Talk:Homeopathy

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The Lead

sorry to have 'hit and run' a bit with my editing above - but I still feel that the suggestions at Talk:Homeopathy/Lead are better than the lead we currently have... will try and work some of the suggestions above into the sandbox - and also try and merge the two suggested versions, with a view to replacing the lead before too long - I'm afraid I consider the current version rather weak. Privatemusings (talk) 08:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and I am looking forward to getting a new, more concise lede here. --Hans Adler (talk) 17:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The book Snake Oil and the debate about Fundamental principles

In the book snake Oil [1] there is a foreword written by Richard Dawkins. In the foreword Dawkins says that homeopathy defies fundamental scientific principles. I don’t have access to book so if anyone has the book it would be very helpful if you could take a look in the foreword and quote the few lines from Dawkins where he mentions homeopathy. (I know that the book is POV-pushing. However the quote is from the foreword and I think that the claims by Dawkins could be accepted as a reasonably RS.) MaxPont (talk) 08:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

It can be found here. Brunton (talk) 10:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

It might make sense to include such a statement if it is attributed to Dawkins and we don't give the impression that we embrace it. But the sweeping statement that "homeopathy defies fundamental scientific principles" is over the top. Similarly to the incorrect claim in the current arbitration that "homeopathy can be uncontroversially described as pseudoscience according to academic consensus" this is not based on fact, and the strong belief in such claims is probably a result of confirmation bias. There are fringe and pseudoscience topics that are so bizarre and unimportant that nobody bothers to debunk them, but homeopathy too notable to be considered one of them.

"Homeopathy" does not "defy fundamental scientific principles". For instance it is plausible that due in part to homeopathy's scientifically unplausible claims and structural similarities to religion and magic, homeopathic placebos are much more effective than conventional placebos. As far as I know there were some old (probably biased, because this kind of thing is awfully hard to get right) studies proving exactly that, and while some recent studies suggest that the placebo effect in general is much less than scientists believed until recently, I can see no reason 1) why these new studies should apply to homeopathy as well (where it's nearly impossible to test if we assume that most homeopathic remedies are placebos for all intents and purposes), or 2) why they should apply to the placebo effect of physicians in the 1950s as well as the modern physicians who were tested. Modern physicians generally have less time for their patients and presumably less interpersonal skills than their predecessors, who often had only the placebo effect to rely on and healed a lot of people anyway. And, of course, their patients really trusted them because they had phantastic new tools, like antibiotics!

I got an edit conflict with a link to the foreword. After a quick glance at it I would say that Dawkins completely ignores the points I mentioned. One could say that he shares with the author of the book a strong belief that the only thing that counts in medicine is the purely mechanic aspects of healing. In this mindset spontaneous remission is a big nuisance that must be prevented rather than encouraged. Our article about Richard Dawkins says: "According to Dawkins, faith—belief that is not based on evidence—is one of the world's great evils." I agree with that statement, but where applicable I apply it to scientists as well as to theologians. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:05, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Can you provide any evidence for the assertion that there are people who consider that spontaneous remission is something that should be prevented, rather than something that needs to be taken into account when assessing whether a therapy works?

As for the suggestion that the magical and religious overtones of homoeopathy might mean that homoeopathy produces a greater placebo effect than conventional treatment, I can think of at least one proponent of homoeopathy who asserts that orthodox treatments have a greater placebo effect than homoeopathy: "But the main thrust of Goldacre's argument is the role of the "placebo effect". Yes, this works. And, yes, it is without doubt present in every homeopathic intervention; but it is far more powerfully present in orthodox medical pills because they are advertised so widely in billion-dollar campaigns."[2] Brunton (talk) 11:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean my statement about spontaneous remissions literally. Here is a more moderate way of expressing the same idea: "Until recently, the placebo effect has been regarded as a nuisance effect in medical research. Indeed, its study in the context of double placebo-controlled trials has given the mistaken impression that it is a fixed quantity in the clinical situation. However, in the surgery, the placebo effect becomes the healing effect of the doctor, which will vary according to his skills and which may extend beyond simple good common sense and oldfashioned bedside manners." That's from a 1999 discussion paper (so not really scientific) in the British Journal of General Practice. [3] Modern medicine doesn't want to withhold the placebo effect from patients any more than patriarchal societies want to withhold self-determination from women or modern societies want to withhold a sheltered childhood from their children. It's collateral damage.

