A few weeks ago, John Benneth – I am sure you know John, he is one of the few homeopathy-fans who make Dana Ullman look sane – published this note:
I am overwhelmed . . I am being shipped to Paris next week with bioengineer Bronson Ayala assisting to receive from the Conte Foundation homeopathy’s highest award, the Yves Lasne Price, for my research into the homeopathic mechanism, and deliver my thesis, “Physic of the Infinitesimal.”
Wish us luck . .
Au revoir!
John
Knowing the utter nonsense this man tends to publish on youtube (see for instance here) or elsewhere, I did not assume that there was any truth to it (see also here).
I was wrong!!!
Today I found this on Twitter:
29/09/2016 Paris Prix Yves Lasne décerné à John Benneth l’un des grands chercheurs & journalistes de la recherche fondamentale Homéopathie
The award does actually exist – here is the website.
AND THERE EVEN IS A PHOTO FOR THOSE WHO DOUBT IT
Unfortunately I did not find any press release or similar announcement of the prize. Therefore, I have to go by the short note on Twitter. It names John Benneth as one of the great scientist of basic research into homeopathy. That was new to me. So, I quickly did a search on PubMed to retrieve some of his work.
Guess how many papers I found?
ZERO!
The inevitable conclusion is that in homeopathy things are, as we all know, upside down; therefore to receive homeopathy’s highest award, one has to prove that one has never published any research into the subject.
It’s all quite logical, if you think of it.
81 Responses to John Benneth received homeopathy’s highest award
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He’s obviously working on the homeopathic principle that the fewer papers you publish, the more powerful they are.
Ohahahahaha! What a relief it is to be cut back down to a proper size again, especially when so artfukky done by my fellow colleagues . .
John Bennett- ‘colleagues’ implies the idea of ‘fellowness’. ‘Fellow colleagues’ is therefore tautologous. Trying a bit too hard to be ‘language-y? The way that homeopaths try to use language to look ‘science-y?
As to your comment about being cut down to size-How much more of you and your reputation is there left to cut down You must already be tiny.
Could you be a little more specific about the use of language to look sciencey?
John Benneth- Bn Goldacre’s book ‘Bad Science’ is a good starting point. Gillian McKeith uses this tactic a lot.
And not before time. At great risk to his mental health he has striven to disprove chemistry, physics, biology and mathematics. A true champion of homeopathic research.
Yes, thank you, I’ll try to do better. I have just recently beguin to lobby for the dismissal of Neil smokin’ de Grasse Tyson as Astrophysicist in Chief for the same reason my fellow homeopath Edzard Ernst got sacked, for being a dogmatic hack.
Under the guise of St. John of Homeopathy @jbennethjournal I’ve sent him the following:.
@neiltyson I’ll put my name on it in a court of law, Neil smokin’ de Grasse Tyson is a fraud, he is nO astrophysicist, nor will he ever be he is nO astrophysicist, nor will he ever be
he is a man w/o cosmology
@neiltyson I’ll put my name on it in a court of law, Neil smokin’ de Grasse Tyson is smokin hot because he’s been smokin too much pot
HEY @neiltyson stop lying, get real Cosmology from real Man . .
sincerely.
St. John of Homeopathy
@jbennethjournal
John Bennett- ‘jokes’ which are explained tend to lose their potency. ‘Smokin’ de Grasse was rather amusing, if misdirected, for a person of your cut- size. But then you go and spoil it.
I think I am probably better off for being unable to understand your mind well enough to unpick that gibberish.
Guy Chapman-you have to admit though that the fellow Bennett is weirdly entertaining in his crackpottery. Perhaps not so much for James Randi( even I findBenneth’s deranged attack on him to be certifiable) but it must be fun watching him do his shopping.
Folks, by consistently spelling his name ‘Bennett’ you’re violating EE’s principle of not making fun of a commenter’s moniker. It should be ‘Benneth’, and it’s better that way because it creates a magnificent lisp effect when pronounced.
Frank Odds-not guilty.
Aithough since he refers to Neil Smokin” deGrasse Tyson-quite good in another context- I regret not being allowed to use ‘Benneth Contempt’.
Frank Odds-just checked, and I found that previously Spellcheck had indeed cohanged my initially correct spelling. Abject apologies to Mr Bennetth.
Self canonisation? Is there no limit to this man’s ability?
That award looks a bit large. I would have expected a 100C version would be presented.
Actuallly it was a 1X. The original was too big to get through the door . .
He’s one of a handful members. Nice to give an award to one of ‘themselves’.
