What is paranormal in Homeopathy

[Mojo]

The secret? There's a secret? Is it in Hahnemann's Organon or did someone make it up since?

It's all a big conspiracy! Homeopaths are planning to take over the world!!!

That's why they can't tell us what the secret of homeopathy is: if they told us, they'd have to kill us all.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

He tries to claim (I think) that Avogadro's law somehow doesn't apply:

I'd just like to interject here about something that's niggled me for some time.

Our muppet-headed opponents like to toss about words like "Law" as if they understand the ideas behind them and then make up a load of their own laws so they can feel big and clever, but...

Avogadro's Law, as such, doesn't have much to do with what we are talking about. It is tangentially related only to the degree that a moderate macroscopic amount of any atomic or non-macromolecular substance is roughly one mole and one mole has an arbitrary definition involving Avogadro's Number (Arbitrary? Yes. We could have decided to standardise on ounces instead of grammes and define AN as the number of atoms/molecules in a mole where a mole would be an amount stated as the atomic/molecular weight in ounces). So, within a couple or orders of magnitude (which is close enough given how extravagant they are with their mad dilutions), if you do the arithmetic of homeopathic dilutions using Avogadro's number as your starting point you will get an approximate idea as to when the molecules run out as you serially dilute.

It is not Avogadro's Law that states that if you have a hundred red balls and dilute with 900 blue ones then aliquot the total and serially dilute enough times you will have tough time finding any red balls in a randomly chosen aliquot.

When MAS says we should look beyond Avogadro's Law he is just revealing how little he knows. It is not Avogadro's Law beyond which he would have to look but atomic theory, all of chemistry and the bleedin' obvious.

 

[Dr. MAS]

Dear Friends, Hi

Today, I was so busy at my clinic that I did not turn up to discussion. Although my students in this institution kept me informed about many pages discussion. Thanks for your comments. I would like to address each and everyone (possibly) tomorrow.

I request you rather I seek your help in promoting www.nchpakistan.com forum, blog and mailing list, being the reason, I have been instructed by some official to ask members to send few posts. When I told him, you allowed to create a skeptic forum, then how can I request to my colleagues to get registration at NCH forum, then he said, you don't have to worry about the forum, it will be soon closed when there would be no mail from the members, obviously when you will not send posts in that forum no body would like to visit that forum again. His comments were logical. Now its upto you, do you want to close the skeptic forum or not?

Dr. Naeem, press and information secretary of WHCC, has released a press report today with my consent. In which, WHCC offers you to compete for winning one million rupees prize money, if you prove that homeopathy is paranormal in nature and it has no link with scientific rulings.

The details can be read at www.nchpakistan.com forum.

Enjoy your stay!

Bye

 

[Rolfe]

I think I must have been mixing Dr. Mas up with someone else at the beginning of this thread. I had it in my mind that he was one of the more rational posters at H'pathy, but his behaviour in this thread has been irrational in the extreme and I must have been mistaken. There are actually one or two relatively sensible homoeopaths I'd like to see come over here - Fitness First for one - but this conversation has been a pretty fair waste of electrons.

I can't understand his motives for coming here in the first place. As Hans said, he was trying to get registered for some time and had a bit of trouble with the registration process. He seemed to think he was being rejected because he was a homoeopath, probably imagining that JREF behaves the way the homoeopath boards do to stifle dissent. So he obviously persevered for some time until he was registered.

So what did he want to say? I would have surmised that he either felt he had such compelling anecdotal evidence of efficacy that he wanted to tell us about that, or that he had a semi-coherent theory regarding mode of action, and he wanted to tell us about that.

But no, he only wanted to play word games about the definition of "paranormal". Several good reasons for applying that label to homoeopathy were given to him (and of course Anders' other point about the paranormal nature of the "vital force" was extremely well made), but he just ignored all these posts and continued to releat the question. Then, his definition of paranormal wasn't the same as ours. Well, duh!

So, can he show that it works, or can he provide a plausible explanation of how it might work?

Quite early on, he did make a claim of efficacy.

