Regarding your second point, the fact that most research does not show an effect means very little when the research that does has such incredibly strong results. Science is not a democracy where the experiments get to vote equally. Some votes count stronger than others. I refer you to the methodology of science if this confuses you. But you can see the same effect (as I mentioned before) in the cern experiments where thousands if not millions of particles are shot at each other. Most of these experiments are failures that’s why they built an enormous computer system to wade through the research and find experiments that did show something. Claiming that the few collisions don’t mean anything because there are many more misses is not correct.

Regarding your third point, in the experiments I referenced to almost all homeopathically treated individuals experienced sharp improvements compared to the control group. That would indicate that at least in some situations it’s a highly effective medicine.

I have stated these three points before. I have added nothing new to this comment.

Let me make it clear again that I’m not saying homeopathy works. I have no personal investments in it, I never used it and don’t have personal experiences with it. I just get a bit ticked off when under the guise of science things are being stated that are just not true. I happen to be educated enough to be able to judge and evaluate these statements but others aren’t.

I have the greatest respect for mr Plait and in my opinion he’s correct in demanding criticism, certainly regarding homeopathy. But that should at least mean that we should be critical of what we say ourselves. He said there was no evidence… He was wrong… I showed it. That’s the lot of it. No need to buy stocks in homeopathic medicine. But letting them do their research without ridicule whilst demanding proper application of scientific method sounds about fair to me.

Just think about it for a moment. If there is actual evidence in public research databases right now, and I gave the links to them, while the skeptics claim there isn’t. What does this say about the skeptics?

I think that the key concept here is repeatability. You can quote one article with a very high p-value, but we do not know whether that demonstrates an actual effect, or an undiagnosed error on the part of the researchers. The plausible explanation, in the absence of any sound theoretical basis for why we should expect homeopathy to work at all, given that the entire body of scientific theory predicts that it should not, and in the absence of a well-grounded body of evidence that supports the homeopathic hypothesis, is that someone buggered up the study.

To hijack your example, scientific tests of homeopathy may be mistaking a dust mote on the lens for Daimos.

We can test this by running the study multiple times in multiple labs with multiple safeguards against error. Once we have an appropriate body of positive studies that collectively eliminate the chance that the effect is due to methodology, we can entertain the possibility of accepting an hypothesis that would contradict what we know about physics, biology, and chemistry (and contradicts itself, what with the ocean of unregulated homeopathic preparations a person must be drinking each time they lift a glass of water, but which somehow have no effect). However, there are reasons not to bother. First is the general implausibility of the hypothesis. We would be better off performing research that is based on theories which are known to obtain results.

Second, the research to date is mostly negative. The chances that these few positive results are evidence of an enormous effect that we have somehow merely overlooked are very slim. Rather, it is more likely that we will discover that the odd ones out are the ones in error, not the majority. Reviews have found that there is a correlation between the quality of the methodology used in a homeopathic study and the chance of a negative result. We would expect to see the opposite if there were really an effect.

Third, even if there is some kind of effect, we might note that since it is apparently so hard to find even under controlled conditions, the chance that it is biologically relevant is probably null. If clinical laboratories cannot reliably squeeze the blood of significant results from the stone of homeopathic treatment, what hope does the homeopathic practitioner have of effecting an improvement–much less a cure–in a patient?

You’re mostly repeating the request for evidence. Please turn your attention to my comment #67 I provided a link to an article there answering your exact question. With the added bonus that they are double-blind, highly significant, and taking the placebo effect into account! As I said in that message there are 2 links on that page to two other experiments just like it. The one I linked to has a significance of p<0.0001. Even you must grant that that is significant.

As I told Geek, this does not mean the experiments are valid. And we must certainly not just accept homeopathy for a fact just on the basis of this. The point is that they serve as evidence. So the statement that there is no evidence is false… And that is the point I am making. Not that homeopathy works. Because I’m not convinced myself. I just see a valid case for homeopathy in statistical terms. I want to see more credible ideas on mechanism. But statistically speaking they have a case.

