By ‘selling’, I refer to that happy band of brothers who actually pay for their medicines and don’t perceive them as free – making an NHS placebo about £2 more expensive than a Nelson’s one.

Marsh :JonathanI think the perceived weakness of the harm in homeopathy is something of a relatively side issue (although I do believe there is harm to be found there) – the evidence that it does good is remarkably weak.
Marsh

Well, yes, except that the argument that homeopathy does harm is repeated in most of the articles and posts from its opponents, here and elsewhere, as a kind of rhetorical knock-out blow. Without it, the case against homeopathy starts to look much weaker; and the way that skeptics discard the standards of evidence that they use to show that homeopathy is unproven when they try to demonstrate its harmfulness seems to me to undermine their credibility.

The more fundamental problem with your position is the view of science that you imply: there is a tendency, I think to ascribe to science a moral significance that it simply cannot sustain. Science can mean either knowledge (in the sense of ‘the facts’) or method (a particular means of achieving that knowledge). Knowledge is usually a good thing and scientific method is valuable, but scientific method in its strict sense cannot be the only route to knowledge, and certainly not the kind of knowledge that informs action (the best current example I can think of is the state of the economy and what is to be done about it).
Moreover, the assumption that an ‘unscientific approach to the world’ is undesirable is, I think, both wrong and unrealistic: in particular, science cannot help us to make ethical choices. Your view (that people ought to know ‘the truth’ about homeopathy) is an ethical judgement, and like all ethical judgements is based on a set of values that cannot be rooted in ‘knowledge’. That doesn’t make it (necessarily) wrong, but it does take it into a field that is ‘beyond science’. And it makes science vs, superstition a false dichotomy.

The actor Stephen Mangan in a recent interview spoke of science as ‘…. the way, the truth and the light. Not just for its beauty, its ability to deliver us from quacks and astrologers and homeopathy, its ability to illuminate the strange and wondrous place that is this universe, but also for being the gift of accumulated knowledge that mankind continues to hand down through the generations.’

That sounds to me a bit like a Skeptic’s creed: it’s fine as far as it goes, but it overlooks the fact that napalm, the Atom Bomb and global warming are products of science just as much as antibiotics, water purification and the internet.

Science is immensely helpful to humanity, but on its own it’s of limited value and even potentially dangerous; a scientific belief system is a contradiction in terms, but like it or not, we all posess belief systems and cannot function as human beings without them.

Apologies if this is unacceptably ‘off-topic’…
All the Best,
JB

I’m sure some people would scoff at the comparison between rain dances and homeopathy, but I think both are products of unscientific and superstition-based belief systems, and both arose from the natural psychological instinct to infer causality from correlation – I danced and the rain came; I took this pill and my cold went. Both have been shown to be fallacious – the rain was produced by a complex weather system; the cold was fought off by a well-developed immune system in the same period of time it would have gone anyway.

I think the harm is therefore two-fold: legitimizing an unscientific approach to the world, which in itself can lead to further mishaps (or at best can lead to no progression of human knowledge); and profiteering by the party selling the rain dance service, homeopathic pills or healing prayer. Even if you believed that prayer would heal, the evidence shows it can’t – encourage people to believe it can for profit, and you encourage them to rely on it when they need help.

Marsh

You said:
“Did I read something here that conventional medicine is a trade-off (by (Colin)? Why should it be? Why should it treat your head but gives you problem in your heart? Why should it treat your diabetes and then give you something bad elsewhere?”

Yes, unfortunately sometimes medicine is a trade-off. Not always, but sometimes. But it is not an issue of what medicine ‘should’ be, it is a case of what medicine ‘is’. Ideally, all our medicine would have no side effects, but unfortunately we don’t have enough data and knowledge to have achieved that (if it is even achievable at all). Homeopaths providing placebos doesn’t change that simple fact. If I was dying and the only known remedy would cure me but give me kidney damage for the rest of my life, I would choose it. Pointing out flaws in real medicine doesn’t grant legitamacy to pseudomedicine, it just distracts from the real issues.

You also said:
“I look at what could be used in homeopathy…Gingko Biloba!! Take for instance the latest study of Gingko Biloba. It’s been proven it does not help improve memory for Dementia and Alzheimer’s. But if this movement is to be supported, it could also mean there may not be anymore natural foods that are effective against neurological pains – of which Gingko Biloba is proven for this (very rarely do prescription drugs do a good job for easing neurological pains).”

Were these studies of Gingko Biloba or of ‘homeopathic’ Gingko Biloba? If it is the former, then this proves nothing with regard to homeopathy’s efficacy.

Also, our campaign is not against ‘natural foods’ or herbal medicines. Homeopathy is neither: it is just water. That is a strawman argument on your part, I’m afraid.

Colin.

However, that another worthy cause exists doesn’t take away the need to address the claims of the homeopathic industry. This is what were concentrating on, if someone else picks up the 3rd world battle I’m entirely on board with that. If we had the money to do so, and if we didn’t have day jobs outside of campaigning and being skeptical, we might be able to turn our attention to those huge, global, multi-national concerns. Unfortunately, we’re a non-profit organisation, no funding, voluntary-time-only, and our ability to lobby the drugs companies on this would be tiny compared to a more organised and professional charity.

We can take on the homeopathy industry, as the science behind it is non-existent, so we can argue on science – not purely on morals and ethics. It’s those areas that we’re most able to have a real effect.

http://www.docshop.com/2008/01/26/6-drugs-the-third-world-needs-but-cannot-buy/