What is paranormal in Homeopathy

[Rolfe]

Actually, talking about a test protocol, Kramer has just confirmed (as regards Wellfed and his audio tweak woo) that for a yes/no decision (which obviously applies here), the JREF will accept 10 tests and 9 right out of the 10 as being good enough for the preliminary phase of the challenge.

So that makes it even easier for Syed if he's serious about this.

I did try to suggest a suitable protocol which I think would be a good basis for starting negotiations with the JREF, but as you can see from the thread Kramer doesn't want to endorse anything even provisionally until someone has put in an official application.

Still, Syed said he wanted a suggested protocol, and I've obliged. Just click on the link. Not guaranteed, but why not take it up with Kramer in earnest?

I'll be totally fascinated to see what Syed's objections are to this suggestion.

Heck, here's the relevant part of the post.

.... get the applicant to nominate a commercial homoeopathic pharmacy in his area, then find a few local sceptics who were prepared to act as witnesses to ensure that the remedies were prepared absolutely honestly. Both the applicant (and his mates, within reason) and (maybe the same number of) the sceptics would watch while the usual technicians did the diluting and succussing according to the applicant's preferred method. At the same time a sufficient quantity of identical bottles of stock carrier material would be prepared, the only difference being that they'd never been near a mother tincture. The applicant could choose which remedies were included, as many different ones as he liked, so long as they were all ultramolar.

An unbreakable random code would be agreed on, so that while the identity of the bottle dispensed could definitely be established after the trial, there would be no possibility of the applicant guessing what he'd been given (obviously this needs thought and negotiation). All the observers would make sure that all this was done honestly, and all the materials passed over to lawyer 1.

Everybody would go away. The applicant would decide which remedy he wanted to try first, either depending on the symptoms of any volunteer he could scare up, or what he thought he could "prove" on himself or a healthy volunteer. He would tell lawyer 1 what he wanted. Lawyer 1 would toss a coin, and depending on whether it was heads or tails (assignation of heads or tails to real remedy to be kept constant throughout the trial) he would send the applicant either the remedy he asked for, or one of the sham bottles.

The applicant would do whatever he liked with the stuff, presumably dose either himself or a volunteer with it, and decide by what he observed whether he'd been given the real thing or the sham. He would notify his decision to lawyer 2, who would not be in communication with lawyer 1. He would then wait until he was ready to try again, and repeat the exercise.

After he's had ten bottles to try, and made the ten decisions, the two lawyers would communicate, break the blinding, and announce whether he'd managed nine right or not.

Oh yes, and the applicant pays the professional fees for the lawyers and the homoeopathic pharmacy.

Rolfe (off to watch Doctor Who, see you later).

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I can tell it's late with you. BSM and I are in the same time zone together

though on the same planet as you, unlike our visitors from Planet Stupid.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Right boys, let's try this again since both of you seem incapable of reading the question we'll try it in BIG WRITING

MAS, let's say you have a 1ml of 1 molar solution of Na₂SO₄ solution. In 1 litre you would have 6.022 x 10²³ of each of the component moieties of Na₂SO₄. In 100ml you will have 6.022 x 10²².

If you want to use this as the basis for your next 1 in 100 dilution you will draw 1ml into a pipette and add 99ml water.

If the solution was well-mixed when you drew up that 1ml it will contain 6.022 x 10²⁰ of each of the components of Na₂SO₄.

You are suggesting that there may be some other number drawn up. How many? What are the chances that the aspirate will contain a number substantially different from 6.022 x 10²⁰?

Syed, you need to do a simple piece of arithmetic.

Divide 602,200,000,000,000,000,000 by 800,352,112.676.
What is the answer? How many atoms or molecules are there in the epinephrine solution you mentioned?

Come on, boys, this is easy, but there is a reason why we have real qualifications from real institutions and the pair of you have your phoney certificates. Just supposing your students are reading this, I wonder what they are thinking about seeing you two humiliated.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Heck, here's the relevant part of the post.Rolfe (off to watch Doctor Who, see you later).

