything really and at times it has had to do a u turn on itself as was stated with the HRT trial.

Perhaps you guy's will take your heads out of the sand one of these days. But of course, pigs might fly before then huh!!

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I thought it was a good and very fair programme.

I'm sure you did, since you are firmly of the view that evidence is not needed when you 'know' it works

Science cannot prove anything really and at times it has had to do a u turn on itself as was stated with the HRT trial.

Perhaps you guy's will take your heads out of the sand one of these days. But of course, pigs might fly before then huh!!

Sarah

Would you perhaps like to explain to us the exact size of the effect that HRT has been found to have on risk of cardiovascular disease? If real medicine can find something that subtle why can't it find any effect for homeopathy in contrast to the stories of miracle cures?

In the meantime, perhaps you could direct your attention to where you have been asked for answers to some specific questions.

 

[geni]

Science cannot prove anything really and at times it has had to do a u turn on itself as was stated with the HRT trial.

Science has not moved a a picometer of the HRT trial. There is new data but the methods have not changed

Perhaps you guy's will take your heads out of the sand one of these days. But of course, pigs might fly before then huh!! [/B]

Perhaps one day you will be able to provide some evidence instead of running and hideing from the real world.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

The programme transcript has appeared now. Here's the best quote;

"I mean it's a whole bogus question - this thing about evidence, you know homeopathy works, it works on individuals for individual totalities, or patient totality, it doesn't work for disease
labels and it doesn't work in mass trials but it works for individuals. Another aspect of course is the evidence of mass trials financed by drug companies who have a vested interest in seeing homeopathy destroyed. So I would seriously question the
word evidence because I think it's a loaded term."

Sound familiar? They really are all as bad as each other with this mind-blindness to the stupidity of what they say.

 

[Benguin]

Science cannot prove anything really

It can prove many things far better than any alternative. It cannot prove everything, and it is damn near impossible (by any means) to disprove anything.

Would you like to propose an alternative method of proof? without resorting to logical fallacies.

On second thoughts, answer the calcium plaque/CVA thing first.

 

[BillHoyt]

I thought it was a good and very fair programme.

Science cannot prove anything really and at times it has had to do a u turn on itself as was stated with the HRT trial.

Perhaps you guy's will take your heads out of the sand one of these days. But of course, pigs might fly before then huh!!

It seems to me homeopaths are doing more oinking and still lacking wings.

 

[Rolfe]

Would you perhaps like to explain to us the exact size of the effect that HRT has been found to have on risk of cardiovascular disease? If real medicine can find something that subtle why can't it find any effect for homeopathy in contrast to the stories of miracle cures?

This is actually a very very good point and worth repeating. Careful controlled trials, the sort that are so well-designed that even the sceptics can't pick holes in them, have often found things that were quite unsuspected, or even contrary to what might have been expected. Because the effect was so small or so subtle that there really was no way to suspect it existed just by uncontrolled observations on patient.

The HRT findings are one example, and the vitamin studies mentioned in last week's Horizon would be another (hypothesis was that beta carotene would protect against cancer, but in fact it was associated with an 18% increase in the probability of developing cancer, and hypothesis was that retinol supplementations were beneficial, but they turned out to significantly increase the risk of osteoporosis).

These were either totally unsuspected findings, or (in the case of the beta-carotene) the exact opposite of what had been expected. And in no case was the result what the people doing the experiment wanted to find. But the trials were so well-designed and well-controlled that they revealed the effects that were really happening irrespective of people's prior assumptions or desires.

So how come similar trials show bugger-all effect for homoeopathy, even though its effects are allegedly so self-evident on subjective observation?

Rolfe.

PS. Come on, Sarah, tell us about calcium plaques in the neck and how they cause strokes?