Homeopathy Sucks

[Dr. Zin]

[kristus]

I loled.

[Naked Snake]

Meh, pretty preachy. He could have just said it sucks and saved us all a lot of time.

[kristus]

I personally prefer to know why it sucks, as opposed to just taking a guy with white beard and pants up to his armpits word for it.

And since they apparently (according to him) push the drugs against Antrax and whatnot, it's a good idea to get the word out and really explain what it's all about.

[Dr. Zin]

Naked Snake said:

Meh, pretty preachy. He could have just said it sucks and saved us all a lot of time.

That is because this is a response to the claims of snake oil salesmen. Those homeopaths are second only to right-wing fundamentalists in their rejection of actual scientific fact.

[Aleaver]

I liked it. It was smart, funny, and it had a good point. Very good. It's a real shame to see what lengths people will go to just to make a buck these days. But then again it's not to surprising considering what else is going on now-a-days

[david_a]

kristus said:

I personally prefer to know why it sucks, as opposed to just taking a guy with white beard and pants up to his armpits word for it.

And since they apparently (according to him) push the drugs against Antrax and whatnot, it's a good idea to get the word out and really explain what it's all about.

James Randi is my hero. You can check out his website for all kinds of info about the inane drivel being shoveled to the public these days.

[Enjay]

Naked Snake said:

Meh, pretty preachy.

Smug too. He probably has a number of valid points but they are done no favours by his intentionally irreverent, "entertaining" and self congratulatory presentation style. I'd no sooner listen to him than a homeopath.

[Snarboo]

I feel he has the right to be smug when he's dealing with swindlers and "psychics" who defraud the public and have people buy into magical thinking. Some see it as an unattractive quality, sure, but he's doing it for an admirable cause.

[Quast]

Enjay said:

Smug too. He probably has a number of valid points but they are done no favours by his intentionally irreverent, "entertaining" and self congratulatory presentation style. I'd no sooner listen to him than a homeopath.

Entertaining? Of course. He's a magician, not a college professor. The reason maybe that he seems a bit full of himself is because he knows these things are bullshit. But he also realizes that things like this can be dangerous. Frankly, we need more people like Randi in the world. His mission in life is to sniff out quacks and frauds and expose them for what they are.

[myk]

I don't know how much it sucks, but it also seems like a reasonable irrational reaction for the overmedicated mass that a big deal of the relatively well off portion of society is.

[Antidote]

I don't like James Randi, he says that if it cannot be proven that it does not exist. Of course I do agree with that notion if it is applied to Organized Religion, but it is not. All he's after is science.

[Shadow Dweller]

enlightening...

[alexz721]

Antidote said:

I don't like James Randi, he says that if it cannot be proven that it does not exist. Of course I do agree with that notion if it is applied to Organized Religion, but it is not. All he's after is science.

Selective application of a concept, huh? Great justification.

[Quast]

Antidote said:

All he's after is science.

Homeopathy, telepathy, ESP among other things...these that he "is after" are not science. Like I said, his thing is to go after people that would exploit the ignorance of others. He isn't just another "skeptic", his aim is a bit more noble.

[Aleaver]

Quast said:

...his thing is to go after people that would exploit the ignorance of others. He isn't just another "skeptic", his aim is a bit more noble.

Agreed there. He's a brilliant man.

[fraggle]

Antidote said:

I don't like James Randi, he says that if it cannot be proven that it does not exist. Of course I do agree with that notion if it is applied to Organized Religion, but it is not. All he's after is science.

What exactly is the problem here?

[Zaldron]

Enjay said:

Smug too. He probably has a number of valid points but they are done no favours by his intentionally irreverent, "entertaining" and self congratulatory presentation style. I'd no sooner listen to him than a homeopath.

Scientific reasoning IS smug, I live and work surrounded by scientists and I've done the same all my life. It is the right thing to do, because science is perceived as non-relevant to daily life and dry-ass boring, when in fact it allows people to understand to a reasonably degree everything that happens around it.

Not to mention he is so fucking right it hurts, there is NO WAY one can do or attend a presentation about this without laughing your ass off. One can argue about solipsism or the scientific paradigm shifts of old, but the truth is, homeopathy follows none of the chemical models we adopted over the course of History. It simply does not comply with observation and human curiosity. Its effects have already been shown by a medical study to not surpass placebo in randomized doubly-blind tests, but truth be told, it should never have come to the point where a statistical report needs be conjured.

Homeopathy is a travesty, repeating "the process" some billion times more beyond the solar system's big vat of water probably exceeds a dillution of one atom per Universe, that's *nothing*. Basically, by breathing the moisture of the air you're getting the most potent of homeopathic "medicine", an aetherial breath of Univex, powerful against every single illness and ailment, at the most powerful dillution possible.

[Enjay]

Well, to me smug implies superiority and a patronising, self-congratulatory attitude. And that's how he seemed to me. He came across as being bloody superior and supercilious - not just to the people he was talking about but those he was talking to as well. In a very short space of time I wanted to punch him on the nose.

As for him being entertaining - I intentionally used the word in quotes to indicate that I found him pretty bloody far from entertaining.

What's more, a number of his arguments were intentionally set up to ridicule and entertain, were quite facetious and lacking in substance or supporting argument. His points may have been right but the way he presented some of them would not actually hold up to the level of scrutiny he professes to apply to the subject he is investigating.

To me he is no less of a shallow side-show entertainer than the snake-oil salesmen, the modern counterparts of whom he has set himself up to ridicule. I can quite happily listen to a well put case against anything, but this was a stand-up routine, not a serious exposé of homeopathy.

