Health Freedom: Freedom for Quacks from pesky government interference.

[RonRules]

"The Truth About Alternative Medicine" - TAM 2012
If you want to skip to the specific topic of Health Freedom, zip to 29:30


Enjoy!

 

[libertyjam]

Listening to James Randi on anything is about the same as listening to the RNC, lots of blather and hyperbole and blanket demonization.

 

[farreri]

Where in the video do they talk about the hundreds of thousands of people who die per year from "science based" medicine? I couldn't find where they talked about that.

 

[donnay]

Listening to James Randi on anything is about the same as listening to the RNC, lots of blather and hyperbole and blanket demonization.

Absolutely. +rep

The Magician Who Could Not Make Homeopathy Disappear

Monday, November 21, 2011 by: Dana Ullman

A campaign of disinformation on homeopathic medicine has been very active in United Kingdom and in the United States, and my previous article at this website provided some detail about this effort.

Perhaps the leading opponent to homeopathy in the United States is the magician James Randi. Magicians use various tricks to make things disappear, and Mr. Randi is working hard at making homeopathy disappear... however, to be a successful magician one must learn to fool and deceive people, and Mr. Randi is performing his tricks to try to make homeopathy disappear. Thankfully, he has not been successful.

This short article is not meant to be exhaustive on Randi's disinformation campaign against homeopathy but providing some overview of who he is and what he has said and done will hopefully shed light on the nature of his information and how trustworthy he may or may not be.

Please know that this review and critique of Mr. Randi is not an ad hominem attack on him. I have a great amount of respect for Mr. Randi as an entertainer and magician, and I'm sure that he is a quite lovely person to his friends, but whether he is nice or lovely or entertaining or competent is not the point of this article. Instead, this article reviews his actions, his priorities, and the causes that he has supported, all of which are reasonable and appropriate areas for critique and are not personal attacks on who he is.

James Randi, Magician Extraordinaire and Master of Deception

James Randi is a first-class magician who appeared many times on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and who, more recently, has become famous for supposed "debunking" of various paranormal phenomena and "pseudoscience." However, one must remember that in order to become an accomplished magician, James Randi became expert in having people look at one hand while he was creating "magic" (or clever deception) with the other.

Randi receives a lot of press because of his $1 million "challenge" to anyone who claims to provide hard evidence for homeopathic medicine or other "paranormal" phenomena. Although few serious researchers have taken Randi and his "prize" seriously, I participated in an experiment with which Randi was connected in 2003, and this experience taught me much about him. I should first say that I had no expressed desire to win his prize, and even if this experiment had a positive result, I would not have received any monetary award.

Mark Golden, a producer for John Stossel and ABC's 20/20 program, asked me to participate in a merging of "reality television" and "science." He asked if there was a laboratory experiment that could be conducted to prove that homeopathic medicines had biological activity (or not)....and to add a little more tv drama to it, Golden told me a successful result could lead to winning $1 million to a homeopathic organization from James Randi. I told him that there were several such experiments, but one study was particularly noteworthy because it was conducted by Professor Madeleine Ennis, a former skeptic of homeopathy who was a professor of biochemistry at Queens College in Belfast, Ireland. Further, I told this producer that three other universities had replicated her experiment (Belon, Cumps, Ennis, 1999; Belon, Cumps, Ennis, 2004).

I agreed to participate in the experiment if Professor Ennis conducted the study or served as a consultant to the study to assure that it was correctly conducted. The producer agreed. I was therefore flown to New York to be interviewed, and a month later the study was to be conducted. Professor Ennis is a highly respected researcher, and she told the producer and me that she had no interest in conducting a "TV science experiment," but she would review the protocol of the researcher they chose to use.

When Professor Ennis was ultimately sent the protocol, she was shocked at what she received. This protocol was NOT her experiment (Ennis, 2004). In fact, it was clearly a study that was a set-up to dis-prove homeopathy. Ennis noted that certain chemicals used in the experiment were known to kill the specific types of cells that the experiment would be counting. Further, she listed egregious problems with this study (Ennis, 2004) and asserted that the "researcher" who created this new study had seemingly never previously conducted and published a study in his life. Actually, the researcher who created this study and who was to conduct it was a lab technician without a graduate degree and without any previous publication history.

Professor Ennis and I also learned that this same researcher had conducted the same faulty experiment for the BBC which sought to discredit homeopathy (BBC, 2002). The narrator of this BBC program explicitly asserted that this TV experiment was a "replication" of Professor Ennis' previous study, though this assertion was sheer fabrication.

