And i would add that homeopathic drugs are not required to prove their effect in blinded trials to be registered. Thanks to Boiron and their powerful sugar-coated pills lobby.
Do you have a reliable source for that? I omitted adding a source because if you look for scientific research on homeopathy you find essentially only studies stating that it does not work, Wikipedia has plenty of references.
I too would be interested in a source. I don't think that homeopathy works, but I am willing to admit I can be wrong. Doubt is essential to make progress:
Also, the placebo effect shouldn't be used dismissively. If you convince someone they should be feeling pain (tell them they're next to a low frequency transmitter that causes pain when they're really next to an empty speaker box), that pain is real in the sense their nervous system can have a physical reaction to it. It is in their heads, but perceptions can generate physical responses.
You have to be very, very when discussing the placebo effect to distinguish between reporting differences and actual differences. That gets very complicated when you only have self-reporting of a subjective state to evaluate things on.
The classic study was on asthma treatments. Patients would subjectively report feeling better when on the placebo treatment, but the objective measurements of lung function showed no difference.
If people report being in less pain or less depressed when on a placebo treatment but attempt & complete suicide at the same rate... well, fuck.
That was not meant dismissive, the placebo effect is of course a well established and very real effect. But there is nothing more than the placebo effect in homeopathy.
Note that most of what we call placebo effect is actually return to the mean. True placebo effect exists but its much more limited than what people usually think.
The knowledge of homeparhy in Science is really limited.
We cab image the the surface of the top of iceberg as what know the science of homeopathy.
All the iceberg is what you can know learning study and practice homeopathy for years or a live. this is my vision
No, homeopatic anecdotes are not science. Science has studied homeopathy and found it to be complete and utter nonsense. That's the end of the story, it's superstition and does not work. You either understand that, or remain willfully ignorant. There are no other options.
Homeopathy doesn't work, that's a fact, what part about that known fact seems to confuse you? Why are you insisting something that is KNOWN to not work, works? What don't you get?
There is no mechanism of homeopathy other than the placebo effect, homeopathy is pseudo-scientific bullshit, simple as that, it's fiction. If you think it works, it only demonstrates that you have no understanding of the placebo effect and are easily taken in by bullshit.
> Clinic results are differente from test with placebo
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Yes they are differents. Homeopathy cure the person not the hill. In test only the hill is observed not the unity of person. Tests are exclusives, clinics is inclusives
When you run a well-conducted trial you find zero benefit to homeopathy. When you run a poorly-conducted study, with poor blinding or weak randomization you find some benefits to homeopathy. When you don't even run a study, but just give people homeopathy in clinics they'll tell you it works because they say they can feel a difference.
There does seem to be a body of anecdotal evidence pointing towards some kind actual happening "outside what we know" for phenomenon like the "kundalini" effect, however I don't see how the mechanism of action could be quantum in nature. That is, I suppose, not saying much as I don't see how it could work in any case, but I think more exploratory work does need to be done. Then again, I don't really know and if anyone does know of any scientific studies on kundalini phenomenon, I'd love to read about them.
There's a body of anecdotal evidence for anything you can imagine, that's we don't value anecdotal evidence once we've looked for real evidence and not found it. Most people are greatly confused by the placebo effect, it is the source of all these anecdotal experiences.
i think there are studies on the much broader range of phenomena associated with meditation in general. its hard to find good examples of such things quickly with google though because there are a large number of poor quality studies too...
i don't think its particularly crazy to suggest that people practising mental discipline can alter their minds or perceptions.
its very easy to convince oneself that the left arm is paralysed for instance... or to hallucinate by fixating on an object or point in space.
also, its very well evidenced that psychology has an effect on health...
on the other hand there is no evidence of, nor any need for explanations involving, "mystical energies" of any kind, as far as i can see.
anecdotal evidence is evidence, its just not of a good quality.
a lot of things rely on it for their justification. the best example i think i can give in the context of wanky hipster startups would be "agile methodologies"... despite the completely different area of concern they are also attributed properties which are inherently difficult to measure and perform experimentation with. i've seen very little evidence except for anecdotal evidence to back the claims surrounding them (although certainly, they are based on quite reasonable conclusions to reach with no evidence at all - by using logic and "common sense" to derive from better known quantities)
i'd say its often too wooly to even call a single data point, but in other cases its obviously very many.
if 1000s of people are telling the same story, thats 1000s of potential data points... they lose value from being ill defined rather than being small in number.
> if 1000s of people are telling the same story, thats 1000s of potential data points... they lose value from being ill defined rather than being small in number.
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They don't exist in isolation though. If thousands are telling the same story and there is no independent corroboration then it's more likely that one person told a story and thousands repeated it.
Homeopathy is a very specific thing, where you take a substance with a bad effect and dilute it so much there's none left, in an attempt to cause the opposite effect, with more dilution being better.