As for science I didn't see anything desperately scientific in his presentation. He did a lot of exposing how unscientific the homeopaths are but he didn't demonstrate much scientific vigour himself. Too busy making with the funnies instead.

[Snarboo]

There's no point being scientific when the subject you're dealing with can be debunked with simple, common reasoning. Something the majority of people out there lack, which is why we need people like him to point out the obvious. Everything he said about homeopathy is true. Anyone can do the simple research he has and shown that it is wrong.

He's also not the one making the claims of efficacy, homeopaths are. It shouldn't be his job to show us how ridiculous it is or to prove it wrong. It should be the homeopaths backing up their claims with credible research and science. Yet here we are.

Whether or not he is acting smug about the issue is of little relevance.

[Texas Libra]

Of course, who's to say the "research" against homeopathy isn't made up just to keep the pharmaceutical (sp?) industry in business and scare people into thinking that the only way to "cure" diseases is to pay loads of money on artificial remedies that only treat the symptoms and not the cause and probably make your problems worse?

Maybe you should try reading one of Kevin Trudeau's books.

EDIT: Hold on a second...maybe I'm thinking of the wrong subject...I'm not quite sure what's meant by "homeopathy".

Still, when it comes to books supporting the other side of the coin, I still suggest the companion book to "What The BLEEP Do We Know?"

EDIT 2: After seeing only up to the point where he says "You don't have to use natural means blah blah blah", My original post still stands. I think this guy's full of it and is only using the swindlers as evidence that all natural cures are bogus. Well, that's both jumping to conclusions and guilt by association. Natural cures do work, my own mother is an amateur apothecary. What you need to watch out for ARE the swindlers. Ironically, a real natural cure that works won't cost you an arm and a leg. The reason for that? Natural cures can't be pantented, and that's why suit-and-tie, elite dipshits like this guy go after the natural remedies and use "evidence" against them so they can keep legally robbing us by making us pay an arm and a leg for the poisonous chemicals known as pharmaceuticals that they hold stock in.

Hell, he mentions chloride as a simpler, safer chemical. CHLORINE FUCKING KILLS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In any mix!

[Snarboo]

Texas Libra said:

Maybe you should try reading one of Kevin Trudeau's books.

I would, if he was a valid alternative. His claims have been disproven too, he has been charged with fraud by the FCC and isn't supposed to make any claims or advertisements on television. He's just a money grubbing liar preying on people's insecurities just as homeopaths are. Didn't you watch the entire video? Did you see the part at the end where Randi mentions how homeopaths are using public hysteria over terrorism as a means of peddling their products?

And can you honestly believe that a highly diluted solution that is 99.9999999...% water, with the chance of even a single molecule of the supposed cure being as small as one in two-hundred billion is supposed to have any effect? They also claim in order to cure a disease you use an item that causes similar symptoms! Remember the part with the sleeping pills and how the main ingrediant was caffeine?! That doesn't make any sense! In effect, they claim in order to cure a disease such as, oh, AIDS, you give them more of it, or something that causes the exact same problems. Ridiculous.

[Graf Zahl]

Some people here seem to fall for the biggest and loudest idiots imaginable.

Just pathetic.

At least Enjay makes some sense...

[Snarboo]

Texas Libra said:

Hell, he mentions chloride as a simpler, safer chemical. CHLORINE FUCKING KILLS YOU! In any mix!

Apparently you've never heard of SODIUM CHLORIDE, or table salt. Two deadly chemicals, when combined, form a beneficial mixture in that case. The original properties of a chemical or element do not always stay the same when combined. Chemistry is more complex than that. Water is the combination of two gases as an example.

Also, he was not speaking out against natural cures. I don't think anyone here is doing that. Honey, for instance, can be used as a natural antiseptic. It also boosts the immune system.

He was speaking out about HOMEOPATHIC cures, a completely different beast. Pay more attention to the video. The only time he mentions natural vs chemical is when he's talking about Perisalsis(sp?). He even jokes about people using powerful poisons as "cures" hundreds of years ago. We know better now, medicine has more science behind it.

[Zaldron]

Enjay said:

...

So you're part of the Armchar Apathy league, whatever.

As for science I didn't see anything desperately scientific in his presentation. He did a lot of exposing how unscientific the homeopaths are but he didn't demonstrate much scientific vigour himself. Too busy making with the funnies instead.

You only need simple math, Avogrado's number and not even the most up to date chemical model to disprove Homeopathy. Knowledge beyond age 16 is not required. There is no Science more elegant than that.

[Graf Zahl]

Yeah, and the science of economy tells me clearly that modern medicine has a lot more money behind it.

[fraggle]

[Zaldron]

Graf Zahl said:

Yeah, and the science of economy tells me clearly that modern medicine has a lot more money behind it.

Yes, the evil bastards.

Look, yeah, they overprice medicine that would straighten up Africa by 30000% and whatnot, but to suggest the compounds catalogued in a vademecum are worthless just reeks of idiocy.

Pharmaceuticals do not just chug pills into the mouths of unsuspecting ill people. There's actually millions of caring doctors, with a passion for what they do and what it entails that sincerely hope to fix people, and will look into what actually works. There's evidence, hard evidence, redundant evidence at that, and if that doesn't convince give these laboratories some credit: they are not idiots, and are very aware the best way to make money is to actually deliver a useful product. That's why there is so much money behind modern medicine. It's not shoot and miss anymore.

[Lüt]

I think the main gripe with the industry is that they patch symptoms rather than target sources, perscribing people pills for the rest of their lives when proper diet or other physical maintenance is all that's really required. Good intentions don't enter into it.

[Scuba Steve]

<Guy> I've got a degree in Homeopathic Medicine!
<Intercom> You've got a degree in baloney!