I then contacted 20/20's producer, Mark Golden, to alert him of this problem, and he simply told me that he promised to "consult" with Professor Ennis, but he was not obligated to do what she (or I) wanted. Although I had assumed that working with a producer at 20/20 would assure high ethical and journalistic standards, I began to wonder if my assumptions were correct. As it turned out, I also neglected to realize the impact of working with a team connected to John Stossel, a reporter who was previously caught fabricating a "study" on organic foods that incorrectly asserted that there was no difference between organic and conventional foods (Dowie, 2001).

In Stossel's commentary on homeopathy, he had the audacity to assert that the "university scientists who reviewed the test protocols and said they were 'technically sound' and 'meticulously conducted.'" (Stossel, 2003) Although Stossel acknowledged on air that I objected to the study BEFORE it was started, he neglected to mention that the expert who his producer agreed to consult with this study had equally strenuous concerns.

It is more than a tad ironic that John Stossel frequently used and even popularized the term "junk science" on 20/20, and I began to wonder if he was engaging in it himself.

Prior to actually conducting this research, the researcher wrote me saying, "Without agreement by all participants on the manner of how things were done, the outcome of the experimentation is indeed virtually meaningless." And yet, he and the 20/20 team continued to conduct this junk science experiment with an outcome that indeed was meaningless.

It is further confusing that neither James Randi or any of his many followers had ever commented about the quality of this study, even though they are known to ridicule virtually any and every study that has had a positive result from a homeopathic medicine. It certainly makes sense for a magician to want to expose frauds and charlatans. And yet, if Randi was truly serious about exposing frauds and charlatans, it is quite curious that he has chosen to go after alternative medicine rather than Big Pharma and Big Medicine when there are many more egregious frauds that occur regularly and with much greater impact on society.

It is inappropriate to say that Randi (or anyone) should not expose any type of fraud, but it is reasonable to ask: is there a "method" to decision to focus on one rather than the other? Even though Randi prides himself on uncovering frauds and hoaxes, he seems to turn a blind eye when he himself may be involved in what could be deemed a fraud or hoax.

As for Randi's $1 million "prize," one can and should look at the rules for this award that specifically give the James Randi Educational Fund (JREF) a clever way to avoid paying anything. Rule #4 asserts, "At any time prior to the Formal Test, the JREF reserves the right to re-negotiate the protocol if issues are discovered that would prevent a fair and unbiased test". As it turns out, a more recent effort to test homeopathy with a protocol agreed upon by Randi and famous Greek homeopath, George Vithoulkas, was delayed so long by Randi that it led to the impossibility to the trial (Vithoulkas.com). In Randi's defense, he does not wish to comment on the past or what he said or agreed to previously.

James Randi is not just a homeopathic and alternative medicine skeptic; he is also a climate change denier. A large number of his followers have had a seriously difficult time accepting his stance, and yet, these followers defend him by asserting that he is not really a "scientist" and cannot be expected to understand these complex issues (Pigliucci, 2009). These followers argue that Randi is competent enough to declare with certainty that many homeopathic and alternative treatments are "bunk," and yet, like cult members, his followers ignore the fact that he is neither a scientist nor a physician and cannot be expected to understand the complex issues of the healing process.

Because it seems that James Randi has serious concerns about fraud and deception in medicine and science, it is remarkably surprising that he has been silent on the considerable fraud regularly committed by conventional medical and "scientific" researchers and by Big Pharma companies. However, Randi is a great magician, and he is a recognized expert at misdirection.

Because it seems that James Randi has serious concerns about fraud and deception in medicine and science, it is remarkably surprising that he has been silent on the considerable fraud regularly committed by conventional medical and "scientific" researchers and by Big Pharma companies. However, Randi is a great magician, and he is a recognized expert at misdirection.

The advantage of Randi's climate change position is that he stands with and by Big Oil and Big Corp. To quote the Church Lady, "How convenient."

James Randi himself seems to have become a victim (or an accomplice) to a deception in his personal life. Randi's long-time companion, Jose Luis Alvarez, was arrested in early September, 2011, for identity thief (Franceschina and Burstein, 2011). This news story carries the additional irony that a master of fraud detection has himself been deceived (my personal condolences and my recognition that any person can be deceived). However, in this case, the man posing as Jose Luis Alvarez had, with Randi's help and advocacy, once pretended to be a "medium" in Australia as a test of the "new age" community there. Randi and "Alvarez" got significant media coverage for this hoax. The old adage that people teach what they themselves need to learn seems to have special meaning here.

Medical Fundamentalism: An Unscientific Attitude

Brian Josephson, PhD, won a Nobel Prize in 1973 and is presently professor emeritus at Cambridge University. Josephson asserts that many scientists today suffer from "pathological disbelief;" that is, they maintain an unscientific attitude that is embodied by the statement "even if it were true I wouldn't believe it" (Josephson, 1997).

