Occam. - 19 November 2011 02:13 PM

I’m completely amazed at the number of members here who I normally greatly respect, and who bothered answering this moron who has no scientific basis for his beliefs and only hopes to rattle people’s cages. 

Occam

yeah but its fun

Sometimes one who appears to be a moron is really just an uninformed young person who will listen to guidance. I would not want to lose them. Yeah, 98% of the time that’s not the case, but it took hardly any time at all to reply.

I agree with both of you.  I too am certainly guilty of having fun at the expense of some silliness. 

I also realize that it could be someone who’s genuinely uninformed and who will benefit from guidance.  However, four pages of posts to do so???? 

Occam

Occam. - 19 November 2011 02:39 PM

However, four pages of posts to do so???? 

Occam

OK, that’s a good point. 

ShadowSot - 18 November 2011 08:09 PM

No, that falls to acupuncture and chiropractic.

Wow, those two are “scams” too?!  That would mean since the founding of acupuncture, chiropractic, and homeopathy, millions of people have been involved with the three disciplines and, thereby, in on it.  How many of those millions have whistleblowed?

Both are covered by health insurance

Well you should alert those health insurance companies that A & C are “scams.”  I’m sure they’d give you a nice reward.

Not necessarily. Some herbs do have an effect, others however do not. The market place has a large number of herbs offering everything from increased mental abilities to curing cancer.
This would likely be what she’s referring to.

So she’s grading herbs of a curve?!  ROFL!!!

Some herbs work, mostly though you get oversold effects or just herbs tossed into gelatin capsules.

Is that the Herbs fault?

So what was her point then, cause her way you’d be drinking plain water too, right?

Do you disagree?

No, so that would mean her bringing that up was stupid, right?

The so called trained homeopaths who practice the treatments, including the NCH, the governing body of Homeopathy in the US.

Where?

http://www.homeopathic.org/about
http://www.homeopathic.org/content/what-is-homeopathy

Yes, and this is not counting the people who pay good money for false treatments.

Wow, all this effort by you guys for only several cases per year.  Not exactly a great bang-for-your-buck.  But your opposition to homeopathy is not really about people’s welfare, isn’t it?

Millions of kids believe in Santa Clause and the Easter bunny.
Millions more adults get suckered in by ponzi schemes,  and psychics like Uri geller. Numbersdon’tmean much at all.
What is important is what the studies show.
And overall, homeopathy does not work better than placebo.

Well none of that really answered my questions. 

Where’s the evidence Homeopathy is a “scam”?

and…

With the amount of companies making remedies and doctors “prescribing” it in the world, there’d have to be about a million people in on it, right?

DarronS - 18 November 2011 08:40 PM

suede - 18 November 2011 08:01 PM

Btw, where’s your evidence Homeopathy is a “scam”?  Aren’t you guys against false advertising?

Search the archives. Look at the CFI website. Go to Google Scholar and look up some double-blind studies on homeopathy. I’m not going to waste my time repeating the same arguments every time some anonymous crackpot flies through here demanding we take his nonsense seriously. I particularly love how you don’t care about defending homeopathy, then turn around and ask for evidence it is a scam.

Where have I demanded you take Homeopathy seriously?

You guys keep claiming H is a “scam.”  That’s a lot different than it doesn’t work, but with good intentions behind it.

I’m simply asking for you guys, who demand evidence for H claims, to produce some evidence of your claim; that it’s a “scam.”

asanta - 18 November 2011 09:25 PM

You are WRONG, the Zicam was sold as a homeopathic cure, but it was NOT homeopathic. It actually had a significant amount of Zinc as an ingredient

Wrong?  I didn’t make any claims.  This other skeptic chick said Zicam uses a preparations that is 2x and this homeopathically prepared solution was “too strong” and that, somehow, proves homeopathy “wrong” because homeopathy supposedly “doesn’t work.”

She seems to be contradicting the rest of the skeptic communities thoughts on homeopathy.

Maybe skeptic chicks shouldn’t make videos about homeopathy, because they seem to be full of errors.

ShadowSot - 18 November 2011 10:05 PM

Oh yeah, and while bloodletting is good if you have that specific blood disorder, it’s useless for anything else, whereas historically it was used to treat a multitude of symptons.

Is that bloodletting’s fault?

I disagree Mid Atlantic. there are some heral treatments that are helpful, yes, however at the same time there are a number of treatments sold at sotres as herbs that do not.

