McBell
mantra-chanting henotheistic snake handler
There is a difference between being "cured" and going into "remission".
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Homeopathy is bunk!
- Thread starter Autodidact
- Start date
Did not get this.
McBell
mantra-chanting henotheistic snake handler
You could be right there. As long as it does not bother me again I am fine.
Yes. I took a complete dosage of steroids for 45 days with a gradual increment/reduction in dosage as prescribed by the doctor. Yes I was trying two different treatments and one since 8 months. This particular treatment at no point of time helped me and my condition deteriorated to a point where I was having swelling in all my joints and pain that left me completely immobile except when I was on hidh dosage of painkillers.
I left allopathic treatment (except painkillers) after 4 days and recovered completely. I have not taken a single allopathic medicine since then.
If I were to say that I had recovered because of allopathic medication, it would be similar to saying that I recovered because sometime in childhood someone hit me so hard on my head and the mental effect is curing me now.
Skeptics can be skeptics and I am myself one, a big fan of James Randi, Dawkins and everyone else who ask us to think rationally and I know most rational folks would not agree with me. I have tried homeopathy twice and it cured me both times and when I had given up on allopathic medicine. I do not care if it sounds irrational, illogical or without empirical proof, nor do I care whether it helps you or not.
IMO having experienced something beats all logic.
I don't think you're a skeptic.
Rather, I don't how skeptically you approach other issues, but you haven't approached homeopathy skeptically, and I'd say that your statement "I do not care if it sounds irrational, illogical or without empirical proof" is a flat-out rejection of skepticism.
Let's look back through what you've said so far:
- you cite conventional medicine as an authority when it suits you (i.e. when it supports your claim that your condition is incurable) but then turn around and reject it when it doesn't (i.e. when it conflicts with your feelings about homeopathy). This is inconsistent.
- in a), b), and c), you jump to conclusions. Even if your homeopathic "doctor" was especially perceptive about your symptoms (though I've got more to say about that assumption below), what bearing does this have on the truth of homeopathy's claims? How does "this guy thought to ask me what colour my stool was" lead us to the conclusion "like cures like and lower concentration implies greater potency"?
- d) is a pretty good example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc ("after this, therefore because of this") logical fallacy.
And as for the emphasis you put on the special perceptiveness of your homeopathic "doctor", consider a story:
When I was a university student, just before I started going on interviews for co-op jobs, my grandmother gave me a tie. When she gave it to me, she told me about how she bought it: she went to a men's wear store near her and told the salesman that she was looking to buy a tie for her grandson. The salesman asked her a whole bunch of questions about me: what I was studying, my personality... all sorts of stuff that clothing salespeople don't usually ask. At the end of all this, he thought for a moment, and said "I have just the right tie for him!" and picked out one. My grandmother told me that she was amazed at how perceptive he was and how he was able to pick out the ideal tie for me.
Looking back on this, I think this was a bit of a game on the part of the salesperson. While I liked the tie that my grandmother got me, I don't think it especially captured my personality or field of study more than any other tie. I think it was a version of the game played by car salespeople where no matter what your situation or needs, they'll tell you that your ideal car just happens to be one that they have in their inventory right then.
I get a vibe like that from your story about your encounter with the homeopathic doctor. I have no particular reason to assume that he wasn't gaming you.
Also, I think the most fundamental lack of skepticism in your argument so far is that you think that your personal experience carries as much evidentiary weight as you're making it out to have. I mean, what if I told you about a study that supported the effectiveness of conventional medicine, but it had a study group with a size of one, no control group, and none of the normal precautions to avoid bias, such as double-blind protocols. Would you put much stock in this? I'm guessing that you probably wouldn't, but that's exactly what you're holding out to us in support of homeopathy.
I mean, a sample size of one isn't even big enough to let us calculate a standard deviation for our sample. Your story by itself doesn't even have enough information in it for us to even start considering its quality as evidence.
So...
- you haven't cared about the quality of the evidence supporting your position.
- you haven't bothered to consider alternate explanations for the evidence you have.
- you resorted to logical fallacies and jumps to conclusions to support your argument.
None of this sounds like the actions of a skeptic.
Last edited:
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
I will give it my best shot.
It's bull.
Sorry. I know that wasn't a great defence but it's the best I could do :sorry1:
Last edited by a moderator:
I would rate a personal experience higher than rationality and logic. The other folks who have not had that experience or for who my condiion is not a testament for my reason are free to not believe me and question me incase my arguments do not satisfy them.
I have already mentioned that for me a personal experience weighs higher than all empirical proof.