Just watched his YouTube attack on James Randi, which I’d forgotten. I hope somebody somewhere is keeping an eye on him. I know the homeopathic ‘community’ has a long-standing reluctance to criticise anyone who belongs to their cult, but surely this fellow is disturbed. There have been two or three times when I’ve watched, or read, stuff on YouTube, and felt almost scared that they might climb out of the screen and go berserk.
only when he’s forgotten to take his little red pills.
Gentlemen Gentlemen! Please! The accolades you are keeping up on me are suffocating!!
Not true. Prior to selection I had no contact with any living person from the organization. Notice of it came like a bolt from the blue.
I say it again, homeopaths are homeopathy’s worst enemies.
Here is one reason why I have no sympathy whatsoever with this imbecile. There are more videos to be found, demonstrating his malignant, erratic behaviour but these short clippings of John Benneth “at his best” are just about what a normal adult human being can tolerate in one day.
https://youtu.be/VXmYP9VAvlA
Just to lighten up your spirits after seeing the above vileness, here’s a cavalcade of homeopaths including JB, trying to explain what they think makes shaken water soaked sugar pills work. JB is unusually calm and benign in these clips (He’s the one wearing the yellow tie) I guess this video also sums up JB’s scientific efforts 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KS4eeXFjhE
How true that “homeopaths are homeopathy’s worst enemies” the example here given that Edzard Ernst claims to be a trained homeopath! It should also be said then that skeptics are homeopathy’s best friends . . conversely, this must pose quite a dichotomy for Prof. Ernst . .
Perhaps the problem would be rectified if skeptics applied a little science to the topic. But then again, if they did that they would no longer be skeptics . .
Loons award fellow loon with title to demonstrate that he is, without question, the looniest of the loons.
We could’ve told them that years ago and saved everyone lots of effort.
You’re right, Lenny! You have been putting too much effort into the topic. Why not take some time off and have a nice long rest . . read a book, watch some TV, stop staring perplexedly, without a clue, at the evidence for homeopathy. Yes, take a rest, Lenny, a nice . . long . . rest . .
I will John. Whilst I wait for you to unarguably demonstrate homeopathy’s effectiveness. It’s going to be a very long rest indeed. Interspersed with plentiful chuckles as I observe your histrionic flailings.
It is certainly consistent with my hypothesis that quacks tend to favour the route of least evidence.
Yes, the short route of ridicule is a noted feature among skeptics when they find the material “too sciencey.” And speaking of skeptics, I have heard through the grapevine that more of them would be involved if the math questions weren’t so hard.
John Benneth- there are times when, all else having failed, ridicule is the only weapon left for people like yourself, and your beliefs. Although, to be perfectly frank, I think its earlier use is well justified.
Your pathetic, unfunny, aggressive, hate-filled, immature YouTube rant against James Randi and others, including Edzard Ernst, leaves you little room for lecturing others upon this matter.
Get some mental help.
I recommend his youtube clips to anyone who needs a bit of hilarity on a sad day.
For those interested, here’s the link to John Benneth’s Youtube offerings: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bandershot/featured
EE-Yes, Benneth’s rant against James Randi is funny in a very disturbing way. A bit like looking at old newsreel film of posturing hysterics like Mussolini or Hitler.Now we look at them and are amazed at how people took such ham- fisted theatrical posturing seriously. Benneth dresses up his lunacy in a weird attempt at humour.As somebody pointed out earlier, homeopaths do tend to be homeopathy’s worst enemies, but then as conservatives try to do with Trump, they just brush inconvenient fruitbats aside and say ‘Well, every every belief system has the occasional oddball’.
Why should I get some mental health, when I’m getting everything I need right here? I mean, I was about ready to kill myself before I stumbled upon this treasure trove of mental health! Now I am energized, running up and down mountains again!
John Benneth- I’m sure you are energised-perhaps potentised would be more appropriate here- and running up and down mountains again. Trouble is, tjhere’s no proof that the mountains exist.I can see where any potentisation may have happened though, what with all that running around.
John Benneth-I think you’ve heard quite a lot of things on the grapefruit, not just that.
John, half the people in this thread have advanced degrees. Your entire problem is that you speak science the way Montgomery Scott speaks science, and you do it to an audience which, unlike you, actually understands it.
Maybe I’m channeling Einstein. Maybe that explains why you understand it, but I don’t! But then again, maybe I’m just repeating the literature on the topic, and you’re pretending to be stupid . .
Advanced degrees in what, Chappy? Basketweaving? Ridicule? Rage? I mean . . you could’ve fooled me, for the amount of the technical literature on infinite dilution, molecular dissociation and ionic theory being discussed, I thought I was talking to Mrs. Griblin’s kindergarten class.
Go back to banging your tin cup on the bars, Chappy, it’s much more productive.