Is that the Herb’s fault?

mid atlantic - 19 November 2011 02:18 AM

I was agreeing to the question about Skepchick being biased against herbs- which is good IMO.  Some herbs are effective, and those particular herbal treatments are not considered alternative medicine.  The other non effective herbal treatments should be the subject of bias.

So Herbs that are effective at not considered Alt Med?  Wow, never heard that before.

macgyver - 19 November 2011 06:40 AM

You say you want everyone to address the misstatements in skepchiks video rather than addressing the faults with homeopathy, but you can’t separate the two.

Says who, you?

Her comments are ABOUT the flaws in homeopathy

And a lot of her comments are FLAWED!!!  That’s kinda the point of my thread. 

You seem to want everyone to accept that homeopathy is a legitimate type of treatment and move on from there but skeptics arent going to do that.

Where have I done that?

  She doesn’t have to prove that its scam. The onus is on homeopathy to prove its an effective treatment. Something it has not done after more than a century.

So I can claim you are a bank robber, but it’s up to you to prove you are not?

As I’ve said in previous posts, the volume of people using this type of treatment ( and I question your numbers for which you offer no reliable source) is not an indication of its effectiveness. People do lots of stupid things and they do them in large numbers. Despite your protest, religion is a very good comparison. Homeopathy is based on faith not science. People such as yourself WANT to believe that homeopathy works and will continue to use it despite the complete lack of evidence.

Well that really didn’t answer my question, but whatever.

This is a very accurate comment. Herbs are mostly useless. The small number of herbal compounds that have a therapeutic effect do so because they have a drug in them not because they have some magical power. By definition anything that has biological activity IS a drug. Purveyors of herbs simply havent taken the time or cared enough to figure out what the compound is in there that has therapeutic value nor have they made any effort to figure out what the possible side effects are. The vast majority of herbs are just ineffective and useless and some are downright harmful but as she said some do have a minimal effect. her comment is quite accurate

So herbs only have a “small” effect because humans have overstated their effectiveness as a whole?!? Wow. Btw, I had an traditional MD warn me about herbs and how they could have powerful effects.  Should I listen to him, or Skepchick?

And perhaps you could explain in biological terms exactly how homeopathically prepared ecoli is different than any other sort of e.coli?
For you to critisize her comments you have to explain what is incorrect about them.

You are missing the point (which seems to be a common theme here).  She says “according to Homeopathy” and that’s not what Homeopathy says how to treat E Coli, regardless of if the method works or not.  That’s the problem I have; her misinformation of Homeopathy.

I take it because you guys don’t believe in Homeopathy, you can spread any amount of misinformation about it?

This is a ridiculous complaint. Skepchick is making an editorial comment and has exaggerated for effect to make a point. Perhaps you didnt understand that. And what difference would it make weather you dumped it in a huge pool or diluted it a thousand times in smaller containers. Seriously, you cant even explain the scientific basis of homeopathic methods but youre going to quibble about little detail of how the preparation is made?

Misinformation is misinformation and as to explaining how homeopathy works, well that might be misinformation on my part because I don’t know how it works, just like most homeopaths don’t really know how it works.

She doesnt need to make a disclaimer. This is a theory proposed by practitioners of homeopathy. If you dont like the fact that this is being presented as the only theory behind the mechanism of homeopathy then homeopathy has only itself to blame. After all these years it has yet to come up with a cogent scientific theory for its claimed benefits. Her comment about water memory is accurate in that it is the only method that homeopathy has proposed.

She doesn’t need to correct her misinformation?  Gotcha.  I’ve heard various theories on how homeopathy works.  Perhaps “water memory” is the leading theory, but you know what can happen with leading theories.

I dont really understand the point you are trying to make here

Well why did she bring up “sewage water” with the connection to Homeopathy?  It seems the point she was trying to make actually backfires on her as I explained.

I can’t give you a number because I doubt this is tracked anywhere but as a physician I can tell you about a case i saw as a resident when a 25 year old woman presented to our ER after being treated by a homeopath for several weeks with “ink of cuttlefish” for a febrile illness. She was acutely ill and barely clinging to life when she came to the ER and died within a matter of hours from an overwhelming bacterial infection. This woman would be alive today if she had been under the care of a real doctor form the begining. This is only one death but even one is too many whe the total number of people cured of illness through homeopathy is zero. Skepchik didn’t make outlandish claims that vast numbers of people are injured by homeopathy she just said that this is a potential serious problem and my example shows that she is right.

