Guest post by Udo Endruscheit
Switzerland is probably the European country with the strangest complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) regulations in the health insurance system. A total of five different CAM methods have been included in the benefits catalogue of basic insurance for several years. However, this is subject to a strange proviso. How did this come about?
As almost everywhere in Europe, there was a desire in Switzerland in the 1990s to include CAM in the public healthcare system, with homeopathy naturally once again taking pole position. Initially, the urge to include five CAM modalities in basic care was granted, but only provisionally. A major project called the “Complementary Medicine Evaluation Programme” (PEK) was launched in 1999 to evaluate the procedures. Even back then, the criteria of efficacy, appropriateness and cost-effectiveness were prerequisites for reimbursement in health insurance. PEK was intended to create clarity here.
One part of PEK has been the well-known Shang/Egger (2005) study on homeopathy “Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? Comparative study of placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and allopathy”, which was to become a bone of contention without precedent. However, this did not change the negative result for homeopathy.
In any case, clear conclusions were drawn in Switzerland not only from this study, but also from the results of the other evaluations: the provisional inclusion of the methods in statutory basic insurance was terminated.
This in turn enraged the supporters of CAM methods, who thought they had already reached their goal with the provisional decision in their favour. Apparently, they had not even considered the possibility that scientific evaluations could actually lead to a sudden end to their wishes, which they believed had already been fulfilled.
In fact, in 2009, the friends of ineffective methods succeeded in bringing about one of the referendums for which Switzerland is known under the catchphrase “direct democracy”. And they prevailed – around two thirds of the votes cast were in favour of CAM and its inclusion in the Swiss Federal Constitution. However, it should be borne in mind that the two-thirds figure is put into perspective if the approval, including the low voter turnout, is converted to the proportion of the total electorate. This leaves just 17 per cent who voted for the CAM. And a closer look at the issue of the constitution also reveals that no unconditional protection space has been created for CAM. This is more or less a kind of good behaviour clause for CAM methods, but not rules that could render laws null and void.
The Swiss government was faced with the question of how to avoid simply ignoring the result of the referendum, while at the same time complying with the still valid requirements for reimbursement in basic insurance. So the representatives of the five CAM directions were actually asked to come to the Federal Office of Public Health with their proof of efficacy and economic efficiency. This was done in 2011.
Of course, this was a little bizarre at this stage – and of course nothing came of it. Or actually it did: once again, no proof could be provided. Meanwhile, a lot of time had passed again and a new Federal Council was forced to take up the matter.
The latter, Alain Berset, came up with the plan that the necessary proof of efficacy could actually be postponed until after the methods had been included in the catalogue of basic insurance benefits. In other words, he gave the methods a governmental leap of faith (which, in view of the long-year history of the case, meant closing several eyes) and postulated that this should be the matter until someone applied for an evaluation of one of the methods.
This is what happened in the year of our Lord 2017. Apparently everyone was able to make their peace with it, which is hardly surprising after ten years of moving around and around. Only the umbrella organisation of health insurers, Santesuisse, grumbled about it and predicted that the announced cost neutrality of such a measure could hardly be expected. Which Santesuisse did indeed prove in a dossier two years later.
The exhausted Swiss have so far left it at that. Homeopathy remained untouched. This was also unfortunate for the reason that the fairy tale of the clever and innovative Switzerland, which knew how important the wishes and preferences of its patients were, was propagated in Germany. The rather strange result of more than ten years of struggle was even passed around by German homeopaths under the name “Swiss model”. Even the leading Swiss press was embarrassed by this and published a clarifying article. And unfortunately, the Swiss began to get used to the existence of hocus-pocus in their basic insurance and to take it for granted.
Until now. Even in Switzerland, the fact that homeopathy is coming under increasing criticism everywhere has probably not gone unnoticed. And the Swiss are actually a rather critical and resistant people. And so it happened that a single brave inhabitant of the country recently decided to exercise his right to demand a new evaluation of homeopathy. The Federal Office of Public Health must have been surprised – or perhaps they were desperately waiting for it? Perhaps. In any case, the application was accepted without hesitation. Meanwhile, a notification has been issued that the hearing procedure for the evaluation has been initiated. The representatives of homeopathy (the service providers), the representatives of the Swiss medical profession and the representatives of the health insurance companies – the aforementioned Santesuisse – will be heard. The final decision will then be made by the Swiss government’s Department of Home Affairs.
How many attempts at an evaluation has this actually been – the third? The fourth? We can’t keep up … We have seen the consequences of scientific questions being decided by majorities. It is to be hoped that Switzerland will not add another chapter to the drama that has been going on since 2005. Mr Berset’s successor, who has been in office since the beginning of the year, should only be given a brief reminder: in Switzerland, too, homeopathy has no effect beyond contextual effects. And that is not enough to prove efficacy, appropriateness and cost-effectiveness.
But cheers to the courageous descendant of William Tell, who is about to single-handedly bring down homeopathy in the Swiss healthcare system!
124 Responses to Homeopathy does not work beyond context effects – not even in Switzerland!
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Really? If homeopathic medicines “don’t work” or are just “placeboes,” please explain the RESULTS from this study published by Nature in their “Scientific Reports”: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-51319-w
But heck, who are you going to believe…your own (limited) belief system or scientific evidence (and your own eyes!)?!?
Abstract:
Macrophages are associated with innate immune response and M1-polarized macrophages exhibit pro-inflammatory functions. Nanoparticles of natural or synthetic compounds are potential triggers of innate immunity. As2O3 is the major component of the homeopathic drug, Arsenic album 30C.This has been claimed to have immune-boosting activities, however, has not been validated experimentally. Here we elucidated the underlying mechanism of Ars. alb 30C-mediated immune priming in murine macrophage cell line. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) used for the structural analysis of the drug reveals the presence of crystalline As2O3 nanoparticles of cubic structure. Similarly, signatures of M1-macrophage polarization were observed by surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) in RAW 264.7 cells with concomitant over expression of M1 cell surface marker, CD80 and transcription factor, NF-κB, respectively. We also observed a significant increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines like iNOS, TNF-α, IL-6, and COX-2 expression with unaltered ROS and apoptosis in drug-treated cells. Enhanced expression of Toll-like receptors 3 and 7 were observed both in transcriptional and translational levels after the drug treatment. In sum, our findings for the first time indicated the presence of crystalline As2O3 cubic nanostructure in Ars. alb 30C which facilitates modulation of innate immunity by activating macrophage polarization.
“The PEK report remains to this day a good assessment of the studies of its time, compared to the Australian assessment.”
you really are clueless!
Wow…WHAT DOES THE STUDY JUST PUBLISHED IN “SCIENTIFIC REPORTS” HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH PEK?
Oh…NOTHING!
Talk about clueless?! Your projections are showing (again!).
indeed, I am clueless as to what you are talking about.
Misappropriating the scientific method, Dana. Nonsense from your fellow loons. We await the independent replication or, more likely, the retraction of the paper.
You keep waving tripe like this around, Dana. Has anyone noticed? Have any of these papers made any difference to how magic water is regarded?
Nope.
Howling into the void again, Dana. When will you learn?
Mr Ullman,
That paper was addressed when you provided the same quote 16 days prior, here:
Dana Ullman on Thursday 11 January 2024 at 14:11
https://edzardernst.com/2024/01/germany-will-remove-the-option-for-health-insurance-companies-to-include-homeopathic-and-anthroposophic-services-in-their-statutes/#comment-149522
Those who have an adequate understanding of blood cell differentiation steps are able to detect a glaring omission from both the paper itself and your understanding of it.
You see, Mr Ullman, if your homeopathic ‘remedies’ were to actually modify the polarization ratio of the various macrophages in your ‘patients’ then you would be in very serious trouble.
Hi Dana and a happy new year!
Let’s say that your Indian fellow believers are right, that the traces of arsenic trioxide crystals indeed are magically potent survivors of the serial shaking 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 dilution and not just simple polution from their water source.
And let us further assume that they came to the correct conclusion that such contamination exerts a clinically significant biological effect on macrophages, which may be a Nobel Prize worthy discovery just waiting to be indipendently replicated before it can be confirmed.
Then how would that, if confirmed, translate into substantiaton of the allegedly ubiquitous multipotent utility of thousands of different homeopathic remedies, including that of serial shaking.dilution produced nanoparticles from of everything from the Berlin wall, copper sulphate, cows dung to shipwrecks and the suns light reflected off venus?
Just wondering…
Dana Ullman does not even know the basics of homeopathy. No wonder, no homeopath has a clue of homeopathy.
1. Where is the repertorium for macrophages?
2. The law of potencies in homeopathy says that a more diluted substance works more effectively than a substance with a lower dilution. Since this can not be shown (it never could!), what the Indians messed up in their “study” is no homeopathy. They are frauds and forgers. Totally clueless with homeopathy.
And Dana Ullman is not able to see this. One more time where he messes up badly.
Macrophages do not need a repertoire because they are not complete human beings. If you think that doing biological research “contradicts” homeopathy you are very wrong, homeopathy has evolved continuously and studies of the same type have been done for many years. This shows that the view of the “skeptics” that homeopaths “deny the existence of bacteria or know nothing about biology” is wrong, erroneous and unscientific.
There is no law that says a higher power is more “effective” than a lower one. What homeopathy says is that a person can be treated with a higher potency as long as it has been previously chosen individually and preferably if he has chronic illness to avoid unwanted effects of low potencies. The “law” you say does not apply at all to non-individualized medications.
It’s funny to keep reading supposed “skeptics” that despite having many years of activists and creating forums and maybe even dozens of multi-accounts on the Internet, they keep repeating the same nonsense.
“Macrophages do not need a repertoire because they are not complete human beings.”
This is phantastic. The car repair workshops will be happy to receive the first series of homeopathic remedies to repair cars.
“homeopathy has evolved continuously”
Translated into real existing life this means: “Some nuts still insist on propagating their LSD-driven nutty tales they invent in their high-dosed mental absentia.”
