Re: Homeopathic overdose protest in Boots | Forum

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Deepinder Cheema Jan 28, 2010 16:59:25

Replying to Squid Tempest

Squid Tempest wrote:

I'm going to stick my head above the parapet here.

I never trusted homeopathic medecine due to the scientific arguments already mentioned here. However, I have a very good (and intelligent) friend who suffers from a very serious condition (I won't go into details here as it is another's health I'm talking about). For some years now homeopathic remedies have provided her with the only relief she has been able to get - conventional medecine did nothing for her. Apparently for her it really works, and in ways that it is hard to fit in with the placebo effect. real, physical differences.

I was as cynical as the rest of you until this. Now I'm really not so sure. Could it possibly be that there is something going on here that science has yet to suss out?

Well this is the point. I can understand the rationalist's argument completely, but I quiver on the cusp just like Pascal lest there is a phenomena acting that science has not yet discovered. I hedge my bets because animals have been known to be cured. In fact I remembered my mother rescued Snoopy in 1970, our dog from the pound from being put down. She cured his distemper using homeopathy, no placebo effect there; and then there is the anomalous and mysterious nature of the water molecule.

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Merrick Jan 29, 2010 12:54:07

Replying to Squid Tempest

Squid, I don't doubt that homeopathy's worked for your friend.

Squid Tempest wrote:

Apparently for her it really works, and in ways that it is hard to fit in with the placebo effect. real, physical differences.

I think you misunderstand what the placebo effect is. It *does* deliver real, physical differences. It really medically works for some people. Ben Goldacre's excellent article on placebo says there was even a study where people were told they were getting a placebo with no actual medicine in and some of them responded.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/03/all-bow-before-the-might-of-the-placebo-effect-it-is-the-coolest-strangest-thing-in-medicine/

Squid Tempest wrote:

Could it possibly be that there is something going on here that science has yet to suss out?

If it actually worked as actual medicine, tests would show that. WE don't need science to show *how* it works - there is a lot of mystery and much that we don't yet know - but trials do need to show that something *does* work. And the extensive trials of homeopathy show that it does not, beyond placebo.

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IanB Feb 9, 2010 19:55:41

Replying to Squid Tempest

Squid Tempest wrote:

I'm going to stick my head above the parapet here.

I never trusted homeopathic medecine due to the scientific arguments already mentioned here. However, I have a very good (and intelligent) friend who suffers from a very serious condition (I won't go into details here as it is another's health I'm talking about). For some years now homeopathic remedies have provided her with the only relief she has been able to get - conventional medecine did nothing for her. Apparently for her it really works, and in ways that it is hard to fit in with the placebo effect. real, physical differences.

I was as cynical as the rest of you until this. Now I'm really not so sure. Could it possibly be that there is something going on here that science has yet to suss out?

I am with you on this. I know far too many people who have had significant success with homeopathy and especially with acupuncture to dimiss the possiblity that there is something "in" these treatments. If they are all deluded then they are healthy, happy and deluded having been let down by their GPs and force fed pain killers which being a whole other set of problems with them. Not least the number of musicians I know whose RSI has been relieved completely by acupuncture alone when all other forms of therapy and pain relief have failed.