I realized again that I am wedging into too many threads that generally are about pseudoscience so instead of derailing threads I will start my own

Many find it odd that I get a bit bent out of shape about things like homeopathy, psi phenomenon, and other superstitious beliefs. Therefore I would like to share some of my opinions, ideas and knowledge on why I feel pseudoscience and a lack of scientific literacy in general is dangerous and a general drain on society.

First I'll start with an easy one. Homeopathy.

Homeopathy basically has a few principles. One is that substances that cause reactions in healthy people that resemble disease could potentially cure it. Like if a plant makes a healthy person vomit then a sick person who is vomiting can use a homeopathic preparation on This isn't a bad idea many of the plants use in homeopathic medicine do contain active compounds. But then it goes horribly wrong when they dilute out the substances to the point where there is barely any molecules at all of it in the preparations. Some are so dilute that its safe to say there is nothing in them at all.

The concept is based on the idea that plant essences get into the water. This is complete utter nonsense. The reason plant medicines heal at regular doses is that the compounds in plants effect various systems in the body or fight infection etc.

So now many will say well whats wrong with homeopathy. Its safe it won't harm anybody so who cares? Well yes the preparations are safe because there is nothing in them. So that's true. Homeopathy also appears to work for some people which I will get back to after.

So what is the problem? The problem is two fold. One aspect is the financial one. Its a rip off. You literally are buying blanks. Basically its like buying placebo pills or liquids. I could sell you water and tell you something is in it and lie about it and you would get the same effects. I would probably get in trouble for selling water pills and saying it can treat disease yet homeopaths get away with it. Not only do they get away with it but they get subsidies sometimes from national governments to pay for research and hospitals and the drugs themselves. The NHS in UK puts money into homeopathy for example. So besides just wasting individuals money it also wastes public money.

The second aspect is the trend to reject western medicine. Now western medicine has its faults. But western medicine is the best medicine system in the world. It works. We know why it works in many cases. So basically those who promote homeopathic medicine as an alternative for lets say cancer treatment are really doing something that is dangerous. They are telling people who are desperate in a time of need that they can reject other forms of medicine which have been proven to work and use fake water to cure cancer. It should be a crime to lie to people like that. If a pharmaceutical company did this they would face lawsuits. Major ones. The examples are very numerous. Of course in some cases they don't directly make medical claims because in order to do so in many places like the US that's illegal without FDA approval. But the homeopathic pushers have found other ways to advertise via the internet and websites like naturenews.com. There other people can make all the claims and anecdotal reports they want to get people to believe homeopathy is a real alternative.

So now what to say about people who are actually cured by homeopathy? Well there are a few explanations. One is that the placebo effect does work. There is a reason to get a drug approved companies must prove it works better then placebo. People can often get better by thinking they are getting better. A positive attitude can effect disease outcome for many reasons. Another explanation is that homeopathic "doctors" spend time with their patients. They listen and give lifestyle advise. This is also something that many people with many conditions need instead of drugs. It also works. But none of this is unique to homeopathy lots of systems doctors could and do incorporate such positive patient relationships techniques into their work. Another mechanism is that simply the disease got better on its own.

To conclude homeopathic "medicine" is a fraud. But there are aspects of the system that do give it positive results when people do so called studies on the system and its outcomes and success rate. But none of these positive results are because of any real substances entering the body and having an effect on the individual. Its simply not how it works. So I think society would be better off to make it known that its a lie and complete BS so people don't drain resources on it. Rather people could invest their resources into doctors and other medical practitioners who are free to take the time to work with patients and give them lifestyle advise. I think this would do tremendous good to western medical systems. But it also involves freeing up some of the government regulations that bind doctors down in certain countries.

there cant really be too many on here that believe in Homoeopathy is there? never say impossible, but there's absolutely no proof of it working.

Burnt wrote
I realized again that I am wedging into too many threads that generally are about pseudoscience so instead of derailing threads I will start my own.