You say that an effect measured with p<0.05 that is only reproducible a 10th of the time is not significant. First of all, it’s not the effect that has significance. It’s the result of the experiment that has significance. And I’m sorry but p<0.05 is considered highly significant. Mind you the experiment I linked to has a significance of p<0.0001 which is a few orders of magnitude better…

The fact that it is not reproducible all the time is not an issue. I remind you of particle physics where literally up to thousands or even millions of collisions need to be caused and recorded in the hope of finding some rare interaction or particle. The statistics clearly allow for this. I also gave a binocular example that basically already answered this point.

It is important to note that in the example I gave I said you have to do a sufficient amount of valid experiments. So it’s not just the first batch of 10 with one hit after which you quit.

This is not an advanced topic. Significance validity and reliability are core concepts of statistics. I don’t know your background and I don’t mean to offend I just want to avoid getting hung up on words. If you’re unsure on these concepts look them up, without knowing their meaning the whole discussion is going to be mighty confusing. In daily life we tend to mix up reliability and validity quite a bit. And you seemed to do that once before. Significance in life also doesn’t relate well to the mathematical meaning of significance in statistics.

Like I said before its true that there is no convincing mechanism we can use to explain this. However, we cannot deny that there is statistical evidence that such a mechanism could exist.

A question though, you clearly know how to quote.. Could you spend a few sentences on teaching this noob the trick?

I’m sorry I find it hard to discover the points you’re trying to make in your comment. And you mention a few things that are just wrong.

Electroconvulsive shock therapies are brutal this is true, though not as bad as one would naively expect. You basically only use it under the conditions you stated. In other words as a life saving intervention. You don’t just put a man under a heart defibrillator either, unless the situation is acute. In which case they are also the best methods we have.

Actually routine cardioversion is commonly used as an outpatient procedure. It is the same defibrillator, the difference is that the shock is timed to land on the QRS complex, rather than be delivered randomly.

So apart from my failure to understand the relevance, you’re basically stating the obvious here.

You also state: “There is a ridiculously remote chance that there is a good reason for homeopathy to completely fail so many studies, but somehow still work.” This is not true. A failed experiment fails to pick up an effect, it’s like looking at the sky through binoculars. You’ll fail to see mars if you look randomly. You’ll usually fail to see mars if you don’t know exactly where to look. And you should be able to see mars regularly if you know where to find it. Now replace mars with Deimos and keep the binoculars. I think it’d be virtually impossible to look at the right spot in the sky, and see Deimos. If you repeat that experiment a million times.. Predictably and reliably fail to see Deimos. And then conclude Deimos does not exist, you’d be wrong.

When it comes to medical treatment, if we cannot find a difference between our study treatment and placebo on a consistent basis, we should conclude that whatever effect might be there is so insignificant that it is not any better than an inert substance, which pretty much defines distilled water as a treatment.

The opposite, that if you see Deimos the chance of it not actually being there, is much much smaller.

I am aware of that. If only they could show that the homeopathic Deimos is there. So far it seems to be less significant than Oakland – no there there. And there really isn’t any reason to expect that to change.

The experiments are designed to guard against false positives. We only add positive statements to our understanding of the world. And reject outcomes if they fail our demands for reliability. We don’t add negative statements. Because: while it only requires a valid demonstration to show a positive, it is virtually impossible to show a negative.

The inability to find an improved outcome is something that would encourage a scientist, interested in finding effective treatments, to move on to something that can produce positive results. Homeopathy does not encourage any optimism.

In medicine, which homeopathy claims to be, the burden of proof is on those proposing that they have an effective treatment.

Homeopathy needs to show a benefit to patients or go away.

It is long past time for homeopathy to go away.

So if an experiment fails to show an effect. It does not serve as evidence that the effect is absent.

Now you are the one stating the obvious. Maybe you should read the book by Dr. Penston. While he is critical of the waste and misuse of science by the drug companies, his criticism is just as valid for homeopathy. We need to have some effect to justify continuing to subject patients to these treatments.

It is the responsibility of the drug pusher to show that the treatment is effective.

In the absence of evidence of benefit, it is wrong to continue to subject patients to these experimental treatments.

