I assume you’ve seen Dr. Bell’s
YouTube Homeopathy debate presentation
overview of current Homeopathy research
at:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wYO6nNQGe1M

A full list of cites some of which were mentioned in the presentation
can be found at:

http://nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org/articles/view,173

KNOCK THEIR SOCKS OFF!!

C’mon socks most of that that last post was irrelevant waffle.

… denial, ridicule … exactly my point

My personal gripes with Homeopathy are :
the NHS wasting money on it.
homeopaths claiming to be able to offer treatment to fatal diseases, which is when they start being dangerous.

Why should people who can’t afford to pay for private healthcare be denied the opportunity of consulting with a homeopath if that’s what they want to do? The very rise in CAM therapies in recent years has been because people have been voting with their feet. If these therapies are popular and in demand, and have proven benefit, why should they not be available on the NHS? You don’t have to use them. But why should you try to prevent others?

And if people would rather take a chance with homeopathy, in full knowledge that the evidence base is what it is, than undergo the conventional treatment for their condition, that’s their choice. Particularly when much of the evidence for the conventional treatment shows that it makes only a minor contribution to survival. Like cytotoxic chemotherapy for instance.

I’m sorry you object to “emotive language” but when homeopaths advise people against treatment for fatal diseases or advise against vaccination they cease being a harmless indulgence. And yes this makes me angry.

I don’t object to emotive language in the least. It just has no place in a discussion based purely on the science of the matter. Rational is rational. Emotional is emotional. If emotion is present, ergo the discussion involves more than just what is rational.

And as for homeopaths “advising people against treatment” for fatal diseases or vaccination, I think it’s been very clear in the foregoing discussion exactly how you go about trying to extract your “evidence” to make such claims. Selective quoting out of context, assuming by one answer that the opposite is implied, etc, etc. These techniques have been used extensively in all these so-called “evidence-gathering” exercises that you’re quoting.

If you don’t like homeopathic treatment, it’s OK. A true homeopath will never ask you to not try other modalities. Neither will a true homeopath tell you that he is the best. We just are, there’s nothing good or bad about us, & there’s nothing good or bad about you. It would be nice if allopathy & homeopathy could work together in a complementary way, but if not, that’s fine. You do your work, we are doing ours.

We are all free to choose what we want to do.

“you’re denying everyone else the freedom to choose their own healthcare modalities, which you have absolutely NO right to do. ”

No. I have no problem with people using homeopathy if the they are informed and doing it with their own money.

My personal gripes with Homeopathy are :
the NHS wasting money on it.
homeopaths claiming to be able to offer treatment to fatal diseases, which is when they start being dangerous.

I’m sorry you object to “emotive language” but when homeopaths advise people against treatment for fatal diseases or advise against vaccination they cease being a harmless indulgence. And yes this makes me angry.

I would have no problem with Homeopaths if they stuck to offering a nice chat and a sugar pill for self-limiting illnesses.

Clearly you disagree, so we’ve probably taken this about as far as we can go.

That’s all we are: big bags of chemicals walking around. Everything that goes on inside you – the muscle contraction when you bend your finger, the way the optic nerve transmits an image to the brain, the absorption of nutrients from your food, the way your skin peels off if you get blasted with intense radioactivity – it’s all chemical reactions.

Damn … it’s too cold to be barefoot today … where’ve they gone now?!

Well there we have it folks! The whole miraculous wonder of life — its laughter and its tears, its growing up and its growing old, its infinite diversity, its inspiration, its music, its creativity, its curiosity, its sciences, its languages, its philosophies, its relationships, its loves and its hates — reduced to a bag of chemicals! This really is an entire sock drawer’s worth M … is that really truly honestly all you believe life to be? Goodness, no wonder you people are all so angry …

Don’t you know that if you deny an essential part of your being it’s relegated to a “shadow” side of yourself which you can never escape and never “defeat” simply because it’s a part of you? You’ll see it continually reflected back to you in all the things that you’re driven to try and deny, ridicule, and drive out of your life. Projection, this is called. Go read some Jung if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

And this is, I think, the real crux of what’s going on here in relation to homeopathy right now. All this emotion and emotional language — condemnation, denial, ridicule — has no place in a discussion about scientific proof. So what’s it doing here? Face it people: homeopathy is nothing but a stalking horse for you guys to sort out your own relationships to the immaterial dimensions of life. So why don’t you just go away and do that and leave homeopathy alone? Because you’re not only denying yourselves, you’re denying everyone else the freedom to choose their own healthcare modalities, which you have absolutely NO right to do. This isn’t about the science of the matter. I’d be surprised if it ever has been.

Homeopathy relies on the rejection of biochemistry wholesale in favour of a theory of disease without a single piece of evidence except say-so. It’s not science, it’s a rejection of science.

Rubbish. Homeopathy doesn’t reject biochemistry. Homeopathy is just predicated on the understanding that there’s more to life, to health, and to disease than biochemistry, and that it’s the immaterial dimensions of our being that make the difference between a bag of chemicals and a human being. It’s not a rejection of science because it’s utterly empirical. Always has been. Always will be.

And your constant trumpeting about lack of evidence really doesn’t stand up in the face of the volume of clinical trials that show a positive effect. You can try all you like to make this go away M, but it isn’t going to.

I would be delighted to mr socks but would you mind asking them again to save me trawling through 74 comments.
Thanks.

Can I take it from your answer you disagree with Peter Fisher? I am interested because he seems like the sensible face of homeopathy and is the only one I have seen to come out against people claiming to offer homeopathic cures to fatal diseases like Malaria and AIDS. You would go up in my estimations if you did the same.

We clearly own very different dictionaries.

By the way, my father, who as I sais is a biochemist and a devoted one, specifically interested in enzyme activity, had not only declined to try a homeopathic remedy when he did not feel well, but was glad at the opportunity and said that he’d be very interested to try to monitor what kind of biochemical changes and processes were triggered after a person has taken a remedy, because he “felt” the remedy working, and did not dream of denying his experience. Now, that’s what I’d call a scientific approach and an open mind! (I should say that I did not expect him to agree to try homeopathy at all.) I myself would be very interested if someone has thought of funding this sort of research – measuring activity of brain centers, homeosthatic/hormonal status and the like – after taking a true (carefully prescribed) remedy and a placebo as control.