Of course most homeopaths won't agree with what I said, although I guess most wouldn't go as far as the one you quoted. I wouldn't go to a homeopath who thinks he is administering placebos. But if I ever get seriously ill I will at least consider going to a homeopath who believes in what he is doing. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:59, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

We're drifting a bit off-topic here, but "modern medicine" doesn't withhold the placebo effect from patients. The only way for it to do this would be to convince the patients that "modern medicine" doesn't work, and I don't think it even tries to do this. The question of "collateral damage" doesn't arise. The source you've cited merely describes it as something that needs to be taken into account in medical research, not something that needs to be eradicated from medical practice. Brunton (talk) 12:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

You are right, we are drifting off-topic, so perhaps we should stop (in which case you are wolcome to the last word) or continue elsewhere. But I think the fact that we are in a discussion on the merits now, where both sides can see that the other's position is at least plausible (or are you just being polite?), shows that MaxPont's blanket statement about "homeopathy", which is easily read as referring to the therapy form, rather than to homeopathist's beliefs is problematic. However, the entire question seems moot anyway; at least I couldn't find any succinct statement about homeopathy in the foreword. Just a lengthy discussion explaining double blind placebo studies to the layman and a claim that homeopaths are not trying to prove the water memory effect because they don't believe in it. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:04, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Brunton, the quote is: "After all, if the double-blind trials of patient treatments came out reliably and repeatably positive, he would win a Nobel Prize not only in Medicine but in Physics as well. He would have discovered a brand-new principle of physics, perhaps a new fundamental force in the universe." I don't know if it was that good. MaxPont (talk) 20:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

There's actually quite a lot of sources for that:

• [John Maddox] (1988). "When to believe the unbelievable". Nature 333 (6176): 787. doi:10.1038/333787a0 - points out several ways in which claims that dilutions beyond the Avorgado limit violate fundamental principles of Chemistry.

We've been through this one before, too. (Talk:Homeopathy/Archive 35#Basic understanding) The only "fundamental scientific principle" that he mentions is the law of mass action, and that was in a rhetorical question. Not all the editors found that statement to be such a good source, either. --Art Carlson (talk) 20:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• The Lancet, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(86)91055-X Says Homeopathy is "absurd" and "wishful thinking", and specifically says that its claims about dilutions above the Avogadro number are one of the major reasons for belief in it being delusional.
• And, of course, that old standby position paper by the Lancet, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)67149-8, which says Homeopathy is thoroughly debunked. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

This editorial says homeopathy has been shown not to work ("150 years of unfavourable findings"), which is not the same as saying it "defies fundamental scientific principles". There are lots of things that don't defy fundamental scientific principles, but still don't work. But anyway, what's your point? We don't have that language in the article anymore. Are you suggesting we should put it back? Or are you just talking? --Art Carlson (talk) 08:13, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

So, you are still trying to cram even more wholly negative stuff into this article, then? These points have already been covered very adequately in the article as it stands. Why go even further? Don't you think this article is sufficiently negative about homeopathy already? That book by John Diamond, Snake Oil, is only reputable to the most way out anti alt med types, skeptics and folks like that. You should read his insane ramblings from the 90s in The Daily Mail; even weirder and more histrionic. It is hardly a reputable source. IMO. God knows what Nigella Lawson saw in him. Peter morrell 18:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I thought this was more about sourcing material already there. That "diametrically opposed to modern phramecutical practice" was always pretty weakly sourced, and we could do a lot better with something else. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, they were talking of the Richard Dawkin's foreword and not of the book itself --Enric Naval (talk) 01:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I actually agreee with Peter Morell that there is too much negative stuff in the article and would gladly see some of it be reomoved. The way to satisfy both sides would be to insert something about "defy fundamental principles" from a reputable RS and then leave it to the readers to come to their own conclusions. MaxPont (talk) 07:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

• I have been following the discussions on this Page for sometime now. I wonder why this article on Homeopathy is so critical while all the other articles on Alternative Medicines are not.
• The 'introduction', more importantly, seems to be a bit too long--Homoeopath (talk) 10:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, there's a lot of bad, not-NPOV articles on other alternative medicines, and it's going to take a long time for Wikipedia to fix this. That doesn't mean we should rush to break this article. And, MaxPont, I'm afraid I didn't see Peter morrell saying negative things should be removed, only that no new negative material should be added. I might be able to agree with the latter (presuming we don't add new sections or something similar), but not the former. At this point, what we need to do is get things better sourced, and begin moving towards FA. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

11 May reverts

I have reverted a pile of undiscussed edits until they are discussed here first as per established policy on this article. thanks Peter morrell 09:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

For people to see what reverts were done and discuss if necessary: combined diff of reverts --Enric Naval (talk) 16:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

All you and your shoemaking friend have to do is propose the changes and say why they are needed...or is consensus a dirty word with you two? Edit wars have repeatedly resulted from exactly that type of behaviour: undiscussed unnegotiated edits with non-explanatory edit summaries. Peter morrell 17:05, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

What the heck are you talking about, Peter :P I regularly do this sort of stuff to encourage discussion of edits on talk pages, often with edits done by anonymous editors on IPs. I had nothing to do at all with the edits themselves or with its discussion --Enric Naval (talk) 22:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I am guessing that what provoked Peter is that you linked to the "combined diff of reverts", when it would have been more natural to link to the [diff of Shoemaker's undiscussed changes] – the exact opposite. Linking (only) to the reverts makes it look as if the reverts were the problem, when the real problem was Shoemaker's use of the BRD method for a controversial change to an article where this is likely to cause disruption. I am also guessing that you didn't pay attention to this very fine point and that you consequently don't understand why Peter is "counterattacking" you. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Right. The section on Shang's metaanalysis had expanded into a coatrack, using obscure and biased sources in such a way to make it appear that the response to Shang was wholly negative. I removed it as such.

