Just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you.

Right on. The "most appeals to you" part seems quite fitting. I'm with him on wondering why people choose to believe the more fantastical stories when it comes to health and medicine. I think it's freaking fantastic that I can take a substance that blocks the binding of histamine to receptors in my nose and thus eases my allergy symptoms. The way medicined interact with the body is pretty extraordinary in my opinion, so I don't need the fairy tale.

I've not heard of this guy before, but he's very funny. From this point forward, "Get in the fuckin' sack" is my rebuttal of choice for irrational idiots.

You know, I have mixed feelings about homeopathy. Yes, of course, it isn't "real" medicine. No double-blind study has every shown it to be effective.

That said, it is exactly as effective as the placebo effect, and the placebo effect is very real. I saw this recently this with one of my children, who wanted something to help with a cough. The manager at the local drugstore gave me a wink and him a bottle of homeopathic sugar pills. Because my son respects the drugstore manager, the pills work for him just fine. He's happy. I'm happy, because he didn't really need serious medicine. The drugstore is happy, because they made 10 bucks selling water. Everybody wins.

That's the positive side. There are potential problems:

1. Placebos should never be used when genuine medicine is called for. Giving homeopathic medicine to an infant (Amy's earlier example) makes no sense, unless the goal is to calm down the parents.

2. To ensure that homeopathy is used correctly (point 1), the people producing and marketing it must understand that they are dealing in placebos; otherwise homeopathic treatments will be used inappropriately. Of course, they do not understand or accept this.

3. Placebos depend on deception. The patient must believe that the product has a genuine effect, while the person prescribing the product must know (point 1) what they are prescribing. While there is nothing wrong with "little white lies", this is a delicate problem with a huge gray zone.

In any case, the situation is not black-and-white. I assume Amy gets her panties in a knot mainly because the homeopathy people are so deliberately dense: they concoct fake, unscientific studies to "prove" the effectiveness of their snake oil, believe their own concocted results, and then try to use their placebos where they have no place at all.

My favorite line, about 2 minutes into the video.

"'The great thing about homeopathy is that you can't overdose on it.' 'Well, you could fuckin' drown!'"

I tried colloidal silver and it did have effects on me outside of a placebo effect. I'm definitely not a homeopathy person, but since I figured it was water with minuscule amounts of silver, what could it hurt? It had a definite pain-eliminating effect for a short term (about 2 hours), so I kept using it for a couple days. But after a couple days, I noticed negative effects, and my hands started to swell and eventually I got large blisters on my hand. And that was then end of my homeopathy experiment.

Point is, there were real effects when taking colloidal silver, at least in my experience, so I can't discount other possible effects from other treatments out of hand. Most likely it's crap, but it's not all crap.

Also, remember the smurf dude who took colloidal silver? http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22536241/ Turning blue is a real effect.

Silver does have therapeutic effects, just in different methods of delivery. Silvadene cream (silver sulfdiazine) is the most effect method of treating burns I have ever seen. Unfortunately, we can only get it by prescription. Can't just stroll into Walgreens and grab a tube.

Homeopathy/ Nutritional therapy has snagged onto an essential truth. Nutritional deficiencies/excesses will cause problems in your life. Period. However, I refuse to believe that your "patented nutritional formula with a organic Mediterranean seaweed base", only available through premier membership status in your multi-level-marketing Ponzi scheme, is going to bring me immortality and riches beyond my wildest dreams.

http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Sick-Of-The-Mlm-Nutritional-Supplement-Health-Claims/881589

"Dara O'Briain is an Irish comedian, but he knows a thing or two about rational thought"

Let's substitute the word "black" for Irish and see how that sounds.

"Dara O'Briain is a Black comedian, but he knows a thing or two about rational thought"

Racist!!!

How about this?

Dara O'Briain is a Jewish comedian, but he knows a thing or two about rational thought

Anti-Semite!!!!!!!!!

Apparently it's unusual in Amy's mind for Irish people to have rational thoughts.

Wait, I just went up to look at the entry (was posting through my software, where I can't see it):

"Dara O'Briain is an Irish comedian, but he knows a thing or two about rational thought and bullshit forms of "medicine."

You left out the second part -- "bullshit forms of 'medicine.'"

Sean, perhaps if you read every other word in some other entry, you can accuse me of hating women, dogs, and sea otters.

I stopped and looked up homeopathy. Admittedly, I was confusing something else with the use of herbs; and nutritional supplements.

But, I stand pat on the big pharmaceuticals, whether you dismiss it as sneering or not.

They did take a fairly innocuous if quite effective natural substance, saw palmetto, analyze it, and synthesize its main ingredient, patent it, and sell it for a small fortune for one pill. And, it is dangerous. Look at the safety sheet.