Did you know that in Germany homeopathy is NOT a medicine? In Germany homeopathy is defined as a method of producing substances, which then are used in some schamanic rituals, thumbing through old books with odd listings of odd occurences, like horse-pulled hackney coaches crossing the way. And black cats, eventually…
“It’s funny to keep reading supposed “skeptics””
Yes, skeptics are funny critters. We laugh about them quite often. As analytics we have many objections to make.
What’s funny is that you don’t answer anything with arguments, but with silly jokes, personal attacks and nonsense. As much as you may dislike it, homeopathy has evolved and this can be demonstrated with historical and philosophical analyses.
Another funny thing is that you pretend to impose your “truth”, which is funny coming from a movement of activists who boast of rejecting moral relativism. The European Directive defines homeopathics as medicines, it’s a law and that’s why it’s funny to see “skeptics” trying, unsuccessfully, to make homeopathy illegal. In Spain a group tried to do it by sending a petition to Brussels and they did not listen to them.
Funnier is that as always, you allude to “shamanism” without knowing what it is, obviously you just reflect your lack of knowledge and respond exactly like the colonoliast thinkers of many decades ago, it doesn’t surprise me why they admire Oliver W. Holmes so much.
The “skeptics” are human, the funny thing about them is to read their “analyses” and then go with others and see that they contradict each other, erupt into insults, scream and then victimize themselves on social networks that they are a kind of “ghetto” although several of them have links with large communication agencies or large dissemination channels.
‘Sunbead’ wrote:
Whereas Dana Ullman, Master of Public Health (MPH), sets the record straight here:
QUOTE
Björn Geir on Saturday 05 September 2020 at 15:12
Mr. Ullman
Did you get your MPH in a box of cereals? You are certainly not equipped with the insight, knowledge and understanding of healthcare expected of someone flaunting these letters after their name.
https://edzardernst.com/2020/09/to-be-or-not-to-be-a-quack/#comment-125996
END of QUOTE
Dana first here, as I expected!
But offering such a nonsense, OMG! High dilution resarch, a futile research for nothing!
Research into extreme dilutions, i.e. beyond the point where something of the original substance is still present, is very far removed from the claimed phenomenon of the allegedly considerable clinical efficacy of homeopathy. Even if a) using scientifically recognised methods, b) any effect could be demonstrated in an independently reproducible way: First the casual chain would have to be presented, the logical bridge built between these findings on highly diluted solutions and the healing effect of homeopathy.
For that alone would be scientific. Science is a system in which proven findings refer to each other without contradiction. Quite independently of an evaluation of the validity of research results in “high dilution research”, there is a complete lack of such a contradiction-free system of reference between these and the assertion that homeopathy is a specific drug therapy for sick people that is effective according to certain principles.
Where an attempt is made to establish such a link, it is therefore a “free-floating” hypothesis, not to say wild speculation. There is no trace of a causal chain – and thus no trace of scientificity.
Moreover, a causal chain would only come to nothing anyway – because there is no valid proof so far that homeopathy works at all beyond context effects. So there is not even an “other end” to which a causal chain could be linked at all.
Faith is completely on your side.
And by the way: what does all this have to do with the fact that Switzerland wants to re-evaluate homeopathy – after the grotesque fact that it has been included in basic insurance despite repeated failures?
“Moreover, a causal chain would only come to nothing anyway – because there is no valid proof so far that homeopathy works at all beyond context effect”
The causal relationship at least in this case can be established, there is a study that shows that Ars30C has nanoparticles, that same study shows that these induce immune responses in a laboratory model. In addition, there are dozens of control cases, controlled trials and observational studies in which most showed efficacy and effectiveness. No way, that’s the science, not your “outraged” comment.
I am beginning to have serious doubts as to whether you have really understood the system of science as a sum of findings that complement each other without contradiction. Your “causal chain” is “held together” by confirmation bias and wishful thinking. But how about a scientific publication on the subject? Nobel prizes beckon!
Btw: You may be outraged by my comment. My comment is no more outraged than I am.
Hey Edo…Whooops…you forgot to provide any analysis or critique of the study…or perhaps you comments were the placebo response (nothing there!). Really. And such arrogance and ignorance, two characteristics of a poor scientific attitude (no surprise here).
… and your response is a placebo with some added primitivity and insult, Dana.
we did not expect anything else from you – so predictable!
Hey Dana
Let’s make a list of all the people who think you have a good scientific attitude:
Dana Ullman
Obviously if you know of any others feel free to add them to the list.
Now let’s make a list of all the people who know you are an arrogant and ignorant scientifically-incompetent goon:
(Time and space and server capacity rather limits things here but let’s suffice to say that anyone with a background in science who has any dealings with you realises this very quickly)
Not an ad hom, Dana. An article of evidenced, empirical fact. You, ans you prove time and time again, are an ignorant, arrogant, incompetent, witless and utterly inconsequential fool.
Why so upset, Dana? So upset that you misspell my simple first name? Not at all!
You should have realized that I am not criticizing the content of the study, but have explained why it is irrelevant for homeopathy. This makes a closer analysis superfluous, although this would also yield interesting results. Incidentally, process engineering should be thrilled that nanoparticles can be produced by shaking …
Think about it: The nanoparticle hypothesis cannot be reconciled with the numerous alleged healing successes of the past. As Nandy (2015) explains in detail in his review article, it is a significant problem to skim off the small (tenth or even hundredth) part that contains the nanoparticles from the top layer of a solution for the potentiation process. This is a complex procedural problem which, as far as I know, no homeopath of the past has ever paid attention to, so how can such overwhelming healing successes have come about? Logically, this excludes the nanoparticle hypothesis as a model for the efficacy of homeopathic preparations.
Thanx UDO! Thanx for confirming that you don’t believe in homeopathy, but you don’t question that homeopathic potencies made through dilution and succussion (vigorous shaking) can have dramatic biological effects. You have not provided a scintilla of critique of the study in “Scientific Reports,” thus you are assuming that the results are real…though despite doing your best to close your eyes tightly in your own efforts to blind yourself from evidence that will break your worldview apart, it is fun to watch you squirm and spin evidence.
And THANX, Pete, for quoting me from that interview in UC Berkeley’s alumni magazine. ‘Twas a real honor to have my alma mater interview me. I’m sure that you’re honored that your kindergarden interviewed you once, despite that wet pants episode.
Dana
That “study” in Scientific Reports has already been shredded elsewhere on this blog. Have a little read of Richard’s comment below. You won’t understand them because there’s little you do understand because you’re ignorant when it comes to matters of science but there’s no need for Udo to go over the same ground twice. The ‘study’ is nonsense. It will change nothing. The same as the Chikramine et al twaddle that you keep harping on about which has been seen as the inconsequential rubbish it is and hence ignored. Maybe you can demonstrate otherwise. We’ll wait.
And that interview was 25 years ago. The last time anyone paid any attention to you. Probably why you keep harping on about it.
@Dana Ullman
… but only if those water-shaking fools mess up their dilution process so bad that there is still an appreciable amount of the original substance present. And please note that they themselves admitted still finding arsenic trioxide in what should be a 30C dilution (a.k.a. pure water), but very clearly isn’t.
Now if these people were real scientists instead of dumb homeopaths, the first thing they’d do would NOT be to conclude that “homeopathy works!”, but to ask themselves “What did we do wrong?”
They’d also ask themselves how much arsenic trioxide was still left in their dilution. They’d then create the same concentration from scratch in just one step, and test that for any effects. And they’d wonder if the ‘As2O3 nanostructures’ they observed in the desiccated samples under the microscope were also present in the liquid dilution (which they almost certainly weren’t) instead of just assuming(!) that those nanocrystals were not only present in the liquid, but were in fact responsible for the observed effects.
In other words: if they were real scientists, they would (and should) go out of their way trying to find the errors in their work, and find the most mundane, plausible explanations for their observations.
But alas for you, they’re homeopaths, a.k.a. scientifically incompetent believers in magic. And like you, they simply assume that whatever they can think of is true, while at the same time rejecting real, accepted science wherever it contradicts their fantasies. Which is why they are scorned and ridiculed by real scientists.
@Dullman
Wow. Berkley quoted you. 25 years ago. The beard of this interview is so long it drags along the floor 2 meters behind you. And to respond to your final sentence from the interview:
“I believe I can say with some confidence that history will be rewritten, that, eventually, homeopathy will win out.”
Homeopathy had already lost back then and even more so now. You and your homeopathy friends are hoping for scientific “Wunderwaffen” that only exist in your imagination.
It is very funny to read the “skeptics” trying to use Nandy’s review as a counterparty, who ironically mentions that it validates the hypothesis of the presence of nanoparticles both theoretically and experimentally. You, Udo, obviously didn’t understand anything of Nandy’s arguments, your comments seem to be taken out of the GWUP “encyclopedia of homeopathy” who, without a valid attempt, tried to disqualify Nandy’s article, of course without any success.
Nandy only questioned the mechanism of nanoparticle formation proposed by Chikramane et al, but she never said that they could not be formed! In fact, Nandy mentions an alternate mechanism!
@Dana Ullman
I already pointed out several fatal flaws in what you insist calling ‘study’ in previous comments.
Basically, the fools didn’t even realize that their “crystalline As2O3 cubic nanostructure” was NOT present in their botched(*) dilution of arsenic oxide, but only formed when they evaporated the water in their sample for electron microscopy.
But hey, I get it … positive homeopathy studies are extremely rare(**), and high-quality positive homeopathy studies are rarer still, so you hang on to each and every one of them like grim death. And oh, this one even has ‘nano’ in the abstract, so no wonder that you’re drawn to it like a dung beetle to a heap of elephant excrement.
*: Because a 30C dilution of arsenic oxide should BY DEFINITION not contain a single molecule of the stuff.
**: The reason of course being that homeopathy has no effect beyond placebo. Those positive studies are just inevitable statistical noise at best, and more often just seriously flawed and biased rubbish. The one you refer to is one in the latter category.
Richard Rasker, are you expert in nanotechnology and science? No!