Now this might sound like picking side with the homeopathy guys. But I’m not, this is how we do science. And you’d learn this stuff on methodology 101 of most educations that use statistics. This is not negotiable as far as I am concerned.
It’s like I said before, if you measure with a significance of for example p<0.05. You don’t need every other experiment to succeed. If a one in 20 chance occurs once every 10 trials. And you do sufficient and valid experiments. Then there is a clear and demonstrated effect that no statistician would argue with. So here is a clear situation where even failing to show an effect in most studies we’d still be required to accept the reality of the measured effect in the long run.

An effect that is so insignificant, that it is only occasionally there, is not worth it for the patient. Such unpredictable results suggest that something else is going on. Until there is a consistent effect, we need to protect patients. The burden of proof in medicine is on the one proposing the treatment. Homeopathy does not meet that standard.

“I can find out what is likely to be effective with conventional medicine. I can find out medicine’s success rate. I can find out the conditions it has been used to treat. I can find out the side effects. I can have a very good idea of what to expect. For a patient, a doctor can point all of that out to the patient.”

Replace medicine with homeopathic treatment, and doctor with homeopath and the sentence is as true as before, in spite of your claims of the opposite.. They don’t know how it works. But the success rate is measurable. The conditions it’s supposed to treat are known. The side effects if any are known. People do know what to expect and the homeopath can explain this to the client.

Please provide some reproduceable studies that show a positive effect in treating patients.

We’re not talking about all that though, we’re talking about efficacy and the state of related experiments, not protocol in the doctors office.

If it is going to be used on patients we need to be able to show that is likely that the treatment is causing patients to get better. In the absence of that, it is just another unproven experimental treatment.

I said “According to scientific thought unless a number of experts cannot point out the errors in an article or experiment we must assume that it’s outcome is correct.” You said “No. We have studies that can only be reproduced now and then. ”

Please note that you’re not contradicting me even if you think you are. I speak of validity and you speak of reliability. These are two very different subjects. Validity can be interpreted as an experiments ability to show an effect if it exists. Reliability means the experiment can be relied upon to do it again if it is repeated.

Do we really want to treat patients with treatments based on valid, but unreliable research?

Again, in medicine, the burden is on the person selling the treatment to show that it works.

Homeopathy fails.

An analogy would be a volt meter. It has an error margin which is it’s reliability. And doing a valid measurement of the voltage in your wall socket implies measuring the wall socket. An invalid reading would be measuring your neighbors wall socket. Even if the results seem to agree and are probably correct the experiment is still not valid.

A reliable experiment that shows effect but that is not valid could be similarly measuring the wrong signals. A valid experiment could fail to pick up an effect that is too weak. Reliability of an experiment can be measured by repeating it. Validity can only be ascertained by careful analysis by experts. If experts can find no fault this does not necessarily mean the experiment is valid. But as far as we can tell at that point it IS valid. We cannot determine validity on gut feeling or by repeating an experiment. We need peer previews for that. People trained in methodology who are able to point out potential flaws or trouble.

If we were just playing around with wall current, we could keep going on indefinitely with only opportunity loss. This is supposed to be a medical treatment. When we cannot produce a repeatable benefit, we need to stop subjecting patients to this mistreatment.

When there is repeatable evidence of a benefit to patients, then it will be worth paying some attention to homeopathy, which is just another failed experimental treatment.

Until then homeopathy is only useful as a punchline, and a very good punchline.

Electroconvulsive shock therapies are brutal this is true, though not as bad as one would naively expect. You basically only use it under the conditions you stated. In other words as a life saving intervention. You don’t just put a man under a heart defibrillator either, unless the situation is acute. In which case they are also the best methods we have. So apart from my failure to understand the relevance, you’re basically stating the obvious here.

You also state: “There is a ridiculously remote chance that there is a good reason for homeopathy to completely fail so many studies, but somehow still work.” This is not true. A failed experiment fails to pick up an effect, it’s like looking at the sky through binoculars. You’ll fail to see mars if you look randomly. You’ll usually fail to see mars if you don’t know exactly where to look. And you should be able to see mars regularly if you know where to find it. Now replace mars with Deimos and keep the binoculars. I think it’d be virtually impossible to look at the right spot in the sky, and see Deimos. If you repeat that experiment a million times.. Predictably and reliably fail to see Deimos. And then conclude Deimos does not exist, you’d be wrong.

The opposite, that if you see Deimos the chance of it not actually being there, is much much smaller.

