A blunt, shit-stained instrument wielded indiscriminately to bludgeon pseudoscience, superstition, blind faith and common or garden irrational bollocks.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Trust Boots?
Here's some suggestions for some new homeopathic remedies for Boots to peddle...
@Crispian: Diluted Snake-Oil! Hilarious! I guess really deluded people would actually buy this...
@foolfodder That's a great idea :)
Another one I had involved something about "How 'Big Hoemopathy' is doing cover-ups and is withholding information 'THEY' don't want you to know". Don't have a clue yet how to formulate this.
1. 10:24+, "We don't stop at Avogadro!" If homoeopathy contains no active ingredients as you claim with your 10:23 Campaign, then how come you say the exact opposite when you declare that our remedy Malaria officinalis is dangerous, because it is made of "African swamp water" and is "outrageous quackery"? On the one hand it contains nothing, until it suits you, when we stick a different label on our "nothing than water" and suddenly it is dangerous. Make up your minds!
2. Avogadro's Limit Another good point is to show that 10:23 is but Avogadro's number and not a place where you fall off the edge of the earth when you go there and beyond.
Make up your minds!
3. The Germ Theory If germs are seen in larger quantities in full-blown disease and is therefore a result, why do you insist it is the cause? Causes and results are always 2 different things, so how come you declare them the same? Make up your minds!
4. HIV Phenomenon It is a non-existent phenomenon for which you have not a shred of proof, which you claim to be able to detect by "surrogate markers". This raises several questions.
A. If HIV is real, how come you have never shown the world the incontrovertible proof? Where are the direct markers? Where are the EMI's? Where is the protocol? Make up your minds!
B 1. Although HIV is a non-entity, you have 10 different tests to "detect it". How come, if you claim 98% accuracy, a second different test is always done to confirm the first? If the first test is that good, why do you need a different test to check the result of the first? Is a scientific test not based on science - meaning instant reproduction of the same results? Make up your minds!
B 2. This leads to the second question, which is that since previous diseases, vaccinations, present colds, pregnancy and other conditions can give false positives or false negatives, how can you be absolutely sure that someone DOES HAVE Aids? Make up your minds!
C.Why is a disease called Aids-defining, when you have tested positive for a non-entity? Those diseases have existed before there was Aids. Since when do they define Aids? And on what grounds? Make up your minds!
D. Since HIV is a non-entity, why do you insist treating it with deadly drugs and then blame the disease for the inevitable outcome?
Make up your minds!
E. Since HIV is a non-entity, what else have you investigated to find the real cause?
Make up your minds!
F. Don't you know that previous medicine intake by the sufferer is of prime importance when taking the history of the patient? Did you know that this investigation would have given you the only clue to its real cause ? iatrogenesis? Make up your minds!
5. Surrogate Markers How come surrogates are science when YOU use the word to describe something that belongs to something else, as belonging to the first instance? You know as well as everyone else that the viral load belongs to those 2 viral or bacterial diseases you are supposed to have had, in the 2 years prior to your quasi-diagnosis. They do not point to HIV, as has been extensively proven by the Perth Group and others. Make up your minds!
5 A. Surrogate Medicine If homoeopathy is surrogate medicine as you claim, then how come when YOU use the word, its meaning is changed to meaning a surrogate IS something as belonging to something else? You think you can have your cake an eat it too. Make up your minds!
If you test a drug and 15% reacts positively, what does it teach you? You claim it teaches that the drug is "useless". No drug is useless.
Only a fool and a knave come up with the useless.
What these statistics tell you, is that you must investigate why those 15% were helped and what they have in common, so you can finally discover the patterns in disease. Each person with the same characteristics will always have a positive reaction from that drug.
Yet you will vehemently deny, without the courage to test it. Make up your minds!
7. Medi-evil Polypharmacy You claim to have abandoned polypharmacy, yet it is your sole and only practise, and your fragmentation into specialisms are the cause of it. Invariably you prescribe more than one single simple medicine and each one you prescribe is itself already a mix of diverse substances. I f that is not polypharmacy, which you rightly condemn as belonging in the Middle Ages, then explain to the public why you employ Medi-evil - as in devilish medicine ? practices. Make up your minds!
8. The Law of Similars You claim the law of similars is bunk, but vaccination is along the law of similars, and so is Ritalin for ADD, histamine in allergies and the antivenom against snakebite and spiderbites.
So what is it going to be? Make up your minds!