You are all a bunch of clathrate deniers!
A clathrate denier? Not I!
A lattice can fold,
Deliver and hold,
A taste extreme
Of fine cuisine.
Not bubble and squeak
To that which I speak,
It it of course, lattice pie!
Homeopathy pretends to be akin to a lattice pie, whereas it actually contains as much useful therapeutic substance as the holes in a lattice fence. Homeopathy is, perhaps, a lattice offence 🙂
BRILLIANT! Kudos to Pete Atkins . . or whoever he stole it from
Had I copied it, I would have quoted it, and have provided a link to the source.
This is commonly known as “intellectual integrity”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity
BTW: My name is Pete Attkins; it is not Pete Atkins.
No need to be churlish, Mr. Attkins, I believe you when you say you’re the author, it’s really quite good. Take it for what it’s worth from me, I think you have a real gift . .
I should add that Mr. Attkins stick to poetry and leave homeopathy to science.
Chapman! I didn’t know there was Internet access in a Turkish prison . .
Given that there’s internet access in the alternate reality you inhabit, it should hardly come as a surprise that it’s also available in England.
I’m sure that receiving this award was an undiluted pleasure.
My dear wife died a years ago, my loving parents after that, I lost all my means of support, and as you can see from the picture I lost my health too, became decrepit wreck, and according to allopathic doctors or homeopathic diagnosis, acquired cachexia, came down with multiple sclerosis, partial paralysis, blindness, soldier’s heart, milk leg, frozen shoulder, housemaid’s knee and railway spine, lifelong guilt for having children, Parkinson’s Disease, soft-tissue rhetoric, medical glossolalia and had a disease named after me . . after all that, I found receiving the award to be kind of boring . .
Ah but John has never published because he only does presentations and briefings. His work and his discoveries come so fast that anything he publishes will be instantly out of date.
Probably.
(Incidentally, maverick genius pilot / aircraft designer / military strategist / thinker John Boyd used this approach always, constantly updating his presentations as new evidence emerged – you know, how homeopaths never do – but he and Benneth have two crucial differences. Boyd was a genius and what he said was correct. Benneth is an idiot and what he says is wrong)
Thank you! I could live for a year on that compliment . .
Actually, I thought it was you guys giving me an award for my Theory of High Delusions . . until one of them said “No! You idiot! Not delusions . . DILUTIONS!”
Of course you’d think it is ZERO, you homeopathy-denier!
It is not zero, just diluted to a little over 1M. And therefore, highly potentized. How does it work, you ask? A-ha! John has memories of research — even if the field of medicine may have no memories of the John ever researching anything.
‘As you can see, WIkipedia is caught in a crossfire of its own references. Like a ping pong match, once again, tracing back to footnote number two we found, at the end of the rainbow, Edzard Ernst’s Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews of Homeopathy, which stated,
“The existence of contradicting evidence is not unusual in therapeutics. One solution to resolve such contradictions is to conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses of rigorous studies. In 1997, Linde et al did just that. The conclusions of this technically superb meta-analysis expressed the notion that homeopathic medicines are more than mere placebos.”
‘Not one major meta analysis has been able to effectively conclude that the action of homeopathic remedies is due solely to the placebo effect. Not even Shang, the most popular homeopathy meta analysis among skeptics, was able to clearly conclude that the effect was from chance, iatrogenesis or “placebo,” admitting “a weak effect.” A review of the data by independent analysis of Shang determined that even in this most damning meta of homeopathy, ”Homeopathy had a significant effect beyond placebo.” Ludtke Rutten
‘The literature for the homeopathic placebo simply doesn’t exist. The urban legend was a badly executed deception popularized by James Randi 14 years ago to support his phony offer of one million dollars ($1,000,000) to prove homeopathy, an offer that his supporters, which includes the pharmaceutical drug industry, are still desperately hanging onto as proof that homeopathy is unprovable.’
More at https://johnbenneth.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/the-homeopathic-cure-of-wikipedia/
John Benneth- once again, we hear a homeopathic nutjob quacking about the phoniness of James Randi’s offer. Once again, no evidence of its phoniness, just a version of jumping up and down shouting ‘fake news’ at anything you don’t like.and talking of things you don’t like, I strongly advise anyone who hasn’t done so to to take a look at your weird, mentally unbalanced jYoutube attack on Randi, Penn and Teller, Edzard Ernst, and others, not to mention your obsession with homosexuality-who knows, a signifiers itself of some sort?
John, the Wikipedia article on homeopathy is the result of literally years of vigorous debate between proponents and skeptics of homeopathy.
