Homeopathic Medicine: Real Science or Quackery?

[Themius]

If by loosely you mean if you completely forsake all logic and conventional meaning yes.

Homeopathy is much more akin to sticking your head in a vaccum or saying 100% distilled water cures cancer than anything homeopathy brings us to a vaccine. In order for it to be like vaccines the end result would have to have some kind of the original ingredients not some vague bs notion of its "energy".

Conventional meaning doesn't match up no. But what words mean and they're more used for don't always match up.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

I keep getting into an argument with my mother about this. She has this kind of repulsion against anything done in a controlled environment, as though it is not "natural" and that the body doesn't need that.

In fact, she tends to believe that modern medicine has better odds of making you worse.

Now, she's not extremist either - she follows medical treatments when she has to. But for everything that isn't "mandatory", she turns to homeopathy.

And it pisses me off, because not only are those products a cash grab, but they're misleading and can have an adverse effect with more official medicine.

So yeah, I think it's Quackery, evidence thinks it's Quackery and logic says it's Quackery.

[Detritivores]

Homeopathy is fake news. Next question.

Seriously. It's on a level with astrology. Except astrology isn't known for occasionally killing babies with unregulated, untested snake oils making nonsense claims...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...-families-say/

[Golden Yak]

And let me tell you, astronomy is a bunch of BS too.

[Masark]

And let me tell you, astronomy is a bunch of BS too.

You mean astrology.

Astronomy is real science.

[PosPosPos]

Not surprised that the only 6 people(as of this point) who voted it's real are posters who align extremely far off to the right.

[Nerdgasm]

Quackery.

I've even took a class on it during medschool as this bullshit is actually recognized by my country's government.

The only good thing about homeopathy is that most homeopathic clinics actually have the time to approach the patient condition systemically.

[Sargerasraider]

The supposed basis of homeopathy is so laughable that I'm surprised anyone could believe it.

Not surprised that the only 6 people(as of this point) who voted it's real are posters who align extremely far off to the right.

Ignorance transcends politics - while they may not have voted in the poll, some of the more outspoken people in the previous few pages tend to lean left.

Homeopathic definition is small doses of things that can be adverse but in small doses are believed to cure. That's literally how early vaccines were.

You obviously have no clue how vaccines work.

[Golden Yak]

[QUOTE=Masark;46681355]

Astronomy is real science.

Psh, right. Because 'stars' are 'real.' Put down the kool-aid.

[RaoBurning]

Homeopathy is based on a three key principles:

*Water has memory of what's been in it.
*Substances that cause a symptom can cure similar symptoms (i.e., cat dander can help stop an asthma attack)
*The more dilute a "remedy" is, the more potent it is.


One should be pretty obviously wrong to any layman whose water doesn't taste like fish shit. Two sounds almost like a vaccine, except homeopathic solutions don't provoke any measurable immune response—unless the dose is fucked up and contaminated, because the universe is not without humor. And three should be obviously wrong to anyone who has ever tried watered down soda/tea.

In summary: it's 100% bullshit, and the only reason it caught on is because doing nothing, which is what homeopathy amounts to, was better than feeding people mercury or lead or whatever and bleeding them, as was the custom in Sammy's time. "My friend was sick and I didn't stab him! I'm a hero!"

On a quack scale of 1-10, Homeopathic medicine is like a 9.999

Nine-point-nine repeating, of course.

[Tulune]

Bullshit.

[Themius]

The supposed basis of homeopathy is so laughable that I'm surprised anyone could believe it.



Ignorance transcends politics - while they may not have voted in the poll, some of the more outspoken people in the previous few pages tend to lean left.



You obviously have no clue how vaccines work.

You do know some vaccines use live viruses right? This fits more or less with the definition of homeopathy.

- - - Updated - - -

Homeopathy is based on a three key principles:

*Water has memory of what's been in it.
*Substances that cause a symptom can cure similar symptoms (i.e., cat dander can help stop an asthma attack)
*The more dilute a "remedy" is, the more potent it is.