If it is bunk as you say that all the therapies i just mentioned from your own quasi-system are equally bunk. If it is not bunk, then your objections do not hold any water and you undermine your own system! You want to call yourself rational and skeptic? Answer my skeptic's questions if you can! Make up your minds!
9. Homoeopathy does not work. Then explain to me how we are such great magicians we can fool people all the time with placebo.
Explain to me why we are such great magicians we can also fool all the animals with placebo.
Finally, explain to us the superstitious belief that we are such great magicians we can even fool plants with placebo. Since you have already failed on all fronts by the facts of 400 RCT double-blind peer-reviewed trials with humans and countless more with animals, plus 180 peer-reviewed trials with plants, we suggest to check your facts. And, while you are at it: Make up your minds! Oh but you can't answer them, because with each and every one you try, you will be making a fool of yourselves through self-contradiction.
10. Never heard any of these sayings: "The doctor is to be feared more than the disease." "I rather take my chances with the disease than with the medicine." "If the disease won't get you, the medicines certainly will." Make up your minds! But that is too much to ask. Your minds are like concrete - all mixed up and set in stone.
Please confused anon. AIDS denialist homeopathy supporter, please post more comments. That is one of the funniest things I have ever read. Your bit on the laws of similars was the funniest part. Thank you for cheering me up.
You ask some interesting questions - and it seems that you have induced a hush among the denialists! No-one has answered any of the questions - just had to resort to sarcasm and ridicule - I wonder why?
@foolfodder, I think you are mistaken about what the Homeopath General said. One of the ingredients on the Helios list is Excrementum can. If an 'imprint' of dog poo can benefit us, so can an imprint of human poo.
According to the law of similars, it probably treats shit-for-brains syndrome, so should be the treatment of choice to maintain the wellness of homeopaths.
Anonymous hasn't shut the skeptics up with his amazing revelations, he has shut us up because these arguments are so old and so comprehensively debunked that there's little incentive in going over the same old stuff again and again.
For example, his denial of germ theory. Germ theory? Seriously? The single underlying theory underlying all study and treatment of infectious disease? The one used in all hospitals, labs, and disease control centers all across the world? Seriously?
If Anonymous is that confident that germs are not the cause of disease, I can think of several easy ways to demonstrate this to him/her. An injection of cultured Yersinia pestis bacteria should settle the argument fairly quickly, and in dramatic fashion.
The rest is of the same quality... five minutes on Google will get you all the refutation you need.
"Another good point is to show that 10:23 is but Avogadro's number and not a place where you fall off the edge of the earth"
Sorry, are you also claiming the earth is flat there?
I'll answer questions 1 & 8 and I'm sure others can fill in the rest
1: A placebo remedy for something which cannot be cured via placebo is dangerous as it is offered as an alternative to the thing which does work.
To steal a line from someone else, a paper condom won't work, no matter how much belief you have in it.
8: Vaccination works by helping the body develop an immunity to a disease. It is not diluted into non-existence.
The second D in ADD stands for "deficit". Ritalin doesn't address the hyperactivity, it addresses the deficit in attention. It's not a similar, it's an opposite.
A homeopathic cure for ADD would be something that reduces focus, perhaps alcohol? Obviously diluted until none remains.
OK, I choose B1 on HIV testing. One of the reasons for more than one test is that no scientific test is 100% accurate (I know that this may blow your tiny mind and add evidence to that fact that science and logic is wrong, but those with the capacity for abstract thought should understand why). Plus initial HIV tests search for antibodies and are always followed up after 3 months in which time the antibodies would have had time to develop - this is the window period. Therefore, even if a test is conducted immediately or soon after exposure there should be a repeat testing >3 months to account for a false-negative. 97% of people will develop antibodies in the first 3 months, in very rare cases it can take 6 months. This is why "you need a different test (sic) to check the result of the first (sic)".
There is another test - RNA - which detects the HIV virus directly which is used less because its expensive.
I don't know what your "10 different tests" refers to unless you mean different samples - blood, saliva, urine. But then you are batshit crazy.
""The doctor is to be feared more than the disease."
This is very true. If it's Doctor Jekyll - he could turn into a raving monster at any minute. Or Doctor Frankenstein - he'll kill you and take your organs to make a zombie. Other than that... nah.
"The doctor is to be feared more than the disease."
Or the one who hasn't washed their hands recently or the one so browbeaten by panicking parents that they'll give out antibiotics for mild viral diseases.