It has been edited over 11,300 times by over 2,300 separate editors and there are currently 63 pages of discussion archives, plus numerous meta discussions including an arbitration case. The top editors include Dana “Mr. Uncredible” Ullman and Chris Wilkinson, both homeopathy believers.
It is one of Wikipedia’s most edited and most scrutinised articles. It is robustly sourced, no statement in the entire article goes unchallenged, everything is backed by high quality sources.
The Wikipedia article on homeopathy is neutral and reflects reality. And believers hate it. The same is true of the article on creationism. Wikipedia presents the facts, believers rant.
It’s not Wikipedia that’s biased against homeopathy, creationism and the rest, it’s reality. Sure, you prefer your beliefs to reality, which is your prerogative, but Wikipedia doesn’t. Wikipedia reflects a reality you won’t accept. Problem’s your end.
“Not one major meta analysis has been able to effectively conclude that the action of homeopathic remedies is due solely to the placebo effect.”
I sincerely that statement is correct, because establishing the cause of an effect is most definitely not the intended purpose of meta-analysis.
I Googled this prize. The foundation that awards it is the “Academie Privee des Sciences”, which proclaims itself as “Grand Projet du 21ème Siècle”, shades of HMC21. The website has three portraits: Hahnemann, de Broglie and Einstein. One of these three is not like the others…
You think Einstein’s a fraud?
One of the things I like about using Einstein as an example is the fact that quacks try to portray the reverence science has for him, as evidence that science is a religion just like homeopathy or any other SCAM.
In reality, every scientist knows that Einstein was wrong about some pretty important stuff (notably his belief in determinism). Einstein is not revered for being infallible, he’s revered because his work has been tested with the absolute intent of proving it wrong, and those tests have not proved him wrong in most things.
Let’s apply that to Hahnemann. Hahnemann’s most fundamental doctrine is that like cures like. That’s based on a single incorrect extrapolation form an idiosyncratic reaction to a single substance. There is no scientific evidence that like cures like as a general or even common principle, there is no plausible mechanism by which that might work across the range of substances used in homeopathy, there is no property of matter that is consistent with this claim.
Not only has Hahnemann’s core doctrine not been validated by science, it hasn’t even be validated by homeopaths. It’s taken as an assumption and never tested. Some homeopaths claim it’s validated by clinical evidence, but the clinical evidence is fully consistent with the null hypothesis (otherwise this conversation would not even be happening).
There are priority disputes over Einstein’s work. Other scientists made similar discoveries, and parallel streams of research came to similar conclusions. Einstein did not invent this stuff, he just got there first. It’s a conclusion that is inevitable from the observed facts That’s science.
With Hahnemann, there is no parallel discovery. Nobody else came to the conclusions Hahnemann did. Nobody has ever started from first principles and arrived at homeopathy. It’s a “truth” revealed to one person in isolation. That’s religion.
I know you don’t accept any of that, but that’s your problem not ours. The facts are as stated. There is no evidence like cures like, so all the discussion of how it might work is moot. You might as well ask how unicorns manage to avoid being observed in the wild.
To the matter of my publishing . . or lack of it, I have submitted my papers to Nature, Scientific American, and the Exeter Pederasty Review. All publications rejected them on the grounds that they were “too sciencey” . . or revealing of its eponymous topic and subscribers.
{{citation needed}}
I know people who have published in Nature. I have seen your writings. I strongly suspect that the reason Nature and the other journals rejected your submissions is that they contained your characteristic combination of scientific illiteracy and batshit insanity. But do feel free to share the authentic rejection slips.
I like to think the moderator of this field for providing me with such a target rich environment . .
Look at all the soldiers parading past. Amongst them is Private Benneth, secure in the knowledge that he is the only one marching correctly in time with the music.
Lenny-that’s because he’s marching in time to ‘The Galileo Fallacy’
I’m just following the technical literature on the subject. You ought to try it sometime, you might learn something.
John Benneth,
You wrote: “I’m just following the technical literature on the subject. You ought to try it sometime, you might learn something.”
You are are indeed just following the ‘technical’ literature on the subject; rather than understanding it. If you properly understood the ‘technical’ literature then you would easily be able to: detect that it is bogus; explain why it is bogus.
Furthermore, you would also easily be able to explain — both from first principles and using robust evidence — which branch of alt-med is the most effective for each of the plethora of illnesses/dis-eases/conditions that the empire of alt-med claims to treat.
It is irrelevant to those who are seriously ill whether or not homeopathy is slightly better than placebo; it is vitally important for them to be properly informed as to whether or not homeopathy is better for their condition than the any of the other alt-med treatments[1], such as: acupuncture; applied kinesiology; aromatherapy; colonic irrigation; craniosacral therapy; Gua Sha; Reiki.
