http://www.smh.com.au/national/parents-guilty-of-manslaughter-over-daughters-eczema-death-20090605-bxvx.html?page=-1

Might faith in what they believe be factors to be included in their reported results.

I will repeat this for those who might not want to hear it again, double blind studies are not done with radioactivity. A rock is not a rock unless it has the specifics about where it came from attached to it. How homeopathic is that?

What strikes me about homeopathy is that it makes no sense, in theory, for the reasons stated in the post. Then, on top of that, their don’t seem to be any convincing double-blind studies that give us any confidence in homeopathy (and those who advocate it don’t seem to be motivated to run them).

The shaky studies allegedly showing that homeopathy works are done by those advocating homeopathy. When those not pushing homeopathy run double-blind studies, they repeatedly show nothing greater than the placebo effect.

I’d like to say that I choose to rely on credible experts, but then that invites the issue of how to choose an expert. It raises allegations that scientists who work with the scientific/medical establishment are incapable of keeping open minds. Among the lay people, it boils down to how to choose an expert we trust, in a world where SO many experts have sold out. Hence, there doesn’t seem to be any way for either side to convince the other (even though, regarding homeopathy, I would prefer those with higher standing among the scientists who do this sort of work, as evidenced by substantial track records of peer reviewed work).

We are always warned about how unreliable is the information available on the internet. I know that Wikipedia is not The Encyclopedia Britannica, but in general has the quality of information on the web gotten better or worse or just about the same?

Further, is the information in the tons and tons of printed books now gathering dust on library shelves around the world any more reliable? There seems to be plenty of misinformation to be found wherever you look.

Didn’t mean to hijack this conversation. Erich, if you think this would be more appropriate as its own post let me know. This surely isn’t the only thread that uses links to bolster an argument but it struck me that both sides seem to have “documented” evidence in the form of a web page of some kind which contradict each other. Logically, half of them have to be wrong.

The arguments homeopaths use to support their beliefs would earn an F in a Logic 101 course. Here are just a few taken from “Presenting 50 Facts About Homeopathy” by Louise Mclean.

Hippocrates said there was a law of similars. [Hippocrates also said all illness was due to an imbalance of the four humors.]
Homeopathic provings are a more scientific method of testing than the orthodox model. [If you say something totally false often enough, someone might start to belief it.]
There are more than 4000 homeopathic remedies. [None of which work]
The exact substance in a homeopathic remedy is known, unlike most modern drugs where we are rarely informed of the ingredients. [What? We are informed if we know how to read!]
Homeopaths treat genetic illness, tracing its origins to six main genetic causes: Tuberculosis, Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Psora (scabies), Cancer, Leprosy. [Geneticists would be surprised to hear this.]
Homeopathy got better results than conventional treatment in epidemics of cholera and typhoid in the 19th century. [Only because 19th century conventional treatment did more harm than good. Today’s conventional medicine is a bit more effective.]
Lots of people believe in homeopathy. [Lots of people believe in ghosts and angels, but that doesn’t make them real.]
Big Pharma doesn’t want us to know how well homeopathy works. [Conspiracy theories are alive and well.]
Queen Elizabeth never travels anywhere without her homeopathic vials of medicine. [And Madonna uses Kabbalah water.]

Arguments like these just highlight the intellectual bankruptcy of the homeopathic belief system. They would love to find scientific validation, but they reject science when it doesn’t support them.

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-01-14.html#feature

Now here is the twist: one group gets the real homeopathy pills they were prescribed (whatever they were), and the patients in the other group are given fake sugar pills. Crucially, neither the patients, nor the people who meet them in the trial, know who is getting which treatment.

This trial has been done, time and time again, with homeopathy, and when you do a trial like this, you find, overall, that the people getting the placebo sugar pills do just as well as those getting the real, posh, expensive, technical, magical homeopathy pills.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/nov/16/sciencenews.g2