One should be pretty obviously wrong to any layman whose water doesn't taste like fish shit. Two sounds almost like a vaccine, except homeopathic solutions don't provoke any measurable immune response—unless the dose is fucked up and contaminated, because the universe is not without humor. And three should be obviously wrong to anyone who has ever tried watered down soda/tea.

In summary: it's 100% bullshit, and the only reason it caught on is because doing nothing, which is what homeopathy amounts to, was better than feeding people mercury or lead or whatever and bleeding them, as was the custom in Sammy's time. "My friend was sick and I didn't stab him! I'm a hero!"



Nine-point-nine repeating, of course.

Exposing children who are allergic to peanuts small amounts of peanuts before their immune system fully matures is shown to greatly help improve or get rid of the allergy in later life. Which fits within that whole "dilute". Of course there is a proper scientific reason for why the peanut allergy thing works.

[alzoron]

If homeopthy was real then everyone would be healthy all the time. Think about it, what better dilution system is there than the Earth's water cycle?

[Bathory]

I absolutely think that there's a place for natural remedies and such outside of medication. If we're talking about putting crystals on you to cure your cancer tho, na.

[RaoBurning]

Exposing children who are allergic to peanuts small amounts of peanuts before their immune system fully matures is shown to greatly help improve or get rid of the allergy in later life. Which fits within that whole "dilute". Of course there is a proper scientific reason for why the peanut allergy thing works.

And right here you've found the difference between homeopathy and things you think kinda sound like homeopathy. You can actually count the amount of peanut proteins and not rely on water remembering that they were there via magic, so it's not homeopathic; hence the real, measurable, totally not placebo based immune response. If you took peanut oil or whatever, diluted it to about 30C (the recommended level for most treatments), and then slathered it all over the most allergic person in history, it would do fuck all beyond getting them wet. It's just basic chemistry.

For further entertaining reading: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Homeopathy

[Cosmic Janitor]

A collegue of mine swears that homeopatic stuff was the miracle cure for her horse, which would obviously greatly diminish or outright exlude a placebo effect. I remain sceptical as to the illness the horse suffered (can't even remember..) and the circumstances. In general, the sugar balls they give to kids do diddly squat. I ate a couple of bottles as a child because my mother wouldn't buy me tic-tacs, I can attest to the 0 effects these have .

Jokes aside, there is no way they can have an actual non-psychosomatic effect, especially when the supposedly curative substance has been diluted beyond actually existing in a single or even multiple doses.

[Elim Garak]

Exposing children who are allergic to peanuts small amounts of peanuts before their immune system fully matures is shown to greatly help improve or get rid of the allergy in later life. Which fits within that whole "dilute". Of course there is a proper scientific reason for why the peanut allergy thing works.

You don't know what homeopathy is. Hence why you present all these silly analogies.

Homeopathy doesn't give you a disease to cure a disease, doesn't give you a peanut to cure your peanut allergy. That is silly in Homeopathy.
Homeopathy gives you something that causes the SAME symptoms, not the DISEASE.

You don't understand the "whole dilute".

Remember how I said earlier that homeopathy gives you something?
Well scratch that. Homeopathy gives you NOTHING but water in which that something has been diluted so much that you are more likely to inhale it randomly from the air.

[PosPosPos]

Ignorance transcends politics - while they may not have voted in the poll, some of the more outspoken people in the previous few pages tend to lean left.

....like who?

You obviously have no clue how vaccines work.

He's not completely wrong though. Vaccines does, in a small part, operate on that assumption(that the dose must be small).

The difference is, vaccines also require said pathogen to be the inactive/reduced/immunogenic version at least. Homeopathy operates on similar assumptions, except in doses so small it may as well not exist. And even if the dosage is high enough, it may not even be the cure to the ailment.

Also, homeopathy stems from the principle that "like cures like", which is similar to vaccinations.

[Ravenblade]

There's actually a political debate here about whether to forego Latin descriptions on homeopathic supplements and instead use the German translation of it. The hope is people wake up that something with fat label saying "diluted dog excrements" may deter more people of buying There is hope that it does because excrements coated with sugar shouldn't be funded by health insurance.

[Elim Garak]

Homeopathy and other quackery in a nutshell: