> Homeopathy has never been shown to be superior to treatment with a placebo in a properly conducted trial, AFAIK
@Leon,
Where did you get that information? Next you're going to tell us that the earth is flat. :-P There are hundreds of double-blind clinical studies in Germany, running over decades. Look in your own backyard, there are studies in the U.K. that meet the criteria of accepted medical statistical methods. However, the "accepted" medical community does not want to publish these things because they risk being roasted, just like the cold fusion people.
> How can administering water to a patient with not a single molecule of an active substance possibly have an effect on someone,
In fact, when the dilition drops *well below* Avogadro's constant, the medication becomes *more* efficacious. The explanation does not fit current scientific understanding, because the current accepted worldview is not encompassing enough. The effects are pronounced - I have seen what these things do to patients first hand, over 20 years. You can disregard this entire realm, if you so choose.
[noparse][[/noparse]EDIT]
> ·believe that most of that 'research' has been shown to be methodologically suspect:
> www.skepdic.com/homeo.html
I suggest you read that very objectively - it in itself is unsound. And how do you explain then, the positive results that *millions* of people have, placebo effect, wishful thinking?
- Howard
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Post Edited (CounterRotatingProps) : 6/23/2009 7:57:24 PM GMT
I'll see what I can find. Be careful about words like "reputable" and "double-blind". There are more than an handful of professional organizations that limit their recognized journals for "evidence-based medicine". If you look at their criteria for those journals, they have nothing to do with the quality of the work published or their reputation within possibly a very narrow area of expertise. Many types of research (and I specifically include acupuncture here) are simply not appropriate for double-blind studies. True, you may need a larger study size and you have to be careful about the design of the study and what you're measuring, but, if you insist on a double-blinded study design, you are likely to find that you're measuring something about the study design, not what you claim to be measuring and the study doesn't in fact tell you anything about what it's claimed to.
A very small number of published studies has shown significant results when compared with a placebo, but they have never been replicated. Proper scientific studies can always be replicated.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Dare I say that this whole discussion reminds me of many frustrating "discussions" about the television show T.A.P.S. that I have had with my "other half" (I won't say "better half" when discussing this topic though, sorry dear!)
The only part that I would prefer to discuss/share is the claim, along these lines, of:
"If these shows didn't exist, then these phenomena would never get the attention they need to be proven true or taken seriously".
Or something like that. (When that argument is stated, I normally leave and go play with my prop or read something, though the show is still somewhat/somehow entertaining).
While I have no experience (aka, am skeptical without having had any experience) with anything like acupuncture, one cannot immediately refuse to accept it as a valid solution to a problem that may not have any other "more scientific" solution. Until recently, I always believed what most doctors would say about Chiroprators, until I tried it (and now believe!).
I think it in our human nature to be skeptical. It's really the ones who are truely adventurous/open-minded/have "run out of rope" that end up discovering some great things. I do fall into the category of persons that think the mind is much more capable of doing more than just adding 2 + 2. This would include allowing oneself to see data in a predispositioned way (aka biased towards what you want to see) and also make judgement as to if an apple is indeed an apple (and dare I say even bend a spoon).
-Parsko
Note: I've been biting my tongue on this topic all day, and though I may not have much to offer, I did anyway... I've written and cancelled this post 2 times before this (and this was the best I could come up with!!! [noparse]:)[/noparse] )
"Proper scientific studies can always be replicated"? That's theoretically true. Practically speaking it's rarely true in any area where there's not much money to be made. Studies are very expensive to set up and maintain and funding is in short supply. There's not much benefit for a researcher to be lead author on a study to replicate something another study found. This sort of thing happens all the time in the pharmaceutical industry and medical device industry where multiple studies are needed to get a product approved and there's enough funding to go around. In areas like homeopathy and acupuncture, it's unlikely you'll get your study funded, so the replication studies rarely get done.
But homeopathy is a multi-billion dollar industry with millions of people paying lots of money for water in little bottles! I would have thought that it was in the interests of homeopaths and purveyors of bottled water to finance a few replications, as it would vastly increase their earnings if the replications succeeded.