I claim we can treat an incureable case of any disease entirely with the help of homeopathic medicines.

If you detail us (homeopaths) to treat 10 AIDS / Hepatitis etc confirmed patients and if we succeed in curing 8 out 10 then you might confirm that "Homeopathic medicines have good healing effects / property against human diseases".

However, no attempt to show that he or any other homoeopath had ever succeeded in achieving this, and no suggestion as to how such a test might be conducted. Instead he went back to the semantics of the word "paranormal", started to criticise the administration of the forum and accused Darat of running a sock puppet.

Finally, though, we had another claim and an offer to test it.

.... a protocol can be built to prove that “yes”, the molecules are present in 31c potency.

Unfortunately, before this could be gone into in more detail, it turned out to be necessary for sceptics to post their real names, qualifications, experience and phone numbers! Because of course Dr. Mas wasn't going to take the trouble to present his explanation to people too stupid to understand him, was he?

Several times he has announced that he was either ready to explain how homoeopathic remedies work, scientifically, or to demonstrate that there is actually remedy substance present in ultramolar potencies. But still he hasn't actually got round to doing that.

Now this last would be really good. In fact he's out on a limb here even among homoeopaths. Virtually all of them, and all of them who've had any sort of scientific background, agree and acknowledge that there is no remedy substance in ultramolar dilutions. But no, apparently Dr. Mas can prove us all wrong.

It seems this might actually involve splitting the atom by means of shaking the bottle, which I for one would be most interested to hear about.

However, still silence.

So why did he come here? Did he never intend to present this evidence? If not, why start the thread? Or if he did, what's keeping him?

Will he ever return?

Rolfe.

 

[Ipecac]

Dr. Naeem, press and information secretary of WHCC, has released a press report today with my consent. In which, WHCC offers you to compete for winning one million rupees prize money, if you prove that homeopathy is paranormal in nature and it has no link with scientific rulings.

First, you'd have to prove that homeopathy does ANYTHING.

Then you could look at what it does and try to determine the cause. I don't know how you could prove that something is paranormal.

 

[wahrheit]

www.nchpakistan.com

Too bad, the "CURED CASES" link in the "Homeopath's Pages" doesn't work for me. Any idea? I guess it's because I'm using a Mac, though.

 

[steenkh]

(could not delete: now left a blank post instead, sorry)

 

[Mojo]

I'd just like to interject here about something that's niggled me for some time.

Sorry, I should have said Avogadro's limit, assuming that's the correct term. Homeopathy never really came up during my time in education (I was studying real sciences ), so terms used when describing solutions with no solute in them were never covered.

 

[Garrette]

Dear Avogadro,

Please and kindly return your number. It is of such a high order that we thought there could possibly be no harm in allowing you to take it. Who could conceive, after all, of someone actually counting that high?

Sadly, we were mistaken. The absence of your number from what remains an admittedly infinite series has become the source of many numerical troubles. It is no doubt difficult to believe how one number out of so many could have so significant an effect, but I will endeavor to explain.

Imagine any sequence of ninety-nine numbers. For example, let us imagine the sequence 114 through 212. Hardly remarkable. But now imagine that we take your number and toss it in the middle of that sequence. It would stand out in a rather large way. So far things are unremarkable and as expected.

But further imagine that we take the modified sequence (including your number) and throw it into a batch of a thousand other sequential numbers. Does your number still stand out? Of course it does, even if we shake the whole bunch up; it is, after all, a large and distinctive number.

Now comes the tricky part. Take a ladle, made specially for holding numbers and measured to hold exactly one hundred of them, and dip it into our shaken up sequence.

Ladle a hundred numbers into a bucket, a hundred numbers into another bucket, and continue ladling until you have eleven buckets of one hundred numbers each.

Now add an additional thousand numbers to each of the eleven buckets, shake them up again, and ladle a hundred from each into more buckets.

Do this again.

And again.

And again.

Don’t lose track of the buckets.

Finally, we come to the key question: In which bucket is your number?