To be fair, it isn't that long (in folk terms - I like the 'Science of Discworld' grandfather measure) since Doctors were pretty much the last resort - before the last rites. Most parts of the world now, they are much better.
I'll take 9: "Homoeopathy does not work, blah blah placebo blah blah".
The placebo effect is real and measurable. Patients given any intervention at all report less pain and faster recovery than those given no treatment. Surprisingly, this is more than just a psychological effect: some physiological symptoms (one example was gastointestinal inflammation iirc) respond to the placebo effect too.
When anyone says "Homeopathy does not work" they strictly mean "Homeopathy works no better than a placebo."
Homeopaths frequently claim that it does work better than a placebo. Or they claim that differently prepared water is necessary to treat different conditions, which is equivalent to that claim (since they are of identical merit as placebos, claiming that one works better than the others for a specific condition is equivalent to claiming it works better than a placebo). This claim has been tested, and, when poor-quality studies that show a positive result are discounted, falsified.
Whether animals and plants experience the placebo effect (very unlikely, and obviously not, respectively) is irrelevant.
Your actual claim was that "Homeopathy must work because I refuse to believe in the ubiquity of the placebo effect" which is an argument from personal incredulity.
22 comments:
Love it! Viper ghee, you can almost taste the tang ;-)
I've had a vague idea for an anti-homeopathy poster. Something like:
STOP!
Don't jog.
Don't use a pneumatic drill.
Don't dance.
You could be unintentionally succusing the fluids in your body.
The Homeopath General warns that when we flush our toilets we are turning our water into powerful homeopathic medicines capable of untold harm.
So remember, until government homeopaths have found a way to desuccuss water, don't do anything to jog your bodily fluids.
-----
If you can actually make something good from that, feel free to use the idea.
Do any of your marvellous products have an effect on 'Adder-pose' tissue :-))
@Crispian:
Diluted Snake-Oil! Hilarious!
I guess really deluded people would actually buy this...
@foolfodder
That's a great idea :)
Another one I had involved something about "How 'Big Hoemopathy' is doing cover-ups and is withholding information 'THEY' don't want you to know". Don't have a clue yet how to formulate this.
I have a few questions to pose to them.
1. 10:24+, "We don't stop at Avogadro!"
If homoeopathy contains no active ingredients as you claim with your 10:23 Campaign, then how come you say the exact opposite when you declare that our remedy Malaria officinalis is dangerous, because it is made of "African swamp water" and is "outrageous quackery"?
On the one hand it contains nothing, until it suits you, when we stick a different label on our "nothing than water" and suddenly it is dangerous.
Make up your minds!
2. Avogadro's Limit
Another good point is to show that 10:23 is but Avogadro's number and not a place where you fall off the edge of the earth when you go there and beyond.
Make up your minds!
3. The Germ Theory
If germs are seen in larger quantities in full-blown disease and is therefore a result, why do you insist it is the cause?
Causes and results are always 2 different things, so how come you declare them the same?
Make up your minds!
4. HIV Phenomenon
It is a non-existent phenomenon for which you have not a shred of proof, which you claim to be able to detect by "surrogate markers". This raises several questions.
A. If HIV is real, how come you have never shown the world the incontrovertible proof?
Where are the direct markers?
Where are the EMI's?
Where is the protocol?
Make up your minds!
B 1. Although HIV is a non-entity, you have 10 different tests to "detect it". How come, if you claim 98% accuracy, a second different test is always done to confirm the first?
If the first test is that good, why do you need a different test to check the result of the first?
Is a scientific test not based on science - meaning instant reproduction of the same results?
Make up your minds!
B 2. This leads to the second question, which is that since previous diseases, vaccinations, present colds, pregnancy and other conditions can give false positives or false negatives, how can you be absolutely sure that someone DOES HAVE Aids?
Make up your minds!
C.Why is a disease called Aids-defining, when you have tested positive for a non-entity?
Those diseases have existed before there was Aids.
Since when do they define Aids?
And on what grounds?
Make up your minds!
D. Since HIV is a non-entity, why do you insist treating it with deadly drugs and then blame the disease for the inevitable outcome?
Make up your minds!
E. Since HIV is a non-entity, what else have you investigated to find the real cause?
Make up your minds!
F. Don't you know that previous medicine intake by the sufferer is of prime importance when taking the history of the patient?
Did you know that this investigation would have given you the only clue to its real cause ? iatrogenesis?