Very few journals publish studies with non-significant results. Perhaps there are thousands of investigations into homeopathy taking place each year, worldwide. If so, it isn't surprising that one or two results are significant, and they might get published. That would explain the lack of replicated studies in the literature: they don't get published or people don't even submit them, because the results are non-significant. One of my lecturers once replicated some well-known experiments in the field of subliminal perception, and couldn't replicate the findings. He repeated the experiments several times, but couldn't get his papers published. He used to joke about starting a Journal of Non-Significant Results.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
CounterRotatingProps said...
> On the contrary, they lumped together lots of disparate studies.
Leon (and Slyvie too) ... not trying to raise your ire here, but this is what 'accepted' medical research does all the time. (So too standard psychological research.) It's called "clinical trials":
" As positive safety and efficacy data are gathered, the number of patients is typically increased. Clinical trials can vary in size from a single center in one country to multicenter trials in multiple countries. " - wiki, " clinical trial ".
So I guess with quantum mechanics, we have to throw out medicine too?
Cheers
- Howard
(a skeptic too)
Nope, that's not remotely the same thing. We're not talking about using more than one location to collect data, or using more than one patient. We're talking about identifying post hoc several already completed studies, and putting the results together for the purposes of getting "significant" results.
You're looking at rotten apples and saying "oranges are rotten".
> that would explain the lack of replicated studies in the literature: they don't get published or people don't even submit them, because the results are non-significant
Are you getting this from
> www.skepdic.com/homeo.html
you posted earlier ?
I said it was unsound. It's interesting that you posted that specific link. I actually check in on it once in a while, and have printouts for almost all of the references listed at the end of that article - and have read them. One example why I say it's unsound: they link to only *one* German reference... and it's an old, dated one that refers to a flawed series of homeopathic "studies" done in Germany in the 1930's --- these 'clinic studies' were any thing but ... it was pretty stupid what they did, actually. The link is:
The "Total disaster" happened in the mid 1930's, was published in German in the mid 60's, and later into English - and is now on the 'net.
As you and Slyvie have mentioned, it's a favorite tactic of the psuedo-scientists and mumbo-jumbo psychics to leave out information that would reveal their shams. Well, the sceptics are just as good at that game. Other than the "disaster" link in that skeptics' web-article, there are absolutely ZERO references to any of the many clinical trials in Germany. So, as you say above, you take this 'lack' as evidence that there are no positive or verifiable results. Therefore it's not real. These things are being excluded intentionally. And the 'accepted' medical journals are rejecting them. I know this personally, because I have several close friends who are on the editorial staff of several of these publications. (I have been directly and indirectly connected to medicine for 35 years.) They will discuss these matters only when they know they will not be quoted or overheard. Medicine is the most 'materialistic' of all the sciences. (And for any innocent bystanders reading - that's what's really going on here: the old clash of worldviews.)
I appreciate your skepticism - as parsko mentions, it's part of our nature - and I'd add, it's a *healthy* part of our nature. However, under the motto of 'let's wake up the naive and protect them from psuedo science,' totally discounting such a large number of people who get relief on a daily basis, amounts to trying to block and discourage people from exploring treatment options that may well work for them.
I know you think it's bunk, and think people are paying for "water." But I know otherwise, from direct, personal experience. (Not the effects on me, but on others.)
[noparse][[/noparse]edit - removed a reference for privacy reasons.]
Wouldn't it be better to allow for openness and encourage possible treatment regimes? I'd rather be a yes-sayer than a nay-sayer.
" In 1974 [noparse][[/noparse]nobel laureate Richard] Feynman delivered the Caltech commencement address on the topic of cargo cult science, which has the semblance of science but is only
Pseudoscience due to a lack of "a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty" on the part of the scientist. He instructed the graduating class that "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that."
CounterRotatingProps said...
> On the contrary, they lumped together lots of disparate studies.