The frighteningly true answer is that we do not know because you have kept your number.

Do you see our problem?

Do not misunderstand. Math and science have progressed nicely during the time you have kept your number to yourself. Yet there are those who have seized upon its absence to perpetrate perfidies of the most non-mathematical sort.

You would be amused, I think, to witness these crimes were they not such an unreasoned assault upon the intellect.

Some people ignore your number completely and use its absence to “prove” that that which is not there is in fact there.

Others stand near the hole where your number once was and shove their own numbers through it. These numbers would interest you greatly; some cannot be shown to exist at all, while others are tied to the series from which yours came, resulting in all our numbers eating themselves in an infinite loop, round and round, through and through that gap.

So you see, we really must insist. Despite the emotional attachment we are certain you have developed for this number, it can no longer be considered yours. For the sake of all science, it simply must rejoin its brethren in their unceasing fight against folly.

Sincerely,

All of Reality

P.S. You may, for the moment, retain your Law.

cc: Fibonacci

 

[geni]

Kharian (WHCC Press Report)



He said, when I requested to skeptics to define what exactly the meaning of “Paranormal” is to them. They all failed to state the exact requirement. Everybody was explaining in his own understanding and did not support any evidence in their claim. Each member was declaring his/her opinion correct and were denying the others like “Too many cooks spoil the broth” (every player had an idea for how the music should go) .

No there are a number of different reason why homeopathy is paranormal but that does not stop it from being paranormal

After too much argument, one finally disclosed that according to the scientific law i.e “Avogadro’s Law” you can’t find molecule of homeopathic starting material in above 24x potency. When it was asked who told you or did you see yourself the molecules in the dilution or you are depending upon other biased information then they unable reply correctly.

You can’t see things that are smaller than the wavelength of light. If you are going to claim there are particles of the starting material present in the final remedy can you provide evidence to support this claim? If not you are committing the argument by assertion logical fallacy.

They were looking at the dark side and were not ready to understand that the man who presented that idea actually proved that equation of Avogadro’s law on paper and not through practical means and secondly he did not know the process of dynamization and succession process which we mostly perform in order to prepare homeopathic potency.

I understand these processes. I have even made homeopathic remedies

Dr. MAS said, I inquired,

Why probability rule was not applied and why the emphasis was given specially over Avogadro’s law. He also said, there are so many laws and principles which can be applied over homeopathic dilutions in order to understand its fact. Dr. MAS informed the executive members that Homeopathic starting materials are found in various forms e.g. solid, liquid and gas etc He said, we also use hydrogen potency, the preparation of hydrogen is different from the solid based preparation.

Avogadro’s law is simply an effective way of pointing out that matter is not infinitely divisible.

The particles in a solid cannot change places so a solid will keep its shape (unless it is broken). Liquids can flow. This is because the particles can move past each other. The forces holding the particles together in a liquid are not as strong as those in a solid. In gases, the particles are very spread out. The particles are always changing places with each other. For each preparation of homeopathic dilution the procedure is different and scientific formula to explain chemical action is also different depends upon the solute and solvent. The properties of things depend on what particles are there and how the particles are arranged.

He said, we also know that molecules break down during chemical reaction. This is the simplest fact in the scientific world. Suppose, if we success two chemicals during the preparation of homeopathic potency then in each potency a chemical reaction between the solute and solvent will take place. We should always keep this reaction in mind during the study of Avogadro’s effect in potency making.

