Comments on: The Facts About Homeopathy

By: Arthur

Arthur — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:22:31 +0000

When you criticise homeopathy, you are effectively criticising a ‘faith’, or a superstitious belief system – and you’ll receive the same angry responses from supporters as you would if you challenged religions or defenders of the supernatural.

Supporters of homeopathy are little different to those who fall at the knees of weeping statues. It is belief in the face of evidence. It is the same rejection of the scientific method, and the elevation of anecdotal evidence and pareidolia (a misunderstanding of patterns), that blights all superstition and pseudo-science.

Many people have fallen for homeopathy due to being unaware of the process and background. But you have to wonder about the state of someone’s critical faculties if they continue to fall for it after having been presented with credible information and evidence. As for those who make money out homeopathy, be under no illusions – a fair proportion of them know exactly what they are doing, and it is thoroughly dishonest.

By: Maf

Maf — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:46:01 +0000

I found your article predictable and limited. Instead of an ‘a priori’ approach it would be more interesting if you tried an ‘a posteriori’ approach: find people who used to be skeptics, who saw GPs and other specialists about a specific and persistent problem for years (let’s say, backache or insomnia or cystitis or skin problems) without ever resolving it, and who eventually found that homeopathy worked where ‘real’ medicines hadn’t. The placebo argument is not a rational explanation in those cases, because you would expect the GP’s pills to have cured the problem (or at least to have had the same placebo effect). The placebo argument also doesn’t apply to the successful use of homeopathy on animals and young children. A really ’scientific’ approach should take factual evidence into account, and I mean the evidence of people with physical problems that ‘normal’ medicine couldn’t cure, being finally resolved by a good homeopath. Maybe there are just some things the scientific community doesn’t yet know. But personally I don’t care about the “scientific” explanations – homeopathy worked for me where years of doctors hadn’t, and I just wish I had been less skeptical and tried it earlier in my life.

By: James

James — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:41:38 +0000

Joseph,

Apart from some grammatical errors that made some of your argument hard to read (I found “what will you do if a published experiment you can not repeat?” particularly hard to parse), you make an eloquent if insubstantial argument.

You say “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. An oft-used (and misused) truism. However, many many people in many many blind, double-blind and meta studies have examined voluminous amounts of data both fresh and revisited – and have found precisely zero solid evidence of efficacy with homeopathic compounds. Which is exactly what you would expect to find with the quantities of active ingredients involved (unless homeopathy somehow subverts most laws of physics). You can find these studies at PubMed and many other sources.

To paraphrase another truism, Occam’s Razor – if you look for that long and find no evidence, chances are there is none to be found.

The scientific community has now practically given up on this subject as no longer worth spending time and effort on, as all studies have shown the same results.

If you can point me to a published, peer-reviewed (preferably replicable) study that shows anything more by way of efficacy than is expected and seen with the placebo effect, I will be prepared to consider your argument further. Until then, the burden of proof is upon you.

I’m afraid I must simply ignore your “list of myths”, as without any references or citations it is an unsubstantiated list of highly subjective assertions with no basis of fact.

Regarding your comments toward the writer keeping an open mind – as someone much wittier than I once said, “there is such a thing as being so open-minded that your brains fall out”.

By: Joseph Putnoki

Joseph Putnoki — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:50:36 +0000

I would need to write a mini essay. But I will be brief: Randi was featured few years ago in a Channel 4 British T.V segment that put homoeopathy in the cross-hairs. He tried to be fair and said while he is not convinced he is not closed to future proof about homeopathy’s effectiveness. Richard Dowkins also produced a documentary attempting to discredit alternative medicine generally and homoeopathy in particular. It was a poorly made film falling short of his customary brilliance of former ones. A
number of errors, a superficial populist critical stance without doing his homework this time. I have no affiliation to the industry.
WITH RESPECT the writer need to remedy her ignorance as well as adopt a non cynical stance, an open mind. Study the topic she criticises. Both allopathic and integrative medicine have their share of charlatans. Neither of them have monopoly oh truth and healing. There is some cooperation between practitioners of each camp but much hostility and arrogance in the reminder. Sure alternative medicine are not regulated as much as need be yet. “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. In my studies there was only one lecturer who poised the question: what will you do if a published experiment you can not repeat? pause for a moment and ponder the question. I suspect the conclusion would be most times that invalidate the experiment. The lecturer said: AS A LAST STEP YOU MUST GO TO THE SOURCE AND OBSERVE CLOSE HOW IT IS DONE IN CASE YOU MISSED SOMETHING.
Let me list a few myths worth checking out: evidence based medicine, reliable trials, full disclosure of details, validity of practice guidelines, independence of doctors, innocence of big pharma, FDA approved drugs tested long enough and not on select population or demographic, informed consent, truth about heart disease, cholesterol, animal fats, cooking oils, the food pyramid,agricultural practices and animal farming and a long list more.

What do you say if you witness an animal been treated by acupuncture with positive results? What if an animal treated with homoeopathic medicine and recover and stays well? Other animals apart from us hardly would be influenced by the placebo effect! When you actually present and recognise they are not myths?
Alternative medicine’s effectiveness depends more on the quality of the practitioner. The bad apples makes headlines sham practitioners and the bad eggs in the allopathic camp while sometimes mentioned in the media only if criminality is involved will be highlighted but inefficiency, ignorance, stupidity are not put too fine a point on.

So if anyone takes on Homoeopathy, better do a good job, a honest job worth printing.

Be well!

joseph.