Sounds good Burnt


My thoughts dont run upon rails of any other RESTRICTED path! I have no agenda to pursue. I wander thru life using the scientific method.

1 Observation
2 Hypothesis
3 experiment
4 conclusion

So I to pick things apart slowly as well!
It takes a wile to get a VALID experiment underway.
Many time much longer to come to a valid conclusion.

As far as Phds they are no better than me or anyone else.
They are just humans who make mistakes.

The scientific method is my religion!
My version is a religion with out intentional bias.

As so my life goes I give the best of my ability.
To all I encounter, and so I feel no insult or shame for any of my thoughts.
I try to keep smiling in a world gone mad.

PEACE and
understanding
Always

MV


PS
my responce to below
there cant really be too many on here that believe in Homoeopathy is there?

Nope cant see it happening NEVER proven by experement. Besides waater diluted with "micro" ingreadents tailored into it so it is basically pure H2O water.

Check out the Amazing Randy offering a french researcher a MILLON dollars to duplicate his homoeopathy expermements. I assume its on youtube.

After the experement failed the french reseacher blamed the failure of experement on Amazing Randy taking pics verifying numbers ect....
He said Randy turned the experement into "a mad house" ha

Keep in mind Randy still has the one million dollar prize still there to anyone who can PROVE evidance of ANY kind of paranormal event what so ever in a scientific control setting.

Yup. I need to add to burnt's post that most of the pseudosciences also rely on the "confirmation bias" fallacy, which basically means that one hears reports only about people who got cured by some pseudoscientific method but not from those who didn't get cured.

Pseudoscience really relies to evoking the placebo effect. The placebo effect is really strong and it potential big. Same goes for no-cebo effect (whose reference may be relevant to the discussion). Nocibo is the opposite of placebo; one of the most notable example is the "cursing" and how it may work on affecting the life of a cursed person.

Another example of nocibo is relevant to modern western medicine. It has to do with patients who get all the side-effects their medication may give them. There are some medical cases being reported on this subject. This may be one of the downfalls of modern medication methods re to their aim, that is curing of the patients (the latter is more suited to medical ethics, e.g. should a patient know the side effects of his medication if there are good chances he may succumb to a nocebo effect?)

On the other hand the alternatives (be it acupuncture, homeopathy, etc.) make such a good use of the placebo effect. This is truly remarkable and I totally respect. But that's as far as my respect goes.

Infundibulum
I agree compleatly and until a experement comes that can accurately omit the placebo effect and prove things in the PROPER lab enviroment. I will not beleive or state anything as fact until the necessary controls are in place and the scientific method tells us the truth in its conclusion.

I am all about observing and NOT coming to premature conclusions.

"If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice."


PEACE
loving the debate

MV

I agree western medicine is not as bad as it's made out to be..but it still has a looooong way to go. It's just as bunk as anything else becasue of all the tainted buisness men with they're pharmaceutical companies killing people. It's no wonder people are skeptical. All people need is to be told the truth for once..and many western doctors are really poor at diagnosing..

This is all from personal experience...I was helped in ways I could not describe by a naturalpathic physician...i went through allopathic doctors for 2 years, hearing the same crap over and over, and arguing with them until I went to this other doctor I had heard about. She was trained as a physician origionally, ended up with cancer at some point, lost all her hair and was treated by an indian herbal doctor and took up a strict rotary diet. Now she is extremely healthy with a full head of hair(and I saw the pictures of her hair falling out 10 years ago)..

She gave me full blood tests that the regualr doctors would no do, and tests for yeast, as every other regualr allopathic doctor seemed to dismiss the reality of yeast infections in men and systemic candida..They told me her diet would not work becasue it was not in they're literature. She helped me get my adrenal functions up, gave me a huge list of foods I was reacting to, gave me diet books, exercises to do, put me on glutamine supplements,and put me on a strict organic gluten free diet, and finally confirmed to me that I had hypoglycemia..and a systemic yeast infection that gave me leaky gut and many food allergies..plus I have always been sensitive to dairy and beef, so can never eat them again..my other doctors told me they could not give me allergy tests beyond a useless skin prick test, and that all I could do was cut out the food one at a time!!.. which is rediculous.. I also developed prostatitus..which my allopathic doctor thought was weird at only 23 years old..so sent me to a urologist becasue she was worried about prostate cancer..I talked to him about yeast infections and that I did have oral thrush and thank god he took me aside and told me that he did believe in candida, but that there was no funding for that sort of stuff so I should keep on with my naturalpath..and since then my prostate gland has gone back to normal.

