September 12, 2007

The Pseudoscience of Homeopathy

Posted by Eric at 8:00 am | Category: Links, Pop culture

Nobel Intent has a wonderful post at Ars Technica that shows the difference between real science and pseudoscience by going through an issue of the journal Homeopathy and systematically destroying every article in it. It’s a six page post, and after a while, it gets repetitive (oh goody, yet another crank who doesn’t understand basic concepts in science), but there it is, a systematic deconstruction and refutation of almost every single article in that special issue. I’m amazed that the Nobel Intent authors had the patience to do something like this, but someone had to, to finally blow some reason into the minds of these strange “scientists” and the easily duped consumers.

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5 Responses to “The Pseudoscience of Homeopathy”

  1. Apollo Says:
    September 12th, 2007 at 9:00 am

    I’m never found much in homeopathy convincing, but on a side note, if you really want to convince people, you too shouldn’t give signs of straying from reason. That is, it might be best to avoid saying things like “strange ’scientists’” and “easily duped consumers” pejoratively, because that would only alienate supporters of homeopathy or even people with neutral opinions on it. I sympathize with your feelings, but I believe that reason and reason alone should guide what we believe to be true in science, so presenting convincing reasons should be enough to silence those who believe in homeopathy. That is to say, if you alienate them, they’ll just move on and spead their ideas elsewhere. But if you are willing to try and understand how they think and then show them why their reasoning is wrong, then they can’t preach as convincingly, and the ideas (however slowly but surely) can finally be laid to rest.

  2. Eric Says:
    September 12th, 2007 at 11:31 am

    I doubt most of those types of people read this blog; I wasn’t trying to convince them at all. :-P

    And as for those people working in science that do accept the tenets of homeopathy, they kind of deserve to be made fun of, since they lack a basic understanding of scientific facts and the scientific method. I mean, if it was some sort of subtle flaw in their reasoning on a complex phenomenon, then sure, but if it’s some sort of gross misunderstanding that they blindly hold to, then they’ve fallen too far. It’s the equivalent of a geologist preaching that the world is flat; ridicule is an appropriate response.

  3. Apollo Says:
    September 12th, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    Eh, I see where you’re coming from. I just think that ridicule engenders cynicism, and it makes it increasingly difficult over time to achieve a functional degree of positive thinking.

  4. Eric Says:
    September 12th, 2007 at 6:49 pm

    That’s true; I’m trying not to be too cynical, but the supplements, herbal remedy, and “complementary medicine” industry has really just created a bad taste in my mouth. It’s just frustrating that so many shills go about their merry way in an industry that has, for all its rampant fraud, somehow managed to retain its positive image to the public, whereas the more legitimate (and far more medically and scientifically productive) pharmaceuticals industry somehow has gotten a bad rap for, of all things, trying to make money (which the supplements, herbal, and complementary medicine people do, too).

    Sometimes I think that people get attracted to the herbal/complementary/supplemental medicine industry just because they want so badly to believe in some sort of undiscovered treasure trove of secrets that only they and a select few others know about; they just tget taken in by the whole “secrets that the pharma industry doesn’t want you to know about.”

    Anyway, that’s a whole ‘nother rant. I dislike people who propagate pseudo-science, because there’s a shortage of Ph.D. jobs out there, and I feel like those people are just taking up space and money that their betters could use. And they mislead the public, who holds them in a special social position of trust via Ph.D. training, government funding, and so on. It’s like a quack doctor promulgating lies to patients (e.g. “mercury in vaccines causes autism”); you feel a sense of outrage at this abuse of social trust.

  5. Ben Says:
    September 12th, 2007 at 7:13 pm

    Have you ever seen the segment of House where House rips into a mother who expresses doubt at the efficacy of vaccines? Simply. Awesome.

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