...
" As positive safety and efficacy data are gathered, the number of patients is typically increased. Clinical trials can vary in size from a single center in one country to multicenter trials in multiple countries. " - wiki, " clinical trial ".
So I guess with quantum mechanics, we have to throw out medicine too?
Cheers
- Howard
Nope, that's not remotely the same thing. We're not talking about using more than one location to collect data, or using more than one patient. We're talking about identifying post hoc several already completed studies, and putting the results together for the purposes of getting "significant" results.
You're looking at rotten apples and saying "oranges are rotten".
Sorry, Slyvie,·but I'm not following you here ... the results of studies are *always* post hoc, and correlated - otherwise, they're not *studied*.
Please·read these, and you'll see that both the 'large number' and 'cherry-picking'·problem can be misapplied equally across the board:
Sorry, Howard, but you're missing all of the important issues here. Similarly, your earlier comments about rejecting quantum events in light of the law of large numbers argument is also completely off-target, since as far as I can see, neither Leon nor I (nor standard science) ever claimed that unlikely events do not occur.
The links you posted don't support your argument at all either - in fact they seem completely irrelevant. I'm afraid you're not understanding any of this.·Your central difficulty is revealed in this comment in your post above:
"I know you think it's bunk, and think people are paying for "water." But I know otherwise, from direct, personal experience. I'm sitting in a doctor's office right now."
"Direct, personal experience" is not evidence for the effectiveness of homeopathy. This is a very very common mistake that people make. You're failing to notice the inferences you're making to connect the experiences as you're describing them to yourself with the conclusions you're drawing about the effectiveness of homeopathy. As a result, you think that "direct, personal experience" trumps actual evidence. It does not. It's essentially useless as evidence for the effectiveness of some technique - but it is, as I pointed out earlier, the actual cause of most "true believers'" beliefs. That's the central problem with alternative medicine.
I know that's a bitter pill, and I'm not going to dispense any more of it. ·· But give it some thought. It's sometimes scary, but openmindedness can be very rewarding.
Post Edited (sylvie369) : 6/24/2009 9:54:44 AM GMT
I didn't get those comments of mine from the Skepdic web page, but they are in line with what is stated there. They can be applied to most of the paranormal literature.
This was a good study of homeopathy, televised for the BBC2 Horizon programme a couple of years ago:
People recover spontaneously from depression all the time. The fact that patients seem to do better on homeopathic preparations means nothing at all unless the treatment is part of a clinical trial with double-blind methodology and the various other safeguards that are typically applied.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Thanks for the link Leon, the BBC usually does a cracking good job - I'll take a look. (And thanks too for staying civil - I appreciate your perspective.) - Howard
I'm with Leon on this one,, the NHI did research on this and showed with inescapable results that after a point of dilution there was not even a molecule as Leon pointed out of the original medication still in the solution. They also conducted some pretty extensive double blind testing and found it to be no more helpful than placebos if memory serves me it was a wash between the 2 groups a statistical wash anyway,, Then in the early 90s LEF did more trials with a larger group of over 100 elderly patients suffering from various ailments and found the same thing no marked improvements over placebo group
I take large quantities of vitamins and believe in alternative medicine and health care but the Homeopathy route is more of a religion for the people that practice it than any science I am aware of
I've just remembered something interesting about acupuncture. Many years ago a lady in China was filmed undergoing surgery with no anaesthesia apart from acupuncture. I remember seeing the film, and she looked perfectly happy during the procedure, saying she wasn't experiencing any pain. Some years later she was asked about the experience, and said she was actually in agony the whole time, but didn't say anything because she had been told that she wouldn't experience any discomfort.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Comments
www.skepdic.com/homeo.html
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Post Edited (Leon) : 6/23/2009 7:50:43 PM GMT
@Leon,
Where did you get that information? Next you're going to tell us that the earth is flat. :-P There are hundreds of double-blind clinical studies in Germany, running over decades. Look in your own backyard, there are studies in the U.K. that meet the criteria of accepted medical statistical methods. However, the "accepted" medical community does not want to publish these things because they risk being roasted, just like the cold fusion people.
