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Homeopathy is bullshit, those who believe in it are idiots
- Thread starter Pevenseagull
- Start date
Silent Bob
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
- Dec 6, 2004
- 22,172
To think it works you'd either have to not know what it is or literally believe in magic.
Still better placebo than actual antibiotics though, but it should be presented as such if at all.
Still better placebo than actual antibiotics though, but it should be presented as such if at all.
It's bullshit.
mona
The Glory Game
Agreed.
But it's only Prince Charles and a few highly strung women who genuinely believe in it, isn't it?
Monkey Man
Your support is not that great
Plenty of popular science books deal with this subject. There are all kinds of double blind tests that have been done, all kinds of analysis, and the conclusion is simple. It's bullshit.
However, if people choose to believe in water, crystals, spirit voices or a great big blancmange in the sky, that's their business. Just don't try to obtain public funding for your theories, and don't treat my kids if they're sick.
However, if people choose to believe in water, crystals, spirit voices or a great big blancmange in the sky, that's their business. Just don't try to obtain public funding for your theories, and don't treat my kids if they're sick.
Unfortunately not, it's a £40m industry in the UK. Boots: 'we sell homeopathic remedies because they sell, not because they work' - Telegraph
Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
Like many people I've read Ben Goldacre's book 'Bad Science' which whilst not all about the quackery that is homeopathy does include it. It's clearly nonsense.
Ben's web site has a lot of articles about this:
homeopathy Bad Science
Ben's web site has a lot of articles about this:
homeopathy Bad Science
As you're the person who admitted to drinking industrial bleach to protect yourself from the mind-control gas that the government distribute via airplanes I don't think you're quite the authority on the subject that you think you are.
However you are correct, we've been using herbs etc for healing for years, all the stuff that Western science would call 'alternative medicine'. Then as Dara O'Brian said we tested it, and the stuff that worked became 'medicine'.
Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
Not it's not. Here's a FACT about homepathy:
Homeopathic rememdies are so dilute that for there to be 1 molecule of the apparent active ingredient to remain you'd need a sphere of water whose diameter is roughly the distance from the earth to the sun.
How's that going to work?
Herbal remedies of the Maya will have worked, as it was those herbs and plants that pharmacutical companies used to make most of the actual medicines we see today.
Vastly different things.
Gritt23
New member
Take as you find, I say.
We tried it once, and it seemed to help. Our boy was struggling with bad coughs in the night, really chocking, phlegm and everything. A couple of times it was quite scary, but the "conventional" route found nothing wrong with him, because, in the daytime he would seem fine, for days / weeks on end he'd seem fine, and then have a night of this. Didn't want him pumped full of various drugs and antibiotics to see what worked, so we opted to take a harmless route of homeopathy. Didn't particular expect it to work, but figured what he would be taking as a result would either help or be harmless, so we had nowt to lose other than a few quid.
One visit, one course of something or other, and he never had the problem again. Of course it could be coincidence, but it did seem to work for us.
Unfortunately a lot of these "alternatives" have a lack of regulations, and therefore there will be numerous chancers out there, as I've found with Chinese medicine. My first experience with a Chinese alternative at a little place by Leicester Sq was literally magical, but having tried a couple of little High St places a few years later, they were just chancers selling me utter rubbish that did nothing.
We tried it once, and it seemed to help. Our boy was struggling with bad coughs in the night, really chocking, phlegm and everything. A couple of times it was quite scary, but the "conventional" route found nothing wrong with him, because, in the daytime he would seem fine, for days / weeks on end he'd seem fine, and then have a night of this. Didn't want him pumped full of various drugs and antibiotics to see what worked, so we opted to take a harmless route of homeopathy. Didn't particular expect it to work, but figured what he would be taking as a result would either help or be harmless, so we had nowt to lose other than a few quid.
One visit, one course of something or other, and he never had the problem again. Of course it could be coincidence, but it did seem to work for us.
Unfortunately a lot of these "alternatives" have a lack of regulations, and therefore there will be numerous chancers out there, as I've found with Chinese medicine. My first experience with a Chinese alternative at a little place by Leicester Sq was literally magical, but having tried a couple of little High St places a few years later, they were just chancers selling me utter rubbish that did nothing.
Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!