You forget that there is the homeopathic remedy helium. In this case it is impossible for any reactions between the solvent and helium to take place

Dr. MAS said, we cannot oversight other laws of chemistry like probability law during the preparation of potency preparation. He further explained that the probability of two independent events both occurring is equal to the product of their individual probabilities. He presented an example and said, If you flip a coin the probability of its being heads is 1/2 or 0.5. If you flip a second coin the probability that it will be heads is also 1/2 or 0.5. However, the probability that both coins will turn up heads is 1/2 x 1/2, or 1/4. If you flip three coins the probability that all three will turn up heads is 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2, or 1/8. In the same way, when you take one drop from the previous dilution then probability of transfer of molecules from one dilution to another would be of different in each case. He denies that Avogadro’s law is the single law applicable on homeopathic dilutions. The big thing to remember... Matter can change in two major ways, physically and chemically. There is lot of difference between mixture and chemical bonding. Remedies involve serial dilutions by factors of 10 or 100 with succession. Remedies are also potentized, using a variety of methods which include vortices and rhythmic movements of liquids, exposure to warmth and light rhythms, and so on. Biodynamic field and compost preparations are potentized through a dynamic stirring methods.

Biodynamic fields? A search of web of knowledge produces no relevant results therefore it is safe to believe that the term has no scientific meaning. While I suspect I know what is being talked about would anyone like to confirm?

The skeptics think that when you dissolve Opium then a mixture of Opium and solvent (alcohol or water ) is produced.

No I don’t

This is wrong. Beside mixture, chemical bonding between the ingredients of Opium and solvent (pure Alcohol or distilled water) were also took place.

Can you show that every component of opium can bond with both ethanol and distilled water?

They only study the mixture behavior of Opium and alcohol and they do not give weightage to chemical reaction, which is going on between Opium constituents (many alkaloids) and alcohol (here alcohol means any solvent it may be water, alcohol or glycerin etc) molecules, in each potency. Opium has six alkaloids, Morphine is one of it, which also reacts with the solvent i.e. if opium (very first starting material) is reacting with solvent, then other six alkaloids or ingredients of homeopathic potencies are also reacting with solvents. And for their kind information, pharmacists on the very first stage dissolve opium with alcohol in order to extract morphine from it. They also stir the alcohol during the extraction process. What does this mean, it means according to probability law, when you dissolve or success a homeopathic starting material in the solvent then the starting material also breaks down into its contents. Whether it breaks or not, the probability will be remained effective, if the starting material breaks into its constituents (whether by chemical means or through physical process), then according to the probability law, the second dilution might form another chemical structure which can be termed as opium 2 (although the starting material at start was opium), so if on a dilution bottle, opium 30c is printed than it is quite possible that it may not contain pure molecules of opium rather many molecules of opium and its ingredients. But as the starting material, which was used at startup was opium hence for understanding it was declared as opium 30c.

You are making the flawed assumption that there will be one mole of each constituent.

Here another question arises, which skeptics were unable to understood.

When the molecules of a starting material (homeo medicines) were broken down and it was transferred in dilution number two during succession process then why the molecules of starting material (and its constituents) in potency number two were not considered as “single” mole again? This is the most important question to deny “single” Avogadro’s law application.

A mole is 6.02214199*10<sup>23</su> items. If there are few than that number of items in successive dilutions then there are less than a mole

 

[Mojo]

I understand these processes. I have even made homeopathic remedies

Do you have any evidence that they worked as well as anybody else's?

 

[steenkh]

Kharian (WHCC Press Report)

Thanks, Geni! If Dr. MAS had presented these views immediately, we could have saved a lot of time and bandwidth, and gone straight on to the serious arguments!

It is funny how various woo-woos have difficulty with the word "paranormal". It is true that the meaning is slightly hazy, but JREF has no problem challenging people who are working outside science, but who are not necessarily claiming magic phenomena. Homoeopathy is based on magical thinking, but its supporters are really offended when their practice is branded "paranormal"!

Dr. MAS said:
After too much argument, one finally disclosed that according to the scientific law i.e “Avogadro’s Law” you can’t find molecule of homeopathic starting material in above 24x potency. When it was asked who told you or did you see yourself the molecules in the dilution or you are depending upon other biased information then they unable reply correctly.

So this is an examination? We did not give the correct answer! He has an extraordinary claim, but we have to see for ourselves those molecules in the dilution, otherwise our arguments are worth nothing? The JREF has staked a million dollars on this: prove that there is a difference between a homoeopathic solution and the solvent alone, and the money is won!