> How can administering water to a patient with not a single molecule of an active substance possibly have an effect on someone,
In fact, when the dilition drops *well below* Avogadro's constant, the medication becomes *more* efficacious. The explanation does not fit current scientific understanding, because the current accepted worldview is not encompassing enough. The effects are pronounced - I have seen what these things do to patients first hand, over 20 years. You can disregard this entire realm, if you so choose.
[noparse][[/noparse]EDIT]
> ·believe that most of that 'research' has been shown to be methodologically suspect:
> www.skepdic.com/homeo.html
I suggest you read that very objectively - it in itself is unsound. And how do you explain then, the positive results that *millions* of people have, placebo effect, wishful thinking?
- Howard
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Post Edited (CounterRotatingProps) : 6/23/2009 7:57:24 PM GMT
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Unless the science isn't proper.
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The only part that I would prefer to discuss/share is the claim, along these lines, of:
"If these shows didn't exist, then these phenomena would never get the attention they need to be proven true or taken seriously".
Or something like that. (When that argument is stated, I normally leave and go play with my prop or read something, though the show is still somewhat/somehow entertaining).
While I have no experience (aka, am skeptical without having had any experience) with anything like acupuncture, one cannot immediately refuse to accept it as a valid solution to a problem that may not have any other "more scientific" solution. Until recently, I always believed what most doctors would say about Chiroprators, until I tried it (and now believe!).
I think it in our human nature to be skeptical. It's really the ones who are truely adventurous/open-minded/have "run out of rope" that end up discovering some great things. I do fall into the category of persons that think the mind is much more capable of doing more than just adding 2 + 2. This would include allowing oneself to see data in a predispositioned way (aka biased towards what you want to see) and also make judgement as to if an apple is indeed an apple (and dare I say even bend a spoon).
-Parsko
Note: I've been biting my tongue on this topic all day, and though I may not have much to offer, I did anyway... I've written and cancelled this post 2 times before this (and this was the best I could come up with!!! [noparse]:)[/noparse] )
Very few journals publish studies with non-significant results. Perhaps there are thousands of investigations into homeopathy taking place each year, worldwide. If so, it isn't surprising that one or two results are significant, and they might get published. That would explain the lack of replicated studies in the literature: they don't get published or people don't even submit them, because the results are non-significant. One of my lecturers once replicated some well-known experiments in the field of subliminal perception, and couldn't replicate the findings. He repeated the experiments several times, but couldn't get his papers published. He used to joke about starting a Journal of Non-Significant Results.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Post Edited (Leon) : 6/23/2009 8:56:54 PM GMT
You're looking at rotten apples and saying "oranges are rotten".
please read this carefully.
> that would explain the lack of replicated studies in the literature: they don't get published or people don't even submit them, because the results are non-significant
Are you getting this from
> www.skepdic.com/homeo.html
you posted earlier ?
I said it was unsound. It's interesting that you posted that specific link. I actually check in on it once in a while, and have printouts for almost all of the references listed at the end of that article - and have read them. One example why I say it's unsound: they link to only *one* German reference... and it's an old, dated one that refers to a flawed series of homeopathic "studies" done in Germany in the 1930's --- these 'clinic studies' were any thing but ... it was pretty stupid what they did, actually. The link is:
http://www.kwakzalverij.nl/1050/A_total_disaster_for_homeopathy
The "Total disaster" happened in the mid 1930's, was published in German in the mid 60's, and later into English - and is now on the 'net.
