Putting homeopathy into perspective

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http://madartlab.com/2011/03/03/putting ... rspective/

It works!

Felicia Day could cure me any day.

But in that small a concentration?

I doubt it.

Nah, I'd need a direct, full dose. 1:1.

Did you notice that all human beings can be considered to be a 30C concentration of Felicia Day? So, you are basically standing next to a more powerful version of Felicia Day, according to homeopathy.

Just to be safe I think we should find a way to clone her and administer double doses.

That's right, you fight fire with fire. So dilution causes something to be more potent huh? Looks like Everclear is a b***h drink and cocktails will kill you with one drop!

Is this seriously what homeopathy is about? For God's sake, #2 is rendered BS by Grade 8 science and well if you need science to prove #1 is BS, then you probably think 1+1=11 lol.

If you actually paid attention in Grade B science, you would POSSIBLY have learned that a good proportion of each rung of scientific progress has involved gradually demonstrating the validity of the counterintuitive and revealing the inadequacies and inaccuracies of the previous day's scientific truism.

Eppur si muove.

And hey, folks, is homeopathy politics?

No.

Is it philosophy?

Not so far as either Socrates or Kant can see - I Kant either.

Is it religion?

Not in the least.

Why here with a whole Science focussed discussion area, kiddos?

Or is it just that this is REALLY the let's poke fun at anything forum?

Yes, it seriously is what it is about.

To be fair, back when homeopathy was invented, there was no knowledge of germ theory, and improving hydration is almost always a step that won't hurt and frequently it helps.

But then they discovered bacteria, and we had some sort of true medicine and slowly actual knowledge-based medicine became far more effective than giving vials of water to people. Unfortunately, homeopaths just don't like that whole germ theory thing and they decided to live isolated from the real world.

You clearly have never [knowingly] met an actual homeopath, nor have you examined the issues for yourself.

Homeopathy today [and I still wonder why we are having this discussion here, unless we extend the grasp of "philosophy of science" or the "politics of education [which produces people who cannot or will not think for themselves] is by no means denying the existence and the role in disease of the various animalcules, microbes, and chunks of replicating genetic material. The homeopath is well aware of their involvement in disease. So much so that a goodly and growing number of remedies have been made and used based on these organisms.

You seem to have missed this in your extensive research; I would urge you to take a field trip to your local "Health Food" outlet, where you will likely find on the shelf, even today with the North American flu season declining, a supply of Oscillococcinum.

It is rather a difference of approach. Science - even materialist and anti-homeopathic science - has noted that some human bodies are more disease resistant than others, and that if you stress and weaken a human system it is more likely to become diseased. The human environment is full of all kinds of disease causing organisms - you can reduce the flux by enclosing yourself in a "germ free" environment or increase it by entering a hospital.

Pretty well everyone is on a daily basis exposed to potentially lethal organisms and substances. Those with the weakest systems may die. Those with weak systems may get sick. The strongest systems survive. Tres Darwinien, n'est-ce pas?

The standard model for the most part [as I have pointed out but I suspect you at least did not bother to notice or check my statements for accuracy, there are exceptions in mainstream medical practice] aims at destroying the invasive microorganisms or the cancer. Poisons we hope will kill the problem before they can kill the patient, irradiation, raising the body temperature.

The model of Classical Homeopathy for the most part [again there are some exceptions you are unlikely to find unless you check some of the more specialized literature] aims at strengthening the body, raising it to the level of the healthy person who does not sicken or die despite breathing in incredible levels of bacteria and toxins.

Maybe if you had the kind of mind that could move to the other forum and explore the science, instead of reacting politically to Green Monkey deviationism [How dare we be different? Hah!] you would be able to argue against homeopathy and other alternative healing modalities as one informed.

Strengthening the body sounds cool and hip , but if you do it through untested methods based on bogus theories then you are not really strengthening the body. You are wasting your time, and money as well.


Being different for the sake of being different is not smart. In a way you are still under the control of the mainstream ideas, only that you mindlessly do the opposite. There is no benefit in that.

I have in the past gone to other forums, specifically those full with alt med BS "experts". Those things look great at first but eventually, you start smelling the smell of BS, you research into things closely and you notice that homeopathy is a bunch of stupid ideas and that at the end of the day, homeopaths (at least those that still follow homeopathy's actual laws, rather than calling themselves homeopaths while actually doing other alt med crap) are fraudsters. They are thieves, and they don't just get money through fraudulent things, they do it by playing with people's health. They are complete monsters and thus that's the reason I have such an aversion with them. I used to buy into all that crap, but then I started actually using my brain.

The law of similar and the law of infinitesimals, are the foundations of homeopathy. I know that it is very hard to be a homeopathy supporter when people actually get to learn about these two "laws" that homeopathy advocates for. Thus I understand your effort to make it look like homeopathy wasn't about it and pretend that there are other things to it and pretend I didn't do my research. However, it is a misrepresentation of facts and it is not very honest.

Last edited by Vexcalibur on 06 Mar 2011, 7:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sounds reasonable that it came from those times, but nowadays it's just obsolete. And yeah, being different for its own sake is corny. Should I write with my left hand just to spite the majority? Counter-conformist would be a more fitting label than non-conformist.

Funny you should say that. My parents forced me into being right handed [though I still mouse for example with the left] in order to fit me in to the majority.

They left my brother's handedness alone, though. I wonder if Dr. Spock changed his advice?

Felicia Day's for everyone!!

In all fairness there are remedies in mainstream medicine that might vaguely be called "homeopathic".
You mentioned chemo and radiation for cancer.

One of the most important mainstream remedies goes beyond "like with like" to being "the exact same with the exact same". That being vaccines,in which you're shot up with a weakened version of the very pathongen that makes you sick in order to prevent the very disease that the pathogen causes.

But (a) reliance on homeopathy often causes people to delay getting treatment from mainstream medicine. It even causes people to avoid vaccines ( which ironically are not recognized as homeopathic by homeophaths despite the fact that vaccines are one of the few mainstream remedies that actually are somewhat homeophathic in concept).

And (b) as that video shows - homeopathy takes the dilution concept to such an extreme that, as a nineteenth centurey detractor said, "its an affront to reason" because you get dilutions so fine that no molocule of the ingredient remains. It would be as if you took a flu virus and went beyond killing, beyond chopping it up, to the point where no protien molecule (indeed not even an atom of any sustence other than the water molecules used to dilute) remained for your body's immune system to respond to. Water alone would not work as a flu vaccine. But homeopaths claim that somehow empty water can work as a "remedy" (because the water has 'memory' of having had molecules in it, or some such thing).

It is unfortunate that in the early days the necessarily individualized treatment protocols of Hahnemannian homeopathy attracted those least likely to take a serious look at its operation, while the one size fits [almost] all 80% will see a reduction in enuresis while 15% will see an increase operation of mainstream allopathy attracted those most likely to investigate the mechanism.

As a result the "theory" is hardly worthy of the name whatever one may think of the practice, and at this point in the earth's history for a number of political and psychological and economic reasons the doors are pretty well barred. Aside from investigations of the areas of efficacy of individual remedies and applications striking out into such areas as psychology, I only know of one recent serious project, with not uninteresting results, and in that case the research team was leapt upon by the non-Green Monkeys and shredded.

Whether this be proper behavior for Science, whose motto once COULD have been "Prove all thinks, recognizing that ultimately thou canst prove nothing", I will not say because you know my sense of it. Contemporary Science, the Hippocratic oath being a dead letter, now largely operates on a basis of "Sic 'em, and Never Break Ranks".

This post has been abridged to avoid polemic not absolutely essential to speaking truth to power.