I really like Christopher Eccleston. Equal favourite with Tom Baker.

(But let's not derail and let Laurel and Hardy lose track of what they are supposed to be doing.)

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Who is the more trollish? The troll or the fools who keep feeding the troll? - Obi-Wan Kenobi (taken from his little known blog - "Once were Jedi".)

This is just fun. It's like when you finish a computer game, but return to the first level just to stomp on the baddies for the sheer amusement.

 

[Homeopath Syed]

Beware

Fine...

Then what works ?

Anyone willing to take Anacardium-200 TDS daily for 10 days ???

He is bound to prove it and get following symptoms..

Forgetful
Pustulation upon skin
Severe colic empty stomach

So .... my dear readers... It has been proved by the BSM, Rolfe and Co. that there is not a single molecule of the drug beyound 18C potencty...

I invite them to take not 20, not 30th.....But 200th...Where there is absolute confirmation that the Alcohol Career is free from all medicine...

Moreover, Geni as just confired that Alcohol may not keep memory of any electromegnetic signature being less polar than water...
(However I have strong disagreement for it - I ll discuss it later)

So now...

I invite the debaters to come forward and prove it ???

For I wont try it on myself at all.

the test is to take (Marking Nut only) Anacardium-200 TDS for 10 days ... and nothing may happen to the person taking this potency. as per Rolfe, BSM and Co.

The challenge has just taken a turn...!

You say it doesn't work... You Prove it .... !

Do you Disagree ?

 

[Darat]

Where can I get hold of it? As long as I know it is a 200th dilution as per the so called "homeopathic" method then I'm happy to drink a glass of it everyday for a month.

However personally I am much more interested in one of your claims e.g. being able to cure Spondylitis. What do I take to “cure” this?

 

[Darat]

Oh and you may like to read this article:

http://www.randi.org/jr/060404mass.html

MASS SUICIDE FAILURE IN BELGIUM

According to a recent report in Skeptical Inquirer, major health insurance companies in Belgium have decided to begin covering the costs of homeopathy, in response to popular public demand. This resulted in an "ultimate protest" by a group of skeptics there. Depressed by the willingness of the insurance companies to encourage quackery, 23 Belgian skeptics announced that they would commit mass suicide by drinking a homeopathic cocktail of lethal poisons including arsenic, snake venom, and belladonna. Knowing that the more diluted a homeopathic remedy is, the more powerful it becomes, they even increased the potency by preparing a "30c" solution of the cocktail.

Lest you fear that these brave volunteers were taking chances, that "30c" meant, one part of the poisons mixed with 1060 parts of water, which equates to the same concentration as a solution of one grain of salt in ten thousand billion spheres of water the size of the solar system. All newspapers and TV stations were invited to watch the death agonies of the 23 deranged suicides, who included a number of prominent citizens and professors of medicine, "and a few normal people armed only with common sense."

The media coverage was excellent, but the suicide attempt was a dismal failure, aside from a couple of encouraging burps. Drat!

...snip...

 

[MRC_Hans]

Re: Beware

Fine...

Then what works ?

Not homeopathic remedies .

Anyone willing to take Anacardium-200 TDS daily for 10 days ???

No problem if you pay.

He is bound to prove it and get following symptoms..

Forgetful
Pustulation upon skin
Severe colic empty stomach

That is a 1 million $ claim.

So .... my dear readers... It has been proved by the BSM, Rolfe and Co. that there is not a single molecule of the drug beyound 18C potencty...

12C to be precise.

I invite them to take not 20, not 30th.....But 200th...Where there is absolute confirmation that the Alcohol Career is free from all medicine...

YOU don't wanna win the 1 million $ ????

Moreover, Geni as just confired that Alcohol may not keep memory of any electromegnetic signature being less polar than water...
(However I have strong disagreement for it - I ll discuss it later)

Why not now? Provide some good explanation how Alcohol can keep memory of ANYTHING. ..... Or water, for that matter .