Josephson wryly responded to the chronic ignorance of homeopathy by its skeptics saying, "The idea that water can have a memory can be readily refuted by any one of a number of easily understood, invalid arguments."

In the new interview in Science (December 24, 2010), Luc Montagnier, who won a Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering the AIDS virus, also expressed real concern about the unscientific atmosphere that presently exists on certain unconventional subjects such as homeopathy, "I am told that some people have reproduced Benveniste's results (showing effects from homeopathic doses), but they are afraid to publish it because of the intellectual terror from people who don't understand it."

Montagnier concluded the interview when asked if he is concerned that he is drifting into pseudoscience, he replied adamantly: "No, because it's not pseudoscience. It's not quackery. These are real phenomena which deserve further study."

Luther Burbank, the botanist and agricultural scientist, perhaps said it best:

"I have never known a clergyman or a professor who could be more narrow, bigoted, and intolerant than some scientists, or pseudo-scientists... Intolerance is a closed mind. Bigotry is an exaltation of authorities. Narrowness is ignorance unwilling to be taught. And one of the outstanding truths I have learned in my University (of Nature) is that the moment you reach a final conclusion on anything, set that conclusion up as a fact to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken away, and refuse to listen to any new evidence, you have reached an intellectual dead-centre, and nothing will start the engine again short of a charge of dynamite... Ossified knowledge is a dead-weight to the world, and it does not matter in what realm of man's intellectual activities it is found... Any obstinate clinging to outworn doctrines, whether of religion or politics or morality or of science, are equally damning and equally damnable." (Buhner, 2004, p. 21)

If the subject of this article intrigues you, British chemist and homeopath Lionel Milgrom has written an excellent and detailed analysis of the myths that medical fundamentalists spread on homeopathy (and specific individuals who are the worst offenders) (Milgrom, 2010).

Thomas Kuhn, the great physicist and philosopher of science and author of the seminal "Structure of Scientific Revolutions," asserted that "paradigm shifts" seem only outrageous or revolutionary to those people who have invested themselves in the old paradigm...but to all others, the paradigm shift is a natural evolutionary development to virtually everyone else. The deniers of homeopathy are simply "too invested" personally and professionally in the old medical and scientific paradigm, while the rest of us consider the maturation of medicine and science as long overdue.

It has been said that dinosaurs tend to yell and scream the loudest before their fall...and it seems that we are all witnessing evolution at work.

REFERENCES:

BBC, 2002. http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathy.shtml

Belon M, Cumps J, Ennis M, Mannaioni PF, Sainte-Laudy J, Roberfroid M, Wiegant FAC. Inhibition of human basophil degranulation by successive histamine dilutions: results of a European multi-centre trial. Inflammation Research 1999; 48: s17-s18.

Belon P, Cumps J, Ennis M, Mannaioni PF, Roberfroid M, Ste-Laudy J, Wiegant FAC. Histamine dilutions modulate basophil activity. Inflammation Research 2004; 53:181-8. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15105967

Buhner, Stephen Harrod. The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature. Rochester, VT: Bear & Company, 2004.

Dowie, Mark. Food Fight. The Nation. January 7, 2002. http://www.thenation.com/article/food-fight Dowie, Mark. A Teflon Correspondent. The Nation. January 7, 2002. http://www.thenation.com/article/teflon-correspondent

Ennis M. Personal Communication, December 9, 2003. http://www.homeopathic.com/Articles/Media_reports/Email_from_Professo...

Franceschina, Peter, and Burstein, Ron. Amazing Randi, renowned supernatural investigator, immerses in mystery about partner's alleged ID theft. Sun Sentinel. September 15, 2011. http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-09-15/news/fl-jose-alvarez-arti...

Josephson, B. D., Letter, New Scientist, November 1, 1997.

Ludtke R, Rutten ALB. The conclusions on the effectiveness of homeopathy highly depend on the set of analysed trials. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. October 2008. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2008.06/015.

Milgrom LR. Homeopathy and the New Fundamentalism: A critique of the critics. J Altern Complement Med 2008; 14: 589. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18564960

Milgrom LR. Beware Scientism's Onward March, 2010: http://www.anh-europe.org/news/anh-feature-beware-scientism’s...

Pigliucci M. Rationally Speaking: In Pursuit of Positive Skepticism, December 17, 2009. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rationally-speaking/200912/james-...

Sikora K. Complementary medicine does help patients. Times Online, February 3rd 2009. Online document at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/court_and_social/arti...

