Poll: Homeopathy - Is it Bollocks?

[George_Harvey_Bone]

It's beyond bollocks - it's dangerous, because the poor fools who've been duped by it sometimes rely on it instead of going to see an actual medical practitioner. The fact that my tax money gets spent on this shit makes me feel violently angry.

Anyone who suggests that there is ANY benefit to it beyond placebo needs arguing down, because they're putting people's lives at risk.

 

[Richardplex]

Futurama also has something to say about it.

 

[babinro]

I have no way to disprove anything

You can disprove one basic concept of homeopathy (diluting things makes them more potent) right now in your own kitchen. Take a drink of anything, properly prepared to your liking. Dilute the fuck out of it. Is the resulting drink stronger or weaker? Chemistry says it should be weaker, because the drink molecules are more spread out among the water, so every sip you take is going to contain more water than drink. And if you dilute things the homeopathic way (where you take a portion of the first solution and put it in a new container of water) then you'll have fewer drink molecules altogether. Again, chemistry says fewer molecules = weaker. Homeopathy says the opposite, claiming that water has a memory. Which seems more plausible to you?

It just feels wrong that she never truly wanted to get rid of weekly migraines for all her life up to that point despite having tried for decades to do so.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Just to be clear, I'm not claiming that she was cured by the placebo affect. I'd actually bet that something else had changed (diet, stress levels, medications for other issues, etc) and that the homeopathy simply coincided with whatever actually cured the headaches.

I will choose to believe what the HP did worked beyond mind games and coincidence. Unless I could get proof from the HP herself that she did nothing beyond a placebo remedy.

You prefer to believe that diluting things makes them stronger (something which you can disprove, right now, in your home kitchen) over believing that something else caused your mom to get better and simply happened at the same time she took this particular treatment (which isn't that big of a stretch, if she'd been trying lots of different things to get better--one of them was bound to coincide with her recovery even if none of them caused it)?

I completely agree with the idea that diluting something makes it less potent. This is common sense.

What I don't understand is what that has to do with the treatment that worked for my mother. Are you saying that 100% of homeopathy treatments involve diluted medicine?

If so, then perhaps the treatments given to my mother for her migraines were always to strong to work. As such, a diluted version of that medicine was all she needed. Either way, the end result was success.

 

[lacktheknack]

I don't understand the logic of how it came about. The medicine gets more effective the less you give to the patient? Ah... Right.

 

[TheIronRuler]

I don't understand the logic of how it came about. The medicine gets more effective the less you give to the patient? Ah... Right.

People believed that crap before Germ Theory. God Bless the French. *Salutes the French*

 

[lacktheknack]

I don't understand the logic of how it came about. The medicine gets more effective the less you give to the patient? Ah... Right.

People believed that crap before Germ Theory. God Bless the French. *Salutes the French*

But... how did it come about? Didn't people just notice that taking a large slice of willow bark in their tea was more effective at curing their headache than a sliver of it?

 

[Naeras]

If homeopathy worked, it would be possible to scientifically prove why and how it works, not to mention that it would be possible to prove that it even works. Thus far, not a single study has shown promise in how homeopathy works.

Also, I've heard someone claim that it makes sense as the "body will remember the compound and be immune to it". As someone who knows quite a bit about immunology(bioscience student), the whole thing about how "the body will remember the compound and it'll heal you" isn't actually how the immune system works. You don't automatically become immune to something just by a form of exposure alone.
If anyone wants me to elaborate further on that, feel free to tell me. I just can't be bothered to do a semi-long write-up on antibodies right now.

 

[dagens24]

Not only is homeopathy bullshit, it's dangerous. If you're taking homeopathic 'medicine' in lieu of actual medicine then you're condition is going un-treated; the early you catch a serious illness, the better.

 

[TheIronRuler]

I don't understand the logic of how it came about. The medicine gets more effective the less you give to the patient? Ah... Right.

People believed that crap before Germ Theory. God Bless the French. *Salutes the French*

But... how did it come about? Didn't people just notice that taking a large slice of willow bark in their tea was more effective at curing their headache than a sliver of it?

It was a theory. Apparently radiated water could cure lots of things in your system, believe it or not - CERTIFIED pure!

 

[George_Harvey_Bone]

I completely agree with the idea that diluting something makes it less potent. This is common sense.

What I don't understand is what that has to do with the treatment that worked for my mother. Are you saying that 100% of homeopathy treatments involve diluted medicine?

If so, then perhaps the treatments given to my mother for her migraines were always to strong to work. As such, a diluted version of that medicine was all she needed. Either way, the end result was success.

The post you quoted already gave you possible explanations.

One things is for sure: the homeopathic "treatment" itself did absolutely nothing for your Mother.

 

[Wintermoot]

is it proven by medical science? no? then it,s bullcrap. It might calm you but don,t use it for life saving stuff like cancer.

 

[robot slipper]

Had a really funny lecture about this in the second year of my biomedical science course, where our pharmacology lecturer debunked the entire thing. I reallly liked the section about in in Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science (which is a very good read!).

 

[SEXTON HALE]

Homeopathy definatly seem like a load of absolute bollocks.
The dilution of the active ingredient only serves to weaken any effect it had in the first place.
It makes no sense as the supposed beneficial effects come from the process of dilution rather than just starting out with a small amount in the first place unless it was to prevent some kind of side effect from consuming a large amount of the active ingredient but thats is still sorted out by staring offf with a small amount.

 

[TheIronRuler]

This video is just... insane.

 

[Smeatza]

Homeopathy is for people who do not understand the placebo effect.

It's literally as simple as that.

 

[Abedeus]

Sad to see almost 5% of people voting believe this scam works.

 

[Lieju]

Well, it's water...

I guess it helps if your problem is that you're thirsty?

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I guess I'm one of 4 people who said No.

I say this only because of my mother's personal experience. She suffered from migraines all her life. Despite seeing several different doctors and trying various different treatments, nothing helped her out.

After about 40 years of that she finally tried homeopathic medicine and it worked for her. Her migraines were entirely gone save a few normal headaches on occasion.

I find it hard to believe this could have finally been the one placebo effect that actually worked. As such, I choose to believe that homeopathic medicine genuinely worked for my mother.

Did your mother's treatment include any aroma therapy? Any herbal supplements?

Those aren't homeopathic. Those are actual chemicals that have an actual effect on the body. Herbal medicine is untested and tends to be hit or miss, but there are actual chemicals in there, so they actually can work. For example, "willow bark tea" is unrefined, random dose aspirin.

If she had ONLY homeopathic "medicine" then... yeah, placebo effect is the only real possibility. Or an environmental change (she moved, got a new mattress, changed the brand of coffee she drinks, started drinking more water to avoid dehydration, etc).

... actually, there's an idea. Since homeopathic "medicine" is basically just water, that only condition it would treat is dehydration.

 

[lRookiel]

I saw that Dara O'Briain one, it is fucking fantastic!

OT:

Yes, Homeopathy is utter crap!

 

[Fuhrlock]

It always amazes me what proportion of people are willing to throw science and reasoning out the window to believe in this crap. What worse is when they argue based entirely upon annecdotal evidence and forget that repeatable results that are distinguishable from a placebo are even remotely important. As I currently look at 4.9% (just under 1 in 20) believe in this scam, please let my faith be rewarded and make that number go down