Why is Homeopathy such a crap?

Well, I am feeling a bit weak today, so much work, or perhaps my new-born baby is making me sleep lot less than before, maybe I should stop by the homeopathic pharmacy, they must have something that could help me more than conventional medicine, after all, all those big pharmaceutical companies are just after my money, and homeopathy is nature right? I hear my grandpa saying it could even cure cancer, so I guess a tiny headache should be no challenge for this amazing natural science........... except of course, we are not talking about science at all but rather about pseudo-science. Actually of all the stupid "alternative medicine" (as if that term would hold any validity) homeopathy is in the number one stupidity-spot for the majority of REAL conventional medicine practitioners. You might say I am too harsh on the term, after all, what harm could it do to anyone right? Well, actually there are more implications than what you might think.

But let's give a bit of background as always. Homeopathy was first formulated at the end of the 1700s by a German physician named Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843). The word "homeopathy" comes from the Greek "homoios" (similar) and "pathos" (suffering or disease). Hahnemann was concerned about the medical practices of his time which were in turn doing more harm than good. These practices included bloodletting, bleeching, purging, etc. He thought those treatments were intended to balance the body "humors" by inducing opposite effects, so he came up with the idea of a "law" called the "law of similars". The idea was basically that any disease could be cured by administering extremely small amounts of substances that produce similar symptoms in healthy people when administered in larger amounts.

Hahnemann and his early followers carried out a series of "studies" where they administered to themselves and to other healthy people different herbs, minerals, etc, and took notes of the effects produced. Hahnemann believed that diseases were only obstructing the body's own capabilities to heal itself and that with only small stimulus a healing process could be started. He also claimed that chronic diseases were manifestations of a suppressed itch (psora), which meant a form of evil spirit. This already starts sounding like no-sense to me, but there is more.

He began by using smaller amounts of accepted medications until he started diluting substances massively thinking that the more diluted, the bigger the effect, which is of course a non sequitur. These logical fallacy is called the "law of infinitesimals" and goes against everything scientific medicine has demonstrated.

Homeopathic remedies do not come from modern scientific testing but rather from old (1800s) "provings" of thousands of substances that do not even identify themselves with particular symptoms or diseases, that is decided by the homeopath or manufacturer. Substances can be sometimes sooooo diluted that what they are basically giving you is water, along with the magical natural-remedy idea, something like a placebo. For instance, there are substances labeled as 30X. This means that the original substance has been diluted 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. Assuming that a cubic centimeter of water contains 15 drops, this number is greater than the number of drops of water that would fill a container more than 50 times the size of the Earth (www.quackwatch.org). Does this really sound logic?

Homeopathy worked well back then because it was actually less dangerous than the medical prescriptions of the time. As medical science advance, more and more people started abandoning the idea until almost 100 years ago, the last Homeopathy school closed its doors in the U.S.

Moreover, there is something practitioners called "constitutional remedy" which is even more stupid than what mentioned earlier. This is an idea that works a bit like Astrology. The difference here is, we are talking about your health, not about how you think your week will develop love wise according to your horoscope. So this is in practice more alarming than Astrology. But let's go forward. So the idea is that certain remedies will work better with certain people, depending on your personality, physical features such as hair color...(??). There is for example a type of people called the "Sulfur Type" who are very independent people....? Yep, that's how they base the kind of treatment you should get, very reliable in deed.

Going back to the dilution problem, there are certain rules in chemistry that said that when a certain limit is exceeded, the dilution has lost its properties regarding the original substance, this corresponds to homeopathic dilutions of 12C or 24X (1 part in 10²⁴). Hahnemann himself realized that there is virtually no chance that even one molecule of original substance would remain after extreme dilutions. But he believed that the vigorous shaking or pulverizing with each step of dilution leaves behind a "spirit-like" essence—"no longer perceptible to the senses"—which cures by reviving the body's "vital force." Modern proponents assert that even when the last molecule is gone, a "memory" of the substance is retained. This notion is unsubstantiated. Moreover, if it were true, every substance encountered by a molecule of water might imprint an "essence" that could exert powerful (and unpredictable) medicinal effects when ingested by a person (www.quackcast.com).

There are plenty of other equally stupid examples regarding this practice, but I guess these are good enough. The scientific community is trying to eliminate this non-sense and potentially harmful practice by means of law, but perhaps starting from education could be a first step, because as I will talk on my next post, what we do as a society is vastly influenced by our environments, is important to start at the individual level. The problem with this pseudo-science practices is that they have become beliefs for plenty of people, and as I have exposed before, beliefs are hard to let go because it exposes our ignorance and therefore directly touches on the sensitive fibers of human ego and our and conceit. But once we learn that accepting our ignorance is a liberating step, not only do this process is made easier, but it also enhances us as a society. So before you get seduced by these practices, think first it they really make any sense. Remember, if it sounds magical, it's probably crap!!

Watching a video is always funnier than reading stuff, so check out James Randy talking about this, very educational.

Rode

The Crap...I mean...Secret...

Well hello again!

Ok so after some criticism and interesting chatting in Facebook for expressing some of my anti-religious ideas, here I am again about to do the same with another "sweetheart" of many out there, I'm talking about Rhonda Byrne's (Australian writer and producer) book and movie "The Secret".

Well, where should I start from......? Really a hard task, not that there is nothing you can criticize, in fact that's the problem, that book is full of soooooo much non-sense and dangerous pseudo-science crap, yes, dangerous, that it makes it a pain in the ass to figure out where to start from. Anyway, I must do this because it's been in my system for long enough and I feel the need of spitting it out.

So let's talk about the tirelessly mentioned and main propel of the book, the "Law of Attraction". Rhonda seems to be very fond on that fancy-sounding term which is nothing else but.... how can I put it nicely?......?... bull shit!!! (that's the nicest I could do). So she says that by making use of this law, we can attract all the positive stuff that surround us only by using our positive thinking... and also the other way round with the negative stuff... right, ok, let's suppose that, as unreal and childish as this sounds, this wouldn't harm anyone, actually it might be good if people take on a positive approach to most of the things they do right? Well, this is actually true, but the problem with this crap is that its stuff gets actually more complicated and even alarming and as I said before, DANGEROUS!! Because she goes on to say that if you wish hard enough, you can actually be cured of serious illnesses such as cancer tumors or things like that.

She bases this obnoxious claims using the term "quantum physics", of which Rhonda Byrne has a Ph.D...oh no! sorry, she doesn't.... I bet almost 100% (if not that) of you who are reading my rant, don't understand a damn about quantum physics (not that I do either), because it's really a hard one to grasp. There is a saying, "if you say you understand quantum physics, that means you don't understand them" (though there are different versions of the saying). But anyway, quantum physics, as chaotic as they are, are still science, yes, science, meaning they have absolutely nothing to do with metaphysical shit, which is nothing else than an invention from philosophers and I would say nowadays an industry itself.

Quantum physics deal with the small world, the extremely small world in deed, the sub-atomic particles where everything gets really chaotic, where electrons start interfering with themselves and not making any sense, they become extremely unpredictable and governed by probability mostly, the possibility of infinite parallel universes where all the different alternatives of what happens in this one actually exist. Actually it gets much more complicated than that, imagine that we are all made out of atoms, that for some reason stay together and stable enough so that we don't suddenly become something else or just vanish in the blink of an eye. But at the same time, the smaller particles that compose those atoms, get extremely unstable, unpredictable and chaotic, now put them together and make sense out off it..

Nice try Rhonda! But now, could anybody explain me how the hell can you relate that to the "Law of Attraction"? Well, actually very easily, because since it is a branch of science (quantum physics) very few people in the World understand thoroughly, you can basically make any impressive-sounding crap up and very few will dispute it, moreover, by using that fancy word (quantum physics) you sound as you would really know your shit.

Well, she doesn't. Actually she has no fucking clue what she is talking about. Similar forces attract each other...? Like..where? I thought opposite poles are the ones that attract each other. Anyway, if that is not enough argument, I have a lot more, I'm just warming up.

So the "Law of Attraction" was mentioned for the first time (James Allen) at the beginning of the last century (1902), which take us to more meaningless claims from the book such as the important people in history who were supposed to

know (and use) this law and therefore, became crucial figures of human history. Well, the thing is, most of the people sh

e mentions were already death when the law came to existence for the first time i.e, Leonardo Da Vinci, Buddha, Aristotle, Plato, Sir Isaac Newton just to mention a few.

Nevertheless, what a crap that is, really, you wish it and you get anything you have ever dreamt about, without an effort, just ask the Universe and dara!! There you are! So the Universe is supposed to hear YOU over billions and billions of galaxies which might host billions of different intelligent lives which might be also "wishing" to it (all at the same time)..... that sounds unbearably self-centered, even megalomaniac!! Don't you think? There's by the way a similar phenomenon followed by millions which begins with "R"...

Anyway, the real danger of this crap, is that some people might actually believe that if they wish hard enough, they can be cured from dangerous illnesses, they might prefer to do that over looking for medical professional help which could in deed save their lives, once they realize that there is no magic in the Universe and look for that professional help, it might be too late!! This might sound stupid for many of you, because we are more or less educated, but think about the people who are not, who could be more vulnerable. This kind of shit shouldn't be tolerated!! I am absolutely in favor of the freedom of expression, but there should be limits,

difference should be made crystal clear about what is fantasy and what is reality to avoid putting people in danger , and that is why the skeptic community raises its voice against these charlatans, and I am not talking only about her only but about any pseudo-science form, because they put many lives in danger!! That's is why is so important to promote critical thinking, is not about you believing in me, is about you not believing in anyone, but making your own research, looking at the big picture and drawing your own conclusions. Is really not that hard.

I like how Brian Dunning (Skeptoid.com) expresses why the Secret has been a best seller, he says:

1. It's based on ancient wisdom, which is always popular
2. It sells the same motivational self-help pitches that are always popular
3. It teaches that you're already a winner because you didn't fail like those people who died in New Orleans.

And talking about that last point, Rhonda also writes that all the big sad tragedies that strike the World such as the Tsunami of 2004, are the result of massive negative thoughts........???...??...So does that mean that more than 200,000 people in 11 different countries die because of their negative thoughts and so the Universe decided to wipe them off the face of the Earth? Were the exact number of victims the exact number of negative people that deserved to die? Or were there any innocents among the victims? The great majority maybe? Well, I guess you got the point of that non-sense garbage. And if you haven't had enough, just listen to what these two clowns have to say about it.

Because of people like these, using the media to misinform others, is that pseudo-science still stands strong, but that would be another topic. Anyway, if you really need this motivational books kind of thing in your life, go ahead, but make sure you recognize between reality and fantasy, evolution has given us brains that are able to solve extremely complex problems, more than what any other animal could ever achieve, yet, sometimes it seems as if we are using them against ourselves. Just remember to follow YOUR OWN critical thinking...out of my system, time to move on..