It would be naive to say that a), b) and c) only speaks about speak about and not about the homeopathy system. They might not be related to the dilutions that the doctor prescribed me but is just shows the deep knowledge of my disease that he had gained while studying homeopathy.
It could have happened due to multiple reasons:
a) I ate a carrot when I was 5 years.
b) I ate a carrot when I was 6 years..
c) ......
The redressal of my second attack where I only took homeopathy can also be attributed to a carrot which I ate when I was 9 years old.
He hardly had a reason to game me. I never paid him a single Rupee during the course of my treatment.
No I would not believe you and I do agree it would be very difficult for you to believe me.The only reason I trust homeopathy now is because I have had an experience. You can be a skeptic unless you have personally experienced it, but denying it after you have experienced it multiple times would be difficult. Before moving to homeopathy I was mocking homeopaths and people who believed them.
- The quality of evidence is a personal experience. Twice I had arthritis attacks and twice I took homeopathy medicine which helped me recover. Having said that you probably can have your doubts.
- I do not have any alternate explanations for the evidence. How much ever strong I think of alternate evidence I do not have any.
Then why did you say you were a skeptic? :areyoucra
That's about as far from being a skeptic as it's possible to be.
Really? I don't believe you and I question you, yet you keep on insisting on pushing the issue.
Why?
The homeopathic preparations are the core of the issue here. When the people in this thread (myself included) criticize homeopathy, they're criticizing those dilutions.
You're illustrating my point: post hoc ergo propter hoc is a fallacy. Correlation does not necessarily imply causation.
If he's trustworthy, great - I still have no way to confirm this, though. It also allows for the possibility that he was honestly mistaken.
Yes... an emotional experience. Emotion is the only difference between your personal experience and the worst-run clinical trial ever. Emotion isn't a reasonable basis for factual conclusions about medical treatments, and what evidence you've provided isn't a reasonable basis by itself either.
Yes, you do. I've given you at least two. You just choose accept the one you like best.
it would be foolish to refute homeopathy inspite of my experience with it. You are right in doing so since your reason keeps you pushing on the other side, I doubt if you have had an experience yourself you will remain on the other side.
I do not think you can separate a doctor from medicine. From Avogadro's theorem it becomes very difficult to understand those dilutions. My doctor also mentioned that with the same disease a different person will probably be getting a different treatment depending upon his physiologiical, mental and emotional state. This also is a difficult thing to reconcile with
I can clearly correlate the two attacks and their remedy. The problem I have generally seen with post hoc argument is that it gets incorrectly applied without knowing the exact circumstances just to prove a point, which I see happening here.
Yes it does. But the doctor has been right more than once. The possibility of honest mistake for me is less for two reasons:
a) The long duration of treatment where my condition improved gradually.
b) The recurrence of the disease and its remedy thereof.
I never said it is an emotional experience, I have always maintained that it was a personal experience. I have never been driven by emotion even once and I do not have a reason to promote homeopathy other than my cure itself.
Frankly this is to the extent that I can go with argument and I do agree that homeopathy lacks in empirical evidence. Further some aspects of homeopathy
a) the dilutions and
b) not a standard treatment for a standard disease
makes it highly vulnerable to interpretation or the doctor's expertise. At a certain level it might appear like religious hocus pocus. The only reason I moved towards homeopathy is because I did no find a remedy for my disease (RA) and it worsened with the day. My further consultations with allopathic doctors (post disease) claered that the allopathic medicine does not have a remedy for RA and can at best be a support system. Homeopathy did help me here not once but twice and I have been off drugs since last few years and between the two attacks.
Should someone give homeopathy a try: I think it is a personal choice, the reason I moved to homeopathy was I did not see an alternative. Would I continue with homepathy, yes, I have found it effective.
InsurgoInsurgiInsurrect
Member
By all means. Homeopathy is always water and its actual effect is in the placebo effect. State your personal experience but it is quite meaningless scientifically.
We need to be able to SHOW a repeatable and demonstrative test of the benefits and the placebo and nocebo effect beat the homeopathic test so congratulations and glad it all worked out but so do cancer patients that go into spontaneous remission. We can't not treat cancer patients with what science best tells us we should because there is a chance that if they just drink water and think its medicine they will go into spontaneous remission. I mean we could but it doesn't seem very ethical.
I am not going to argue the water thingy as it clearly had Avogadro sitting behind. There have been some nano particle studies of late but I would not argue from that end as I do not understand them.
Placebo is generally a situation where an inert drug is administered to a patient with the patient being unaware that the drug is inert. In my case I was totally aware of homeopathy and I did not trust it at all to begin, for that matter I completely trusted allopathic and inspite of consuming it for 8 months I did not see any placebo/real effect.
