The Quackery of Homeopathy

[Boerseun]

Slightly off-topic, but I just had to approve an ad for just the kind of quack we have under discussion here (Hey - it's bullshit, right - but it pays the bills...besides, I can't tell my client who can or cannot advertise in their publications, I can just advise them as to layout and design).

 

But to cut a long story short, the advertiser informed me that we cocked up on the spelling. And then gave me a lecture on the correct spelling, and how everybody spells it wrong because nobody wants to go to the effort of studying up on it 'cause nobody takes them seriously.

 

Well, duh, I said.

 

And then changed the spelling to its correct form.

 

So, for the sake of Correctness in All Ways (including the modernised version of witchdoctery under discussion), I inform you all:

 

It's actually spelled homoeopathy.

 

Who would've known.

 

Who would've cared?

 

But there ya go. Knowledge of that tiny little "o" in the term makes us just a little less ignorant than we were, mere seconds ago. And that's more than adherents to that particular term can say.

 

Which makes us better, all round.

 

We rule.

 

Bwhahahaha...

[dkv]

What if reality is itself a placebo effect ??

Or what if the ego itself manifested because of some non-causual cooreleation between mind and matter?(placebolically discovered self)

Is it scientific to claim that anything should be classified as placebo effect?

 

If placebo effect works half the time then it actually works because no medicine can treat all its patient. The dosage , diagnosis , detailed understanding of symptoms and habits are required to recommend any medicine especially a homeopathic medicine.

 

 

This quakery has not survived but also flourished. Isnt this a proof of its efficiency?

Would you classify Ayurvedic or chinese system of medicine as mere quakery?

[Dr. Nancy Malik]

What if reality is itself a placebo effect ??

Or what if the ego itself manifested because of some non-causual cooreleation between mind and matter?(placebolically discovered self)

Is it scientific to claim that anything should be classified as placebo effect?

 

 

If placebo effect works half the time then it actually works because no medicine can treat all its patient. The dosage , diagnosis , detailed understanding of symptoms and habits are required to recommend any medicine especially a homeopathic medicine.

 

 

This quakery has not survived but also flourished. Isnt this a proof of its efficiency?

Would you classify Ayurvedic or chinese system of medicine as mere quakery?

 

500 million people swear homeopathy worldwide (Source: HOMEOPATHY TODAY)

 

Hippocrates 'The Father of Medicine' of Ancient Greece said there were two Laws of Healing: The Law of Opposites and the Law of Similars. Homeopathy treats the patient with medicines using the Law of Similars, orthodox medicine uses the Law of Opposites, e.g. antibiotics, anti-inflammatories , anti-convulsants, anti-hypertensives, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics.

 

Allopathy falls in the first category. Homeopathy, Ayurveda, TCM falls in the second category. That does not mean Homeopathy, Ayurveda, TCM are same. In fact this is the only common thing among them.

[Tormod]

Is it scientific to claim that anything should be classified as placebo effect?

 

Huh? The "placebo effect" is a scientific term used to indicate positive results of a clinical trial where no medicine is used. You can't classify something as placebo, but you can claim that the only effect of a drug/treatment is placebo.

 

If placebo effect works half the time then it actually works because no medicine can treat all its patient.

 

No, this is a logical fallacy. Something has worked half the time, but you can't prove that it's the non-working drug/treatment (hence the term "placebo").

 

This quakery has not survived but also flourished. Isnt this a proof of its efficiency?

 

Another logical fallacy. It is akin to claiming that any religion that flourishes must be true.

 

It's actually spelled homoeopathy.

 

500 million people swear homeopathy worldwide (Source: HOMEOPATHY TODAY)

 

Funny that even the lobby organization's own publishings spell the word wrong, then.

 

And I would not regard the "Homeopathy Daily" as a credible source of anything, rather as a guide to what the practitioners' claim.

 

Hippocrates 'The Father of Medicine' of Ancient Greece said there were two Laws of Healing: The Law of Opposites and the Law of Similars. Homeopathy treats the patient with medicines using the Law of Similars, orthodox medicine uses the Law of Opposites

 

Not entirely true. The concept of vaccines is based on the principle of beating disease by teaching the body how to react to a disease - and it is proven to work. It simply uses mild doses of the virus/bacteria in question and injects in your bloodstream, so your body can learn how to cope with it if it should turn up again.

 

Homoeopathy uses *only* the placebo effect, because it has no effective drugs. Thus it's effects cannot be proven regardless of what "law" they claim to use.

[Pyrotex]

The dismal truth is, it does not matter how well you prove homeopathy to be fakery. It does not matter how many double-blind tests it fails, or how many instances of fraudulant evidence are discovered, or how stupid the underlying "Law of Opposites" truly is.

 

It does not matter.

 

The True Believers have innoculated themselves against logic and reason. They are immune to evidence and proof. And they are the "masters" of their little domain, patting each other on the back and raking in the money. {sigh}

[Tormod]

The dismal truth is, it does not matter how well you prove homeopathy to be fakery.

 

You heretic. It is of course brought to us by UFOs and thus must be real since we cannot prove it wrong with out paltry, Earth-based "science".

[Pyrotex]

You heretic. It is of course brought to us by UFOs and thus must be real since we cannot prove it wrong with out paltry, Earth-based "science".

It may have brought to us in the Perpetual Motion Drive UFO Time Machines from Dimension X, but it would still have died out -- if not for the fact that homeopathy is the only thing keeping Elvis alive today.