So now...

I invite the debaters to come forward and prove it ???

For I wont try it on myself at all.

No. I already tried something else, for the sake of some silly homeopaths. NOW, YOU provide evidence. It is YOUR claim, so YOU provide evidence. I'll give you my postal address. You send me some remedy and some blank pills. I will mark them with random numbers and send them back to you. You tell me which is the right ones and which are blanks (Note, I'll let a lab check that you did not slip some trace substance into the remedy).

the test is to take (Marking Nut only) Anacardium-200 TDS for 10 days ... and nothing may happen to the person taking this potency. as per Rolfe, BSM and Co.

The challenge has just taken a turn...!

No [tm].

You say it doesn't work... You Prove it .... !

Do you Disagree ?

Yes. You are a fool. YOU make the claim, YOU provide the evidence. Otherwise, prove I don't have a dragon in my garage .

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

OK, well Syed, let's move on. Now folks, we have something unusual: A homeopath who sticks to a testable claim:

"Anybody who takes Anacardium-200 TDS for 10 days will show the following symptoms:

Forgetful
Pustulation upon skin
Severe colic empty stomach"

Right, Syed, is that your claim? Sure you don't wanna put in some probabilities, or something??


Hans

 

[Mojo]

Re: Beware

Anyone willing to take Anacardium-200 TDS daily for 10 days ???

He is bound to prove it and get following symptoms..

Forgetful
Pustulation upon skin
Severe colic empty stomach

Hang on, if they become forgetful they may not remember what symptoms they're supposed to be developing!

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

And now in colour !

Right boys, let's try this again since both of you seem incapable of reading the question we'll try it in BIG WRITING

MAS, let's say you have a 1ml of 1 molar solution of Na₂SO₄ solution. In 1 litre you would have 6.022 x 10²³ of each of the component moieties of Na₂SO₄. In 100ml you will have 6.022 x 10²².

If you want to use this as the basis for your next 1 in 100 dilution you will draw 1ml into a pipette and add 99ml water.

If the solution was well-mixed when you drew up that 1ml it will contain 6.022 x 10²⁰ of each of the components of Na₂SO₄.

You are suggesting that there may be some other number drawn up. How many? What are the chances that the aspirate will contain a number substantially different from 6.022 x 10²⁰?

Syed, you need to do a simple piece of arithmetic.

Divide 602,200,000,000,000,000,000 by 800,352,112.676.
What is the answer? How many atoms or molecules are there in the epinephrine solution you mentioned?

Come on, boys, this is easy, but there is a reason why we have real qualifications from real institutions and the pair of you have your phoney certificates. Just supposing your students are reading this, I wonder what they are thinking about seeing you two humiliated.

 

[Mojo]

Re: Beware

Can there be electromegnatic impressions upon the molecules of a solvent by the solute...if repeatedly jerked ?

How many jerks does it take to make a homeopathic remedy?

 

[geni]

And now in colour !

PErhaps you need to try sterio.

 

[Rolfe]

Syed, CAN YOU READ???

Or only if it's in some stupid pastel colour????

YOU WANTED A PROTOCOL. HERE IS A PROTOCOL. CAN YOU DO IT???? Let's try that pretty hue Mas was using....

.... get the applicant to nominate a commercial homoeopathic pharmacy in his area, then find a few local sceptics who were prepared to act as witnesses to ensure that the remedies were prepared absolutely honestly. Both the applicant (and his mates, within reason) and (maybe the same number of) the sceptics would watch while the usual technicians did the diluting and succussing according to the applicant's preferred method. At the same time a sufficient quantity of identical bottles of stock carrier material would be prepared, the only difference being that they'd never been near a mother tincture. The applicant could choose which remedies were included, as many different ones as he liked, so long as they were all ultramolar.

An unbreakable random code would be agreed on, so that while the identity of the bottle dispensed could definitely be established after the trial, there would be no possibility of the applicant guessing what he'd been given (obviously this needs thought and negotiation). All the observers would make sure that all this was done honestly, and all the materials passed over to lawyer 1.