All my other doctors could seem to do was tell me to take some antacids and eat los of fibre..They still dont believe that I could have candida..and my recovery is def not placebo..I couldnt even work or go to school for about 10 months..I was really sick and borderlining diabetic.

Thats far from homeopathic remedies though..but still I cant believe how stupid some doctors seem..I even had info I brought to them on yeast infections and had positive tests from my naturalpath and they did not want to hear it.

So until western medicine looses the money making phama association, people will be skeptical and be inclined to turn to alternatives..which is sad.

I am glad i went though this though, becasue it made me really want to study natural medicine and herbalism from a down to earth chemical point of view, so I can one day hopefully help others wit the same problems..which I am now doing at college. Plus I now eat better than anyone else I have ever met..and that not an exageration either..makes it hard sometimes when I am out but its worth it.

Regarding homeopathy, here is an attempt to explain how someone who works with this stuff may think:

We know the placebo effect: in many cases it's enough to believe that something works for it to really work. But for that to happen, the proposed cure should be something that is easy to believe in. Human beings have built-in bullshit-detectors and if something doesn't get past it, it cannot affect the psyche in the desired way. If the "doctor" who gives the "cure" is a charismatic person, that's already a big bonus. If the theory built around the "cure" is self-consistent and has some believable basis in reality, that also helps. The better the theories are, the easier it is to suspend disbelief, and the more people will be cured.

In the case of homeopathy, it's all there. There is a "lineage" of practitioners and big names (authority). The explanations for why the used substances would work is acceptable. With the dilution, it gets more difficult, but not too much. After all, if the mind believes that the given substance helps, then decreasing the amount doesn't necessarily change the "shape" of the belief. Perhaps it even helps increasing the power of the belief, by bringing in the pseudo-scientific or esoteric stuff (e.g. by the presence of the molecules in the water, their associated "spirits" are invoked to the body to help, etc.).

I see that this is like anathema to a scientist, but if this method tends to work even when scientific methods don't, this fact alone may give it enough justification to exist. But if we accept this, there is a problem: pointing out that such systems are nonsense (as scientists do) can be detrimental to their "strength". If people read in Science or Nature that homeopathy is bullshit, this can undermine their capacity to believe in it, therefore they become "immune" to the possibility of being cured in such way. In a sense, their knowledge takes something away from them.

Fractal your story illustrates a common problem in western medicine. I think this largely has to do with the way doctors are trained and controlled by licensing agencies like the AMA (in the US) and HMO's (and similar management organizations). Without the monopoly on who can be a doctor and who can define what a doctor is and without restrictions on how many patients a doctor has to see etc there would be more doctors who take the time to try new things. There would be more doctors overall because the AMA is way to restrictive. But yes overall the procedure you describe is not pseudoscience it just may not have all the facts laid out but there is a biological and physiological basis for why changing your diet and lifestyle helped you. Glad it worked out.

Some people may argue that freeing up the medical establishment would lead to more corruption and more quacks but I doubt that. Independent agencies would spring up to fill the demand to evaluate doctors and medical procedure performance. Of course that would only really happen if the FDA went away which is another organization who I blame for many of the problems in western medicine (in the US anyway).




This is an interesting point and it reminds me of a friend. My friend thinks this rock he has healed his back pain. I tried explaining to him that its just in his mind. So when the rock is with him he thinks he is better. If the rock is away he loses that feeling. But really its all a lie and its all in his head but it does work for him. Chronic pain like back pain is often in the head btw but there is a physical component to it as well depending on the cause etc.