The experiments are designed to guard against false positives. We only add positive statements to our understanding of the world. And reject outcomes if they fail our demands for reliability. We don’t add negative statements. Because: while it only requires a valid demonstration to show a positive, it is virtually impossible to show a negative.

So if an experiment fails to show an effect. It does not serve as evidence that the effect is absent. Now this might sound like picking side with the homeopathy guys. But I’m not, this is how we do science. And you’d learn this stuff on methodology 101 of most educations that use statistics. This is not negotiable as far as I am concerned.

It’s like I said before, if you measure with a significance of for example p<0.05. You don’t need every other experiment to succeed. If a one in 20 chance occurs once every 10 trials. And you do sufficient and valid experiments. Then there is a clear and demonstrated effect that no statistician would argue with. So here is a clear situation where even failing to show an effect in most studies we’d still be required to accept the reality of the measured effect in the long run.

“I can find out what is likely to be effective with conventional medicine. I can find out medicine’s success rate. I can find out the conditions it has been used to treat. I can find out the side effects. I can have a very good idea of what to expect. For a patient, a doctor can point all of that out to the patient.”
Replace medicine with homeopathic treatment, and doctor with homeopath and the sentence is as true as before, in spite of your claims of the opposite.. They don’t know how it works. But the success rate is measurable. The conditions it’s supposed to treat are known. The side effects if any are known. People do know what to expect and the homeopath can explain this to the client.

We’re not talking about all that though, we’re talking about efficacy and the state of related experiments, not protocol in the doctors office.

I said “According to scientific thought unless a number of experts cannot point out the errors in an article or experiment we must assume that it’s outcome is correct.” You said “No. We have studies that can only be reproduced now and then. ”

Please note that you’re not contradicting me even if you think you are. I speak of validity and you speak of reliability. These are two very different subjects. Validity can be interpreted as an experiments ability to show an effect if it exists. Reliability means the experiment can be relied upon to do it again if it is repeated.

An analogy would be a volt meter. It has an error margin which is it’s reliability. And doing a valid measurement of the voltage in your wall socket implies measuring the wall socket. An invalid reading would be measuring your neighbors wall socket. Even if the results seem to agree and are probably correct the experiment is still not valid.

A reliable experiment that shows effect but that is not valid could be similarly measuring the wrong signals. A valid experiment could fail to pick up an effect that is too weak. Reliability of an experiment can be measured by repeating it. Validity can only be ascertained by careful analysis by experts. If experts can find no fault this does not necessarily mean the experiment is valid. But as far as we can tell at that point it IS valid. We cannot determine validity on gut feeling or by repeating an experiment. We need peer previews for that. People trained in methodology who are able to point out potential flaws or trouble.

You mention anti-depressants. I am not familiar with the research. I read Toxic Psychiatry and it made many good points. When it comes to ECT (ElectroConvulsive Therapy), I will never accept that frying my brain, while I am still using it, is beneficial. I see this as something that is effective only if you ignore a lot of side effects and suicide is the alternative.

But when you extrapolate from medicine not understanding psychology to homeopathy, you are dealing with apples and oranges. You have brain function (neurology), that we do not understand, even now. Then you have mind function (psychology), which may be just a function of neurology, but we do not know. We prefer to think that we control our actions, but there is research that suggests otherwise. That may sound bad for psychology, but you will always have plenty of business. No need to have some Vogons blow up Earth.

Yes. Doctors are notorious for refusing to accept abundant evidence that something works, or evidence that something doesn’t work. So, it is easy to pull those examples out. The scientific method has demonstrated effectiveness in the mean time.

Today, medicine is much more science based. Since 1941, there is the ability to completely cure a disease. Many of the people in medicine before then have had trouble understanding the kind of change that was. Penicillin was so good, it made all of the rest of the medicine cabinet look bad. This was actually a good thing.

Today, you will find that many more doctors are familiar with the scientific method and demand evidence of effectiveness before using treatments on their patients.

Homeopathy? Not so much. Here is the story of the How Dr. Hahnemann Stole Medicine!

Then he got an idea. An awful idea. Dr. Hahnemann got a wonderful, awful idea! “I know just what to do!”

