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Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation

skeptic.org.uk

31–40 of 172 posts

Re: Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation

#31

What I don't get about homeopathy is that there's not even a plausible mechanism for it to work. So research into its effectiveness is like studying how well rocks repel tigers[1]. It seems necessary to show that a homeopathic "medicine" is substantially different than plain old water first. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4GzMizVAl-0&pp=ygUTc2ltcHNvbnM...

This gets obfuscated by claiming that water has a memory and will "remember" those substances. Which is of course entirely implausible for anyone with sufficient physics or chemistry background.

You're right that no further study is needed for homeopathy, it simply cannot work at these kinds of dilutions.

Re: Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation

#32

I still don't understand why these can be sold in American pharmacies.

It's considered a dietary supplement, which is governed by the dietary supplement health enforcement act, which in turn classifies dietary supplements as a food product.

Re: Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation

#33

I still don't understand why these can be sold in American pharmacies.

They're even covered by some insurance plans.

A friend of mine is an orthopedic surgeon, and they explained to me that for mild problems, which would normally heal on their own, it's cheaper to cover a placebo rather than real medication.

Re: Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation

#34
I regularly had arguments on homeopathy with some close family members. I stopped, because belief in homeopathy is the same kind of belief as belief in flat-earth, and you can't be cured off it.

People get seduced by a somewhat internal logic. They get a fuzzy feeling of superiority in their discovery that the mainstream ignores. If you point out the absolute lack of evidence of any of what they believe in, it's because pharma is silencing them. They are excited to be enlightened, because only they can see how crooked big pharma is: they need you to be sick so you can buy their "allopathic medicine" (derogatory calling of drugs that actually work), so they're trying to kill homeopathy who would really save you ; which to be fair is not helped by the fact that pharmaceutical companies are indeed crooked and want you to be sick.

I don't think there's any volume that can be said on homeopathy that will convince anyone who already believes in it that it's all a scam.

Re: Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation

#35
post #5
post #3

Homeopathy is total BS, but the placebo effect is real. Is there a way that medical science can allow people to benefit from the latter without rewarding quacks who push the former?

prescribe distilled water.

Right, but how to do this while preserving the placebo effect? If the patient knows it’s “just” water, the effect is lost. Some sort of deliberate deception seems to be necessary, which raises ethical problems.

Re: Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation

#36
post #10

If homeopathy "theory" says that the water retains an "imprint" of other chemicals it encountered, clearly the tap water coming into your house is horribly contaminated with the fish pee, ozone (from UV purification treatment) and the pipes themselves. I briefly considered selling a device that would "reverse" those consequences so the water from your tap would be homeopathically neutralized. But it just seemed uneth…

> But it just seemed unethical to take advantage of the poorly educated

I thought about doing the same during COVID when people were believing ludicrous claims about nanobots in the vaccine.

I was thinking that you could make a nice chunk of coin selling those old acam magnetic bracelets that 'deactivate the nanobots so that you can get the vaccine protection without the bots'

That way people would be helped by your scam product. And another way to look at it is that these people are going to be scammed by someone, it might as well be you, some with morals and not someone who is going to use that scamoney to move onto a bigger and bigger scam until they scam their way into the office of president.

Re: Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation

#37

I still don't understand why these can be sold in American pharmacies.

Because every bottle is clearly labeled “The FDA has not evaluated this for treating any condition”. There are a great many products that the FDA hasn’t evaluated that are still sold, why should these be any different?

Re: Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation

#38
post #10

If homeopathy "theory" says that the water retains an "imprint" of other chemicals it encountered, clearly the tap water coming into your house is horribly contaminated with the fish pee, ozone (from UV purification treatment) and the pipes themselves. I briefly considered selling a device that would "reverse" those consequences so the water from your tap would be homeopathically neutralized. But it just seemed uneth…

It likely wouldn't work. All these treatments are rooted in personality cults, social pressure, and anecdotes.

Unless one of the big names in naturopathy gives your widget the thumbs up, the whackos won't buy it. In order to get them to give your widget the thumbs up, you'd have to give them a take.

Once you get 1-2 big names on board - now all the others have to decide whether to go with the flow (while not getting paid), try to shake you down, or go against the big names.

Reiki is a good example of this bullshit. You can get "certified" to a certain level, but the first question that people want to know is "who trained you", and they essentially follow a flowchart to see if your training came from the "good" reiki practitioners.

Re: Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> clearly the tap water coming into your house is horribly contaminated with the fish pee, ozone (from UV purification treatment) and the pipes themselves. But then, the next concept is "like cures like". Why do you think people are so immune to fish piss?

Boy, I bet all those people in Flint, Michigan are glad they're immune to lead now.

If they get sick that's only because of the mercury in those vaccines.

Re: Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation

#40

What I don't get about homeopathy is that there's not even a plausible mechanism for it to work. So research into its effectiveness is like studying how well rocks repel tigers[1]. It seems necessary to show that a homeopathic "medicine" is substantially different than plain old water first. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4GzMizVAl-0&pp=ygUTc2ltcHNvbnM...

The plausible mechanism is placebo which is mediated by the autonomous nervous system. The same mechanism at play with back pain via either chiropractic (placebo) and the majority of spinal surgeries (placebo).

Engineers and logical types take everything too much at face value (e.g. astrology and personality types, as well as health and fitness). The reality is usually that neither camp /really/ knows what they're doing, but have plausible (to them) explanations. Though empiricism is much more mentally rigorous than woo-woo/sham.

Generally, if the treatment achieves the patient's desired goals -- I don't think it matters (barring severe ethical concerns like body integrity dysphoria). People not generally educated in a Western background are more likely to be susceptible to placebo or "magic" (this includes the less educated in the anglosphere but also the majority in foreign countries).

Barring life-saving procedures, most elective medicine is -- imco -- on a similar, if not slightly higher standing compared to homeopathy et al.

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