Make up your minds!
5. Surrogate Markers
How come surrogates are science when YOU use the word to describe something that belongs to something else, as belonging to the first instance?
You know as well as everyone else that the viral load belongs to those 2 viral or bacterial diseases you are supposed to have had, in the 2 years prior to your quasi-diagnosis.
They do not point to HIV, as has been extensively proven by the Perth Group and others.
Make up your minds!
5 A. Surrogate Medicine
If homoeopathy is surrogate medicine as you claim, then how come when YOU use the word, its meaning is changed to meaning a surrogate IS something as belonging to something else?
You think you can have your cake an eat it too.
Make up your minds!
6. RCT's are the Gold Standard of drug testing.
If you test a drug and 15% reacts positively, what does it teach you? You claim it teaches that the drug is "useless".
No drug is useless.
Only a fool and a knave come up with the useless.
What these statistics tell you, is that you must investigate why those 15% were helped and what they have in common, so you can finally discover the patterns in disease. Each person with the same characteristics will always have a positive reaction from that drug.
Yet you will vehemently deny, without the courage to test it.
Make up your minds!
7. Medi-evil Polypharmacy
You claim to have abandoned polypharmacy, yet it is your sole and only practise, and your fragmentation into specialisms are the cause of it. Invariably you prescribe more than one single simple medicine and each one you prescribe is itself already a mix of diverse substances. I
f that is not polypharmacy, which you rightly condemn as belonging in the Middle Ages, then explain to the public why you employ Medi-evil - as in devilish medicine ? practices.
Make up your minds!
8. The Law of Similars
You claim the law of similars is bunk, but vaccination is along the law of similars, and so is Ritalin for ADD, histamine in allergies and the antivenom against snakebite and spiderbites.
So what is it going to be?
Make up your minds!
If it is bunk as you say that all the therapies i just mentioned from your own quasi-system are equally bunk.
If it is not bunk, then your objections do not hold any water and you undermine your own system!
You want to call yourself rational and skeptic?
Answer my skeptic's questions if you can!
Make up your minds!
9. Homoeopathy does not work.
Then explain to me how we are such great magicians we can fool people all the time with placebo.
Explain to me why we are such great magicians we can also fool all the animals with placebo.
Finally, explain to us the superstitious belief that we are such great magicians we can even fool plants with placebo.
Since you have already failed on all fronts by the facts of 400 RCT double-blind peer-reviewed trials with humans and countless more with animals, plus 180 peer-reviewed trials with plants, we suggest to check your facts. And, while you are at it:
Make up your minds!
Oh but you can't answer them, because with each and every one you try, you will be making a fool of yourselves through self-contradiction.
10. Never heard any of these sayings:
"The doctor is to be feared more than the disease."
"I rather take my chances with the disease than with the medicine."
"If the disease won't get you, the medicines certainly will."
Make up your minds! But that is too much to ask.
Your minds are like concrete - all mixed up and set in stone.
lol @ Anonymous. Pro-Homeopathy AIDS denialist, what a combination.
*cough*
Crispian
Your initial article was funny enough - there was no need for you to make anonymous comments on your own blog to add to the comedy and hilarity!
Please confused anon. AIDS denialist homeopathy supporter, please post more comments. That is one of the funniest things I have ever read. Your bit on the laws of similars was the funniest part. Thank you for cheering me up.
Dear Anonymous
You ask some interesting questions - and it seems that you have induced a hush among the denialists! No-one has answered any of the questions - just had to resort to sarcasm and ridicule - I wonder why?
I love it!!
Melilotus
Well Melilotus, it is difficult to decide which of the logical fallacies to tackle first. Straw man is probably favourite.
Then there are the many and various errors of fact and scientific understanding, each of which takes time.
Tell us, which of the questions did you find interesting and why?
Nice one, Crispian :-)
@foolfodder, I think you are mistaken about what the Homeopath General said. One of the ingredients on the Helios list is Excrementum can. If an 'imprint' of dog poo can benefit us, so can an imprint of human poo.
According to the law of similars, it probably treats shit-for-brains syndrome, so should be the treatment of choice to maintain the wellness of homeopaths.
@Skepticat, Ewwwww.
Anonymous hasn't shut the skeptics up with his amazing revelations, he has shut us up because these arguments are so old and so comprehensively debunked that there's little incentive in going over the same old stuff again and again.