At the time (late 1700s) medicine was not curing people. Any old wacky idea was as good as any other. As long as you did not give patients too much of a poison, they might get better in spite of you. Conventional medicine has changed tremendously since then. Homeopathy stays the same. That wonderful, awful idea? Like cures like. Dr. Hahnemann found that this worked in a few cases, but he extrapolated from those cases to everything.

So, consider the theory behind this, that which does not kill the patient makes the patient stronger, but by diluting it, there is much less chance of the patient dropping dead – at least much less chance of them dropping dead from the homeopathy. That is the idea. Add some succussions and dilute until pure water or some concentration of alcohol.

Modern homeopathy has no more understanding of why they think it works than that 200 year old idea.

We did not know how aspirin worked for the longest time.

But we did know that there was an effect. Knowing there is an effect and understanding the basis for the effect are entirely different. You can see that aspirin has many effects. These effects are measurable. These effects are repeatable. Consistently.

According to scientific thought unless a number of experts cannot point out the errors in an article or experiment we must assume that it’s outcome is correct.

No.

We have studies that can only be reproduced now and then.

We do not need to know what the problem is, only that there is something very odd about such widely divergent results. It suggests that we are not testing what we think we are testing.

I assume you have done some teaching and are familiar with testing students. If a student is taking multiple choice tests, and these studies are analogous to multiple choice tests, what do you conclude about the knowledge of the student when the results are all over the place?

Maybe he/she has MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder). Not likely, since the occurrence of MPD is probably much higher in fiction or in theories, than it is in real people.

Maybe something was affecting the testing conditions. He/she may be very distractible. Special testing situations may be needed to allow the student to demonstrate knowledge of the material. However, this may be a subject that cannot be practiced in a fortress of solitude. If the testing conditions are not realistic for the use of what is being tested, you have someone who is only good at taking tests with such tight controls that there may be no real world application of that knowledge.

In the real world, when you administer a test, if the person taking the test produces widely different results, that are sometimes great and sometimes horrible, do you draw any conclusions about the knowledge of the student?

What about some sort of target shooting? I will use darts for this example. What if the person occasionally throws a bunch of darts in higher scoring parts of the dart board, but also has bunches that don’t even hit the dart board?

Would you use the term ambiguous?

If these were shots with a crossbow, and some look good, while others seem to exhibit more amusement value, than talent. Would you allow this person to try to shoot an arrow off of your head? While the analogy to medicine is strained on this one, I am trying to get you to just look at this from several different angles.

Then there is an excellent book Fiction and Fantasy in Medical Research. The Large-Scale Randomised Trial by James Penston (2003, The London Press, London England. ISBN: 0-9544636-1-7). If you haven’t read it, I recommend it. Only 144 pages, so not even a long book. He spends the first part of the book on cause and effect and how philosophers have approached cause and effect, so that part should be a review.

The big part is his conclusion. If we need huge studies to show any effect, are we measuring what we think we are measuring and is it an effect that is worth paying any attention to. That is oversimplified, but I am trying to reduce it to a haiku.

There is a ridiculously remote chance that there is a good reason for homeopathy to completely fail so many studies, but somehow still work.

There is a ridiculously remote chance that the theory of homeopathy coincided with some completely unknown method, that is still completely unknown, but somehow still works.

Then there is the part that really is confusing. If it does work, what does it work on? How do we know?

I can find out what is likely to be effective with conventional medicine. I can find out medicine’s success rate. I can find out the conditions it has been used to treat. I can find out the side effects. I can have a very good idea of what to expect. For a patient, a doctor can point all of that out to the patient.

Homeopathy? Not so much.

It couldn’t hurt is often used as a reason to try it, but if it does have an effect and we don’t know what the effect is, how do we know that it couldn’t hurt?

But I am pretty sure that many more poeple are harmed by not being skeptic enough towards orthodox diagnoses and treatment.

The differences are 3:

1. Placebos also have side effects. This is called the nocebo effect. And that is assuming that the treatment is completely inert. If the treatment actually does something, it might be much more harmful.

2. The patients receiving evidence based medicine are receiving far more benefit than any harm they may receive. That is demonstrated by the research. That is what is provided by a better than placebo treatment. Better than placebo, even after any side effects.

