Digital Homeopathy
Jul 29 2008 00:15
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7523302.stm
Quote:
Benveniste started a spin-off company called DigiBio, which claimed that water could not only have a memory, but that this memory could be digitized, transmitted via email and reintroduced into another sample of water, which in turn could have an impact on living cells.
Jul 29 2008 11:40
#2
The proper link is here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7505286.stm
I'm not sure that lab is actually still going Jess. That article is a historical account - the guy who started it died 4yrs ago, and they lab hasn't published anything since 2000.
Jul 29 2008 11:47
#3
stfu its still funny
Jul 29 2008 11:54
#4
Homeopathy is always funny!
Couple of days ago, the UK's first alternative medicine professor publicly stated homeopathy is a load of shite
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/dec/18/health.medicineandhealth1
Jul 29 2008 12:57
#5
xConorx wrote:
Homeopathy is always funny!
Hardly surprising seeing as most of the modern German practitioners, like Zimpel, were whacked-out Rosicrucians who believed they were following mediaeval alchemical processes.
Jul 29 2008 17:51
#6
My uncle is a homeopath but I don't really pay attention. he's also a Hare Krisna and a vegan. He talks about a vast conspiracy by the pharmaceutical companies against homeopathy and what not. Coming from anyone else I may give it some more time. Anyone wanna load me up with ammunition for our next family dinner?
Jul 29 2008 17:59
#7
juozokas wrote:
My uncle is a homeopath but I don't really pay attention. he's also a Hare Krisna and a vegan. He talks about a vast conspiracy by the pharmaceutical companies against homeopathy and what not. Coming from anyone else I may give it some more time. Anyone wanna load me up with ammunition for our next family dinner?
Wow Conor will love you, if i were you i would invite him to the dinner 
He will be your chief ammunition boy, if you would like to hear another pov, Khwaga is your main man. Me, i'm indifferent tho the OP is wonderfully bonkers, good hit, Jess. (even tho Conor got all teachery on you. 
)
Jul 29 2008 18:32
#8
You can't be indifferent LW, that's spineless bollocks. Homeopathy is fucking nonsense.
Jul 29 2008 20:30
#9
word.
Jul 29 2008 20:57
#10
Agreed. The most obvious criticism I can think of is one (slightly tongue in cheek for the most part) by Pratchett, Cohen and Stewart:
" Prominent among those who refer back to Paracelsus for authority are homeopathists. A basic belief of homeopathy is that medicines become more powerful the more they are diluted. This stance lets them promote their medicine as being totally harmless (its just water) but also extraordinarily effective (as water isn't). They notice no contradiction here. And homeopathic headache tablets say 'Take one if mild, three if painful'. Shouldn't it be the other way round?
Such people see no need to think about what they are doing, because they base their beliefs on authority. If a question is not raised by that authority, then it's not a question they want to ask. So, in support of their theories, homeopaths quote Paracelsus: ' That which makes disease is also the cure'. But Paracelsus built his entire career on not respecting authority. Moreover, he never said that a disease is always it's own cure."
Pratchett et al. The Science of the Discworld II The Globe. (London:Ebury Press 2003) p 71
a nice intro to the main criticisms of homeopathy as pseudoscience is here: http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=homeopathy.php
Aug 1 2008 08:11
#11
If this shit worked (as in, if it could pass basic FDA tests for effectiveness), then wouldn't big pharma try to make money off of it? In re: ammo, it's not like you're going to convince anyone. Homeopathy directly contradicts two pretty well founded theories - the biological germ theory of disease and the chemical theory that solutions generally do less, have less reactive material in them per unit volume, the more you dilute them. Both of these things are about as controversial as the heliocentric solar system or that the Earth is sorta sphere shaped. If someone's willing to deny both of them, he's obviously not a big fan of logic and reason. I'm open to alternative treatments, and to the idea that traditional medicines thousands of years old may have a couple tricks on them modern western medicine hasn't picked up on yet. But there's a big step between saying something like "acupuncture seems to have a generally diminutive affect on the amount of pain a patient is experiencing" and "acupuncture redirects the flow of invisible energy within our bodies, disruptions of which are the REAL cause of all diseases and ailments. Everything our scientific understanding of chemistry and biology gave us was just a fluke, a lucky guess."
You could also try pointing out all the horrible diseases that have been virtually wiped off the Earth, such as polio and smallpox, and ask how many diseases homeopathic medicine has eliminated. Modern medicine routinely performs things like open-heart surgery that Paracelcus or the ancient masters of TCM would regard as supernatural miracles. If homeopathy is so awesome, it shouldn't be that hard to ask it to perform miracles.
Shit, at least the snake-oils and the miracle cures of yesteryear had opium or cocaine in them... this stuff is all just water...
Aug 1 2008 13:26
#12
SuperAngryNinjaWithASolidGoldAK47 wrote:
I'm open to alternative treatments, and to the idea that traditional medicines thousands of years old may have a couple tricks on them modern western medicine hasn't picked up on yet.
Well yeah clearly there is a difference between genuine alternative/complementary medicine, and that which completely lacks an evidence base. Not only is homeopathic effectiveness claims completely baseless, but it's advocates are actually opposed to attempts to test its claim objectively, not that for many of us that needs doing, we know it's bollocks.
Wrong link.