As far as I’m aware, no high-quality clinical trials have ever been conducted for the purpose of properly establishing the ranking order of alt-med treatment modalities. In the absence of this data, it is impossible for each and every alt-med practitioner to obtain informed consent from their patients.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_forms_of_alternative_medicine
This raises an interesting question: in prayer studies, have they rated the relative efficacy of praying to the Christian God versus Allah, Buddha or the Flyign Spaghetti Monster?
@Guy
Christians seem to have the stranglehold so far on intercessory prayer studies, but you’ll find a trial of the (non-) effects of Islamic prayer on warts here and even a study of the effects of prayer on wound healing in bush babies in: Lesniak, K.T., Alt Ther Health Med 2006, 12 (6). Since I have no idea which god bush babies may worship, you might find the FSM is appropriate here.
For what it’s worth, please note also that the Cox2 inhibitor, etoricoxib, is effective when given prophylactically in reducing the incidence of headache associated with Jewish and Islamic religious fasting (pubmed 20039959). Which only goes to show that religion may be ineffective in curing naturally occuring disease, but medicine is effective in preventing disease caused by religious belief.
So the “Exeter Pederasty Review” turned down John Benneth’s paper … who’da thunk
John Benneth’s use of language is becoming so random that, as others have said, he’almost approachingunintelligibleility, and he was already slow off the grid in that respect
Just a thought here- I’m sure that most of the people on this bog can see Colin the Homeopathic Bobby for the deluded simpleton that he is, but crying ‘Fake news’, as he’s been won’t to do recently at anything that displeases him, is something that must be tackled immediately, as is shown oin America. Just because he appears to be a joke doesn’t’t mean that he is.
What puzzles me is how you can have an opinion on this without having run any of the known physico-chemical assays.
Do I hear crickets?
ROFL! Clueless as ever.
No, John. You hear us all chuckling.
As before. The unarguable and overwhelming evidence, John. Show us. Like we have for antibiotics. For anaesthetics. For contraceptives. Where are your homeopathic equivalents? Show us the trials of homeopathic treatments which were stopped because the evidence of their effectiveness was so overwhelming it was unethical to continue the trial, as happens with conventional therapies.
Oh. You can’t.
Oh well.
I’m talking about physical tests that evidence an ionized solute like NMR, dielectic stress, TEM . .
I’m talking about unarguable demonstrations of efficacy, John. Which you are unable to provide. Just your normal pseudo-chemical flapdoodle backed by the work of fellow homeopathy freaks torturing data and shifting through the contaminants and noise in a desperate and futile plea for validation of an ineffectual therapy.
What assays would they be, John? The ones that show silicates in solutions prepared in glass vessels?
It really is amazing how any experiment validates homeopathy provided you start with the a priori assumption that homeopathy is valid, but any experiment conducted without that assumption, mysteriously fails to deliver the same conclusion.
You should be able to find something here to swing on, Guy.
In 1909 Copeland revealed four distinct, distinct properties of homeopathic dilutions-
1. Conductivity
2. Lowering of the freezing point
3. The refraction equivalent
4. Heat of neutralization.
A century later, we have six diiferent published tests of conductivity, and nine more, different kinds of instrumental tests that show:
1. Dielectric strength (conductivity), 6 published reports
2. Galvanic effects, 5 published reports
3. Light absorption, 4 published reports
4. Nuclear magnetic resonance [NMR], 18 published reports
5. Raman spectroscopy, 7 published reports
6. Black boxes of undisclosed design, 4 published reports
7. Transmission electron photography (TEM), 2 published reports
8. Beta scintillation 1 published report (Conte)
9. Gas discharge, 1 published report (Bell)
10. Tritium emanation, 1 published report (Conte)
“Black boxes of undisclosed design”
Top-end science there, John. That’s us all convinced.
Oh my God Dr. Benneth I had no idea of the misfortunes that have befallen you! I’m so sorry. Is there any way I can help? I would be honoured to support you in any way that I can. If you ever want to talk to a sympathetic Canadian student of Hahnemann, who has been through paralysis, a diagnosis of MS, and her share of losses, drop me a line, I’d be delighted to talk…but surely you can be healed with homeopathy? Ign? Nat-m? Ph-ac? Cygnus Cygnus? Something radioactive? I’ve been to that place where you think you’ve reached the absolute end, and I ca e back. I know something about recovering from MS! Who is treating you? You must know that you can never be your own psychoanalyst or homeopath! I’m not into the whole Christianity thing, but God bless you! Please let me help you…
With Love and Concern from some Random Chick who Cares,
Laura