3. Placebo treatments discourage patients from receiving real treatment. Daniel Hauser would be a dead boy by the end of the year, if he were to receive placebo treatment. In stead he is receiving chemotherapy. Chemotherapy has a lot of side effects, but for this pediatric cancer an over 90% survival rate. Placebos do not save lives, they just help you to feel you are in control, while you die.

“p<0.0001″ caught my eye too. I found it a staggering claim, but I agree with your points about accepting results.

Thank you for your thoughtful replies, I’ve enjoyed our discussion.

You’re one hundred percent correct. (Pun intended) A significant result doesn’t actually mean the experiment is valid. Not even three of them implies this. Only careful peer preview can do this. So I still don’t know if homeopathy works or doesn’t work.

“Extraordinary proof” is in itself a rather subjective statement. First of all as you probably know empirical science doesn’t deal in proof. And secondly, what is extraordinary? I consider a significance p=0.0001 extraordinary. But in this case highly significant results did nothing to convince us, because of questions of validity.

I think it’s important though to ask ourselves the question when do we accept something? According to scientific thought unless a number of experts cannot point out the errors in an article or experiment we must assume that it’s outcome is correct. We cannot just do this on gut feeling we need rules to accept or reject experiments. Otherwise we’d just side step the whole elaborate scientific method by cherry picking the results we like.

Incidentally this type of bias exists all over the place.

It was a pleasure, thank you for your insightful comments and objections.

As someone involved in testing methodology, you will be aware that there are plenty of subtle mistakes that can cause false results. Human error and/or fluke would make, to my mind, a vastly, vastly more plausible explanation of positive results than effectiveness of homeopathy.

As Carl Sagan said, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”, so I’d have to see a preponderance of exceptionally rigorous results, with widespread verification, to knock my confidence in the ineffectiveness of homeopathy. I admit I’m also thinking “it’s not going to happen”. If that’s being closed-minded, I would suggest that the alternative would be, as Richard Dawkins put it, so open-minded that one’s brains would fall out.

My point is, again, there’s also abundant research indicating that homeopathy has an effect. Here’s an example.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17180695
The Related articles section on this page shows two more similar articles.

I stated I have no claims in Homeopathy, I never used it myself. This is just intellectual interest. I tried to figure out from the research what was true. Quite frankly I can’t… In my opinion it’s not as clear cut as people here would like to suggest. Then Mr Plait speaks about it and I see my chance to test my thoughts.

The argument that it is implausible for infinitesimal amounts of a chemical to have effects on an organism is true. The argument that there is no evidence to the contrary is false. Such a controversial topic must also alert us to the potential presence of all kinds of basses. This is why it’s not trivial to discern the underlying truth in this matter. It certainly is why I failed to come to a clear opinion.

Maybe it would help if teams with mixed opinions about homeopathy did some research. You’d have both the demand for extremely rigorous protocol and the demand for correct usage of homeopathic treatment.

@JT #65 Please show where I demonized anyone. What you think you see in me is your choice I think. I apparently have little to do with it. What I’ve stated is clear. It’s right there for everyone to read. I built up an argument and from this intellectual opinion you rightly conclude that I disagree with you. You wrongly conclude that I am demonizing someone.

I ended my post with “I just want to know why this is more than a personal opinion… I am inclined to think this is personal opinion. But it would be unscientific of me not to be open to to evidence to the contrary. Please inform me.” You ended your response with “It’s as though the possibility that we might have good reasons for thinking as we do never even crossed your mind.”

Why exactly did you think I asked for your reasons? I’m not the guy you have issues with here. Please reread my words and lets drop this bickering. I know there are a-holes out there that probably occasionally drop in to verbally attack everyone in sight. I’m not one of them and I promise to be polite and respectful for the duration of my stay.

“Look I’m very sorry if I fail to fold in and march properly like the rest of you sirs who figured out the truth eons before I did. But I’m not the type of guy to just believe something because others get emotional if I don’t…”

Look, it would help if you actually read what I said. I don’t care that you don’t have the same opinion re:homeopathy as the majority here. I care that you came here throwing out accusations.

