What is paranormal in Homeopathy

Thanks for that info. I am almost ashamed to admit i have a masters in Medical Statistics from the same institution as Walach
 
Oops, I said five papers, but linked to a post which cited only the four concerning belladonna. The fifth concerns mercury, and here is a complete list from another post of mine.
Rolfe said:
We have looked at what the large homoeopathic institutions do, and at their publications. BSM has several times, both here and on H'pathy, posted a very comprehensive critique of Scherr's writings on provings, demonstrating that the whole thing is hopelessly riddled with subjectivity and bias.

When BSM asked a homoeopath to point out the best example of the modern, double-blinded, scientific provings that he was insisting are being done, the link he was given was to the Devon School of Homoeopathy. I've never seen a better example of new-age Sympathetic Magic outside of Frazer. A slew of self-obsessed maunderings, collated by someone who knows exactly what is being proved, and which provers (if any, often there were none) got the placebo, and was deliberately selecting "themes" thought to be consistent with the spirit of the remedy.

It's been pointed out many times that when properly blinded proving trials are carried out, they fail to detect any specific or general effects of the remedy over placebo.

GOODYEAR, K., LEWITH, G. & LOW, J. L. (1998) Randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial of homoeopathic 'proving' for Belladonna C30. J. R. Soc. Med. 91(11), 579-82.

VICKERS, A. J., VAN HASELEN, R. & HEGER, M. (2001) Can homeopathically prepared mercury cause symptoms in healthy volunteers? A randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial. J. Altern. Complement. Med. 7(2), 141-8.

WALACH, H. (1993) Does a highly diluted homeopathic drug act as a placebo in healthy volunteers? Experimental study of Belladonna 30C in a double blind crossover design - a pilot study. J. Psychosomatic Res. 37(8), 851-860.

WALACH, H., KOSTER, H., HENNIG, T., & HAAG, G. (2001) The effects of homeopathic belladonna 30CH in healthy volunteers - a randomized, double-blind experiment. J. Psychosomatic Res. 50(3), 155-160.

BRIEN, S., LEWITH, G. & BRYANT, T. (2003) Ultramolecular homeopathy has no observable clinical effects. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled proving trial of Belladonna 30C. Br. J. Clin. Pharmacol. 56(5), 562-568.

Yes, homoeopaths have soundly criticised these protocols. However, most of the studies were carried out by keen homoeopathy proponents, and all used homoeopaths to help design the protocols. This is part of the "what is homoeopathy" problem - anything seems to go so long as success is claimed, but as soon as a negative result appears, the protocol, no matter how carefully accredited beforehand, is instantly denounced as "not homoeopathy". All of the criticisms put forward would equally (if not more so) be applicable to the accepted provings - but, since these unblinded and subjective methods claimed success that's OK then.

Ther is nothing inherently incompatible about homoeopathy and the scientific method. Real-world effects are claimed, often striking effects, and effects like these are testable. It's just one more constant frustration that homoeopaths simply will not consider such testing, and invariably denounce the methods when anyone does do such testing.
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steenkh said:
You are quite right, but according to homoeopathic theory, 30C, or 200C would be much stronger. Would it not be easier for you to get an effect out of a stronger preparation than a weaker one?
Why did you choose 13C? Is that because you are not quite sure that the calculation is correct, and that you hope therefore to be able to locate something that otherwise would not have been there?

You do believe in homoeopahy, don't you?
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To reach on mars and to land on moon are similar with simple difference in distance one will take longer time then later. both 13c and 30c are equally important to me. One will take less effort to prove and other will take longer time with more techniques to adopt.

But why are you worried about 13c and 30c or why you are forcing to select 30c or 200c. Is your calculation wrong?

I think, we should select 14c potency? What do you say? is it ok?
 
I don't think anyone is worried about 13c or 30c. I think the point is that if homeopathy is correct and weaker dilutions are more potent, then it is being made easier for you to get results. And all skeptics are happy with that. In general, any dilution from 13C onwards will be acceptable, so yes 14C is fine.
 
13C is also fine! And 12C - even though there might be a few MT molecules present - would be fine in the sense that there exists no technique that can identify such small numbers of molecules; it would probably be a challenge to produce a solvent of sufficient purity.

ClusterBoy is right. We were only trying to help you by suggesting 200C. And I also asked you if you picked 13C because you yourself are not completely confident about homoeopathic theory holding up in such a test.
 
I would have thought 200C or so would be a good choice for sceptic and homeopath alike: sceptics because the probability of finding any MT molecules would be getting as close to zero as you can get without passing it, and homeopaths because the effects according to them should be stronger and more noticeable. Not to mention the fact that, as described in another thread, Sheikh seemed to indicate that "in higher potencies these molecules are very less in numbers but have more area to vibrate".

Regardless, though, as steenkh points out Sheikh, the limit we're discussing is the boundary between "possibly a tiny amount of molecules" and "no molecules at all". Our position would be that even if there were any molecules of MT left in a (correctly prepared) 12C potency, any physiological effect of these would be nil anyway.

So that's why all agree that 13C is fine, but very slightly confusing.
 
Nucular said:
So that's why all agree that 13C is fine, but very slightly confusing.
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I would have thought that 30c would be a better example to use as it seems to be a potency in common use by homoeopaths, and therefore easier to obtain from a reasonably independent source.
 