“Basically, the fools”
You are supposed to be a “debunker”, and all I read from many of your comments are insults, appeals to authority (when it suits you by quoting words of non-experts in homeopathy or false experts like Grams).
“didn’t even realize that their “crystalline As2O3 cubic nanostructure” was NOT present in their botched(*) dilution of arsenic oxide, but only formed when they evaporated the water in their sample for electron microscopy.”
Reading your comments is like reading a comic strip by an angry old ultra conservative ex-religious guy who left religion because of some family trauma. But well, I find it comical to see that you don’t present any concrete data or argument against the study in Scientific Reports, you just conclude that “no, and no, and it is not possible nor can it be”, your objection is so ridiculous that any nanoscience expert would surely end up laughing.
@sunbead
The whole point is that you don’t need to be an expert in nanotechnology and science to see that homeopaths are idiots – and very arrogant idiots, at that.
Let me remind you that up until this day, homeopaths have not produced even ONE homeopathic dilution that has clear, consistent and above all independently repeatable effects. NOT ONE. Which is why they are ridiculed and dismissed by real scientists – and rightfully so, in my opinion.
Joe Schwarcz in his books says that skeptics need literature to be interpreted by experts in the fields. Which is pretty funny since you’re contradicting Schwarcz! The other funny thing is that several of the authors of the article you cite are not homeopaths, those who reviewed the article surely are not, and the editors of Scientific Reports I doubt they are!
Your attitude is the one that Lionel Milgrom (yes, he is a homeopath but also a doctor of chemical sciences) correctly said: you have a phobia of homeopathy. For me it is very similar and just as irrational as homophobes!
When you ask for clear, consistent and repeatable effects, you must have a frame of reference for comparison. And your teacher Ernst says in his book that the causal link is established by taking the totality of rigorous evidence, first from clinical trials and then from systematic reviews. Interestingly, I am going beyond Ernst and taking into account the experiments in nano science and biology (which your teacher does not take into account in his books). This allows us to establish that, as both low, moderate and high quality trials mostly show effects even confirmed by “skeptics” (Ioannidis et al, Shang et al if the predefined hypothesis is not violated and even Robert Park when he asked for at least one experiment demonstrating the reality of biophotons), it is quite clear that yes, in general there are consistent, repeatable and plausible effects. The only problem is the lack of better standardization and less vagueness in the provings, but this can be solved with science and logic!
@Sunbead
Now this is against my better judgement, but let’s give it a try anyway: maybe you can tell me where I am wrong?
Let’s start with the first core piece of information in the paper referenced by Dana Ullman: the homeopathic dilution, consistently referred to as Arsenicum Album 30C.
As we all know, 30C is simply shorthand for a total of 30 serial dilutions, each in a 1:100 ratio, and ‘Arsenicum Album’ is pig Latin for arsenic trioxide, or As2O3.
Now tell me: if those homeopaths did their diluting properly, should they find arsenic trioxide in the resulting product or not?
Basic math and chemistry say that they shouldn’t, as the last As2O3 molecule must have been diluted away around the 12th serial dilution step. Yet they claim that they still found plenty of arsenic trioxide. So my conclusion is that they must have messed up: a dilution can’t be 30C yet at the same time still contain molecules of the original substance.
As you emphatically suggest that I am wrong about this, would you care to explain in what way I am wrong? And how these numbers should be interpreted? And why those homeopaths never even noticed this huge discrepancy, let alone address it?
I mean, we’re not talking about being off by a few percent here, but by at least 55 orders of magnitude. So I am keenly looking forward to your explanation of how those
water-shaking foolsresearchers can uphold their claims.Mathematics and basic chemistry are not altered, homeopathic dynamizations are not “classical solutions”, as basic chemistry textbooks understand. But you would know this if you had the knowledge beyond basic education in chemistry! As far as I know, no reference chemistry book yet introduces these changes, but I should put them as special cases of “dilutions” where succusion is an important factor. Your comment is as naive as that of physicists a hundred years ago who saw Maxwell’s laws as impossible or who believed that it was not possible for meteorites to fall because we do not see floating rocks. It seems that you need to read about the history of science and stop reading illiterate fools like James Randi!
* Although undoubtedly reading Randi’s books and detecting their contradictions and little or no scientific knowledge is undoubtedly fun, a lot. I recommend you to read “Flim flam” and its few minor articles (Mr. Randi’s only scientific contribution was to serve as a guinea pig in experiments on optical illusions although any other professional illusionist could well have served the scientists).
@Sunbead
So what you’re saying is that shaking water changes it in a fundamental way that ordinary scientists don’t know about and don’t understand, but that homeopaths do understand. And of course this fundamental change only occurs when it is homeopaths doing the shaking, as real scientists have never found even the slightest trace of anything special happening when trying to replicate the process or even when examining homeopathic products.
And of course those scientists and anyone else who doesn’t understand this is just ‘naive’ and ‘illiterate’ and ‘lacks knowledge’.
Well, it appears that I was right: trying to ask you sensible questions is a waste of time. You’re just a troll.
Goodbye.
Mr. Richard, you are very funny. Like 99% of “skeptics” you think that by saying “homeopaths” you already won something, and you congratulate yourself in your mind. No sir, Richard, to your bad luck those who have generally formulated hypotheses to explain the “memory of water” are not usually homeopaths, but conventional scientists interested in scientific anomalies. I am very curious that most “skeptical” activists are either not scientists or in general their field is alien to what they criticize or they are ignorant of the subject. The few more active “skeptics” like you who have a rather bad and simple book, by the way, end up making ridiculous pamphlets in popular magazines. And the very well known scientists like certain Nobel laureates who criticize homeopathy, well, if you look at their publication history it is fascinating that none of them have experiments on homeopathy. While scientists like Luc Montagnier or Brian Josephson, who have works on the memory of water at a theoretical or experimental level, are treated as “ignorant” by the “skeptics” who believe that they know more than them.
Best of all, dynamized “solutions” show non-classical behavior that, to your bad luck again, has many potential applications outside the field of homeopathy. But, of course, you continue to believe that these are “superstitious” things and join the circus of a group of German “activists” and egomaniacs on Twitter and Youtube who believe that by censoring and making brainwashing videos they will be able to eradicate homeopathy. This is a very funny situation because when they can no longer do that, and realize their denialist attitudes, millions of “skeptics” around the world will be repudiated and will play the poor “persecuted victims”. Remember my own words, Richard.
Oddly enough this kind of flawed analysis is repeated in several papers that supposedly “prove” it doesn’t work, and I only see Ernst’s minions clapping like fotas without even having read them. Even Ernst some of those papers cites them, how was it? Oh yes, the two papers with a P-curve analysis, and the Gaertner paper that when you check how they chose the literature you find the cherry picking they complain so much about. Let me laugh some more, one of the papers with the P-curve discards a trial alluding that “it is not with ultramolecular doses” because the “skeptical scientists” naively discarded it because it mentions LM scale and they thought it is not ultramolecular, and in another issue the same “skeptical scientists” included a proving in their final analysis because they don’t know the basics of homeopathy.
https://edzardernst.com/2012/12/ad-hominem-attacks-are-signs-of-victories-of-reason-over-unreason/
Whenever they start contradicting or refuting your minions you quote your same opinion pieces. Interestingly, you never claim your minions when they insult or make ad hominem and other fallacies. Ernst, how are your comments supposed to refute the basic errors I’m pointing out? Let’s see, answer that.
I am merely ppointing out that your ad hominems are counter-productive.
And what are my ad hominems? Very strange that you never mention specifically with examples.
no problem [I thought you were bright enough to tell yourself, as it’s rather obvious]: Ernst’s minions
Minion = a follower or underling of a powerful person, especially a servile or unimportant one.
Saying that you have minions is not an ad hominem, it is a literary description of an entourage of the same users who, curiously, do not vary over a long period of time on your blog and serve as “sentinels”. Interestingly, I have never seen this type of attitude on homeopathic discussion sites where in general almost everyone has their own criteria and not a hive mind.
thanks for confirming that you don’t understand this eitheer.
“thanks for confirming that you don’t understand this eitheer.
I am sorry Mr. Ernst, but I understand very well that you do not know the most basic fallacies and only repeat mechanically what your “friends” do. It must be a disgrace for you that there are people capable of critically analyzing and questioning your books and articles. But of course, you as an activist “skeptic” spread that critical thinking is important but you don’t like to be questioned with arguments, studies and evidence.
@Sunbead
That is because what you call ‘flawed analysis’ is in fact very basic science – science that has been proven correct over and over again, and is so basic that it is already taught in high school as a body of accepted facts.
Yet those water-shaking fools keep claiming that the science is wrong, and that their ‘hypotheses’ are right. So far, they failed to come up with even remotely convincing evidence for those claims. Also see above.
The basic science of chemistry texts – including university texts in general – do not include the study of dilutions as they are done in homeopathy. High
school students do classical experiments of typical dilutions, but not in series and with succussion! Typical high school methods do not allow to identify the presence of, for example, nanoparticles. Have you seen high school students handling TEM? Please tell me the name of the high school that does that, it would be interesting. Have you seen high schools handling complex proton NMR apparatus and doing complex discriminant analysis of T1/T2 values?
In homeopathy there are several hypotheses, not all of them are correct and not all of them have been validated, but science is precisely to see which ones are correct and which ones have not been validated, but science is precisely to see which ones have been validated.
Curiously, your book does not make a single mention of the experiments published both in homeopathy journals and in orthodox journals. There’s not a single mention of that, and your book is a classic example of cherry picking bias.
@Sunbead
Physicists normally do not show up in their university in shaman ritual clothes. All the wonderful forces of shamanism they will not see. Oh, what a disaster, what a misery! What a loss for mankind.
But there are glimpses of reality shining through, sparkling through the media. See these photos:
https://www.allaxys.com/~aktenschrank/zerobrainers/Irrenhaus_Neuseeland_1_800.jpg
https://www.allaxys.com/~kanzlerzwo/index.php?topic=13134.0
http://www.ariplex.com/carlixon/pix/PAULA_WHITE_GONE_MAD_20201105_679.jpg
http://ariplex.com/folia/archives/2446.htm
Tribal shamans again will rule the earth. The day will come. Just wait for it.