So yes you do bring up a very real concern. I think its better that people know the truth. Not just to eliminate the waste and fraud in these alternative healing practices but to show people the power of their mind and their outlook. If people were forced to accept that there everyday stresses are causing their pain they would be forced to face them head on and it would probably work in much the same way if not better. If people were taught that hey if you stop focusing on that irritating pain in your back it will go away that might work just as well. Also excersize and other life style changes that should go with any such healing.

Maybe you are right and people need something more to believe it will work. But if they were taught why it REALLY works then it might work even better because its not just a superstitious belief but real. I don't think medicine should be based on fraud and lies even if it works a reason that is not claimed (ie placebo). I think it overall does more harm then good.

maybe instead of going against homeopathy, we should be researching how to control the 'placebo effect' with our wills... now THAT would be interesting..


people always talk about placebo as if its something that 'doesnt work' and disregard it.. we should be marvelled by placebo effect, and trying to find out more how our expectations can make such a big difference in our immune systems, perception of pain, cancer, etc...

we dont know the limits of the placebo effect yet, I mean, I expect it only works on crude bodily reactions... but I actually have read about a real "placebo" effect in a pill, meaning that it may be possible to induce the effect with a drug, pretty ironic huh?

Actually the placebo effect is something that does work without the presence of a supposedly active substance. There should definitely be more research on the placebo effect. The biggest problem with the placebo is that it does not provide a mechanistic explanation of how it works. At best, the only explanations are vague.

There are numerous drug trials which fail because the x, y, z drug does not perform better than placebo. In many cases both the placebo and the drug-in-trial perform equally well.

The way the patient is treated by the practitioner/healer/therapist etc. seems to matter a lot though. I have two contrasting examples of how western medicals treat patients (at least in the places I grew up - i.e. an ex-soviet country and a Mediterranean country) vs the alternative ones.

Western doctors have always been impersonal, cold and distant to the patients. No handshakes exchanged, conversations kept to minimum and visiting the doctor has always been seen as a "almost superstitiously" uncomfortable thing to do. This situation undermines the therapeutic potential the doctor has on the patient and may negatively affect the outcome of the therapy. Thankfully however, doctors' mentality is changing nowadays .

On the other hand, alternative therapists tend to have a more close, more humane contact with the patients. I believe that this is part of the therapy and that this behaviour reinforces the placebo effect of whatever treatment the patient is advised towards.

So, back to endlessness' post, you're right the placebo effect should be marvelled more. Too bad that I am not aware of any groups doing research on the placebo effect. It is commonly said (and observed) that positive thinking, positive psychology etc. help a lot in the treatment of illnesses but it is a bad thing that this is becoming a "mantra" or "dogma" and no mechanism are investigated. This may help to bring closer modern medical practises and alternative therapists.

excellent post, inf...

One of the important points you bring up is about the different attitudes doctors can have. I think this has a lot to do with the paradigm one lives under and specially with the idea one has of health. Western medicine tends to look at a disease, and consequently at the cure, as something isolated from the context, as if humans were some kind of machines that once in a while need to change some parts. I see why some people might criticise it, and I also see why in different cases it is very useful.

Indigenous/ancient eastern medicine (if we can group it together) in general tend to look at diseases as some sort of unbalance which involves a lot more than just the obvious symptoms or the directly affected organs. Its a systemic thinking. In chinese thought, it will be an imbalance in Chi, in ayurvedic there's also energies which must be balanced. In some indigenous cultures the cure of a disease may be the presence of someone, may have spiritual reasons and so on. I also see why some people might have criticisms to that, but also see the value in some cases.

The point is that no model is by itself complete. Its quite obvious (to me) that western medicine has gotten too detached and forgot to realize that a lot of the diseases are inserted in bigger context, and that it could learn something from alternative points of view. The whole story of placebo and the words of infund above describe how its an inner potential we have that could be harnessed for general well being, by its forgotten and only used as 'standard whether some medication is good or not'.

