01.02.10
Homeopathic doses of knowledge
Seems this anti-homeopathy protest (10:23) has confused an awfy lot of folk.
Naysayers re hom are saying it doesn’t work.
Yaysayers are saying an variety of things. Namely:
- “Ah but yes it does. My cat had severe cirrhosis of the liver and they were going to amputate its face but then a homeopath gave it some pills and it’s been fine since. That was 15 years ago.”
- “But I had herbal medicine once and got better”. What this has to do with homeopathy is anyone’s guess.
- “The evil bad pharma people want you to think that it doesn’t work. It’s because they don’t control it and can’t charge you vast amounts for it.” Quite why these loons think that “big pharma” can’t extort a fiver for a small bottle of water is anyone’s guess. I thought it was only charlatans and frauds that repackage water as something it’s not.
- “Some other random treatment I tried worked therefore homeopathy is correct.
This last one was shown on the Beeb today with this marvellous burst of ignorance:
Laughingly this stunt to me actually proves the benefits of homeopathy. Surely the fact you can’t overdose is a positive. Taken with a common sense approach homeopathy can be used to compliment modern medicine. This polemic argument does no one any good. If I have an infection I take antibiotics, but correct exercise and diet has done more to control my back pain than pain killers.
“the fact that you can’t overdose is a positive”? Really. In that case lets all start using air as a remedy. Oh they’ve probably done that already. Has this guy never heard of drowning? That’s a clear overdose of homeopathic “medicine”.
The killer bit is the last phrase of the letter.
“correct exercise and diet has done more to control my back pain than pain killers.”
Maybe that’s because exercising is by far the best treatment for general back pain. Analgesia just kills the pain for a bit, if you don’t deal with the underlying fitness issues then the pain won’t go away long term. The good diet bit has probably allowed you to lose a bit of weight which will stress your back less. And being healthy generally will help with aches and pains.
This literally isn’t rocket science. It’s also nothing to do with homeopathy.
I mean really.
LP said,
February 1, 2010 at 2:27 pm
The “you can’t overdose on it, and that’s a good thing” response is exactly why I first groaned when I heard about the current campaign.
It’s also why when a member of the skeptic society behind it said to me “keep an eye on us, we’ve got something big planned” I said to him “I hope it’s not some kind of lame mass overdose stunt”
“See! You can’t overdose on it, therefore it clearly doesn’t work for it’s intended purpose of curing you” just isn’t a logical argument.
You can’t meaningfully overdose on fruit and veg, but fruit and veg is good for you. All it shows is that taking homeopathic remedies doesn’t kill you. (And really people, it doesn’t. Taking it instead of real medical treatment might well though.)
The “mass overdose” stunt also betrays a complete disregard for the way that homeopathy “works”. It ignores the “the more you dilute it, the more effect it has” principal. To truly overdose on homeopathic medicine, you’d need to take less of it, not more.
I very much agree with the principals of the anti-homeopathy mob, as homeopathy is quite clearly snake oil – however, the way they’re going about it makes them look like they haven’t thought the campaign at all.
If anything, they appear to have put in *less* thought than the pro-homeopathy mob.
I do hope they’ve got a more convincing plan for their next stunt.
alby said,
February 1, 2010 at 2:45 pm
The guy who started the Leicester branch of Skeptics in the Pub writes a column for our local paper. Apparently his next one tomorrow is on this topic. I’m intrigued to read it.
alby said,
February 1, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Oh sorry forgot something. I agree with you. An alarmingly off-base stunt but they will argue that the bottles have “do not overdose” warnings on them.
My main problem with the whole affair is the people who assume “homeopathy” just means “natural therapy” rather than the very specific form of nonsense it is. That and the myopia about “big-pharma”.
LP said,
February 1, 2010 at 3:54 pm
It’s just struck me that the “do not overdose” warnings are really there because of the risk of developing diabetes from regularly ingesting that much sugar
Agreed on the public confusion stuff, herbal remedies can often work (hop pillows being a marvelous example) and it’s a pity the homeopathy nonsense gets lumped in with it.