Until then real world physicists will carry on with the burden of the real world. Life is tough…
So you, “mistress,” have only memes in response and a series of pages of seemingly satire. The other is again the same forum you usually share, something quite comical is that most of the “skeptics” who oppose homeopathy, support the concept of fluid gender and never question the level of testing of hormone treatments on minors despite the well documented side effects and salt damage. But those of the same entourage, who are few, and question concepts of transgenderism are either excluded or things like Ernst’s account of having to be “politically correct” happen. Curious behavior after decades of so-called “skeptics” boasting that they were not politically correct with, for example, homeopathy.
@Sunbead
“So you, “mistress,””
Oops! “Mistress”! Ad hominem! I am a potato and cabbage farmer, aside from being engineer.
“have only memes in response and a series of pages of seemingly satire.”
These pictures are real! They show people of today, in their tribal stuff. Apologies for the American not riding her broom.
It is this type of madness, which – with all force – tries to demolish science and medicine. This costs lives.
“The other is again the same forum you usually share”
Oh, well, it is not simply “a forum”, it is the toughest forum in the Net.
“something quite comical is that most of the “skeptics””
Wrong again. They are no skeptics, and I am no skeptic. We are analysts and fight against all kind of crap, including the mess done by the skeptics.
““skeptics” who oppose homeopathy”
Everyone with a sane mind opposes homeopathy.
““skeptics” who oppose homeopathy support the concept of fluid gender”
Mad, isn’t it? The dominatrices of ALLAXYS-1 are 1000 percent sure there are only TWO SEXES, and the gender stuff is rubbish.
“and never question the level of testing of hormone treatments on minors despite the well documented side effects and salt damage.”
We are VERY strict about crimes committed to children. Especially circumcision is a topic in that forum.
“But those of the same entourage, who are few, and question concepts of transgenderism are either excluded or things like Ernst’s account of having to be “politically correct” happen.”
Oh, no! We are absolutely politically incorrect!
“Curious behavior after decades of so-called “skeptics” boasting that they were not politically correct with, for example, homeopathy.”
Homeopathy is a crime that must be stopped. Homeopathy must be eradicated.
‘Sunbead’ wrote: “…naively discarded it because it mentions LM scale and they thought it is not ultramolecular”.
From the above:
• LM0 is 3C; 1 : 100³ = 1 : 1.00E6
• LM1 is 1 : (LM0 × 50000¹) = 1 : 5.00E10
• LM2 is 1 : (LM0 × 50000²) = 1 : 2.50E15
• LM3 is 1 : (LM0 × 50000³) = 1 : 1.25E20
• LM4 is 1 : (LM0 × 50000⁴) = 1 : 6.25E24
LM 4 and above is probably ultramolecular.
See also:
https://edzardernst.com/2014/10/teething-problems-in-homeopathys-wonderland/#comment-61985
Your comment is hilarious and you just confirmed what I said, that LM scales fall into the ultramolecular range. The quote you mention clearly states that the LM scale starts from a 3C not that it is a 3C! Good grief, you have a huge lack of reading comprehension.
Quoting Hahnemann Laboratories, Inc. (𝐇𝐋𝐈), as in my previous comment…
𝐇𝐋𝐈: The LM scale uses the 3C as its starting material
This 3C starting material is the result of 3 serial homeopathic attenuation steps of base substance 𝑩, each step having the attenuation/dilution ratio 1 : 100
• 1C has a dilution ratio = 1 : 100
• 2C has a dilution ratio = 1 : 100×100
• 3C has a dilution ratio = 1 : 100×100×100
• 3C dilution ratio = 1 : 100 raised to the power 3
1 : 100³
1 : 100^3
1 : 1E+3 (scientific notation, E notation)
Previously, I labelled this 3C starting material LM0 for convenience, which seems to have confused commentator ‘Sunbead’ therefore I shall clarify using basic algebra.
LM0 is not an actual remedy on the LM potency scale; it is simply a convenient label or placeholder for the 3C starting material as stated by 𝐇𝐋𝐈: The LM scale uses the 3C as its starting material.
𝐇𝐋𝐈: The 3C is diluted at a 1:50,000 ratio and succussed 100 times; this creates the LM1.
Let
• LM0 be the label or placeholder for “the 3C starting material”.
The first step on the actual LM potency scale is LM1:
• LM1 is the 1 : 50000 dilution of LM0
• LM2 is the 1 : 50000 dilution of LM1
• LM3 is the 1 : 50000 dilution of LM2
• LM4 is the 1 : 50000 dilution of LM3
• et cetera
Because any number raised to the power zero is unity, we can write the following convenient equation, where 𝒏 is an integer step on the LM potency scale, starting from 𝒏=1.
LM𝒏 is the 1 : 50000^𝒏 attenuation/dilution of LM0, where 50000^𝒏 means 50000 raised to the power 𝒏.
And setting 𝒏=0 refers to LM0, “the 3C starting material”, which is the 3C attenuation/dilution of the base substance 𝑩.
Using algebraic substitution to find the overall dilution ratio of base substance 𝑩:
LM𝒏 is the dilution of 𝑩, ratio = 1 : (LM0 × 50000^𝒏)
LM𝒏 is the dilution of 𝑩, ratio = 1 : (100^3 × 50000^𝒏)
Using logarithms to base 100 we can derive the equivalent centesimal-scale numbers thereby enabling us to easily observe which LM‑scale steps are tangible molecular dilutions of base substance 𝑩, and which are deemed to be ultramolecular.
log₁₀₀ (100^3 × 50000^𝒏) = 3 + 𝒏 log₁₀₀ 50000
log₁₀₀ (100^3 × 50000^𝒏) ≈ 3 + 2.35 𝒏
ᴍᴏʟᴇᴄᴜʟᴀʀ
• LM1 is equivalent to 5.35C
• LM2 is equivalent to 7.70C
• LM3 is equivalent to 10.04C
ᴘʀᴏʙᴀʙʟʏ ᴜʟᴛʀᴀᴍᴏʟᴇᴄᴜʟᴀʀ
• LM4 is equivalent to 12.40C
ᴜʟᴛʀᴀᴍᴏʟᴇᴄᴜʟᴀʀ
• LM5 is equivalent to 15C
• LM6 is equivalent to 17C
• LM7 ≈ 19C
• LM8 ≈ 22C
• LM9 ≈ 24C
• LM10 ≈ 26C
• LM11 ≈ 29C
• …
• LM84 ≈ 200C
It’s very funny all this, Pete, when you don’t assert nonsense, you assert that I said such and such that I didn’t say. For example, I never said LM is not a scale, I know it is a scale. In fact, my original comment was to point out that one of the papers Ernst cites as “proof that homeopathy doesn’t work” is based on concluding that homeopathy doesn’t work because by P-curve analysis it is shown that “there is P-hacking”. But if one looks at the selection of the literature, the two “learned” authors claim that they chose only trials in which ultramolecular homeopathic drugs were used, and that they discarded one trial that is not. Curious, I know the literature they cite, one of the trials they included does not even evaluate efficacy but is a proving, and one they discarded is based on an LM scale drug, in this trial they use LM potencies of between LM3 to LM43. So with your comment and your estimations you just confirmed what I told you! Thanks for all the fun times with you!
Dear Sunbead,
Where did I state that I DISAGREE with you?
You wrote: “So with your comment and your estimations you just confirmed what I told you!”
So why be obnoxious towards someone who provides evidence to support your claim [rhetorical question] 😀
I’m not a “skeptic” of homeopathy, nor of many other things. I find it irritating when people (especially skeptics) make factual errors; and I particularly like these thoughtful articles by Professor Ernst:
● Where skeptics often go wrong when commenting on SCAM, and what should be done about it
Published Friday 18 August 2023
here.
● When sceptics (or skeptics) criticise homeopathy, they are often wrong
Published Saturday 10 December 2016
here.
Now, I have illustrated the homeopathic LM‑scale to enable readers to figure out for themselves whether or not a trial was using molecular or ultramolecular homeopathic remedies. However, it’s a bit more complicated than that!
Firstly
LM‑scale, aka quintamillesimal (Q), remedies are usually not taken directly. Commentator ‘JK’, who alludes to being a homeopath, mentioned a procedure in their misplaced comment:
JK on Thursday 01 February 2024 at 14:16.
To put it as politely as possible: the procedure described by ‘JK’ is very different from the procedure that I was given to follow, which, amongst other differences, involved more steps.
Secondly
The raison d’être for the LM/Q remedies ought to have raised serious questions on:
If that’s an accurate description of the trial then the trial appears to be a delightful demonstration of either:
• pitiful incompetence, or
• good competence with the pseudoscientific method, which starts with the wanted conclusion then scratches around to find anything that seems to support this forgone conclusion.
I apologise to the readers for an error in my previous comment:
• 3C dilution ratio = 1 : 100 raised to the power 3
1 : 100³
1 : 100^3
1 : 1E+3 ☹️
which should’ve been 1 : 1E+6
@Sunbead
One assessment is enough for you: You are a chess-playing pigeon. You just knock all the pieces over. Then you shit all over the board. Then you strut around like you won.
thank you for reminding me:
https://edzardernst.com/2019/09/discussing-with-a-homeopath-is-like-playing-chess-with-a-pigeon/
It is very funny to read their comments, when they can’t answer things that anyone would presuppose basic, they resort to “you are a troll”, “sure you are a homeopath”, “sure you are paid by Boiron”, “you are not worth arguing with”. And it’s funny coming from guys who live bothering pro-homeopaths, but don’t like it when they are questioned. So where does that leave us, gentlemen?
@Sunbead
QED. You shat on the board, then strutted off and claimed victory.
https://www.psiram.com/en/index.php/Homeopathy
And the same as always, the “skeptical” activist cannot respond and can only allude that his interlocutor is a pigeon that dirties the table, although his interlocutor is the one who puts the discussion on the table.The Psiram website lacks many sources, it even has bad editing with “add source [4]”. So many years and they can’t correct the mistake?