Primary data is fact
Herbal medicine is not homeopathy, it's something quite different you pillock.
For example, digitalis is a cardiotonic (ie works on the cardiac muscle) drug extracted from purple foxglove (digitalis purpurea) and has been used as a herbal remedy for the treatment of heart conditions for century's, albeit in a largely empirical fashion prior to the 1770's.
A homeopathic "presentation" of digitalis, if it exists, would have no molecules of digitalis present in the tablet, solution etc.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,015
its not remotely the same, and no one is even saying that. herbal remedies are widely accepted and indeed many (most?) commercial products are the distillation of the active ingredient found in herbal treatments.
homeopathy is groundless, that is to say it might work, but the reasons and mechanisms cannot be found. it relies on invoking the idea that water has "memory", but then ignore that the same water must have memory of all the disease and toxins it has come into contact with, only keeping the good stuff. yeah, right.
Just out of curiosity, how would you regulate this airy fairy bollocks? How can you regulate something that has no scientific basis?
JonathanLivingstonSeagull
New member
If plants etc (from ancient cultures and so forth) are found to work in treatment of illness they are naturally absorbed into western medicine. Because they work. Understand? If scientific tests find 'natural' remedies to work they become medicine. That really is the rub of things. There is no argument against this. Believe it or not, humanity largely works towards a common good.
That said, the placebo effect as a medically beneficial reality is well documented and whilst homeopathy cannot be found to work under scientific conditions, the mind is an incredibly powerful tool, a sometimes intangible one and not understood entirely by empirical scientific thinking. Therefore if the senses of the individual perceive a value, then that value may/will/can manifest - producing an argument for homeopathy as a kind of positive tool.
That said, the placebo effect as a medically beneficial reality is well documented and whilst homeopathy cannot be found to work under scientific conditions, the mind is an incredibly powerful tool, a sometimes intangible one and not understood entirely by empirical scientific thinking. Therefore if the senses of the individual perceive a value, then that value may/will/can manifest - producing an argument for homeopathy as a kind of positive tool.
happypig
Staring at the rude boys
When Pete took a high velocity round in the shoulder in Iraq in 1991, rather than use trauma packs and getting fluids and morphine into him, we aligned him (minus his left arm) with a ley line, lit some scented candles and chanted while holding crystals over the wound. It worked absolute wonders.
I miss Pete
I miss Pete
Tricky Dicky
New member
Homeopathy maybe bollocks, but the placebo effect is very real (and that's all Homeopathy can be). Interestingly, the placebo effect works, even when the recipient knows that they're receiving a placebo. It is still not fully understood - but quite interesting.
On the one hand I find it very annoying that there should be any NHS money invested in it (which there is, I seem to remember one London clinic is funded atabout £10m a year, although that could be no longer true) - on the other hand you could say that if (big IF) it really helps people then why not spend money, especially it if takes workload off other areas of the health system.
On the one hand I find it very annoying that there should be any NHS money invested in it (which there is, I seem to remember one London clinic is funded atabout £10m a year, although that could be no longer true) - on the other hand you could say that if (big IF) it really helps people then why not spend money, especially it if takes workload off other areas of the health system.
Gritt23
New member
Oh, I have absolute no idea whatsoever, I'm just highlighting that as why you end up with so many stories of it being BS, because a lot of people receive the shoddy, chancer experience, and cast the black mark to it all.
My homeopathy experience is a one-off and was good (albeit, possibly a coincidence), but my Chinese medicine was actually a better example. One place was brilliant, with private consultation, inspecting me from top to toe, taking photos and careful examinations. I left with packets of the forest floor basically, which the guy made up from the "prescription" taking bits out of some of the dozens of jars of stuff that was all around the shop. Wood, leaves, powders, all sorts. You then took that home and each "packet" was boiled up and drained to make a drink, that was the most disgusting think I've ever tasted. But it worked BRILLIANTLY, in a week it was an almost magical change.
Whereas on the high street equivalent, I got a brief conversation over the counter and a tube of pills off the shelf, that had absolutely no effect whatsoever. If that had been my FIRST experience I would have condemned the whole idea of "Chinese Medicine" but because it wasn't, I realise it's the lack of regulation to prevent the Del Boys of this World from muscling in and damaging the whole reputation.
Just my experience, of course.