For example, his denial of germ theory. Germ theory? Seriously? The single underlying theory underlying all study and treatment of infectious disease? The one used in all hospitals, labs, and disease control centers all across the world? Seriously?
If Anonymous is that confident that germs are not the cause of disease, I can think of several easy ways to demonstrate this to him/her. An injection of cultured Yersinia pestis bacteria should settle the argument fairly quickly, and in dramatic fashion.
The rest is of the same quality... five minutes on Google will get you all the refutation you need.
@Anonymous
"Another good point is to show that 10:23 is but Avogadro's number and not a place where you fall off the edge of the earth"
Sorry, are you also claiming the earth is flat there?
I'll answer questions 1 & 8 and I'm sure others can fill in the rest
1: A placebo remedy for something which cannot be cured via placebo is dangerous as it is offered as an alternative to the thing which does work.
To steal a line from someone else, a paper condom won't work, no matter how much belief you have in it.
8: Vaccination works by helping the body develop an immunity to a disease. It is not diluted into non-existence.
The second D in ADD stands for "deficit". Ritalin doesn't address the hyperactivity, it addresses the deficit in attention. It's not a similar, it's an opposite.
A homeopathic cure for ADD would be something that reduces focus, perhaps alcohol? Obviously diluted until none remains.
Ip, dip, dog shit...
OK, I choose B1 on HIV testing. One of the reasons for more than one test is that no scientific test is 100% accurate (I know that this may blow your tiny mind and add evidence to that fact that science and logic is wrong, but those with the capacity for abstract thought should understand why). Plus initial HIV tests search for antibodies and are always followed up after 3 months in which time the antibodies would have had time to develop - this is the window period. Therefore, even if a test is conducted immediately or soon after exposure there should be a repeat testing >3 months to account for a false-negative. 97% of people will develop antibodies in the first 3 months, in very rare cases it can take 6 months. This is why "you need a different test (sic) to check the result of the first (sic)".
There is another test - RNA - which detects the HIV virus directly which is used less because its expensive.
I don't know what your "10 different tests" refers to unless you mean different samples - blood, saliva, urine. But then you are batshit crazy.
OK, I'll go for number 10:
"10. Never heard any of these sayings:"
...as if folk sayings are any measure of effectiveness. What about these sayings?
"Well, my grandad smoked 80 a day till he died, so cigarettes can't be all that bad."
"I drive better when I've had a couple of pints, it relaxes me."
"Global warming? Bollocks, look at the snow."
"Yes, I guess some Jews got killed in World War 2, but there's no real evidence for anything organized."
"Loads of people get abducted by aliens every year. They can't all be wrong."
Er. Yes, they can.
Amusingly enough, Boa constrictor adipis, which literally is snake fat from a boa constrictor, is used as a homeopathic remedy.
http://www.remedia.at/homeopathy/Adeps-Boae-constrictoris/a38.html
:)
""The doctor is to be feared more than the disease."
This is very true. If it's Doctor Jekyll - he could turn into a raving monster at any minute. Or Doctor Frankenstein - he'll kill you and take your organs to make a zombie. Other than that... nah.
"The doctor is to be feared more than the disease."
Or the one who hasn't washed their hands recently or the one so browbeaten by panicking parents that they'll give out antibiotics for mild viral diseases.
To be fair, it isn't that long (in folk terms - I like the 'Science of Discworld' grandfather measure) since Doctors were pretty much the last resort - before the last rites. Most parts of the world now, they are much better.
I'll take 9: "Homoeopathy does not work, blah blah placebo blah blah".
The placebo effect is real and measurable. Patients given any intervention at all report less pain and faster recovery than those given no treatment. Surprisingly, this is more than just a psychological effect: some physiological symptoms (one example was gastointestinal inflammation iirc) respond to the placebo effect too.
When anyone says "Homeopathy does not work" they strictly mean "Homeopathy works no better than a placebo."
Homeopaths frequently claim that it does work better than a placebo. Or they claim that differently prepared water is necessary to treat different conditions, which is equivalent to that claim (since they are of identical merit as placebos, claiming that one works better than the others for a specific condition is equivalent to claiming it works better than a placebo). This claim has been tested, and, when poor-quality studies that show a positive result are discounted, falsified.
Whether animals and plants experience the placebo effect (very unlikely, and obviously not, respectively) is irrelevant.
Your actual claim was that "Homeopathy must work because I refuse to believe in the ubiquity of the placebo effect" which is an argument from personal incredulity.
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