Stossel, John. ABC-TV 20/20. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveMeABreak/story?id=124309&page=1

Vithoulkas: http://www.vithoulkas.com/content/view/1973/lang,en/

Dana Ullman, MPH, is America's leading spokesperson for homeopathy and is the founder of www.homeopathic.com . He is the author of 10 books, including his bestseller, Everybody's Guide to Homeopathic Medicines. His most recent book is, The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy (the Foreword to this book was written by Dr. Peter Fisher, the Physician to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II). Dana lives, practices, and writes from Berkeley, California.

 

[Zippyjuan]

What percent of people using "alternative" treatments also die or are harmed as a percent of those seeking that kind of treatment (hundreds of millions go to doctors every year). Hint: The numbers are unavailable. Why? They aren't required to provide them and promoters and sellers have no incentive to do so voluntarily.

Are "alternatives" more effective or safer? Can anybody provide statistics as to cure rates and death or harm rates for alternative medicines beyond anecdotal reports to show how good or bad they may be?
(since alternative medicines are not required to report negative events including deaths like conventional medicines are, this will lead to a severe under-counting of them when they do get reported)
.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/health/16diet.html?pagewanted=all

But hiding in plain sight, then as now, a national database was steadily accumulating strong evidence that some supplements carry risks of injury and death, and that children may be particularly vulnerable.

Since 1983, the American Association of Poison Control Centers has kept statistics on reports of poisonings for every type of substance, including dietary supplements. That first year, there were 14,006 reports related to the use of vitamins, minerals, essential oils — which are not classified as a dietary supplement but are widely sold in supplement stores for a variety of uses — and homeopathic remedies. Herbs were not categorized that year, because they were rarely used then.

By 2005, the number had grown ninefold: 125,595 incidents were reported related to vitamins, minerals, essential oils, herbs and other supplements. In all, over the 23-year span, the association — a national organization of state and local poison centers — has received more than 1.6 million reports of exposures to such products, including 251,799 that were serious enough to require hospitalization. From 1983 to 2004 there were 230 reported deaths from supplements, with the yearly numbers rising from 4 in 1994, the year the supplement bill passed, to a record 27 in 2005.

The number of deaths may be far higher. In April 2004, the Food and Drug Administration said it had received 260 reports of deaths associated with herbs and other nonvitamin, nonmineral supplements since 1989. But an unpublished study prepared in 2000 for the agency by Dr. Alexander M. Walker, then the chairman of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, concluded: “A best estimate is that less than 1 percent of serious adverse events caused by dietary supplements is reported to the F.D.A. The true proportion may well be smaller by an order of magnitude or more.”

The supplements with the most exposures in 2005, according to the poison control centers, were ordinary vitamins, accounting for nearly half of all the reports received that year, 62,446, including 1 death. Minerals were linked to about half as many total reports, 32,098, but that number included 13 deaths. Herbs and other specialty products accounted for still fewer total reports, 23,769, but 13 deaths. Essential oils were linked to 7,282 reports and no deaths.

Among herbs and other specialty products, melatonin and homeopathic products — prepared from minuscule amounts of substances as diverse as salt and snake venom — had the most reports of exposures in 2005. The poison centers received 2,001 reports of exposures to melatonin, marketed as a sleep aid, including 535 hospitalizations and 4 deaths. Homeopathic products, often marketed as being safe because the doses are very low, were linked to 7,049 exposures, including 564 hospitalizations and 2 deaths.

But most other types of herbs and specialty supplements also appear in the annual report. In 2005, the poison centers received 203 reports of exposures to St. John’s wort, including 79 hospitalizations and 1 death. Glucosamine, with or without chondroitin, was linked to 813 exposures, including 108 hospitalizations and 1 death. Echinacea was linked to 483 exposures, including 55 hospitalizations, 1 of them considered life-threatening. Saw palmetto was not listed on the report.

Injuries to children under 6 account for nearly three-quarters of all the reports of exposures to dietary supplements, according to the poison centers. In 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available, 48,604 children suffered exposures to vitamins alone, the ninth-largest category of substances associated with exposures in that age group.

Major medical groups and government agencies do not generally recommend vitamin or mineral supplements for children who are otherwise healthy. But an analysis of the National Maternal and Infant Health Survey, published in the journal Pediatrics in 1997, found that 54 percent of parents of preschool children gave them a vitamin or mineral supplement at least three days a week.

Advocates of the products correctly point out that the poison centers’ figures do not prove a causal link between a product and a reaction and that, in any case, far more people are injured and killed by drugs. Painkillers alone were associated with 283,253 exposures in 2005, according to the poison centers, more than twice as many as with supplements. But only 3.5 percent of those exposures occurred when people took the prescribed amount of painkiller; most were from overdoses, either accidental or intentional. The same was true of asthma drugs (3.6 percent of exposures were associated with the prescribed dose) and cough and cold drugs (3.1 percent).