Dr. MAS then goes on about the various techniques that homoeopaths use that apparently opens up whole fields of theory for each remedy, ending up with his pet theory that the molecules of the remedy break up during the succussion:

Whether it breaks or not, the probability will be remained effective, if the starting material breaks into its constituents (whether by chemical means or through physical process), then according to the probability law, the second dilution might form another chemical structure which can be termed as opium 2 (although the starting material at start was opium), so if on a dilution bottle, opium 30c is printed than it is quite possible that it may not contain pure molecules of opium rather many molecules of opium and its ingredients. But as the starting material, which was used at startup was opium hence for understanding it was declared as opium 30c.

I am not a chemist, but I can imagine that in some cases the "starting material" will react with its solvent, but even if new molecules are build in this way (and I think there are many cases where this is not so), constant dilution up to Avogadro's limit should remove even these new molecules from the solvent, so I cannot see how chemical reactions change anything.

I simply cannot see that Dr. MAS has found a loophole in Avogadro's Law (or whatever it might be called), even if he is correct in his assumptions!

Can somebody more qualified please enlighten me?

 

[Kumar]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Dr. MAS
.... a protocol can be built to prove that “yes”, the molecules are present in 31c potency.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He may prove it.


Several times he has announced that he was either ready to explain how homoeopathic remedies work, scientifically, or to demonstrate that there is actually remedy substance present in ultramolar potencies. But still he hasn't actually got round to doing that.

Mostly, he can show you molecular presence. So just take care.

Now this last would be really good. In fact he's out on a limb here even among homoeopaths. Virtually all of them, and all of them who've had any sort of scientific background, agree and acknowledge that there is no remedy substance in ultramolar dilutions. But no, apparently Dr. Mas can prove us all wrong.

Mostly yes.

It seems this might actually involve splitting the atom by means of shaking the bottle, which I for one would be most interested to hear about.

Photons do come out of a molecule/atom, but he may not tell splitting, photons etc., but some other secret.

However, still silence.

His silence can be alike silence before a storm & his speaking alike a storm. Just take care. You may learn something from him, then????what you said?

So why did he come here? Did he never intend to present this evidence? If not, why start the thread? Or if he did, what's keeping him?

Will he ever return?

Don't be so skeptic? He is still here.

 

[steenkh]

His silence can be alike silence before a storm & his speaking alike a storm. Just take care. You may learn something from him, then????what you said?

Kumar has found his Messiah!

 

[Ashles]

Why can't we delete posts?

 

[patchbunny]

A mole is 6.02214199*10²³ items. If there are few than that number of items in successive dilutions then there are less than a mole

For my own edification:

Suppose we’re dissolving salt (NaCl) in a one molar concentration in our homeopathic starting mix. As I remember chemistry (which may well be wrong – it’s been a while and I always had trouble with moles and molar concentrations), when the mole of NaCl breaks down (assume all of it does) into Na⁺ and Cl^-, we now have a mole of Na⁺ and a mole of Cl^-. But since we’ve taken a 1C sample into Tube 1, that tube only contains 0.01 moles of Na⁺ and Cl^-, correct?

The more I read of Dr MAS posts, he seems to think that the concentrations are remaining the same, and that Tube 1 contains a mole of Na⁺ and Cl^-. Am I interpreting him correctly?

--Patch

 

[Kumar]

You can’t see things that are smaller than the wavelength of light. If you are going to claim there are particles of the starting material present in the final remedy can you provide evidence to support this claim? If not you are committing the argument by assertion logical fallacy......

[/B]

geni,

Btw, whether chemical reactions between starting active substances and carriers(water, alcohol or lactose) are not yet checked? With so much head breakings & research, can it be still possible that, this basic consideration is not yet be seen? If chemical reactions were there, then homeopathic remedies could be easily explaind in chemical equations. Furthur, chemical reactions can mean different substances/molecule--how then it will resemble with remedy's MM symptoms? Just a thought for you. I think, secret can be different.

 

[andycal]

This thread has been diluted so much now that the orginal point of it has been lost.