Since I have had my positive experience with homeopathy, I cannot discount it. Was it placebo of a different kind where I did not trust the medicine and it worked, I dont know. It did help me repeatedly afterwards, now that I trusted it could be a different placebo.
Would I recommend it: No, unless you have given a shot to the regular medicine and had no improvements and also since the medication appears very subjective.
ratikala
Istha gosthi
dear all ,
the most wonderfull thing about homeopathy is that I have more faith in it than in conventional medicine , as conventional medicine is too heavy on the system with too many side effects , ok there are times when it might be needed , but unless there is sufficient an emergency and there is no other choice ....so best save it for those occasions !
personaly I have used homeopathy so many times in preference to conventional medicine and it has never let me down , worst can happen is that if it is not working one needs to change the remedy as it relys so much on person type or general state .
but there are times when that allso happens with conventional medicines !!!
ok at present science cant prove it , or for that matter dissprove it !
but , hey guys science is still in its infancy !
you know once upon a time people belived that the earth was flat !
the most wonderfull thing about homeopathy is that I have more faith in it than in conventional medicine , as conventional medicine is too heavy on the system with too many side effects , ok there are times when it might be needed , but unless there is sufficient an emergency and there is no other choice ....so best save it for those occasions !
personaly I have used homeopathy so many times in preference to conventional medicine and it has never let me down , worst can happen is that if it is not working one needs to change the remedy as it relys so much on person type or general state .
but there are times when that allso happens with conventional medicines !!!
ok at present science cant prove it , or for that matter dissprove it !
but , hey guys science is still in its infancy !
you know once upon a time people belived that the earth was flat !
McBell
mantra-chanting henotheistic snake handler
You do know that it was science that figured out the earth was round, right?
Do you know what they call alternative medicine that actually works?
ratikala
Istha gosthi
who me ???
ha ha , ...... I had allways put it down to the ancient astronomers ???
and again ...ha ha , ......I didnt call homeopathy alternative medicine !!!
I called it homeopathy it is a medicine in its own right ,
it is simply the new fangled comercial medical sector that conciders it self main streem , and the comercial sector that dubbs many of the older medicines as alternative !!!:yes:
McBell
mantra-chanting henotheistic snake handler
Yes, astronomers.who me ???
ha ha , ...... I had allways put it down to the ancient astronomers ???
Not astrologists.
Like I said, science, not pseudoscience.
I did notice you did not answer the question....and again ...ha ha , ......I didnt call homeopathy alternative medicine !!!
I called it homeopathy it is a medicine in its own right ,
it is simply the new fangled comercial medical sector that conciders it self main streem , and the comercial sector that dubbs many of the older medicines as alternative !!!:yes:
ratikala
Istha gosthi
ha ha , so you find no fault in my thinking .... I am releived
no one mentioined astrologists ? well at least I didnt
and I said astronomers
simply because your question is prehaps a trifle ambigious , what exactly do you mean by alternative medicine ???
and by saying "that actualy works "simply sounds facetious ,
however... I did answer by saying that we are discussing homeopathy not alternative medicine .....:yes:
so if you would like me to reanswer your question .....
.....you would have to tell me who "they" are ????
because they and me , might think differently
and I canot speak for others InsurgoInsurgiInsurrect
Member
So whatever you have faith in is really irrelevant to what can be scientifically shown to work. If a person tells me they see with their own eyes a floating rocking chair I don't immediately assume they are crazy nor would they probably even jump to their own personal conclusion that because they see a floating rocking chair that there is one there.
We can establish tests and experiments to show whether there is a rocking chair there or not and prove it one way or the other. This is no way means this person is not seeing a rocking chair.
You see homeopathy as some new field that science will eventually show to be valid.
So far that is not that case but that doesn't mean you don't see it that way. It does mean that it is your opinion though and you are entitled to it.
I personally agree with James Randi, Wikipedia, "The Skeptical guide to the universe", Skeptoid, almost every scientific inquiry I have ever seen on the subject and the OP.
ratikala
Istha gosthi
dear science is all ,
science is in its infancy and is at present un able to prove the efectiveness of homeopathy , as it is allso unable to solve many questions that it is looking into .
however there are many myself included who use homeopathy and find it efective and are well on account of using it .
in that case I find science to have failed
granted that it is trying but in truth it has not accheived perfection yet .
science is in its infancy and is at present un able to prove the efectiveness of homeopathy , as it is allso unable to solve many questions that it is looking into .
however there are many myself included who use homeopathy and find it efective and are well on account of using it .
in that case I find science to have failed
granted that it is trying but in truth it has not accheived perfection yet .