A Little Bit of Knowledge
A strange compulsion is ensuring that I bang on about bad science until my fingers bleed. Today I am compelled to link to this Guardian story. On the chopping block today is homeopathy; a working definition of which is that water drinking bollocks.
"The theory is that a tiny dose of whatever is the source of the problem, diluted in many parts water, will stimulate the body into combating it." -- the Guardian.
Seems reasonable? Hmm, well, some poor Joe who struggled with GCSE science and knows vaguely how innoculations work may be thinking they have a point. Or have read books about poison immunity training by ninjas... or whatever scraps of semi-knowledge have been brushed off the table this week. And in the bearpit of pub arguments where both sides are armed with modest weaponry, how can the opponent demolish this without a full grasp of the subject?
Ah, but the homeopaths make it easy for us at this point.
"...the remedies are so dilute that it is unlikely they can have any effect on the body at all. Some do not contain even one molecule of the original herb. Homeopaths argue that the water retains the memory of the herb or mineral's 'vital essence'". -- the Guardian.
Bang!
Water memory! The train has come off the rails. It is now plummeting down the gorge towards the rocky river and will be smashed up on impact, killing all on board. Water memory! Fucking hell. There is no shred of evidence to back this up. Not a shred. We are left with the placebo effect and nothing more.
In its own way the placebo effect is a powerful thing...but as far as homeopathy is concerned, we could equally say we were bottling moon magic and, provided the patient believed in moon magic, then whammo! We have a spanking new body of Genuine Science to play with and bait the boffins, right?
The reason homeopathy is so revered is twofold. First, the placebo effect is significant here. People truly believe in it because it combines belief and science which, as the execrable What the Bleep Do We Know inadvertantly proves, is a powerful persuasion indeed. Crucially, the explanation for how it works contains common sense arguments... "I may not know much about science but this makes sense..." No, you don't know much about science, so shut the hell up before I rip out your windpipe. You took a nugget of truth -- some fraction of well-known scientific knowledge -- and diluted it in water...diluted it to a millionth of its original strength. Then drank it right up...and there you have your proof.
Second, it does no harm. Astrology has the same basis...what's the harm in a bit of positive thinking?
Well, we all enjoy things that, nevertheless, we do not take seriously. CSI:Miami is a wonderful show but I would not believe for a second that real CSIs are so efficient...and so eager to put on and remove their sunglasses every other scene. But...and I'm buggered if I can find the article now...there is a phenomenon in America where everyone who has seen the show now expects their real-life counterparts to perform the same magic, use the same voodoo software that enhances photographs to such an extent that you can see the murderer in the reflection of the photographed person's eyes...and so on. If we started to pull on that thread, the show would collapse.
Jesus, what was the point of that tangent? Ah yes...belief in these things can get out of hand and adversely affect our lives. People refuse conventional medicine because they believe...believe in an alternative medicine. Ye gods. Belief is not the same thing as scientific fact, they are not interchangeable. Intelligent Design is not a theory to rival Darwin's. It is belief dressed up in a lab coat bought on eBay for a tenner. At least nobody is going to die because of astrology, it merely allows us to make shit jokes about uranus. Because we are all, after all, a bunch of children dressed up in adult disguise. Otherwise how else would we swallow homeopathy so easily?
"The theory is that a tiny dose of whatever is the source of the problem, diluted in many parts water, will stimulate the body into combating it." -- the Guardian.
Seems reasonable? Hmm, well, some poor Joe who struggled with GCSE science and knows vaguely how innoculations work may be thinking they have a point. Or have read books about poison immunity training by ninjas... or whatever scraps of semi-knowledge have been brushed off the table this week. And in the bearpit of pub arguments where both sides are armed with modest weaponry, how can the opponent demolish this without a full grasp of the subject?
Ah, but the homeopaths make it easy for us at this point.
"...the remedies are so dilute that it is unlikely they can have any effect on the body at all. Some do not contain even one molecule of the original herb. Homeopaths argue that the water retains the memory of the herb or mineral's 'vital essence'". -- the Guardian.
Bang!
Water memory! The train has come off the rails. It is now plummeting down the gorge towards the rocky river and will be smashed up on impact, killing all on board. Water memory! Fucking hell. There is no shred of evidence to back this up. Not a shred. We are left with the placebo effect and nothing more.
In its own way the placebo effect is a powerful thing...but as far as homeopathy is concerned, we could equally say we were bottling moon magic and, provided the patient believed in moon magic, then whammo! We have a spanking new body of Genuine Science to play with and bait the boffins, right?
The reason homeopathy is so revered is twofold. First, the placebo effect is significant here. People truly believe in it because it combines belief and science which, as the execrable What the Bleep Do We Know inadvertantly proves, is a powerful persuasion indeed. Crucially, the explanation for how it works contains common sense arguments... "I may not know much about science but this makes sense..." No, you don't know much about science, so shut the hell up before I rip out your windpipe. You took a nugget of truth -- some fraction of well-known scientific knowledge -- and diluted it in water...diluted it to a millionth of its original strength. Then drank it right up...and there you have your proof.
Second, it does no harm. Astrology has the same basis...what's the harm in a bit of positive thinking?
Well, we all enjoy things that, nevertheless, we do not take seriously. CSI:Miami is a wonderful show but I would not believe for a second that real CSIs are so efficient...and so eager to put on and remove their sunglasses every other scene. But...and I'm buggered if I can find the article now...there is a phenomenon in America where everyone who has seen the show now expects their real-life counterparts to perform the same magic, use the same voodoo software that enhances photographs to such an extent that you can see the murderer in the reflection of the photographed person's eyes...and so on. If we started to pull on that thread, the show would collapse.
Jesus, what was the point of that tangent? Ah yes...belief in these things can get out of hand and adversely affect our lives. People refuse conventional medicine because they believe...believe in an alternative medicine. Ye gods. Belief is not the same thing as scientific fact, they are not interchangeable. Intelligent Design is not a theory to rival Darwin's. It is belief dressed up in a lab coat bought on eBay for a tenner. At least nobody is going to die because of astrology, it merely allows us to make shit jokes about uranus. Because we are all, after all, a bunch of children dressed up in adult disguise. Otherwise how else would we swallow homeopathy so easily?
posted by Jamie at 9:12 AM
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