Everybody would go away. The applicant would decide which remedy he wanted to try first, either depending on the symptoms of any volunteer he could scare up, or what he thought he could "prove" on himself or a healthy volunteer. He would tell lawyer 1 what he wanted. Lawyer 1 would toss a coin, and depending on whether it was heads or tails (assignation of heads or tails to real remedy to be kept constant throughout the trial) he would send the applicant either the remedy he asked for, or one of the sham bottles.

The applicant would do whatever he liked with the stuff, presumably dose either himself or a volunteer with it, and decide by what he observed whether he'd been given the real thing or the sham. He would notify his decision to lawyer 2, who would not be in communication with lawyer 1. He would then wait until he was ready to try again, and repeat the exercise.

After he's had ten bottles to try, and made the ten decisions, the two lawyers would communicate, break the blinding, and announce whether he'd managed nine right or not.

Oh yes, and the applicant pays the professional fees for the lawyers and the homoeopathic pharmacy.

Never mind whether we'll take your stupid remedy or not. Speaking for myself, been there, seen that, done that, bought the t-shirt, got told that the reason nothing happened was that I drank a cup of coffee one day.

CAN YOU DO THE PROTOCOL????

Rolfe.

(BSM, you were there when that idiot Hoare challenged me, and Hans and Geni were there when I actually took the stuff, and you remember what happened. Or rather didn't happen. And Hans tried it too. And can you believe these guys, do you think they all work from a script?)

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

(BSM, you were there when that idiot Hoare challenged me, and Hans and Geni were there when I actually took the stuff, and you remember what happened. Or rather didn't happen. And Hans tried it too. And can you believe these guys, do you think they all work from a script?)

It is more than a little pathetic that when pushed into a corner both of them have only two things to say, "I gave a remedy to a patient and he got better" (but I'm not going to listen when you point out that the patient would have got better anyway) and "Go on, try it yourself, you'll get immediate dramatic effects" (but I'll ignore the fact that many sceptics have personally tried this and found nothing whatsoever).

Neither of them is capable of raising even the most fragile defence of their position. They make Bach and Barb look like models of academic rigour.

It is quite interesting that they seem to have made an attempt to get their students to watch this spectacle. Perhaps some of them will learn from seeing their masters shown up as buffoons.

Would any of MAS and Syed's students like to comment? Feel free to join in.

 

[Kumar]

Btw, when we dissolve any substance in water, does this solution not become homegenous?

 

[Zep]

I think it has become rather obvious that we need to provide some basic chemistry understanding for these people, and some real numbers for them to work with. And I believe it's necessary to remind our REAL chemists that terms like "ml", "litre", "molar", "pipette", and using scientific powers of 10 notation, etc, (i.e. basic science) is probably something rather new to them. So let's just try winding back both our responses AND the challenge specification to primary school maths and science level instead. What we need to do first is obtain some genuine facts. I do realise these have been provided earlier in this thread, but let's go from the start and slowly for them.

First up, can I ask some chemists to tell us how many molecules would there be in 1ml (approx. 1 drop) of pure water, and in 1ml (approx. 1 drop) of pure medicinal alcohol.

Second, can someone please tell us how much water/alcohol is used at each dilution of a homeopathic remedy if prepared manually. I understand it's one hundred drops (99 solvent plus one drop of the previous dilution). Confirmation from a homeopath, please?



PS. I also think that both Dr MAS and Homeopath Syed teach no "students" at all - it's a bluff. Also, here's an amusing document.

 

[geni]

First up, can I ask some chemists to tell us how many molecules would there be in 1ml (approx. 1 drop) of pure water,

About 33459020896440000000000

 

[Zep]

About 33,459,020,896,440,000,000,000

Thank you! And being a skeptic, I'll bet you counted and labelled each and every one!

OK, we have one value to work with -

NUMBER OF MOLECULES IN 1ml (1 drop) of water ~= 33,460,000,000,000,000,000,000