Doesn't that prove something?

 

[Rolfe]

The more I read of Dr MAS posts, he seems to think that the concentrations are remaining the same, and that Tube 1 contains a mole of Na⁺ and Cl^-. Am I interpreting him correctly?

God alone knows. I don't think even Dr. Mas has any clear idea about what he himself means.

It's true that exact calculations are impossible when you don't know the concentration of the original mother tincture. It's one of the boggle-factors in homoeopathy that so many of the remedies are mashed-up whole plants (or animals in some cases), and the implication is that there is some wondrous property inherent in this mixture. But then they dilute and dilute until barely a molecule is left, and then you have to ask yourself, if this was Belladonna I started with, is my molecule one of chlorophyll, or atropine? And does it matter?

Did I start with a mole of chlorophyll and a mole of atropine and a mole of every other molecule in the plant? Well, no actually. We've no idea what you started with. But we hazard a guess that you might have started with a mole or thereabouts of mixed molecules, as we've got to start somewhere. If you have less than a mole of your active constituent, and the rest is of no account, then it will take even fewer dilutions to get rid of it all. If they all count, I think it is also paranormal to declare that the atropine molecule and the chlorophyll molecule each have the same properties once they're separated into different bottles, just because they were once part of the same plant. And we still run out of molecules about where we predicted we would, anyway.

Mas seems to be touting two basic ideas. One I think is that molecules may be broken down as the dilutions proceed. Well, it's easy to see that this is nonsense in theory (as well as in practice when considering the bond energy you'd have to break). Supposing you had a polysaccharide molecule which contained 100 monosaccharide units. And supposing by some miracle of physics you could break it down gradually to monosaccharides by "potentisation". Then even further to even smaller molecules, until you ended up with CO<SUB>2</SUB> and water. Off the top of my head, you'd have about 1,200 molecules. (And about half of them would just be water but never mind.) So, you've just extended the dilution series before you run out of molecules by two steps. Even if you then split these molecules to their component atoms, I'm not sure you even need another dilution step to deal with that. Then we're into splitting the atom again.

I don't think he realises that even the biggest macromolecules, broken down to small and simple compounds or even atoms (if that were possible) only extends our estimate of the value of Avogadro's limit by a few dilution steps - no more than the uncertainty inherent from having to make assumptions about the concentration of the mother tincture in the first place.

But even he probably realises that this doesn't even get off the starting block when applied to remedies of small molecules or atomic substances. So I think he's postulating that new molecules form by combining the remedy molecules and the solvent molecules. Of course he hasn't the vaguest idea what these might be, or the slightest shred of chemistry to back any of that up. One might throw his own exhortation back at him - "For God's sake go and learn some basic chemistry!"

But no matter how many new compounds might form from the remedy substance, that doesn't make more remedy substance. So in the end, dilute it enough and away it goes. Leaving behind some of the solvent that was once involved in a compound with the remedy? And so possibly changed as a result?

We might be back at good old "water memory" again here. Well, at least there's precedent for that, it's a well-trodden path.

Never mind, Dr. Mas , just show us any way at all you can tell the potentised remedy from the stock solvent straight out of the bottle. Show us those molecules under your electron microscope, show us the patients you can definitely prove you cured, show us that you can tell by "proving" it whether you were given the remedy or the stock solvent. Show us anything at all.

Until you can do that, all the fantasising in the world about bogus pseudo-chemistry isn't going to cut any ice.

Rolfe.

 

[geni]

geni,

Btw, whether chemical reactions between starting active substances and carriers(water, alcohol or lactose) are not yet checked?

We know more about the interaction between solvents and solutes than you can posibly imagain. I'm not kidding here

With so much head breakings & research, can it be still possible that, this basic consideration is not yet be seen?

No^tm

If chemical reactions were there, then homeopathic remedies could be easily explaind in chemical equations. Furthur, chemical reactions can mean different substances/molecule--how then it will resemble with remedy's MM symptoms? Just a thought for you. I think, secret can be different. [/B]

The above makes no sense.