Mojo said:
I would have thought that 30c would be a better example to use as it seems to be a potency in common use by homoeopaths, and therefore easier to obtain from a reasonably independent source.
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Sounds sensible to me - though for some reason Sheikh seems to want to go only just past the Avogadro-defined limit. I wonder if he's hinting at a completely different "understanding" of how homeopathy "works" than most homeopaths would subscribe to. Still, 13, 14, or 30C, I hope Sheikh's clear he's not meeting opposition, only suggestions given on a pragmatic level.
 
I already said, the more you will raise the potency the more techniques will be involved to prove. So you all agreed with 13c. Thanks
 
I am not convinced about this test if it simply means showing the presence of material remaining at a 14C dilution. In another thread people were talking about the potentizer machine, and the possibility that it did not adequately dilute the material. There is also the possibility of contamination of the solvent, or of inadequately cleaned tubing and flasks in the potentizer. We know that parts of some remedies are not soluble. Whether the insoluble parts remain in the diluted remedies is a matter of the technique.

I don't think a demonstration of material in a 14C remedy would be grounds for winning the prize. I'd think demonstration of materials in a 14C remedy would be a basis for an analysis of problems in the technique. I think there would have to be all kinds of conditions set up before this could possibly be a useful test for the one million dollar challenge.

Dr. A Sheikh, if you decide on a technique to identify material in your 14C dilution, don't forget to design some controls. For instance, you should also test your various solvents. You might run the solvent through your machine with NO remedy present, and test that, in case there is contamination from your machine. You might test a series of dilutions to see how the material changes with dilution. And you could save some of the material removed at those dilutions, to see if you have the same concentration of material in the removed material as well as the saved material. I'm sure there are other things you could test.

Really, you should do this anyway for the fun of it, and to find out what is going on with your system.

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I keep wondering WHY Dr. A Sheikh and Dr. MAS are so sure there is material left in their remedies at higher dilutions. I wonder whether the reason they are so sure about it is that they can see sediment or floating bits or discoloration in their remedies.

Dr. A Sheikh, is there something you have seen in your remedies that makes you sure there is material in them?
 
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Before we jump to conclusions, let us see what protocol Dr. A Sheikh proproses. If he goes for the medicinal effect with provings and so on, contaminants are not a great danger. If he wants to look for actual ingredients, the protocol needs to be extremely tight to eliminate contaminants.
 
flume said:
I am not convinced about this test if it simply means showing the presence of material remaining at a 14C dilution. In another thread people were talking about the potentizer machine, and the possibility that it did not adequately dilute the material.
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Surely the simplest way to address the issue of the machine would be to not to use it at all, but to source the test materials from an third party that both sides agree uses proper homoeopathic preparation techniques.
 
Proper preparation of materials is of vital importance in any test like this. If you look back, in the protocol I proposed, I mentioned a "reputable" homoeopathic pharmacy preparing the material for the test under the observation of both the applicant and the JREF.

If Sheikh is simply going to claim that he has a machine that does something that doesn't actually do the dilutions in the manner specified by homoeopathic practice, and therefore material mother tincture remains in the system, I'm afraid this isn't a claim relating to homoeopathy at all.

Rolfe.
 
Well, that was the reason for the quote marks. But you know what I mean. One which really does do all the requisite diluting and succussing under clean and well-run conditions. Helios or Ainsworths or someone like that.

Rolfe.
 
flume said:
I am not convinced about this test if it simply means showing the presence of material remaining at a 14C dilution. In another thread people were talking about the potentizer machine, and the possibility that it did not adequately dilute the material. There is also the possibility of contamination of the solvent, or of inadequately cleaned tubing and flasks in the potentizer. We know that parts of some remedies are not soluble. Whether the insoluble parts remain in the diluted remedies is a matter of the technique.

I don't think a demonstration of material in a 14C remedy would be grounds for winning the prize. I'd think demonstration of materials in a 14C remedy would be a basis for an analysis of problems in the technique. I think there would have to be all kinds of conditions set up before this could possibly be a useful test for the one million dollar challenge.

Dr. A Sheikh, if you decide on a technique to identify material in your 14C dilution, don't forget to design some controls. For instance, you should also test your various solvents. You might run the solvent through your machine with NO remedy present, and test that, in case there is contamination from your machine. You might test a series of dilutions to see how the material changes with dilution. And you could save some of the material removed at those dilutions, to see if you have the same concentration of material in the removed material as well as the saved material. I'm sure there are other things you could test.

Really, you should do this anyway for the fun of it, and to find out what is going on with your system.

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I keep wondering WHY Dr. A Sheikh and Dr. MAS are so sure there is material left in their remedies at higher dilutions. I wonder whether the reason they are so sure about it is that they can see sediment or floating bits or discoloration in their remedies.

Dr. A Sheikh, is there something you have seen in your remedies that makes you sure there is material in them?
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You are right. we can easily prove the existance of molecules in 14c potency. If you have gone through the actual preparation which schwabe, boiron and pakistani pharmacies are adopting here

http://www.nch.ipbfree.com/index.php?showtopic=212

What we will suggest to randi to purchase any potency of his own choice from kamal, bm, kent and sonxo labs. All are iso 9001, 02 approved. all are marketing their prodcuts for many years. We will prove our verdict.
 
Rolfe said:
So, how do you propose to proceed?

Rolfe.
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We will ask to randi, that your members have allowed to show the prescence of a "single" molecule in any "homeopathic potency" higher then 13c. We want to give a try to prove the prescence of "single molecule" in 14c potency from a reputed homeopathic pharmacy. We can adopt any technique to prove the statement. In this regard, we will also take assistance from rolfe, hans, nucular, mojo, delphe, anor, steen and other honourble members. after all you are not against us not to prove anything. I hope you will also support us.
 
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