While problems with vitamins, minerals and essential oils occurred at similarly low levels when people took the recommended amounts, exposures linked to the recommended levels of herbs, homeopathic products and other dietary supplements accounted for 10.3 percent of all exposures to those products reported to the poison centers — about three times the level seen for most drugs.

Drugs marketed in the United States go through a rigorous F.D.A. approval process to prove that they are effective for a particular indication, with the potential risks balanced against the benefits. While the approval process has come under attack in recent years as unduly favorable to drug companies, it remains among the toughest in the world.

There is no comparable requirement for supplements. Even so, hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been spent since the early 1990s on hundreds of studies to test the possible benefits of supplements. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, established by Congress in 1991 to “investigate and validate unconventional medical practices,” has a 2007 budget of more than $120 million.

Since April 2002, five large randomized trials financed by the center have found no significant benefit for St. John’s wort against major depression, echinacea against the common cold, saw palmetto for enlarged prostate, the combination of glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis, or black cohosh and other herbs for the hot flashes associated with menopause.

 

[Mini-Me]

I do believe we can learn a lot from more "natural" medicine than the pharamaceutical industry would like, and medical doctors are increasingly opening up to that possibility as well. Even the Mayo Clinic has started to give alternative medicine a fair hearing. There's still heavy institutional resistance though. For instance, the the FDA has a tendency toward lowering vitamin recommendations (so questionable in some cases, e.g. vitamin D, that I consider it flat-out suspicious...much like Codex Alimentarius), and then entrenched interests tag-team with them and spread FUD about things as harmless/helpful as vitamin and mineral supplements (healthy for sane amounts).

No matter what type of medicine we're talking about though, the scientific method is our most valuable tool - perhaps our only reliable tool - for separating the wheat from the chaff. Ultimately, homeopathy is simply not one of those things we can learn much useful from. It involves taking a substance (like an herb) thought or known to help a particular condition, diluting it in water and alcohol, and diluting it further and further until there's likely not a single molecule of the substance left (to somehow make it stronger, violating well-understood dose-response relationships). The solution is then tapped a bunch of times to magically increase its "potency," and since no logical explanation can be given for why this should work, it's handwaved away as, "Oh, it must be something related to quantum physics and water memory," without any supporting evidence for such extraordinary explanations. I'd call it fraud, except practitioners actually believe in it...they have a blind, almost religious faith in it. Despite passionate anecdotal stories citing its effectiveness (generally from people with a low awareness of their cognitive biases), properly conducted double-blind tests consistently show that homeopathic medicine is no more effective than a placebo...as it should be, because there's literally no logical reason why it should work. It sure works a heck of a lot better than other 19th century practices, but only because those were actively harming people.

BTW, I have little interest in James Randi, but donnay, you do realize the article you posted characterizes Randi as a "climate change denier" as evidence of his aversion to science, right? Shouldn't that instead indicate something about the author's own lack of understanding of the scientific process? After all, climate science is totally manipulated at every level, as Richard Lindzen overwhelmingly revealed in his paper, "Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?" (I'm going off on a tangent of course, but I'd strongly urge anyone and everyone to read that paper. I thought I already knew how much science is heavily manipulated for political reasons, but even I was shocked by the wealth of verifiable specifics Lindzen provided. The paper even came before Climategate, when we learned a few researchers were covering up the fact that their tree ring reconstructions are totally unreliable proxies for temperature.)

 

[Working Poor]

Hint: The numbers are unavailable. Why? They aren't required to provide them and promoters and sellers have no incentive to do so voluntarily.

What difference does it really make? One thing we can all be sure of is we are going to die. If I want to take natural medicine instead of the medical industrial complex treatment I ought to have a right to do so. I am still going to die not matter what I do. I don't like modern medice's meds they usually make me feel worse than I did before I took them. They even have screwed up the narcotics by putting Tylenol and ibuprofen in them. Geesus Crumb I hate them.

 

[donnay]

BTW, I have little interest in James Randi, but donnay, you do realize the article you posted characterizes Randi as a "climate change denier" as evidence of his aversion to science, right? Shouldn't that instead indicate something about the author's own lack of understanding of the scientific process? After all, climate science is totally manipulated at every level, as Richard Lindzen overwhelmingly revealed in his paper, "Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?" (I'm going off on a tangent of course, but I'd strongly urge anyone and everyone to read that paper. I thought I already knew how much science is heavily manipulated for political reasons, but even I was shocked by the wealth of verifiable specifics Lindzen provided. The paper even came before Climategate, when we learned a few researchers were covering up the fact that their tree ring reconstructions are totally unreliable proxies for temperature.)

