[Closed] Homeopaths and a drug that has an effect

The more I think about this, the more I'm thinking that the IT industry is a good analogy.

We have the first line techs who deal with day to day problems; password resets, PCs not powering up, phones that won't log in. If something system-wide breaks out they'll escalate the call to second line who might deal with an email server being down or some such. Second line might diagnose database corruption so pass it to a SQL specialist who will fix the database.

Later on it comes to light that this problem keeps occurring. That would then come to someone who can look at the bigger picture and work out that actually the reason the database keeps going south is due to a faulty motherboard or a badly configured backup job (this is essentially what I do). Once diagnosed, it'd then go to a hardware specialist or a telephony expert with the specific skillset to actually fix it.

In the medical world we still have those specialists, the people who know their area of expertise backwards. But the first / second / third line GP structure just doesn't exist. You'd just have to keep logging tickets until you happened to get an engineer with the wherewithall to go "hang on a minute, there's something more complicated going on here."

And of course, sometimes what people need is Customer Services, someone to go "there there, I know it's difficult but it'll get better soon." And for those cases we have complimentary "medicine."

You're suggesting that complimentary therapists tell people to turn it off an back on again?

great post.
probably just placebo effect

I can see the NHS adopting the same approach for 'complex' cases as being ultimately better for the patient and cheaper for the NHS?

Hence all the drive for 'proactive care' etc etc...

Anyways..

I'm off home.

Ski ya..

DrP

aracer:

You snipped my second sentence c.g. - in that case I am confused why you apparently seem to support a post which in the context of the rest of this thread would appear to be supportive of homeopathy, a practice which relies on obfuscation rather than knowledge.

I've never been to a homeopath so unable to comment, have you been to one? I would however say that there are knowledgeable alternative health practitioners.

That's almost certainly true. I don't doubt that there are knowledgeable scam artists, ghost hunters, fortune tellers, astrologers, mind readers and spirit mediums either.

Yawn... I really do try to avoid these posts, but like a lemming to the cliff

Closed minded people are fools 🙄

It's not closed mindedness- most people would be open to have their minds changed by any argument in favour of homeopathy that wasn't absolute [i]pish[/i]. But considering that its proponents can't even decide how it works between themselves, they're not really likely to convince anyone else.

Even cynics mostly accept homeopathy as a good placebo. Course, medicating with placebos is a bit morally ambiguous but something with no active ingredients in it is less harmful than some actual medicine.

Closed minded people are fools

They are indeed.

But not nearly as foolish as people whose minds are so open that they let any old nonsense in without any attempt at critical thinking.

But not nearly as foolish as people whose minds are so open that they let any old nonsense in without any attempt at critical thinking.

Anyone in particular Graham?

😉

I have a list.

Bet you're not the only one either!

Closed minded people are fools

Closed minded people are fools

You're confusing "closed minded" with "critical thinking." Don't feel bad, it's a common misapprehension amongst those who lack the latter.

There are of course exceptions but most scientifically-minded people are open-minded, they kind of have to be by definition. That's how science works, y'see, by people inviting others to prove them wrong.

If you aren't doing that, if you aren't taking on board what is being presented and analysing its merit but instead resorting to ad hominem comments because it's the best you've got, then you don't have an "open mind," rather you've made up your mind and simply don't like it when people disagree with you. Somewhat ironically, you could say this is pretty closed-minded thinking.

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For all the naysayers on this thread, it would't harm you to spend some time digesting the facts laid out here:

http://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com

[quote=cinnamon_girl ]I've never been to a homeopath so unable to comment, have you been to one? I would however say that there are knowledgeable alternative health practitioners.

No, and I've never been to a witch doctor, or an alchemist either. Yes there probably are knowledgeable alternative health practitioners (depending on your definition of alternative - see steve's post just above), but they're not the ones claiming water has memory (though it's worse than that - currently reading Ben Goldacre's book, and he points out that they also expect you to believe that the water transfers it's memories to the sugar).