To put it bluntly it’s obvious when someone argues to seek information and it’s obvious when someone argues to demonize the opponent, you are the latter. Had you actually been seeking information, you would have asked us why we rejected homeopathy, instead you TOLD us why. If by some outside chance you actually are seeking information, you would do well in the future not to lie about your opponent’s motives to his face.

“Also, what’s the deal with the emotional response dude? Were you attacked by a gang of raving homeopaths as a child?”

You joke, but people really do die because of homeopaths.

No, I’m saying that if you wash all of your medicine away, and swallow some water instead, it won’t affect you other than via the placebo effect. There’s no need to know, or make assumptions, about all the mechanisms, known or unknown, that could be involved if you took the medicine, because you aren’t taking it. Unless you worked in the homeopathy preparation lab, you wouldn’t even have come close to it.

With respect, your “repeated and statistically solid evidence” assertion is something I don’t believe. If you have the time, look at http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=556 which discusses investigations into the sources of pro-homeopathy research. For speed, search that article for “Randi” and “Betz”.

There is a multitude of known effects already that are neither chemical or placebo but still affect health. Mechanical, electrical, temperature, radiation, even vibration have clearly been demonstrated (often by weaponry) to have potentially significant health effects.

Some of these effects were unknown in the past. Marie Curie actually died of Leukemia… Caused by a radio active effect on health that was previously unknown. How could they possibly know about mutation caused by radio activity before DNA was even discovered and before they knew exactly what radio activity was?

This was only last century!!! How old are you? Old enough to remember the “Atomic energy lab” science kit for kids? (google it & laugh)

You cannot logically claim that there are no unknown influences on health today yet you claim exactly this by stating that it’s one or the other, no room for an unknown. You do this in contradiction to repeated and statistically solid evidence that there is another facet to the story. Not just one or two aberrant experiments, but bucket loads of them.

I restate my question… Why are you so certain that some unknown effect does not exist?

“A statistical study on the effect of a medicine does not measure chemical interactions, it measures effects.”
Yes, but it measures the effects compared to a control sample that takes a placebo. Homeopathic “remedies” are placebos. If a study compares one placebo with another and seems to show efficacy of one of them relative to the other, it is either a fluke or the result of a flaw in the study.

It’s fine if you say that these studies have been debunked. But I’ve seen debunking studies being debunked only to be rebunked after that. That’s just getting personal with very little added scientific value behind it.

Also, what’s the deal with the emotional response dude? Were you attacked by a gang of raving homeopaths as a child? I am not close minded. I see and admit the possibility of my mistakes. And come here asking for the missing piece. You however see me as a closed minded git who comes here to lecture you without any credentials or knowledge on the subject. Each of those things you see in me was created in your mind and has little to do with me. And then to top it off you call me close minded, the ultimate example of projection.

Look I’m very sorry if I fail to fold in and march properly like the rest of you sirs who figured out the truth eons before I did. But I’m not the type of guy to just believe something because others get emotional if I don’t…

@Geek
So the ingredients were washed away. I guess we can rule out chemical interaction then, can we? Nobody ever claimed it works through chemical interaction. Why would you think this assertion makes any difference? A statistical study on the effect of a medicine does not measure chemical interactions, it measures effects. I can’t explain how those effects get there. Statistics usually does not do that. But denying them because they don’t seem to make sense doesn’t help either.

@Last Hussar
Thank you for the partial agreement. I have seen homeopathic double blind tests that actually do show significant results. Do we live in different worlds? Or does this mean both experimental results apparently exist…

And if conflicting results do apparently exist. And they are in various positions in the infinite bunk/debunk/rebunk chains. How do we determine the truth in it?

I can’t… You apparently can… Show me…

There are scientifically valid experiments out there that show the effect of homeopathic medicine. These tests lie between amateurism and quite advanced. I have seen double blind tests. I’ve looked for those first of course. The same goes for the other team. And both sides pretend it’s clear as glass. Show me.. How do you see the difference? Even the meta analysis seem unable to be properly convincing. So again, how do you see the difference?

The homeopathic beverage is a good one though whoever thought of it first

Homeopathy, on the other hand, has been subjected to extensive double blind tests as used for all medicines, and we can SEE it doesn’t work. (And the Homeopathic lager idea was mine first- a few years ago I threatened to take homeopathic wine to my crystal-powered sister-in-law).

Your conclusion is based on ignorance and a fair degree of prejudice. I’m sorry, but there’s just no other way to state that.

You come here lecturing us about how we reject it because we don’t understand it, when even a casual inspection of this site would show you that we reject it because it has been proven in study after study after study to have no effect whatsoever.

Those “studies” which show it to have a statistically significant effect have been quite thoroughly debunked here and elsewhere, mostly due to inadequate controls. All followups done with adequate controls caused the effects to disappear.

I would advise you in the future to have a more open mind when it comes to such things as homeopathy, rather than automatically jumping to the conclusion that it is valid and that everyone who rejects it does so out of (projected) ignorance.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I’m not railing at you lack of informedness (It’s unreasonable to expect anyone to be educated on every possible topic), but rather the extreme prejudice and closed-mindedness that is displayed by your coming here and telling US why WE think the way we do, in complete contradiction to everything we have actually said. It’s as though the possibility that we might have good reasons for thinking as we do never even crossed your mind.

The recipe to make homeopathic medicine is clearly defined, we just don’t know why it would work. This means that mechanics are not understood although there are some theories and ideas… But this isn’t new. We did not know how aspirin worked for the longest time. The effect of psychological interventions was also doubted (and ridiculed) by the medical profession for the longest time. It was considered pseudoscience much like you people are considering homeopathy pseudoscience now. Still there can be no doubt about the effects of psychology today.

If I look at the literature (and I have) it seems that for every homeopathic study where the effect has not been shown, there is a study where the effect is in fact shown. And yes, of course placebo effects were taken into account in many of them.

The bottom line in my opinion becomes an argument about who do you trust. What do you “believe”. Not so much a matter of science. Eventually I just said: “Sod it, efficacy unknown”.

The rule is that if we make a statement or accusation it’s us that are required to back up our statements. The statement “Homeopathic medicine has not been shown to have an effect” is false, there are clearly studies showing an effect. Even top notch double blind research. We may argue the validity of these studies. But their existence is indisputable.

If you retort that there are also studies that show no effect. Then anti depressants are most certainly pseudo science. Because there are in fact many many studies that show anti depressants to have no effects on the average depression! Still, anti depressants are accepted (and popular) medicine and given for everything ranging from full blown depression to fear symptoms and even occasionally to reduce psychotic symptoms.

Stating that homeopathy cannot work because the mechanism is unknown is arguing out of ignorance. The fact that I don’t know how a cpu works does not mean cpus don’t work.

Don’t get me wrong. As I started this message, I stated clearly that I have very little personal experience with the stuff. I couldn’t even judge if it subjectively seems to work from my personal experience. And the only reason I care is because it seems to come up so often.

I’m in it from a purely scientific methodological point of view. My question to you guys is: Why so certain? What takes you guys beyond doubt into an area where you feel free to even ridicule the opposition? I’d love to have your certainty, but I cannot be as certain as you guys In spite of (or maybe because of) a very solid methodological background. Many many arguments I’ve read against homeopathy like the “We don’t know HOW it works” argument are just fallacies…

My conclusion is that the research is ambiguous. And no side has a very clear methodological upper hand. The logical conclusion from this is not that homeopathy works or does not work. The logical conclusion in my opinion is that we do not know. I can seriously understand the desire to reject it as useless. I personally dislike the “unknown mechanism”. But we have to resist the urge to reject a possibly existing mechanism just because we do not understand it. Rejecting something without proper methodological basis should be considered pseudo skepticism. Psychology and aspirin suffered the same effects and we were wrong back then.

Mr. Astronomer. Can you state clearly what reasons you have to discredit homeopathy? And do so in a scientifically valid manner? I’d prefer references to actual research over “they say” arguments… Also I’d like to stay away from “It doesn’t work because we don’t understand how it would work if it works” arguments… For the obvious reasons…

I just want to know why this is more than a personal opinion… I am inclined to think this is personal opinion. But it would be unscientific of me not to be open to to evidence to the contrary. Please inform me.

It’s in there under Latest Program, or will be at least. Give it 24 hours or so and it should be up.

Just thought that you’d like to know.

Jack