I do not think the author was discounting anything, just pointing out that complexities of proving either.

"James Randi is not just a homeopathic and alternative medicine skeptic; he is also a climate change denier. A large number of his followers have had a seriously difficult time accepting his stance, and yet, these followers defend him by asserting that he is not really a "scientist" and cannot be expected to understand these complex issues (Pigliucci, 2009). These followers argue that Randi is competent enough to declare with certainty that many homeopathic and alternative treatments are "bunk," and yet, like cult members, his followers ignore the fact that he is neither a scientist nor a physician and cannot be expected to understand the complex issues of the healing process."

 

[Mini-Me]

Ah, my mistake. I was skimming through, and I stopped and laughed as soon as I got to the point, then posted. :o That said, the use of the word "denier" clearly demonstrates where the author's bias lies here.

Anyway, the argument the author is making there is still pretty weak: Aside from the shameful abuse of/disregard for the scientific method in climate science, there's a ton of serious climate research that disputes the IPCC's narrative. (It's just swept under the rug and "discredited" by superficial arguments, without the original authors receiving the customary opportunity to issue a rebuttal in the same article to defend their research...this means their rebuttal is never quoted or referenced, so the narrative from that point forward is that the research was "discredited" when it really was not.) Since the field of climate science has spawned so much contradictory research on such a technical topic, and you need to be well-versed in math, statistics, and meteorological phenomena and theory to understand it, then it's perfectly reasonable for James Randi to recognize that there's no way for someone like himself to actually judge the contradictory scientific papers on their own merits in this case. (That said, the related evidence of fraud is so overwhelming that an unbiased person should not only be skeptical but completely reject the notion that there's a reasonable case for anthropogenic global warming in the first place.)

In contrast, there's basically no properly conducted scientific research showing a positive result for homeopathy's efficacy, and there's no logical reason why it should work either. The broad field of medical research may be complex and technical, but the narrower field of efficacy testing requires much less specialization to understand. This kind of research can be judged more easily on its merits by an intelligent layperson, by scrutinizing its methodology. So, yes, the body and healing process is complex, but you don't need to be an expert on the body or medicine to understand double-blind testing. If you believe in the scientific method and the usefulness of double-blind testing for showing efficacy, then it logically follows that you recognize there are currently no strong arguments for the efficacy of homeopathy.

 

[Working Poor]

.

If you believe in the scientific method and the usefulness of double-blind testing for showing efficacy, then it logically follows that you recognize there are currently no strong arguments for the efficacy of homeopathy.

I find no good use for double blind studies..
I have used homeopathy for many years. I use it when I first start having symptoms and most of the time I do not have to go to anything else. If you read about homeopathy in any depth the reason it works is explained. I find that I get very good results using homeopathy with my pets too of course they could just be getting well because they think I am God and know everything. Homeopathy for pets is a growing industry there are even vets who practice it.

 

[RonRules]

I find no good use for double blind studies..

Hurry up Darwin, you have customers waiting.

 

[Dr.3D]

I'm pretty sure, Jesus would be thrown in prison these days for doing what He did back then. After all, what kind of double blind study would have proven, His spitting in the dirt and making clay out of it and putting it in the man's eyes would have healed the blind man's eyes?

 

[Mini-Me]

.I find no good use for double blind studies..

I read this as, "I find no use for ruling out my cognitive biases." That's fine, I suppose. I should clarify that I don't believe the government should be able to dictate acceptable medical practices, aside from allowing people to prosecute fraud. Moreover, I don't even think homeopaths should be prosecuted for fraud, because they're true believers, much like yourself. In more derogatory terms, they drink their own kool-aid, and so they can't be generally characterized as frauds, because they're not deliberately deceiving people.

I have used homeopathy for many years. I use it when I first start having symptoms and most of the time I do not have to go to anything else. If you read about homeopathy in any depth the reason it works is explained. I find that I get very good results using homeopathy with my pets too of course they could just be getting well because they think I am God and know everything. Homeopathy for pets is a growing industry there are even vets who practice it.

Heh...yeah, tell me about it. My dog's own vet practices it, and that's why I found myself looking into homeopathy's efficacy in the first place, so I could go in with eyes wide open. Homeopathic medicine tends to work for you because you believe in it...which, incidentally, is why a lot of people like to pull punches here, to let you continue believing, so it continues working for you. The mind is a powerful thing. The irony here is that natural medicine proponents of all types frequently acknowledge this in the abstract, and yet people who believe in homeopathy fail to understand how it affects them personally on a practical level.