Also, since we can't use the same paper in the lead that was being used there, I replaced the quote from it with a quick summary of Maddox's editorial from Nature (a much higher-impact journal). This all basically boils down to WP:UNDUE - the reaction to the shang pasper was being made to look wholly critical, but the only sources were the head of the societ of homeopaths and a piece in a very obscure journal. That's just not on.

Anyway, I'd have thought you'd have liked the changes to the lead. They specifically set out the scope as the higher dilutions, instead of treating all homeopathy as such. Frankly, I'd find studies of, say, a 6X dilution having a pharmacological effect as believable. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:23, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

You and your sidekick have still not explained this change you made to the article yesterday: Claims that these could still have a pharmacological effect greater than placebo violate, among other things, the Law of Mass Action, a fundamental principle of chemistry. what other things are you on about o, tag team of two? Peter morrell 05:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Have a read of the Nature editorial being referenced. It says there are many things that high dilution causes problems with, then gives the Law of Mass Action as a detailed example. Speculating what other things that the Nature editorialists might have written would be OR, but they were very clear that the example given was one of many possible ones. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 05:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Place the answer here then, or revert the unwarranted edit. Peter morrell 05:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but if the RS says the example is one of many possible, waht's wrong with saying that it's one example of many possible? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 05:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I take it then that you do not know and the edit will be reverted as it is clearly unwarranted. Peter morrell 05:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you want a concrete example, how about Atomic theory? Methodological naturalism, perhaps? But this is completely and totally OR. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Shang

The section on Shang's metaanalysis had expanded into a coatrack, using obscure and biased sources in such a way to make it appear that the response to Shang was wholly negative. I removed it as such.

Also, since we can't use the paper in the lead that was being used there, I replaced the comment from it with a quick summary of Maddox's editorial from Nature (a much higher-impact journal) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:05, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Well OK but you should discuss things first before making savage edits without prior notice. This has been the establishe dprocedure for a long time now. It is designed to win consensus and so head off edit wars. Pity you can't be so positive about changes to include positive studies...every change made to this article adds yet more criticism. Why can't you add some positive stuff just for a change? Then your claim of NPOV might be a bit more believable. Peter morrell 19:10, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Derogatory and snide comments about other editors

Peter, your comments above are getting a bit over the top. Try to limit your comments to the issues and subjects rather than including snide and derogatory comments about other editors. It would sure help the editing environment. Your comments are uncollaborative and are violations of WP:NPA and WP:AGF. You should be above this kind of behavior. Please do what you can to make editing here more enjoyable. -- Fyslee / talk 06:01, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

See also

I have added a few 'see alsos' to the article the last one being a bit suspect, but I didn't know how to format it...it is a bunch of studies that Tim dumped on my talkpage because they were gonna be deleted: User_talk:Peter_morrell/Selection_of_studies If anyone can reformat that to make it look better then please do so. It is in such a list that folks should look to find some positive studies of homeopathy which ought to be incorporated into the article at some point. Many such studies are listed and discussed in Bill Gray's fine little book Homeopathy: Science or Myth thanks Peter morrell 08:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that we could better explain why homeopaths think they have a scientific case. At the very least, this is interesting sociology, and helps present the homeopathic views. But I'm not sure this list is the right place to work from - It's a list created by a now-banned [and I believe non-notable?] editor, and I'd rather look at statements by homeopathic organisations and take our cue from what they say and cite. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 08:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

It does not matter who put the studies together: they exist. Nor does it matter where they came from. The point is that positive studies exist and have been consistently excluded from this article by you and by others. If you are going to make any credible claim to NPOV, then some of such studies should go into the article. That is a very simple matter. But yes, you can also use those sources you mention as well; no problem with that. Whether they are RS or not is another question! But the overriding point is that the article currently probably needs a few positive studies adding in somewhere. Where they come from is not the main issue; putting them in, is. IMO Peter morrell 09:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The word Quackery means "pretence to medical or other skill" and it is offensive to call a Qualified N.D., D.O. or M.D.(Hom.) a Quack, which is what there is now in the 'introduction'.

I read on somebody's Talk Page that the sceptics here have never tried Homoeopathy and that they are just theorising it doesn't work.

Peter, I read somewhere here that 398 studies which prove Homoeopathy works have been mentioned on this Talk:Homoeopathy Page (but I couldn't find those studies), so shouldn't you and the others consider those studies and change the introduction? — Homoeopath (talk) 11:14, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Cut sentence

Meta-analyses of homeopathy, which compare the results of many studies, face difficulty in controlling for the combination of publication bias and the fact that most of these studies suffer from serious shortcomings in their methods.

This is all well and good, but I don't think it goes anywhere useful. Think it used to be followed by a description of Shang, if we're leaving that out, may as well leave this out of the lead as well. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 08:55, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you people remove Para 2, 3 & 4 from the introduction? Para 2 is only 'Criticism' anyway! —Homoeopath (talk) 11:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Notes & references

This should be the last section. If you notice a new section below, please "fix it" by moving this section back to the bottom of the page. Thankyou