In fact, that is where a large percentage of their "miracle meds" come from, synthesis of the old herbs that also worked, make them so powerful they become dangerous and charge big money, while training doctors to parrot their marketing nonsense.

And, they do indeed have a major lobby force which attempts to stiff the natural competition by hoaxes and FUD.

So, what it comes down to is someone's ignorance of what is normal business for the pharmaceuticals does not mean I am sneering, Amy.

I usually agree with you on many things, but do not back off on my criticism of the pharmaceuticals.

And, they are the same here in Mexico. They buy the saw palmetto, which I can buy retail in the US for around 7 or 8 cents a pill, foil wrap it, and sell if as Urogutt (sp?) for around 85 cents USD to old men in poverty, which means most of them don't use it, and suffer terribly. Don't even think of a five or ten dollar a day med here. I bring a large bag of saw palmetto on every trip.

I have been driving my wife's 90 year old uncle from his village to the government hospital from time to time for several years. He spends his days and nights with a catheter hanging out of his penis, when timely use of a natural substance would have stopped or postponed this problem for many years.

That is why saw palmetto is such a major issue for me, the personal tragedy involved. There are others.

Look at SSRI's. They are very effective, right? Almost as effective as a major exercise program. but, the exercise program doesn't make you fat and doesn't drive anyone to suicide when they try to stop it. Google for:

lexapro brain zaps

Doctors are prescribing crap like this with no knowledge of what the stuff really does, based on global-warming-type "studies" by the pharmaceuticals. People assume if there is a "study" it must be okay, especially if the government approved it.

I could write a book, but such books have been written already.

"and sea otters"

Yeah, I hate 'em too. Smug little bastids eating sushi off their stomachs while tourists stand around saying "Oooh how cute!".

Well la-de-FRICKIN'-da.

As far as I'm concerned they're just wet groundhogs.

By the way, a few weeks ago, I read a science article somewhere on the Web that a lot of meds were approved because the usual double blind studies showed they were more effective than placebos. New studies are showing that many of our standard meds now do not show more effectiveness than placebos, and if not already approved would not be approved now, and no one yet knows why the change.

Osteopathy is a licensed medical practice which believes the human body has the capacity to heal much of its own problems (though medical standards naturally require them to use all the standard pharmaceuticals when appropriate or they will be charged with malpractice just like the MD's, I say this to save people time typing stuff they know nothing about).

Medical researchers, for those who want to know what is happening, as opposed to emoting, have admitted there is a lot they don't know about alternative medicines, and things like placebos and how and why they work.

In my opinion, instead of, ahem, sneering at placebos, use what works. And, if the mind has a major effect on illnesses of the body, which placebos would tend to prove, then stop mocking those who cure with placebos. Or chicken blood. Or incantations. Or, prayers.

By the way, studies show that there is an increased success of treatment when doctors pray with the ill. Pure science.

My best friend here in Mexico is a doctor, who is atheist like many of you, and he hates this kind of talk. I tell him he needs to read medical studies more, because they do find some of these things work, whether it is placebo effect or not, and if placebos cure what he can't with expensive meds, a good doctor would be using placebos.

"By the way, studies show that there is an increased success of treatment when doctors pray with the ill. Pure science."

$2.4M study by Baptist hospital proves prayer has no effect. Hospital immediately announces the topic needs more study:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

"$2.4M study by Baptist hospital proves prayer has no effect."

As a non-religious person, but more agnostic than atheist I think prayer would be helpful to the faithful. Prayers offer support for people. Anyone with any dire condition of any kind would tell you that support was probably an integral part of their recovery.

If you are a religious person, then people using prayer for healing would be seen as support. A positive state of mind could only improve your outcome.

As far as homeopathy goes, I remember suggesting a Borion product on a post some time ago and Amy offered me an article showing me it was utter horse-shit. I no longer buy nor recommend it. But there are products out there - herbal concoctions etc that have shown positive effects for me. Most of them, however, were quite inexpensive.

For an upset stomach, I use ginger infused hot water with honey. I offered this to a friend with an aching stomach and she was better in 7 min. I timed it.

I think that people who are more conscious about what they put in their bodies (all the way around) will benefit in many ways from herbal type healing remedies. However, people who try to cure things like cancer naturally, I see as being absolutely bat-shit.

I think there is a balance to be recognized here - placebo or not.

Feebie, natural remedies like ginger (which has been given for upset stomachs and nausea for quite some time now) are quite different from homeopathy. There are definitely herbal remedies that work (see aspirin remark above), but homeopathy is not simply using natural remedies. From Wikipedia: Homeopathy (also spelled homoeopathy or homœopathy) is a form of alternative medicine, first proposed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, that attempts to treat patients with heavily diluted preparations which are claimed to cause effects similar to the symptoms presented. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by serial dilution with shaking by forceful striking, which homeopaths term "succussion," after each dilution under the assumption that this increases the effect of the treatment. Homeopaths call this process "potentization". Dilution often continues until none of the original substance remains.

It's the dilution that is they key difference between natural remedies that do work and the bullshit of homeopathy.

Sean: Isn't it exhausting walking around all day trying to be offended? Although I guess it's less tiresome when you don't bother to read entire sentences.

An alternative to medicine that's been proven to work.

We should edit the Wikipedia page to say that. As Mr. O'Briain said, we found out what worked, and that was just called "medicine." The part of the official definition that is so ass-backwards: Homeopaths call this process "potentization". So you are theoretically making the effects stronger by decreasing the amount of the substance until none remains. Huh?

Can't remember where I saw this before so it might've been on this site, but I rather liked this:

Homeopathic A&E (Homeopathic Emergency Room)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0

Brilliant!

Some of your best friends are Irish?

Well then, never mind.

Some of your best friends are Irish?
Well then, never mind.

Is that all you took from Amy's response? Not the part about how it was the "comedian" part of the description that was important? My earlier opinion stands; it's apparently less exhausting for you to just read parts of sentences.

Sean, read.

'about rational thought and bullshit forms of 'medicine'.

In other words, rational thought as applied to bullshit forms of 'medicine'.

You really can't read that as it stands? You can parse anything into an insult if you try hard enough. Prejudice against the Irish is just so passe...we're not the 'in' group to hate anymore, sweets, that was my grandfather's and great-grandfather's generations. Why, I haven't heard the term 'thick Mick' in at least 35 years, if not 40. You'll have to throw a pity party about something else.

Well put irlandes. People assume that the FDA approved double blind tests is the only real "science" and the only way anything can be proven to work. But there is alternative medicine that has been proven to work using a combination of the patient's physical and psychological aspects. I'm gonna use the word holistic medicine for homeopathy and wait for the crap to hit the ceiling coz many here have already put on blinkers.

coz many here have already put on blinkers.

As I posted over in the original thread, I am still waiting for someone to give me specifics about how their homeopathic treatments worked. I do not have on blinkers, my eyes are wide open to possibilities, but no one can seem to explain what the homeopathic remedies actually do. And I'm not talking herbal remedies here (there are some that really have been proven to work), but straight-up homeopathy. So, I ask again, how does it work?

Sorry, no time for the video or comments, but just had to chime in briefly: (1) Some natural ...um, treatments? - may have benefifical effects; but let's validate these scientifically. (2) I remember a doc chiming in on the touted benefits of "oxygenated water" - "That'd be great if we breathed through our stomachs ..."

Ahem.

It might be somewhat late to mention this, but engineers have obsessed on the properties of water for millennia. If you want to make a claim about the contents of some homepathic "remedy", it would help to actually use terms used in chemistry and engineering.

And don't get going on the "prayer" nonsense, either. If you could do anything whatsoever, it would be measurable. That's what "doing something" means. You're living in a world where somebody figured out that 9192637710 oscillations between the two hyperfine ground states of the Cesium-133 atom would be a fine standard for the "second" - the unit of time. Is there a homeopath who can even find Cesium?

Absolutely, Radwaste. The lack of specificity in homeopathy is what is so infuriating. They don't seem to understand the value of testable hypotheses. The value being that any good hypothesis is falsifiable and doesn't use the old "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" argument.

Radwaste you also live in a world which is defined by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle so I fail to see what having 9192637710 oscillation between two states of Ce 133 proves.

For the record Amy those foolish enough to go to witch doctors deserve whatever comes to them. But lumping homeopathy and other holistic therapies with quackery is dismissal in ignorance.

Modern medicine is so finetuned towards treating symptoms rather than the cure or state of mind of the person (yes many illnesses are psychological). So when I mention holistic medicine where you maintain a positive atmosphere around a person and even use prayer (I belong to no religion: prayer to me = using the human energy field to initiate psychosomatic changes on a subtle level) have an effect. Hell the stuff has so much potential for study I can't imagine.

I ask again, Aquamarinelady, what are the specifics of what homeopathy does for you?

But lumping homeopathy and other holistic therapies with quackery is dismissal in ignorance.

As opposed to your seeming acceptance in ignorance? You have not yet answered my question. If you think we're so ignorant on the subject (not true, but for the sake of argument), then please explain it to us. You have failed to do so thus far.

I have to tell you this is the best software I have ever used!!