The mechanism homeopaths suggest for homeopathy's supposed effectiveness has shifted over the years, but from my understanding they've recently settled on nebulous arguments about water memory and quantum mechanics (for anyone who wants a more detailed explanation of "like treats like"), which are too technical for most people to argue against. They're just enough to convince people who WANT to believe in them, but they're little more than superficial assertions with no logical or factual basis.

I'm pretty sure, Jesus would be thrown in prison these days for doing what He did back then. After all, what kind of double blind study would have proven, His spitting in the dirt and making clay out of it and putting it in the man's eyes would have healed the blind man's eyes?

Exactly, which is why belief in Jesus's miracles is based on religious faith...and belief in homeopathy works the same way. The question is, is that really how you want to go about making nuts-and-bolts practical medical decisions for yourself and your family...faith, rather than reliable evidence or proof? Properly used, the scientific method and double-blind testing are invaluable time-tested tools for differentiating fact from fiction. There are plenty of gaps they can't fill, but we'd be fools to reject them in areas where they're applicable. By doing so, we'd be implicitly rejecting almost everything else we know about the natural world, including all of the science that engineering - and our resulting technology - is based upon. Blind faith without regard for science leads to bizarre beliefs about the world, and if we didn't have people smart and methodical enough to move past that, you wouldn't be sitting in an artificially lit room at all, let alone typing on a computer.

 

[donnay]

Ah, my mistake. I was skimming through, and I stopped and laughed as soon as I got to the point, then posted. :o That said, the use of the word "denier" clearly demonstrates where the author's bias lies here.

Anyway, the argument the author is making there is still pretty weak: Aside from the shameful abuse of/disregard for the scientific method in climate science, there's a ton of serious climate research that disputes the IPCC's narrative. (It's just swept under the rug and "discredited" by superficial arguments, without the original authors receiving the customary opportunity to issue a rebuttal in the same article to defend their research...this means their rebuttal is never quoted or referenced, so the narrative from that point forward is that the research was "discredited" when it really was not.) Since the field of climate science has spawned so much contradictory research on such a technical topic, it's perfectly reasonable for James Randi to recognize that there's no way for someone like himself to actually judge the contradictory scientific papers on their own merits here. (That said, the related evidence of fraud is so overwhelming that an unbiased person should not only be skeptical but completely reject the notion that there's a reasonable case for anthropogenic global warming in the first place.)

In contrast, there's basically no properly conducted scientific research showing the efficacy of homeopathy, and there's no logical reason why it should work either...so there's really no highly technical contradictory research for the ordinary person to reconcile. What research DOES exist can be judged more easily on its merits by an intelligent layperson, by scrutinizing its methodology. Sure, the body and healing process is complex, but you don't need to be an expert on the body to understand double-blind testing. If you believe in the scientific method and the usefulness of double-blind testing for showing efficacy, then it logically follows that you recognize there are currently no strong arguments for the efficacy of homeopathy.

I have seem small studies done. But, I know what works for me. Homeopathic medicines do not come with dire side effects as those shelled out by allopathic doctors. For instance, when I have a headache I take a homeopathic remedy. If within 15 minutes my headache is not gone I can take more. I can do this every 15 minutes up to 8 doses. Can you do that with Tylenol, Advil or Bayer aspirin? Also with Tylenol (Acetaminophen), and Advil (ibuprofen) taking too much shows that they will hurt your liver and cause liver damage.

Why does Big Pharma get away with fraud? Why isn't the Amazing Randi going after them? I will tell you why; Big Pharma would smack Randi down, like a fly to a fly swatter. Because they are very powerful and their is an agenda to keep any alternative medicine/remedies suppressed, that's why.

 

[Mini-Me]

If you believe in homeopathy, shouldn't you actually take LESS of the homeopathic remedy for it to be most effective? Remember, a core belief of homeopaths is that the more diluted it is - the less of the active substance you're taking in - the more effective it becomes. The logical conclusion would then be that if you don't take any of it, it's even more effective. Obviously homeopaths don't take their beliefs to their logical conclusion though, because then they'd be out of a job...so more complex rationalizations are necessary. Enter the arguments about water memory and quantum physics. That's one of the things that's so screwed up about homeopathy: It totally inverts the logical (and tested, and understood) dose-response relationship in a nonsensical way, then flagrantly abuses complex physical concepts that most people don't understand to patch over the absurdity in an ad-hoc manner.

