Re:Another Damning Homeopathy Report
by maxerickson on Thursday April 10, 2014 @09:25AM
(#7565813)
A doctor believing he has no legitimate treatment for a specific condition choosing to lead the patient to believe they are being treated is easy to distinguish from a fraud marketing magic water. The doctor is unlikely to choose the placebo over a legitimate treatment. The fraud doesn't care if there is a legitimate treatment.
Re:Another Damning Homeopathy Report
by isleyaardvark on Thursday April 10, 2014 @03:10PM
(#7568947)
#1 isn't interesting because placebos don't work. By definition. "[A] simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment, per Wikipedia. If a trial of a medicine works as well as a placebo, that means it does not work.
Re:Another Damning Homeopathy Report
by dragonwriter on Thursday April 10, 2014 @03:34PM
(#7569123)
Placebos do "work", after a fashion, which is part of why they are used as a control rather than nothing being given to the control group (helping to assure blinding of participants, both subjects and experimenters, is also a factor.)
In fact, different mechanisms of placebo delivery "work" to different degrees (in many cases, injection-based placebos "work" better than ingestion-based.)
Re:Another Damning Homeopathy Report
by isleyaardvark on Thursday April 10, 2014 @04:25PM
(#7569459)
That's the placebo effect, not the placebo itself.
This is as simple as I can explain it.
1) People test a new medicine. 2) That medicine does no better than placebo. 3) That medicine does not work and the makers go back to the drawing board.
They don't sit around and wonder why that medicine "works", because it doesn't. Nor do they sell it as medicine, or claim it is effective, because it isn't. Homeopathy is no more interesting than every single failed medicine plus every single non-medical substance a person can put in their mouth.
Re:Another Damning Homeopathy Report
by dragonwriter on Thursday April 10, 2014 @05:15PM
(#7569776)
Right. I perhaps wasn't sufficiently clear that I wasn't disagreeing with you in substance.
Consider a few examples of things that science cannot distinguish:
* The speed and position of an electron cloud ensemble. * The moment a radioactive particle will decay
Anyways, my point was that homeopathy stories like the one we are talking about revolve around this formula:
1) peer reviewed studies show that homeopathy works as a placebo 2) ordinary people don't understand science 3) people are getting ripped off!
For me the interesting stuff is in #1. The debate over homeopathy is epistemological, over how we can know things. I have not seen any scientific research on how homeopathic works, or does not work, in the same way as a placebo. Anything less than this and the "rational" argument becomes "just don't take it because it's a placebo". Which is not a reason to cease taking homeopathic products, because doctors _prescribe_ placebos, and I have never seen an article like this that attacks doctors who prescribe placebos.
http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/news/20081023/50percent...