Now to get somewhat back to the original subject (sorry burnt for going a bit off topic), I think the issue is that science tends to look at the mistakes of other cultures/paradigms, and generalize it as something to avoid or even straight go against (like pseudoscience). But one can study and find positive and novel contributions yet unused in the West, in a lot of ideas and attitudes from ancient cultures (which are maybe superficially talked about in pseudoscience but not exhausted in all its value)

What is important, in any case, is that one has critical thinking, wherever and whatever one may be thinking about. So whether it is to analyze pseudoscience and question it's possible mistakes, so should one do about whatever comes out from science (for example, 'what were the social/ecological consequences of this research, or of this development', or 'from the method and results presented, do we agree with the conclusions', 'who is financing this research', 'is this unbiased' etc). In a similar but opposite way, one should also be critical in the sense of trying to find what is of value and good, whether it is in pseudoscience or science (or whatever other group we encounter in our lives)

These are all good point;

The term pseudoscience has a few bits to it as to why it is called pseudoscience:

1) it provides no rational explanation as to why a given therapy works. "It just works" is not very scientific of course. For instance, homeopathy does not give a satisfactory explanation of why infinite dilutions of a therapeutical work as to fight the disease.

2) pseudoscientific practises either have not been tried (e.g. treatment vs placebo/control) or they have been tried and found to be no better. For instance, a acupuncture therapist who sticks his needles in the specific points performs no better to the one who pretends to be a acupuncture therapist and sticks the needles anywhere.

3) pseudoscientific practises often tend to consolidate their status by blend some scientific facts with their theories, they infer truths from unreliable sources and use far-fetched conclusions loosely based on existing facts. This almost always results in something clumsy that can be laughable by scientists.

Calling some practises as pseudoscientific does not mean that they do not work or there is no rationale as to why they work. It is true that certain (once-thought) pseudoscientific practises have been incorporated into scientific practises because one of the above have been reversed through careful study. But other practises have been shown to be total rubbish.

Sometimes psuedoscience is harmless. But there are examples of it being extremely dangerous and unethical.
Think of the wichhunts in africa. Locally, knowledge about wichcraft is seen as real science. So burning children, because that is what they do in somalia, is justified by phoney 'scientific knowledge'.

I think the right attitude towards these sort of things is just to be rational, objective and very critical.

Crusades are a waste of time.

But a first good step would be, not to adopt a cultural-relativistic aproach and not to say that we have to respect these uses as something culturally valuable.

There are plenty of men who think they have the right to beat-up their wife, because women are supposedly made out of a man's rib.
Most of the time, and that is a bit my point, these men are married to women who tend to agree with this. So the only thing you can do is to point out to those people that 1-there is no proof for the theory that women are made out of a mans rib. 2-if it would be true, this not logically leads to the conclusion that violence against women is justified.

They will most likely hate you for saying that. The reason you have to say it, is because there is a small chance that it would lead to something good. But it unfortunately is up to themselves to grab that chance.

An interesting example of the power of pseudoscience is the 'sokal affair'. No matter how funny it was, it did not lead to real changes in the pseudo science world, few people where converted to reason and logic and the main response was that people tried to discredit sokal.

I would love it if homeopathic practitioners would combine their positive practices with western medicine. I think there is a lot to gain from the whole living a balanced life style approach. But I think its rare that anyone would do that because it would involve them throwing out the junk (water) which is a source of revenue. It would also force them to admit that it doesn't work they way they say it works (plant essence nonsense). Most people have too much pride for that.

I think it would be great to combine forces with shamans and learn a bit more about how they heal and how it works. But again it would involve some of them stepping off their high horse and admitting they are wrong on some issues.

I guess this is why I have taken on the expose the BS approach instead of lets try to work together approach because they don't want to work together. They want people to believe in their magic so it keeps their pockets and bellies full. If that's how they want to play I am not going to try and keep compromising with people like that. Its not worth it and its not fair. I take the same stance towards religion in many cases.

