Homeopathy

[generationX]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Funny you would say that. The scientific way of establishing a causality requires the temporal association of exposure preceding the event. The same argument you are giving me as "fallacy". I am not really as smart as you seem to be so please go ahead and resolve this paradox for me.

Actually the scientific way would be, in a nut shell, segregate two groups chosen at random with the target disease and dose one with a drug being investigated while dosing the other group with a placebo (water [non-homeopathic, of course], sugar pill, etc.) and compare the effects. What group gets which "treatment" should be chosen at random, and the patients and doctors conducting the trial should be (ideally) blind to which patient is receiving which treatment until all the results are in. If there is a statistically significant difference in positive outcome between the control group (the one receiving the placebo) and the test group (the one receiving the drug), with the test group experiencing better outcome than the control group, one can say the drug caused the increase in positive outcomes, pending further tests and analysis, peer review, etc.

That is a little bit different from "OMG I had this sniffle, and I took this homeopathic drug, and two days later my sniffle was GONE!!!!1!"

1) Not all problems lend themselves to experimental study design as you have just mentioned.
2) Evidence is derived from other observational studies as well, so does it automatically become non-scientific?
3)Drug trial have been done for homeopathic medicines and the results swings both ways.
4)Regardless of type of analytical framework for the study, the evidence must be produced within the broader analytical framework of Bradford Hill's criteria for establishing causality. (Google it)
5)Temporality is indispensable criteria for causality in any study design. You described the same principle which must stand true at all the time to be scientific as " Post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy. I asked you to resolve that paradox. I do not know how describing randomized controlled trials justifies your statement or answers my question. I would give you that for drug trial that is the design though.

6) As a person who understands drug trials and how its design can influence the outcome, duration being a big factor, I would take RCTs with a grain of salt. I have not read any studies that evaluated efficacy of homeopathic medicine, but I doubt the ones that denounce it were accommodating to the long duration it requires to be effective. RCTs are pretty expensive.

7) I will refrain from repeating myself about my stand as a bottomline. I am choosing my stand not because I am an unscientific person. I hope you would give me that now. I'd give you that your inquiry is in right direction but you have taken much "evidence" by faith.

BTW I am also an epidemiologist. 😀 But thanks for the crash course.

I guess the explanation shouldn't have been necessary, which makes me wonder why it was......

That was sarcasm. 😀

Boom. Roasted

How you doin'? I got warned for my comments I made in reply to your post. But it was so worth it😀. You and I should talk outside of here.

 

[MRSAful Fate]

1) Not all problems lend themselves to experimental study design as you have just mentioned.

Homeopathy lends itself quite easily to experimental study. The collective weight of all those studies have shown no efficacy, to say anything else is completely misrepresenting the facts.

A systematic review of systematic reviews of homeopathy:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1874503/?tool=pubmed

 

[Ghost22]

I go through this thread and chuckle;because there are just too many show of words and ego massage.I am not surprised cause i know nothing one says will ever convince allopathic students.

Don't worry, Osteopathic students like myself think it's crap, too.

Now, when has science become the sole parameter of measuring the effectiveness of a thing?

...wait, what!? You're asserting that the knowledge base and critical thinking that has elevated man's understanding of the world around him is to be discarded because it doesn't support quackery?

 

[scarshapedstar]

1) Not all problems lend themselves to experimental study design as you have just mentioned.

A wild religion appears. Seriously, when you start asserting that science can't address your beliefs... 🙄

It doesn't help that homeopathy makes extremely specific claims about how it's supposed to work. If you don't think that experiments can be designed to test them, that's a failure of your own imagination, not a failure of science.

 

[SpecterGT260]

1) Not all problems lend themselves to experimental study design as you have just mentioned.
2) Evidence is derived from other observational studies as well, so does it automatically become non-scientific?
3)Drug trial have been done for homeopathic medicines and the results swings both ways.
4)Regardless of type of analytical framework for the study, the evidence must be produced within the broader analytical framework of Bradford Hill's criteria for establishing causality. (Google it)
5)Temporality is indispensable criteria for causality in any study design. You described the same principle which must stand true at all the time to be scientific as " Post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy. I asked you to resolve that paradox. I do not know how describing randomized controlled trials justifies your statement or answers my question. I would give you that for drug trial that is the design though.

6) As a person who understands drug trials and how its design can influence the outcome, duration being a big factor, I would take RCTs with a grain of salt. I have not read any studies that evaluated efficacy of homeopathic medicine, but I doubt the ones that denounce it were accommodating to the long duration it requires to be effective. RCTs are pretty expensive.

7) I will refrain from repeating myself about my stand as a bottomline. I am choosing my stand not because I am an unscientific person. I hope you would give me that now. I'd give you that your inquiry is in right direction but you have taken much "evidence" by faith.





That was sarcasm. 😀




How you doin'? I got warned for my comments I made in reply to your post. But it was so worth it😀. You and I should talk outside of here.

Which reply was that? The one about my poor manhood and lack of cleavage? If you found it "worth it" there's irony in there.... Unless you get pleasure out of making a fool of yourself

 

[Longshanks]

Maybe just show the patients this.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_1L55KWasM[/YOUTUBE]

Gotta love that Mitchell & Webb look.

Found this thread via the other one in pre-allo. So I will share my story here.

At my first day at my primary care preceptorship, my preceptor strongly suggests homeopathy to a patient and then outside of the exam room tells me that "our modern medicine has only existed for 30 years. Homeopathy has been proven for millennia." My reaction shot:

 

[Sephiroth]

Gotta love that Mitchell & Webb look.

Found this thread via the other one in pre-allo. So I will share my story here.

At my first day at my primary care preceptorship, my preceptor strongly suggests homeopathy to a patient and then outside of the exam room tells me that "our modern medicine has only existed for 30 years. Homeopathy has been proven for millennia." My reaction shot:

Who was this? a primary care MD actually recommended homeopathy to a patient?!

And there was a good BBC special posted in the pre-allo thread. Bascially, if enough tests are run, there are bound to be some positives. And the kind of experiments used to test homepathy are EXTREMELY susceptible to even the slightest contamination (not to mention bias).

 

[SpecterGT260]

I guess that is evidence that admissions criteria has risen over the years 🙄

 

[Longshanks]

Who was this? a primary care MD actually recommended homeopathy to a patient?!

And there was a good BBC special posted in the pre-allo thread. Bascially, if enough tests are run, there are bound to be some positives. And the kind of experiments used to test homepathy are EXTREMELY susceptible to even the slightest contamination (not to mention bias).

Yes, a pediatrician who has been practicing for over 40 years.

 

[SpecterGT260]

How long has EBM been a core component of med school? It seems to me that only older MDs even entertain the idea... Younger people tend to go ND so they can run with a crowd of equal delusion