And the same as always, a troll cannot stop trolling [until I put an end to it].
@Sunbead
“I believe that the extraordinary should certainly be pursued. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain, 1979
Your claims about homeopathy are extraordinary. I am waiting for the extraordinary evidence and not rhetorical stylistic devices, Mr. Smarty-pants. But nothing will come of it. As always.
Carl Sagan’s claim makes no sense, since he takes Hume’s from miracles. But my dear “skeptical activist” friend, Hume spoke of miracles as those that were part of the supernatural. He never said anything nor could he say anything about controlled laboratory experiments. “Extraordinary claims” was reintroduced by Marcelo Truzzi and later copied by Sagan and popularized by James Randi. But our beloved and sympathetic illusionist did not know how to do science, and Sagan was mostly a popularizer who abandoned scientific activity. Truzzi for his part continued to do sociological research for years, and he himself later rejected “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” as a lot of nonsense. There are not two types of “evidence” (ordinary or extraordinary). Homeopathy actually meets standards of methodological rigor, so much so that it is almost the only field of science that uses “placebo” controls in fundamental physics and chemistry experiments, mostly tend to have high rigor in biology experiments, and clinical trials ironically have a level of proof identical to various pathologies in medicine (not all, of course, as conventional medicine tends to receive more government and industry subsidies).
The memory of water, for example, is an elusive idea that long ago eluded us because of the complexity and abstraction of the subject, and because it clashed with the law of mass action. But if we add additional experimentally justified criteria, we have that the behavior of the studied homeopathics is a special case of solutions with nanometric entities (both nanoparticles and structures). So we have that the law of mass action is like classical physics, since at the boundaries of homeopathics there is a very interesting process that modifies the structure of the solvent. And this applies equally to hormesis which is a special nonlinear and paradoxical case of dose-response curves.
If a large mass of controlled and rigorously conducted experiments indicates that there is something there, then it is foolish to reject them with a baseless axiom like Hume’s razor.
@RPGNo1
Note that this Sunbead troll comes up with all sorts of magical ‘explanations’ (or even just semantic cop-outs) without ever pointing to any literature – scientific or otherwise – supporting what he says.
Which makes it rather pointless to keep knocking down his nonsense. The game of Whack-a-Mole comes to mind …
@Richard Rasker
I concur. Sunbead is good with words, semantic quibbles and rhetorical platitudes. However, there is a complete lack of evidence and proof.
Richard Rasker wrote: “The game of Whack-a-Mole comes to mind …”
As does this:
All looks good in theory RPGNo1 but you need to take into account the fact that the LM granules are not administered to patients but diluted further in water in another huge dilution. Ref paragraph 248 . dilutions are common in 15ml 30ml,50ml, 100ml
With a granule weighing 0.00065g (100 weigh 1 grain 0.065g) this results in a dilution to the patient of at least a further 23000 for 15ml.
You will all be pleased to know that the resulting water is > 7.5c in terms of dilution for an LM01 as far as the patient dose is concerned.
No Nobel prize likely for this but maybe an Ockham award?
“Note that this Sunbead troll comes up with all sorts of magical ‘explanations’ (or even just semantic cop-outs) without ever pointing to any literature – scientific or otherwise – supporting what he says.
Which makes it rather pointless to keep knocking down his nonsense. The game of Whack-a-Mole comes to mind …”
It is comical that you say this, a few months ago on this very blog we had the same discussion and I mentioned Dr. Demangeat’s research to you. And I say it is how because you have a book in which you dedicate a whole chapter to homeopathy and promise to “refute” it, although your book is so poor of references and so easy to refute. In fact, when I mentioned Dr. Demangeat’s research to you, you replied that you “didn’t know it”, which is impossible since you are supposed to have been a “skeptical activist” for years. After that you threw tantrums and went and asked Dr. Demangeat for an article, yet at the same time you badmouth him here. You are a coward Rasker, but leaving that aside, it makes me laugh that you were threatening to make your rebuttal in December last year on this blog, although you then said that “if I read it”. What happened, you don’t have the minimum level to even talk about it in a magazine and you prefer to be a coward waiting to make a “guest” comment without offering data and with your opinions based on anger attacks as you usually do?
It makes me laugh a lot to read the usual comments, if you do not come out with “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs”, you jump with “proof of verbosity”. The “skeptic” movement is very curious, they always reflect their possible psychological traumas with religion. My dear cherubic “skeptics”, I am an atheist and I am not a homeopath, so perhaps this should come as a surprise to you. This gives me a lot of advantage over many of what with you usually argue, I know your rhetoric very well. I am very curious that you are not able to justify the “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” nonsense, when it is a pseudo-problem and a distortion you made of Hume’s work.
@Sunbead
It does not matter whether you are an atheist, Christian or Satanist. You are still babbling nonsense and trying to use rhetorical stylistic devices to deflect the fact that you have no evidence on hand. Such as your constant reference to the “skeptic” movement (in quotes), which plays no role here at all. You are simply firing a smokescreen.
Brilliant spin! So, NOW you are admitting that there is SOMETHING that exists in homeopathic water that PERSISTS after the water is gone! Cool. You are now an official advocate of nanopharmacology.
HOW can you say that there IS something there but NOT something there?
Curious minds do want to know!
@Dana Ullman
It is unclear what and whom you are responding to, but just in case it is my criticism:
Yes, and this ‘something’ appears to be the original substance. Which means that those water-shaking dimwits can’t even properly dilute stuff, because, and I’m repeating this once again for the hard-of-thinking, a properly diluted 30C homeopathic product should NOT contain anything AT ALL except water and maybe alcohol.
All I say is that there IS something there (i.e. the original substance) that SHOULD NOT BE THERE. And that not a single homeopath sees the inherent contradiction in this.
Ghee, is this so hard to understand?
Nano-nano!
Which reminds me of…
… diluting liquids by shaking bottles.
But a piece of metal – or other insoluble material – one can shake until the last day of earth. It will not get smaller.
The only way to reduce the size of particles is to grind them. Hahnemann and Co. use mortars for this task. How does one USE a mortar? Not by shaking it! But by applying force, and by moving the particles under pressure with some harder particles – to scrap the surface, and to crack the pieces into smaller ones.
Here we have a huge, a gigantic break in the whole of homeopathy. Because here Hahnemann committed an insane fraud.
In §11 of the Organon ( http://ariplex.com/ama/ama_org6.htm) Hahnemann writes about the invisible FORCE of the magnetic field. He claims that hitting an iron nail makes it magnetic. So, hitting non-magnetic substances in that force-field makes them magnetic? No. Does it change their magic? No. But Hahnemann claims this to be.
Grinding substances in the magnetic field of the earth (this field is what influences the iron), what could THIS do? What could this do with non-magnetic substances?
Hahnemann uses two completely different mechanisms, and for both he claims the same effect. Hitting an iron nail does have an effect on an IRON NAIL. But hitting some fluid plant extract? No. Hahnemann just makes insane claims.
With solid and NOT dissolved material Hahnemann makes the same claims, even if he does not even shake these materials!
Hahnemann can not prove his claims. And he never did. The only thing he did was to cover up his poisoning of patients. And he damned well knew what he did.
Homeopaths of today claiming NOT to know this, is ridiculous, especially for those who claim to be scientists, and to study Hahnemann’s works. Because he describes the poisoning.
Is this another meaningless complaint from a resentful skeptical activist? The PEK report remains to this day a good assessment of the studies of its time, compared to the Australian assessment. I am a bit amused that Mr. Björn continues to champion the Shang et al meta-analysis, even though this itself has been criticized ad nauseam and dismantled for its double standards (Rutten et al) and low methodological quality (as demonstrated by Hamre et al).
The moves of the skeptical movement are not to raise scientific questions, but to have beforehand the answer “homeopathy does not work and cannot work”, this would be funny if it were not for the fact that they have a powerful media and lobbying machinery in governments. From closing 5 homeopathic hospitals that had a negligible expenditure to press for the exit of the little financing of France for homeopathy and now for the insurers in Germany and to see if they can make a “new evaluation” in Switzerland that gives them the reason. It reminds me a lot of the failed Spanish plan that in 2020 they were going to present the “report against homeopathy” and that was left in the trunk since the corruption of the politicians in turn and the lack of transparency of the “skeptics” plus a fraud committed by them (the infamous and fraudulent APETP report of which curiously Ernst never says anything, even though he has an article co-signed with Angelo Fasce who was from the APETP and resigned recognizing the fraud).
Just out of curiosity, Who is “Mr. Björn” ?
It is a futile effort to rehash the discussion about the 20-year-old Shang-Egger study here. Yes, there was this discussion, but it never affected the results. And the accusation of a selective approach by Shang/Egger has been refuted. They simply showed that the weaker a study is methodologically, the more it is biased towards false positives (alpha error). This was also demonstrated by Linde and explicitly emphasized several times.
But no problem. A lot of time has passed since 2005 and a number of summarizing studies on homeopathy have been added. Shang/Egger is almost a historical artifact. So what should speak against a re-evaluation of homeopathy in Switzerland? A simple process that is ridiculous to accuse of sinister intentions.
The fact that homeopathy is currently being questioned everywhere may also have something to do with the progress of mankind …
Incidentally, the good man who initiated the new evaluation in Switzerland is in no way part of the skeptical scene. He is a purely private individual who, as he put on record today in the Swiss newspaper “Tagesspiegel”, is “fed up with alternative medicine”.
Who “refuted” the accusation that Shang selectively chose the data? Who? I have searched for information on what you comment and curiously all I find are old forums of “skeptics” insulting, blogs like Gorski’s quoting a letter from a Wilson (who was a geophysicist) and who in another letter was refuted by Rutten. Not even the infamous GWUP web “encyclopedia” or PSIRAM mention anything you say.
Homeopathy has always been questioned since its birth. Pretending that you are doing “something new” is ridiculous. The difference is that today while you go on like Wendel Holmes making mockery and nonsense nonsense, the pro homeopaths curiously are the ones who usually publish studies and it is more and more frequent to find studies in common science journals. Thus the attempt to want to force a “new evaluation” with the conclusions in advance is just a desperate attempt to see that censoring articles or cause retractions or years of harassment and harassment in networks is taking its toll.
“Who “refuted” the accusation that Shang selectively chose the data?”
why don’t you ask Egger; as far as I remember, he did [but I don’t have the reference].
“it is more and more frequent to find studies in common science journals”
any evidence for this statement?
Sunbed: are you expert in anything? if so, in what?
I know Egger’s answer and he only replied in 2005 and had to be forced to reveal the references (wow, a senior researcher who had to hide the trial citations in his meta-analysis without ever clarifying why”!) HFunny that he never replied to Rutten et al. They also did not explain why in the media in 2003 the “friend” Egger announced the results of the meta-analysis to the media.
“it is more and more frequent to find studies in common science journals”
any evidence for this statement?”
Ironically, your blog gives a lot of posts about this, and you only mention a few examples.
1) I know him personally – no need to imply he is dishonest because he isn’t.
2) if you know his answer, why not cite it here?
1. The fact that you know him personally doesn’t mean anything, I also know some homeopathy researchers, and? Egger is supposed to be an important researcher and almost 20 years he could not answer three statesmen of lower level of position and authority? By your very logic, all criticism of Montagnier should be discarded, since his own colleagues will tell you that he was not dishonest.
2. Because oddly enough you mention that article on your blog, and there are only two P-Curve analyses of the homeopathic literature. The greatest anti-homeopathy expert doesn’t remember them? Did you not catch those basic errors?
@Sunbeam…
I think you missed my question:
Who is “Mr. Björn” ?
not just yours!
On the topic of missing questions, we know that Mr Ullman has NOT missed my question about naming a laboratory that can distinguish homeopathic water from other water (which he said only ‘fools or liars’ doubt can be done).
We know he hasn’t missed it because I have asked it 76 times, and he told an outrageous lie in this Blog, claiming to have answered the question “many times”, when he has not done so once…..
DavidB, “Now!” already answered your question in another post on this blog:
https://edzardernst.com/2023/10/barbara-oneills-crazy-seminar-the-postive-life-event/#comments
But I’ll help you, maybe you haven’t seen it:
“Now! on Wednesday 18 October 2023 at 10:00
Some laboratories like the Hagenau Hospital led by Dr. Louis Demangeat, the Oxford Chem laboratory by Steven Cartwright, the laboratory in Strasbour by Marc Henry, and the laboratory led by A. Tournier”.
Richard Rasker, you reviewed the article that “Now!” shared this link above, did you do it?
“Anyway, I’ll dive into his work as well as the details of NMR when I have a couple of weeks off, maybe at the year’s end. I’ll be sure to report my conclusions then.”
I hope you are not skeptics, their lives must be sad, because they are predisposed to not believing, not learning new things, not evolving, not contributing, and the more time passes, the more worried they must be about new discoveries, especially when these will make the world better.
Speaking of contributions, I would like to suggest one more research, in the hope that some researcher will put it into practice: retrospectively collecting the homeopathic dynamizations used in thousands of clinical and individualized homeopathy studies that achieved cures in various clinical conditions, acute and chronic.
In the Australian study alone, which is seen as designed to destroy homeopathy in Australia, I counted 127 victories of clinical homeopathy against placebo, 66 victories of individualized homeopathy against placebo, 5 victories of clinical homeopathy against allopathic therapy (it lost in 7 and tied in 27), 6 victories for individualized homeopathy against allopathic therapy (lost in 8 and tied in 12). In other words, in this study alone we have 243 endorsing the effectiveness of homeopathy!
I believe that homeopathy was only not more successful in the “individualized homeopathy” modality because homeopathic medicines competed with patients who took placebos and who were offered homeopathic consultation, which is of excellent quality! Homeopathic consultation is almost like psychotherapy, Hannehman is a genius! Wherever he is, he must be proud of those who followed him with love!
This paragraph above serves as a suggestion for new research: The improvement in the control group of homeopathic patients is more pronounced (due to excellent quality consultation) than that of allopathic patients, making it difficult to verify the effectiveness of homeopathic medicines (as it would require greater effectiveness of these )?
Why spend time and money researching your looney tune ideas when you can ask your spirits and get the answer?
They want us to develop science on Earth, they help, but we have to do the work.
Spirit of my dead cat named Jasper appeared in my dreams and asked me to tell you that what you said above is NOT true. Jasper’s spirit thinks you are full of it and he confirmed that spirits will do all the work if asked nicely. He thinks you dont know how to ask the spirits nicely. You better figure that out instead of posting bullshit theories and expecting others to take you seriously.
Hi Talker, I hope you are well! I started this blog with the aim of making someone interested in the hypotheses related to health that spiritualism brings through the thousands of psychographed books.
To my delight, a member posted a 2022 article about Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Relaxacion technology, which identified the existence of homeopathic dynamization energy above Avogadro’s limit:
“Water proton NMR relaxation revisited: Ultrahighly diluted aqueous solutions beyond Avogadro’s limit prepared by iterative centesimal dilution under shaking cannot be considered as pure solvent”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167732222010388
Note that the spirit Ramatis, in the book Physiology of the Soul, from 1959, left a hint as to which technology could detect high homeopathic dynamizations:
“and, after the discoveries that science achieved in the field of nuclear energy, one can no longer doubt the dynamism pontificated by Samuel Hahnemann in his homeopathic treatment.”
I believe that if we test other tips brought by Ramatis regarding the prerequisites for success in homeopathic therapy, this will finally help humanity to its full potential!
Dear Gustavo,
I am well. Hope you are too, but I doubt it. My experience with spirits is as valid as yours. Therefore I will listen to my cat’s spirit and call bullshit on your theories. Peace!
Your truly,
Talker
@Gustavo
Whatever you smoke, eat, drink or inject. Take LESS of it, not MORE.
RPG and Talker, from the moment that science identified the energy of homeopathic medicines through NMR technology, the repetition of jokes “homeopathy is just pure water” is no longer funny. A layman who claims this is a pseudoskeptic, and a scientist who claims this is a pseudoscientist, either uninformed or spiteful.
Gustavo,
It is comical to see you grasp at straws and contort yourself (Got spirits!) to explain homeopathy. A one-off study that shows some energy detected in homeopathic “remedy” doesn’t tell you anything let alone vindicate homeopathy. Even if this study has been replicated by an independent group, which it hasn’t been, would not absolve homeopathy. In 200+ years there are literally zero studies (well designed, conducted and independently replicated) that show homeopathy is better than a placebo. Therefore, homeopathy and its proponents will always be at the butt end of jokes on this blog. A person who claims homeopathy is nanomedicine is crazy, however one who claims spirits are helping humans research homeopathy is beyond batshit crazy.
I also think it is senseless to look for matter where it does not exist. For me, it is another expression of materialism to look for nanoparticles in homeopathic dynamizations, but I understand, it is a phase that will be overcome when the spirit is discovered by science. But it is not that difficult to understand the physics of homeopathic medicines, as Ramatis explains in Physiology of the Soul, from 1959:
“As we have already had occasion to explain, it is a process through which the dynamic energy that exists in the intimacy of matter, originating from all the kingdoms of the Earth, is released and
enhanced. In reality, dynamizing is radioactivating, that is, accelerating the escape of the energy condensed in the substance that disintegrates through friction, friction or fissure, and which is thus potentiated, increasing its energy emissions a hundredfold. The material substance, or properly condensed energy, when it is disintegrated and potentiated by the homeopathic process, becomes free energy which, after ingested by the patient, becomes a powerful catalyst and activates the reactions of latent energies in the physical body. The infinitesimal and dynamized homeopathic dose, which is the substance itself transformed
in free energy, it can reach depths inaccessible to allopathic medication. A dose of mother tincture, from China, is considered a massive remedy; however, the same China, elevated to
thousandth homeopathic dynamization, is no longer anything more than freed and energized energy, whose great potential can produce an intense radioactive aura in the patient and visible to many disembodied spirits. Earthly science itself says that matter and energy are just different vibratory modalities of the same thing; when the energy free descent towards physical life, is that it is constituted in matter or in the state of condensed energy. As a result, the perispirit — which is the pre-existing fundamental mold of man, and which actively functions in the occult world, through its energetic field accumulative energy and its transcendental chemical power — gathers free energy around itself and makes it descend towards material life, in order to sustain the body of flesh, which is its exact physical extension. This is why high homeopathic dynamization causes
extraordinary changes in the energetic whole of the perispirit, because, being free energy, it can act efficiently on the delicate structure of this valuable instrument of the soul, operating through the phenomenon of vibratory repercussion and in favor of organic balance. Homeopathic dynamization increases the substance’s capacity healing in your energetic and auric field because, as this potential increases, deeper transformations also occur in the intimacy of the human creature.”
Even though one article is not enough, we have to respect it, as it takes a lot of work to make one. However, below is a 2019 systematic review that evaluated several technologies that identified the energy of homeopathic medicines:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31290681/
Results: The 134 publications analyzed reported on a total of 203 experiments (Fig. 1). The majority of experiments (72% – 147 experiments) reported findings in line with the notion that homeopathic preparations are different from the controls used (Table 1), (A total of 192 different substances were investigated).
Hannehman is an incredible scientist!!! He is happy to see Homeopathy being scientifically proven! Jesus trusted the right person when sending him on this mission!
As for the question of whether there are pseudo-skeptics or pseudo-scientists on this blog, according to Marcello Truzzi, they are like this:
1. deny instead of doubt
2. makes personal attacks
3. disqualify proponents of new ideas
4. judge without a complete and conclusive investigation
5. present insufficient or unconvincing evidence
6. disqualify any and all evidence
7. unconvincing evidence is sufficient to assume that a theory is false.
If one day you decide to read some psychographic books among the more than 5000 written here in Brazil, you will understand how much I feel about your lack of knowledge of this philosophy, science and religion that explains everything (including health) as Jesus promised 2000 years ago!
“If one day you decide to read some psychographic books”, get your head examoned.
My dead cat’s spirit appeared in my dreams again last night and did warn me that proponents of homeopathy:
1. Go to great lengths to come up with ludicrous explanations involving nanoparticles, jesus and sprits etc.
2. Twist existing research to try and fit their world view.
3. Use insufficient and unconvincing evidence to claim that homeopathy works.
4. Refer those who question their clams as pseudo-skeptics or pseudo-scientists.
5. Tend to be scientifically illiterate.
6. Put charlatans on a pedestal and worship them.
7. Write length paragraphs of drivel sprinkled with a paragraph or two from scientific literature and expect others to take them seriously.
8. Have their heads stuck far up in their own arses.
I think my cat’s spirit was right in many regards and predicted your last response accurately. Now, if you will excuse me, I must build a shrine for my dead cat and worship it till the day I die.
Indeed ! We now have ‘proof’ that homeopathy is just contaminated water.
“I must build a shrine for my dead cat and worship it till the day I die.”
Not thereafter?
Great question, DavidB.
Human spirits don’t exist, only cats have spirits. Says so my dead cat’s spirit. They say cats have nine lives and that is true. A cat can die up to nine times and its spirit can come back to the body. After the ninth time, cat body is not viable for the sprit to reenter and from then on it exists as spirit. It is possible for a human to act as a medium to a cat’s spirit. That is exactly what happened to me. When I get possessed by Jasper’s spirit, I meow like cat. My disciples translate those meows into English. That is how the wisdom of my dead cat lives on!! All hail the mighty Jasper!!!
I hope I answered your question satisfactorily. I thank you for your curiosity and for keeping an open mind.
Thank you very much for this significant clarification!
Watson.ch:
https://www.watson.ch/schweiz/gesellschaft%20&%20politik/235509739-sonntagsnews-polizei-stoppt-islamisten-prediger-nach-landung-in-zuerich
[*QUOTE*]
——————————-
The federal government is currently conducting proceedings that could be the beginning of the end for homeopathy in basic insurance. According to the SonntagsZeitung, it was initiated by a 73-year-old citizen who wants to end the special treatment of globules. He submitted an application to the Federal Office of Public Health last fall to obtain a so-called controversy procedure.
——————————-
[*/QUOTE*]
“Sonntagszeitung” belongs to the “Tagesanzeiger”
[Paywall]
https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/bezahlte-alternativmedizin-vor-dem-aus-das-bag-laesst-homoeopathie-ueberpruefen-395770507889
So all this news is about an angry man who feels outraged. Well, maybe it’s not such a bad idea that they make a new evaluation of homeopathy, after all that there should be no problem since there are more and more studies. I think after all the Swiss should take advantage of this and make a new HTA this time with new updates.
@Sunbead wrote:
“So all this news is about an angry man who feels outraged.”
You just killed homeopathy.
Homeopathy bases on repertories. Repertories are based on provings. Funny enough, that many homeopathic remedies are sold, for which there does not exist even a single proving. Which means, that the manufacturers are frauds.
A proving is done with some few people. Might be it is only a handful, perhaps 5 or 8. This is very funny, because from this negligible handful of persons MILLIONS of patients are administered a remedy. To call this scientific is fraud. To call this “individual personal treatment” is fraud.
You are absolutely clueless. I have the strong feeling you are a homeopath.
There’s no point in what you’re saying. The proving was intuitively designed much earlier than Hahnemann and then systematized by him, to obtain symptoms in humans (later it would be used in veterinary medicine more restricted to anatomical pathology). Homeopathy is based on the principle of similarity, but the activity of the mother tinctures and potencies does not need it so that they can have activity or not. Homeopathy is simply a special form of hormesis, are you denying hormesis? Ironically for you, some in vitro studies have been able to show that the application of high potencies have paradoxical effects that correspond to hormetic effects. Your comment is as silly as denying in vitro tests in conventional medicine because at the cellular level the full range of responses of a complete human being cannot be reproduced.
Another funny thing is that you don’t understand statistics either. The provings that have been made tend to be complex and rigorous (I’m not counting the fantasies of silly provings like those of “moonlight” that have esoteric ideologies present). The proving is done in relatively few people (although in India they have already been done with hundreds of people), because just a greater precision is sought and they take a lot of time. On the other hand, Oscillococcinum-type homeopathy (actually influenzinum) is not individualized, and does not need provings because it is based on very general symptoms that are typical of a common cold. It makes me laugh a lot to manage a forum of defamatory hooligans and you don’t even understand the basics of homeopathy and science.
“You are absolutely clueless. I have the strong feeling you are a homeopath.”
Oh. the typical ad hominem of every anti-homeopathy hooligan, to say that his opponent is a “homeopath”. No, I am not a homeopath, I am more orthodox than you think. It makes me laugh a lot as “skeptics” go crazy every time they find non-homeopaths taking an interest in homeopathy. And funnier is that the “skeptics” often show a huge lack of knowledge although at the same time think they are so called “experts” in many subjects without studying them.
@Sunbead
About each sentence is so insane, it is unbelievable. What comes next? “BLACK IS WHITE!”
You are so clueless, than one must come to the conclusion, you are a paid homeopath, a bad programmed ELIZA-bot — or both.
Sunbead wrote:
“The proving is done in relatively few people […], because just a greater precision is sought and they take a lot of time.”
So a proving with just 1 person would be ultimate precise.
How deep can a person sink to write such a nonsense like Sunbead does?
Black is not white, but there are nuances that give us shades of gray. Didn’t you know that?
No, I am neither a homeopath nor am I paid for this.
I said the sample is relatively small not that it is from “one”. Accuracy is sought in a proving because symptoms are very subjective and homeopaths try to look for patterns, not all subjective symptoms are valuable (Hahnemann himself – and Ernst knows this – was aware of placebo and nocebo phenomena). In addition, more serious homeopaths seek to statistically validate phenomena using larger samples, even though it is difficult because of the difficulty of retaining people in a study for months or even a year or more. If this can be correlated with physiological measurements (EEG, for example) it is a good step.
Hahnemann did not create the repertoire based only on experiments, but also on the adverse effects of allopathic remedies collected in dozens of books. As he translated books from several languages, he had access to knowledge of all medicine at that time. Unfortunately, every great man of humanity suffers from spite, from envy. Whoever tries to destroy homeopathy out of spite or for money will tomorrow have to answer to the divine laws written in their own conscience. People don’t always know why they suffer, but they know when they are making mistakes. Homeopathy is not perfect, anything in this world is, so it needs people who make it more effective in helping humanity, not destroy it.
Hahnemann lived 200 (!) years ago, when medicine was still in its infancy and many of the treatment methods of the time, such as bloodletting or administering mercury, harmed or killed people.
Homeopathy, which Hahnemann introduced, was ultimately nothing more than hoping in the self-healing powers of the human being.
One more note: You can save your attempts at proselytizing.
Hannemann was an excellent pharmacist, doctor, researcher, writer and Christian. He developed a healing method that has spread across many countries, but is in its infancy due to the low quality of scientific studies.
He is one of those most responsible for the extinction of bloodletting, reducing the power of dark spirits. It is no coincidence that in all ancient and even current cultures, carrying out animal or human sacrifices is a practice known to strengthen these spirits. Spiritism informs that human blood is the richest in ectoplasm, which is why the dark spirits encourage wars and bloodshed in general, this makes them stronger and encourages more wars, violence and all types of disorders. The dark spirits must be angry with Hannemann and homeopathy to this day.
Although I respect your opinion about Hanneman, I prefer to stick with that of the spirits Ramatis and Bezerra de Menezes, who know him personally in the spiritual world.
Ramatis, in Physiology of the Soul: “Samuel Hahnemann, the genius of homeopathy, also had his life embittered by the persecution and sarcasm of allopathic doctors; but all this must be transformed into the deepest respect for the
scientific criterion of homeopathy, as the time will come when medical science will have to do penance for having forgotten that man for so long. He was one of the greatest scientists
of humanity, and his therapeutic method, framed in the law that “Like heals similar”, is the same as the
Nature usually uses it in the treatment of chronic illnesses when, under an ingenious process, it adds another sickly function to the the very disease he intends to cure.
The allopathic doctors themselves are not unaware that the law of “sirnilia similibus curantur” also governs the principles of vaccinotherapy,
allergic desensitization, in hormonal treatment, and is part of several modern therapeutics, while in infinitesimal doses are histamines, isotopes, colloids and desensitizers! And, after the discoveries that science achieved in field of nuclear energy, one can no longer doubt the dynamism
pontificated by Samuel Hahnemann in his homeopathic treatment.”
Bezerra de Menezes:
“Homeopathy, bringing to contemporary knowledge irrefutable evidence of the existence of the vital organism, where subtle imbalances of the spirit are stopped before emerging into illnesses physics, is a science established on Earth to heal the wounds of medical materialism, building the true Medicine of the Spirit. Hahnemann, herald of Christ, was entrusted by Him with such great anticipation, of establishing on Earth the pillars of this new medicine, to be in force in the third millennium, substantiating it with concepts of high spiritual reach.
How can we not bow before the wise lessons of the Meissen missionary, when he proclaims that all human evils find their peremptory origin in the spirit? The messenger correctly told us that disorders of the flesh are mere effects of energetic disturbances, interfering in our perispiritual intimacy. That physical compounds carry formative energies that can be aroused by the ingenious method of dynamization, making them susceptible to acting vigorously in the human psychosphere. And that its use, through the principle of similarity, activates healing reactions in the dynamic unity of being. These are teachings that enchant the medical reasoning of anyone who has already learned about spiritual truths. For this reason, the great voices from beyond, in all times of dissemination of spiritualism, spoke out in favor of the medicine of the similar, highlighting its immense value in providing definitive solutions so that the pathology of the soul finds its true healing path.”
at the very leat, you should learn to spell the name of the charlatan you idolize.
I used an application that transforms speech into words and forgot to correct the mistakes it made. Glad you noticed, thanks!
Both Ramatis and Bezerra de Menezes admit that homeopathy will be more successful in the future, but I hope that incompetent homeopaths and researchers do not destroy it beforehand.
Ramatis: “Since homeopathy is therapeutic already on the threshold of spiritual frontiers, all negative psychic conditions harm its energetic incorporation, while the favorable vocation is the basis of success. Only in the “neutral” cases of the child, does the homeopathy really acts as a pure prescription. The other elective type for homeopathic treatment, this type is almost congenital, is that of the individual with great spiritual sensitivity, accessible to noble ideals,
delicate, with a well-formed psyche and fond of creative dynamism. The very belief in magnetic forces and the conviction of the survival of the soul are factors that operate in the elective condition. As we have already explained, homeopathy is the most successful science in the future, because
It also requires a greater share of spirituality.”
Bezerra de Menezes: “to establish on Earth the pillars of this new medicine, to be in force in the third millennium, substantiating it with concepts of high spiritual reach.”
“Ramatis and Bezerra de Menezes admit that homeopathy will be more successful in the future”; that’s because they are excellent at wishful thinking and terrible at critical thinking.
This was the first text I found when I searched on Google about critical thinking:
“Critical thinking is the ability to analyze facts, experiences, comments or situations with the aim of forming one’s own opinion. To do this, it is necessary to construct arguments based on reliable data and information, with an ethical position in relation to taking care of oneself , others and the planet.” http://www.kumon.com.br
The opinion of superior Spirits is formed through knowledge of everything that has happened on Earth. Before each of us reincarnates, a reincarnation plan is drawn up in which we choose what we will do for our own benefit, that of others and the planet. The perspective of superior Spirits is much greater than ours, as they observe the relationships between the two planes of life. They know our strengths and weaknesses and even who we were and what we accomplished in past lives.
Most CAMS work with subtle, spiritual forces, which will be highly valued in the future, when human beings discover the spirit through science.
This blog provokes discussions and provocations that are important for the development of CAMS. I learned here about technologies that detected the energy of homeopathic medicines through NMR, just as Ramatis said above (the book Physiology of the Soul was written in 1959!)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167732222010388
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32615611/
Bravo!
You know how to google – I am proud of you.
Thanks!
My “google” even shows the future:
“… and, after the discoveries that science achieved in the field of nuclear energy, one can no longer doubt the dynamism pontificated by Samuel Hahnemann in his homeopathic treatment.”
This article is from 2022:
“Water proton NMR relaxation revisited: Ultrahighly diluted aqueous solutions beyond Avogadro’s limit prepared by iterative centesimal dilution under shaking cannot be considered as pure solvent”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167732222010388
2022 – 1959 = 63 years in advance!
The Brazilian medium João Teixeira de Faria, better known as João de Deus, also claimed to embody the spirit of Bezerra de Menezes. He was never prosecuted for posing as a surgeon (he performed psychic surgeries), but for raping more than 300 women. In 2021, he was sentenced to 44 years in prison. The question is: why didn’t the spirit of Bezerra de Menezes warn the other mediums that João de Deus, in addition to using his name in vain, was a sexual predator?
Mediumship is not a sign of holiness. He is not a trustworthy person. Very few mediums are evolved spirits, most ostensible mediums come with this ability to pay off debts from the past more easily. I am proud to live in the city of one of the most worthy spiritualists in the world, Divaldo Pereira Franco. The world’s greatest physical effects medium, José Medrado, also lives here.
@Gustavo
My question remains unanswered: if Divaldo Pereira Franco and José Medrano are evolved spirits, and they are supposed to be in this world to help humanity with their holy “mediumship”, why didn’t they help humanity by denouncing the phony João de Deus?
@ Luis Vinatea
I see that Gustavo utterly failed to answer your question and waffled on and on about something else to distract you and everyone else. Therefore, allow me to quench your thirst of curiosity with the wisdom I have come across and lay to rest this matter forever.
As you know, I have been talking about my foray in mediumship here, here and here on this blog. It turns out the Gospel of Jasper already addressed your question. Jasper told me that human spirits don’t exist. A dead human is a DEAD HUMAN, they don’t become spirits. For a spirit to form after death, surrounding environment must have certain energetic and quantum properties which facilitates the coalition of energy resulting in formation of a spirit. When it comes to humans, the Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t have that capability, therefore when a human dies the disembodied energy dissipates, like dust in the wind. Therefore, human spirits don’t exist on earth. All these so-called mediums are phony. They put up an act to fleece unsuspecting and gullible folk. They don’t want to snitch on each other, because as they say, “snitches get stitches”. Divaldo Pereira Franco and José Medrano will never denounce João de Deus. They are all in it together, if one of them goes too far the others will happily turn a blind eye.
Mediums don’t know everything about everyone’s life, but if you’re really interested in knowing, you can get in touch and ask:
https://mansaodocaminho.com.br/
https://www.cidadedaluz.com.br/jose-medrado/index.html
May everyone use their intelligence for the benefit of science, health and happiness!
So,… whatever forces there might be…
[*QUOTE*]
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Gustavo on Wednesday 14 February 2024 at 23:51
Thanks!
My “google” even shows the future:
“… and, after the discoveries that science achieved in the field of nuclear energy, one can no longer doubt the dynamism pontificated by Samuel Hahnemann in his homeopathic treatment.”
This article is from 2022:
“Water proton NMR relaxation revisited: Ultrahighly diluted aqueous solutions beyond Avogadro’s limit prepared by iterative centesimal dilution under shaking cannot be considered as pure solvent”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167732222010388
2022 – 1959 = 63 years in advance!
———————————————-
[*/QUOTE*]
… IF these forces are there … there STILL is the necessity to PROVE that homeopathy works. But it does not. Whatever physics might show us, the burden of proof is on the homeopaths.
AND… there is one more step: to prove that higher “potentizations” are stronger than lower ones.
AND … that the whole construct works IN GENERAL, and not only with ONE substance.
In other words: the homeopaths are frauds, who cheat people by mixing up all kinds of crap. We must keep them grounded, and keep them stick to the facts, and not let them lead people into whatever mysteries they might invent next.
If your assertion that there “should” be nothing in the water after 12 dilutions of 1:100 or 24 dilutions of 1:10, please explain to us all how do your mathematics (or chemisty) calculate the effects of the 6 parts of million of silica fragments that fall off the glass walls after the vigorous succussion…and please explain the additional mathematics for the influence of the turbulence from this shaking that creates bubbles and nano-bubbles.
Needless to say Avogadro’s number does NOT include these factors.
That said, YOU ARE HILARIOUS by your assertion that homeopaths “can’t properly dilute” their medicines! Please explain how one can “properly dilute” a medicinal agent without shaking, without turbulence, and without silica fragments falling off the glass walls.
Curious minds want to know!
@Dana Ullman
Gawd, do I have to spell out every dumb detail? I was talking about the original base substance that should not be there, but, as those water-shaking clowns from India claimed, nay, positively insisted, WAS there in a 30C dilution.
But OK, so you’re saying that this (indeed inevitable) contamination with minute amounts of silica and/or dust particles from the air is what in fact makes homeopathy ‘work’?
Apparently, you don’t realize what the implications would be If this were true. Let me tell you: homeopaths would look even more like total idiots than they already do, because
– it would not matter any more what original substance is used. Just one round of shaking plain water in a glass container would be enough to end up with the homeopathic preparation from silica and dust, and thus
– all homeopathic preparations would be identical. (Which, in fact, they are …)
So this contamination does not support homeopathy in any way – in fact it does the complete opposite: it completely destroys this whole card castle of serial dilutions in one fell swoop, as already from C5 or C6, those contaminants are the dominant matter in the homeopathic dilution, and nothing changes from there on.
As I explained before on several occasions, those air bubbles don’t do anything at all, and disappear from the solution within minutes or hours at most. They are just a homeopaths’ escape hatch when criticized that just endlessly diluting stuff doesn’t result in a medicine. “Oh, but we also
shake‘succuss’ the dilution! And that is what makes itmagicalwork!”The sheer stupidity of it all is mind-boggling, especially given that no homeopath has EVER come up with a homeopathic preparation that actually DOES something in a consistent and repeatable manner. It’s all make-believe.
Anyway, I give up, as the only real ‘nano’ thing here is your brain. You don’t know anything about chemistry, and you certainly don’t know anything about homeopathy. You just make things up as you go along, and ‘explain’ the huge internal contradictions and inconsistencies of homeopathy by coming up with even more and far worse contradictoins. And oh, by repeating the magic ‘nano’ mantra ad nauseam of course.
Have a nice life.
Dana’s “scientific” explanation of how Homöpathy works: He throws his car key into the Missisippi River near Minneapolis and then uses the river water to start his car in New Orleans. 😀
Years ago, I learned not to argue with homeopaths. It’s useless. Its artillery of logical fallacies is practically endless, as are its numerous ad hoc rescues. Proving that homeopathy works is the same as proving that Santa Claus exists.
@Louis Vinatea
You are absolutely right, except that the probability for Santa Claus is higher. 🙂
One can not convince a homeopath. Would be like convincing a Jehova’s Witness.
The real audience is not the esoteric nuts, it is all the other people around. One can show THESE people what kind of mess the esoteric nuts commit. It is like with Judy and the Punch: You seem to talk with the crocodile, but the real audience is al the other people.
So we all are on a big stage, and what we say always is addressed to all the other people, to make them understand. For this task satire is a very nice and easy tool. But one must add A LOT of facts. Fun alone is useless. It does not make people think or change their minds. But facts can. They have to be presented comprehensible. That is a task the skeptics always mess up.
So we have 3 parts: stage, facts, and satire.
Your comment is very comical, I have encountered many “skeptics” who rightly claim “I don’t argue with homeopaths or proponents” because they “muddy the board”. But if one looks at the discussions, it is funny to note that most “skeptics” is because they lost the debate. Just look here with guys like Rasker and others who are supposed to be the “highest ranking” anti-homeopathy “skeptics”, none of them could refute anything I comment on. They are content with nonsense like “you sure are a homeopath and they pay you, ho, ho, look at me I won”.