On some polynesian islands, missionary's once tried to convert the locals to 'the one and only true religion'.
It did not always turn out exactly the way they planned, though.

There are places now, where the locals have carved headphones out of wood and the medicine men listen through these wooden headphones to the voice of god. They also worshipped a messias called john... something. I believe it was john bromley or fromley, or something in that direction.

Anyway.. nowadays, modern science inspire's many people all over the world to believe in science-fiction bullshit.
The founder of the scientology church was a science fiction author, first.

They take elements out of modern science, that appeal to them (like headphones, in the polynesian story) and turn it into anything they like.

another good example is the 2012 thing.
It's not unlikely that this myth arised out of something that started as real and proper science.

We now know that the poles of the sun and the earth indeed do reverse, from time to time, in a steady cycle.

It looks like somewhere around 2012 the poles of the sun and the earth will both change.
So maybe the mayans where damn good astronomers, and maybe they knew about these cycles; The flipping of the poles of the sun happens every 11 years and is paired with increased solar activity wich includes solar flares, so they could easily know about solar cycles.

But then the whole new-age industry discovers it, and suddenly the world is going to end, the martians are coming, god will reveal himself and a new era will begin that will bring greater spiritual insight and everybody's pimeal gland will start producing massive amounts of DMT (according to a certain, banned nexus-member) and more of these things.

The greatest danger of these fantasies is in my view, that they scare serious scientists away from, for instance, questions about mayan knowledge of astronomy.

I don't see a way to stop it, without doing away with things like freedom of speech.

nah.. the poles are shifting around 2012??? where'd you hear that?? I'm not an expert on that subject, but poles shifting is something they expect to happen at some point, it's happened before... but to my knowledge the window for such a thing happening is in the thousands of years, not single digits... if that was happening in 2012, we'd all know about it and be preparing for it years ago.

The thing that drives me insane about 2012 is the open ended nature of the prediction: SOMETHING will happen in 2012, but we don't know what????, I mean of course SOMETHING will happen... I mean, how on earth do I react to such an empty prediction... all I can do is live my life as normal and completely disregard it. Also, the end of the mayan calender?? is it just me or when someone says "how come it just stops?", what the hell is that getting at?? I'd be extremely surprised if the mayans had infinite calenders, I mean if I went out and bought t 2010 calender now, it would end in dec 31st 2010, that doesn't mean its the end of the bloody world.... what is that all about?

I first heard about the polar shifts via national geographic TV.

The poles of the sun shift every 11 years. The poles of the earth also shift in a steady cycle, but i wouldn't know how many years such a cycle takes.
You're right that it's more thousands or millions of years we're dealing with, than centuries.

The only indication that it might happen in the near future is a weakening of the earth's magnetic field. Polar shifts are preceded by a temporal weakening of the magnetic field.

You cannot, as far as i know, exactly pinpoint when it's going to happen, or how fast.

Someone made a prediction on the basis of layers of vulcanic rock and how little pieces of magnetic metal where clustered in these layers.
It appeared that, like a compass needle points to the north, these pieces of metal cluster in certain patterns related to the north pole.
And that in several layers of rock this clustering is rotated, so that you could date such polar shifts.

But no serious scientist, as far as i know, ever predicted that at excactly 2012 such a shift would take place. Only that such a shift is eminent, based on the data mentioned.

oh it's thousands of years mate, there are is no human evidence of a magnetic shift during our civilisation... meaning it never happened during our time of civilisation, but it happened before then, before compasses, and Mars' magnetic core stopped turning for some reason... they're still investigating this phenomenon, but at the moment I dont think they have any means of predicting when the magnetic poles would flip over... and if it did obviously it may be a bit messy.... I don't think we're anywhere near such an event.. like I said, if it was imminent at all, it'd be similar to the millennium bug, all the GIS and GPS systems would have to be updated right now..... they're not even capable of dealing with such a shift.

2012... I don't think it's anything at all to be interested in... nothing even remotely peaks my interest on the subject... any takers???