Acetaminophen IS damaging to the liver though, and ibuprofen is to a lesser extent as well. I'm no pharmaceutical industry apologist: They're powerful, and they're corrupt, they have a ton of influence over the bodies created to regulate them (which is why regulation doesn't work), and they use the FDA to block valid competition. I have no doubt that a ton of big pharma's medications cause more problems than they solve (Cymbalta in particular is downright poisonous)...but that's still no argument for homeopathy. Large corporations do not have a monopoly on greed and fraud (although as noted above, I don't think it's usually intentional in the case of homeopathy).

I can sympathize with the idea that "I take what works for me," but what I'm trying to get across is that I think you're drastically underestimating the power of the mind here. It's your belief that makes it work. There are so many biases involved that lead to the placebo effect, and that is why scientific research cannot accept anecdotal evidence as useful. Properly conducted without cheating, double-blind tests tell the truth. I do believe there has been one blind (can't remember if it was double-blind?) test showing a weak positive result for homeopathy, unlike all the others, but unless it can be consistently repeated like the negative results, the inescapable conclusion is that it was a statistical fluke or botched experiment.

 

[donnay]

If you believe in homeopathy, shouldn't you actually take LESS of the homeopathic remedy for it to be most effective? Remember, a core belief of homeopaths is that the more diluted it is - the less of the active substance you're taking in - the more effective it becomes. The logical conclusion would then be that if you don't take any of it, it's even more effective. Obviously homeopaths don't take their beliefs to their logical conclusion though, because then they'd be out of a job...so more complex rationalizations are necessary. That's one of the things that's so screwed up about homeopathy: It totally inverts the logical (and tested, and understood) dose-response relationship in a nonsensical way.

Acetaminophen IS damaging to the liver though, and ibuprofen is to a lesser extent as well. I'm no pharmaceutical industry apologist: They're powerful, and they're corrupt, they have a ton of influence over the bodies created to regulate them (which is why regulation doesn't work), and they use the FDA to block valid competition. I have no doubt that a ton of big pharma's medications cause more problems than they solve (Cymbalta in particular is downright poisonous)...but that's still no argument for homeopathy. Large corporations do not have a monopoly on greed and fraud (although as noted above, I don't think it's usually intentional in the case of homeopathy).

I can sympathize with the idea that "I take what works for me," but what I'm trying to get across is that I think you're drastically underestimating the power of the mind here. It's your belief that makes it work. There are so many biases involved that lead to the placebo effect, and that is why scientific research cannot accept anecdotal evidence as useful. Properly conducted without cheating, double-blind tests tell the truth.

You do have a point. I am not going to argue about how effective homeopathic remedies are. If it is all in my mind, that I am better off than I would be if I had taken some OTC medicine or a prescription. And the really great thing is, I am not giving money to Big Pharma.

 

[donnay]

*double post*

 

[Mini-Me]

You do have a point. I am not going to argue about how effective homeopathic remedies are. If it is all in my mind, that I am better off than I would be if I had taken some OTC medicine or a prescription. And the really great thing is, I am not giving money to Big Pharma.

Honestly, I do agree with you here. If belief helps your headache, awesome...and in the cases where it doesn't, your headache will go away soon anyway, so no big loss.

I'm more concerned about how homeopathic evangelizing might affect people with more serious illnesses though, where the decision-making process involves much higher stakes. Conventional medicine should also be closely scrutinized in these situations, because it's commonly a double-edged sword (helps one thing, but wrecks your body otherwise)...more than anything else, I'm just trying to advocate using reliable tools for making judgments about efficacy when it really matters.

 

[Working Poor]

The question is, is that really how you want to go about making nuts-and-bolts practical medical decisions for yourself and your family...faith, rather than reliable evidence or proof?

Your reliable proof is my blasphemy. You "believe" in your proof too don't deceive yourself...

 

[Mini-Me]

Your reliable proof is my blasphemy. You "believe" in your proof too don't deceive yourself...

You seriously make no distinction at all between completely arbitrary belief (for instance, an unshakable belief in invisible flying pink unicorns) and using logic, reason, and the scientific method to evaluate empirical evidence and account for cognitive biases?

Yes, I do have faith in logic, reason, and properly conducted experimentation (the scientific method), because the importance and usefulness of these tools should be self-evident to anyone wanting to go through life without killing themselves over bizarre beliefs (like, "I can fly, so let's jump off a skyscraper!" or "Gasoline smells good, so let's drink it!"). If my faith were misplaced, we wouldn't be sitting here in artificially lit rooms typing on computer keyboards in the first place. In fact, if logic in particular were unreliable, we wouldn't be able to learn anything meaningful about the world at all, because nothing would make sense...including any attempt at debate. The things I have faith in are indispensible intellectual tools that are so fundamental to our existence and experience of consensus reality that anyone arguing against them is typically engaging in performative contradiction.