As you and Slyvie have mentioned, it's a favorite tactic of the psuedo-scientists and mumbo-jumbo psychics to leave out information that would reveal their shams. Well, the sceptics are just as good at that game. Other than the "disaster" link in that skeptics' web-article, there are absolutely ZERO references to any of the many clinical trials in Germany. So, as you say above, you take this 'lack' as evidence that there are no positive or verifiable results. Therefore it's not real. These things are being excluded intentionally. And the 'accepted' medical journals are rejecting them. I know this personally, because I have several close friends who are on the editorial staff of several of these publications. (I have been directly and indirectly connected to medicine for 35 years.) They will discuss these matters only when they know they will not be quoted or overheard. Medicine is the most 'materialistic' of all the sciences. (And for any innocent bystanders reading - that's what's really going on here: the old clash of worldviews.)
I appreciate your skepticism - as parsko mentions, it's part of our nature - and I'd add, it's a *healthy* part of our nature. However, under the motto of 'let's wake up the naive and protect them from psuedo science,' totally discounting such a large number of people who get relief on a daily basis, amounts to trying to block and discourage people from exploring treatment options that may well work for them.
I know you think it's bunk, and think people are paying for "water." But I know otherwise, from direct, personal experience. (Not the effects on me, but on others.)
[noparse][[/noparse]edit - removed a reference for privacy reasons.]
Wouldn't it be better to allow for openness and encourage possible treatment regimes? I'd rather be a yes-sayer than a nay-sayer.
" In 1974 [noparse][[/noparse]nobel laureate Richard] Feynman delivered the Caltech commencement address on the topic of cargo cult science, which has the semblance of science but is only
Pseudoscience due to a lack of "a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty" on the part of the scientist. He instructed the graduating class that "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that."
- from http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Richard_Feynman#encyclopedia
cheers - and with all due respect,
Howard
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Post Edited (CounterRotatingProps) : 6/24/2009 2:22:04 AM GMT
Please·read these, and you'll see that both the 'large number' and 'cherry-picking'·problem can be misapplied equally across the board:
http://webmed.irkutsk.ru/doc/pdf/studytypes.pdf
http://www.hsl.unc.edu/Services/Tutorials/EBM/Supplements/QuestionSupplement.htm
cheers,
Howard
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Sorry, Howard, but you're missing all of the important issues here. Similarly, your earlier comments about rejecting quantum events in light of the law of large numbers argument is also completely off-target, since as far as I can see, neither Leon nor I (nor standard science) ever claimed that unlikely events do not occur.
The links you posted don't support your argument at all either - in fact they seem completely irrelevant. I'm afraid you're not understanding any of this.·Your central difficulty is revealed in this comment in your post above:
"I know you think it's bunk, and think people are paying for "water." But I know otherwise, from direct, personal experience. I'm sitting in a doctor's office right now."
"Direct, personal experience" is not evidence for the effectiveness of homeopathy. This is a very very common mistake that people make. You're failing to notice the inferences you're making to connect the experiences as you're describing them to yourself with the conclusions you're drawing about the effectiveness of homeopathy. As a result, you think that "direct, personal experience" trumps actual evidence. It does not. It's essentially useless as evidence for the effectiveness of some technique - but it is, as I pointed out earlier, the actual cause of most "true believers'" beliefs. That's the central problem with alternative medicine.
I know that's a bitter pill, and I'm not going to dispense any more of it.
Post Edited (sylvie369) : 6/24/2009 9:54:44 AM GMT
I didn't get those comments of mine from the Skepdic web page, but they are in line with what is stated there. They can be applied to most of the paranormal literature.
This was a good study of homeopathy, televised for the BBC2 Horizon programme a couple of years ago:
www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathy.shtml
People recover spontaneously from depression all the time. The fact that patients seem to do better on homeopathic preparations means nothing at all unless the treatment is part of a clinical trial with double-blind methodology and the various other safeguards that are typically applied.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
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I take large quantities of vitamins and believe in alternative medicine and health care but the Homeopathy route is more of a religion for the people that practice it than any science I am aware of
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Post Edited (CounterRotatingProps) : 6/24/2009 2:23:50 AM GMT
Well, you know Mike,
if this were the 1960's, we'd be saying your use of vitamins is more of a 'religious belief than science'. [noparse]:)[/noparse])
- Howard
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Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle