Homeopathy is in direct violation of the known laws of chemistry and physics

There are people I know who buy this shit and I just want to yell at them for being so dumb.

dont forget to pick up a pair of pinhole glasses too- they cure all imperfections to your vision

I guess people resort to it when normal medicine isn't working for them or if they're allergic. Hopefully people try it once and realize it's just fucking water.

i have some land for you in florida

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvH1TnzYch4

I'll have you know I am actually the foremost bridge salesmen in Chicago

http://i.imgur.com/cZrWD.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H8mYywI1yv4/T8k1j0cK2gI/AAAAAAAAADo/FSlhzPUwj44/s1600/power-balance-bracelet-black.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/CRAgB.jpg

ey man who u callin a homo ah ah ah ah thx gang

Just as bad are those who refuse all pills because they're not 'natural'. I live with a family friend who is big on finding cures and refuses any treatment that is not a straight-up cure. He tries to sell me the idea that doctors are in it for the money and will prescribe you poison if it means they get paid.

Poor bastard has a cold at the moment and refuses to take fever reducers.

I'm grinning.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/dilution.png

http://xkcd.com/765/

I know there are studies where the certain condition myopia can be improved through pinhole glasses.. but most homeopathic people believe it cures everything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4bSP6RMQKA

This is a lecture on homeopathy given by some retard who should be charged with fraud for calling herself a doctor.

Watch at your own risk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0c5yClip4o

Dogmatically believing science is almost as bad as dogmatically believing homeopathy. If you are going to have an opinion, at least make sure it is informed by reading some academic papers. Not suggesting you haven't, but the vast majority of people who bash homeopathy don't really know what they're talking about.

Also holding science up as a perfect model is dangerous. Before the 20th Century people would have had the same view of Newtonian physics, but Einstein came along and showed them that they were wrong. Physics and chemistry are by no means perfect systems, that can be improved upon constantly (see the collapse vs non-collapse theories of quantum physics - an area which is really up for grabs). Just because it doesn't fit the current system doesn't make it wrong.

edit: I should clarify, I am not supporting homeopathy. Just inductive reasoning.

No one has proved homeopathy to be anything more than what it is - water. The Paranormal Challenge has offered, since 1996, 1 million dollars to the guys that can demonstrate the effectiveness of homeopathic medicine. No one has won it, and a similar contest has been going on since the '60s without a winner.

I don't think anyone here held science up as perfect. Newton's theories were right for the most part, and were used to get us to the Moon, not Einstein's equations. They were in no way wrong, but just did not explain what happens at high velocities relative to the speed of light. Science indeed builds upon existing knowledge and improves, and only does so when good evidence is put forth.

All that said, we have to figure out truth somehow, and so far, homeopathy has yet to show that it's nothing more than a scam. All papers I could find on the matter are not peer-reviewed, their experiments do not follow any sort of reliable procedure, all of it is dodgy. It is, at best, a placebo, and at worst, a hole in your pocket.

The point I was making was that Trekkies arguments of
1. Homeopathy violates physics and chemistry
2. Anything that violates physics and chemistry is bad
c. therefore homeopathy is bad
is invalid, something I am sure we can agree on.

Also 'right for the most part' doesn't really cut it under the best systems analysis for laws. Feel free to use newtonian physics with subatomic particles travelling close to the speed of light to see how wrong it truly is. If you think this argument is trivial, keep in mind the macrophysical supervenes on the microphysical.

Also, people underestimate how vastly effective a placebo can be (note how it is still widely used in Germany and other places http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/8376919/How-a-simple-sugar-pill-from-the-doctor-may-not-be-a-thing-of-the-past.html).
There seems to be an attitude of "you're getting better, but you're not doing it my way, so you're doing it wrong and I want you to stop getting better". I can understand that it can be used for profiteering, but that is always going to happen. A fool and his money are easily parted. This is not going to change overnight, and this cynical marketing is a hydra that will sprout two heads for each one you chop off.

No I'm pretty sure trekkie's point was that it violates physics and chemistry based on entirely contrived notions that defy modern science (and the Socratic method for that matter).

You've also completely ignored the point that there are serious ramifications to taking sugar pills on the assumption that they are legitimate medicine. If you bothered to watch the first video here, you couldn't possibly ignore people taking sugar pills as a vaccine for polio.

Alternatively, you might be an apologist for the people that think that vaccines are linked to autism since your defense of placebos can be just as easily applied to that situation.

Also you may want to actually read the articles that you link

I don't understand the problem here. I did read them and it provides evidence that placebos are effective.

Also what is wrong with defying modern science? Non-collapse quantum physics does that and one cannot deny there is a hell of a lot of evidence to suggest that it is a correct theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation). This denies temporal asymmetry amongst other things.

Placebos work less well if people don't think they're proper medicine.

In fairness I didn't watch the video because it was twenty minutes plus. I was more reacting to peoples comments on homeopathy. Of course I don't suggest people take it as a vaccine for polio, I am trying to dispel the black and white notion of homeopathy=bad.

It truly doesn't matter what I say though, people are going to minus frag me purely because they disagree with me, rather than providing any cogent argument against me.

Svejk, Newton developed his theories 400 years ago. You're speaking as if the scientific process hasn't improved since then. Things have to be replicated thousands of times now before scientists conclude that their theories are fact. Proponents of homeopathy claim that their treatments work flawlessly based on no clinical evidence whatsoever.

I guess I ought to clarify my position again. I am not defending homeopathy, I am defending inductive reasoning over dogmatic acceptance. I would never use homeopathy and if someone asked my advice on whether to take it, I would advise them against it, but to avoid it based on informed reasoning rather that what they are told.

I agree that the scientific process has improved. I disagree that it is perfect and beyond criticism.

Theories about the outside world are never fact, no matter how many iterations there are. Consider Russell's chicken (http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/Russell/chicken.html)

I don't know why you're being so condescending.
The reason I bring these examples up is to argue by analogy, a tactic that is common throughout philosophical argument.
I am sure no scientist champions their theory as fact, all it is a way of rationalising evidence. Proof is used in deduction, all you can do in induction is provide evidence. I am aware there is a large body of evidence suggesting that homeopathy doesn't work. I don't think it works. If that's what you base you decisions on, good. If you discard it based on the fact it isn't coherent with your model of the world, that's problematic.

Probably because you're using completely unrelated evidence to try and disprove modern medicine. In the 1800s a doctor could prescribe you with a mercury salve for a fever, guess we better not trust medicine ever again huh????

The fact that you admit to not even watching the video and as a result being less informed as to the context and implications of the comments made here throws out most of your argument already. The fact that you even had to extrapolate the situation to quantum physics as opposed to routinely tested medical trials probably should have tipped off someone as high-minded as yourself to realizing that you're full of shit.

Svejk, the reason people are being condescending is (as far as I can tell) that you came in championing inductive reasoning out of the blue, implying that nobody in the thread had used it. I don't see anyone in here dogmatically accepting anything. The first few posts may not have delved in-depth into the reasons for all the homeopathy-bashing, but that doesn't meant they didn't have reasons, just that it would have been overly pedantic and unnecessary to the conversation to discuss them.

Also, you may have gotten a lot of -frags for #17 because of what seems like a misinterpretation of scientific principles. OF COURSE people thought Newton was correct. For macroscopic systems, HE IS. When scientists with access to new technology, data and theories showed that he was incorrect for microscopic systems, people acknowledged that science was advancing and accepted the new explanations. Similarly, if a large body of medical evidence emerges that shows homeopathy to be wildly effective, public opinion will quickly change on the subject.

edit for argumentation principles: It is far more effective to ask a probing question and listen for the answer (i.e. use the Socratic method) than to begin an argument by making a statement or a paragraph.

I feel there has been a misunderstanding and I will try and clear up what I mean.
I feel no animosity to people on this thread. At all.

It is a personal peeve of mine when people either reject things because it is incompatible with their model of the world, even when there is good evidence for it. Or looking down on people who unquestionably accept something, when they just unquestioningly accept the counterargument without looking more deeply at the argument.
This may not have been the case, and if I misinterpreted you, I apologise.

I recognise that homeopathy violates a lot of scientific theories. That on its own is not enough to discredit it. It is the large body of evidence that suggests that it is ineffective that does the work.

I had no intention to start an argument, merely to state my opinion based on my interpretation of the thread. I apologise if I have offended anyone with what I have said or how I said it. This is not meant as a personal attack on anyone, rather a general point about reasoning.

For your own benefit, try to begin future discussions like this by asking people what led them to believe something, rather than making blanket statements up front.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWE1tH93G9U

"equivalent of taking 1 grain of rice, crushing into a powder and dissolving it in a sphere of water the size of the solar system"
No science can back up homeopathy. Avogadro would get mad! Every time you dilute a compound the chance of a single molecule appearing in a solution lessens.

I don't think you can dogmatically believe in science. It is not like religions, rather it has a group of people continuously working to explain and understand the natural world, not the spiritual. And scientific discoveries and facts are usually backed up by a whole bunch of work published in journals, and you can even follow their experiment on your own (if you have the resources) and see if you come to the sam conclusion.

I think your're confusing the term scientific theory here.

Newton wasn't wrong. All he did was attempt to describe the strengh of the graitational force. He made no attempt to describe how force arose.

Newtons equations are also a fantastic approximation for scales that we are familiar with. NASA got men to the moon using Newtons equations for gravity and motion. General Relativity only becomes necessary to describe phenomena on scales and strengths of gravitational fields that people had not yet conceived of.

And of course, when Einstein first stated that the speed of light is the same no matter what reference frame you are in and described the consequences of this assumption, people were skeptical. It described a universe that at first glance, we did not appear to live in. Eventually however, experiment proved his predictions correct and those who were skeptical of the theory changed their minds in the face of evidence.

That is the difference between the scientific method, and complete made up bullshit like homeopathy.