All forms of medicines can cause death, that why it’s referred to as an “art.”  I just don’t know why you guys would concentrate so much time and effort on a form of medicine that causes so little harm compared to others, but to each his own.  It’s not like I’m saying say nothing about it, but seems the amount of time and effort used to try to thwart it is not very cost/time efficient in comparison to other medical arts that cause way, way much more harm.

But at least “real doctors” actually cure illness and disease. There are side effects to real treatments but even the “worst meds” that have been pulled from the market like vioxx for example, helped thousands of people for every one person who sustained a significant side effect and treatments like appendectomy save thousands of lives every year for each person who has a significant surgical complication. Homeopathy cures no one and treats nothing so every single person harmed is unacceptable.

I just wish you skeptics would come clean as to the real reason you guys are against homeopathy.  You guys are like X-tian fundamentalist politicians saying they support Israel because they are “they only democracy in the Middle East,” but we know that’s not the real reason they support Israel, right?

Yes we are

You’re going to take a stand against Skepchick’s misinformation?

dougsmith - 19 November 2011 09:52 AM

It’d be cheaper for you just to take a glass of water or a sugar pill. But if you prefer paying scammers for placebos, hey, that’s the free market for you!

Thanks for your concern.

What this has to do with Skepchick is that you have claimed that she misdescribes homeopathy and that she mistakenly claims it is ineffective.

I did???

If you refuse to answer (1) or (2), that goes quite a ways to showing this as trolling rather than actual inquiry. NB: trolling is against the rules on this site.

Well, I think you should answer to my last response first before making any threats and speaking of against the rules, are you going to warn the majority of other posters on my thread of rule (g): posts that are disruptive to the flow of conversation by being off-topic?

Blue is reserved for official mod/admin comments as per the rules. Thanks. dougsmith - Admin

Occam. - 19 November 2011 02:13 PM

I’m completely amazed at the number of members here who I normally greatly respect, and who bothered answering this moron who has no scientific basis for his beliefs and only hopes to rattle people’s cages.

Moderator Occam,

First let me remind you of rule F:

(f) Threads and posts are not allowed that in the opinion of Moderators are impolite, vulgar, nasty, uncivil, or otherwise disruptive to the good functioning of the either the Forum or to CFI’s mission. Free inquiry is only possible if we maintain civility. Abuse of forum members will not be permitted.

Second, once upon a time, people were called “morons” for thinking the Earth was round and that it actually revolved around the Sun.

suede - 19 November 2011 04:41 PM

asanta - 18 November 2011 09:25 PM

You are WRONG, the Zicam was sold as a homeopathic cure, but it was NOT homeopathic. It actually had a significant amount of Zinc as an ingredient

Wrong?  I didn’t make any claims.  This other skeptic chick said Zicam uses a preparations that is 2x and this homeopathically prepared solution was “too strong” and that, somehow, proves homeopathy “wrong” because homeopathy supposedly “doesn’t work.”

She seems to be contradicting the rest of the skeptic communities thoughts on homeopathy.

Maybe skeptic chicks shouldn’t make videos about homeopathy, because they seem to be full of errors.

You are taking my words out of context. The Zicam had a large amount of Zinc in it. Any idiot with any scientific training would know better. Obviously, the manufacturers were idiots who didn’t know better. It had a testable amount of zinc in it, and it was much to high. The amount of zinc was not at ‘homeopathic’ levels, it was mislabeled, or purposefully deceptive. There have been other homeopathic ‘remedies’ deceptively labeled. Another case was ‘homeopathic’ viagra, which actually worked, because it had medical doses of Viagra in it. It was also removed from the shelves.

suede - 19 November 2011 04:49 PM

mid atlantic - 19 November 2011 02:18 AM

I was agreeing to the question about Skepchick being biased against herbs- which is good IMO.  Some herbs are effective, and those particular herbal treatments are not considered alternative medicine.  The other non effective herbal treatments should be the subject of bias.

So Herbs that are effective at not considered Alt Med?  Wow, never heard that before.

That is because you have no scientific training, are obviously uniformed, and proudly wallow in ignorance.   (sorry Occam and Doug, it is the truth, culled from 4 pages of responses. He is not paying the slightest bit of attention to anything we are saying….now, I will stop feeding the troll)

Wow, those two are “scams” too?!  That would mean since the founding of acupuncture, chiropractic, and homeopathy, millions of people have been involved with the three disciplines and, thereby, in on it.  How many of those millions have whistleblowed?

Yes, it’s a scam at best and psuedoscience at worst.

If they were valid and workable treatments with verifiably measurable testable results beyond that which could be explained by random chance and the placebo effect, they would be mainstream.