Tunbridge Wells homeopathic hospital to close.

[Muttley]

.....over the course of my life I have seen many examples of homeopathy working to help people and in situations where it is obviously not placebo.

Sorry, but what you have seen is people using homeopathic remedies, and getting better. That's not the same thing, and it proves nothing - they might have got better anyway, without the remedy, or some other factors may have been involved.

Of course to the professional sceptics I am either lying or delusionary, so there you go.

Not necessarily. You may lack understanding of some scientific subjects. Do you have some understanding of the nature of solutions? Do you understand the concept of Avogadro's number, whereby you can calculate the number of molecules in a solution, given the volume, the concentration, and the molecular weight of the solute? Do you understand serial dilution? Can you do a bit of arithmetic using powers of 10?

It's all explained in the link John posted in post #22. Here it is again. If you read and understand that, and then still believe that a remedy with no active ingredient can work (except as a placebo), then yes, you may be delusional.

As the saying goes, proof of the pudding is in the eating.....

But in this case, the analogy would be to hand someone an empty plate, and then ask their opinion of the pudding. You can't eat a pudding that contains no pudding. So nothing is proved.

M.

[bobdezon]

Hmmmmm, you might be onto a money spinner there. The "pudding-no pudding diet plan". You can eat/not eat as much as you like and are guaranteed to only lose weight.

I see no downside to this, unless you count starvation and malnutrition to be a downside.

[Muttley]

Hmmmmm, you might be onto a money spinner there. The "pudding-no pudding diet plan". You can eat/not eat as much as you like and are guaranteed to only lose weight.

Yes, I can feel my palms starting to itch. 8)

I see no downside to this, unless you count starvation and malnutrition to be a downside.

No, no, no. We'll just refer to them in the small print as "Minor side-effects which may be experienced by a small number of users. If symptoms persist, consult your doctor". After all, we don't want anybody to die - they'd stop buying the non-puddings then.

M.

[bobdezon]

Well thinking about this, there is also the possibility of death (eventually) so we would have to include that "side effect". So just incase of impending death (for serious followers of the diet) We would also have to ammend the warning to:

Potential risk of death, If symptoms persist consult a medium

[vbloke]

In the end none of these whys and why nots really mean anything. As the saying goes, proof of the pudding is in the eating and over the course of my life I have seen many examples of homeopathy working to help people and in situations where it is obviously not placebo.

Of course to the professional sceptics I am either lying or delusionary, so there you go.

As a qualified homeopath myself, I can honestly say that during my classes, there was never any mention of any pathways in which homeopathy "works". It was all conjecture, hypothesis and "we believe". How scientific.

I have no formal medical training, no real knowledge about human anatomy, or bacterial or viral infections, nor do I really understand the ways in which the body fights infections, yet I am now qualified to prescribe "medicine" to "cure" a range of illnesses (that the SoH would have you believe includes HIV and malaria) - I find that both morally and ethically bankrupt, in light of the fact that there has never been a properly controlled study that has found any efficacy in a homeopathic remedy beyond that of placebo.

Homeopaths have had almost 200 years to provide definitive proof of the effectiveness of homeopathy - this evidence has never been obtained. After 200 years, it should be time to put aside the anecdotes, lay down the hypothesis and conduct a properly controlled test that would say once and for all whether or not homeopathy actually works. Based on my own experience, I can say that no such trial will ever take place as fear of failure prevents it.

Homeopathy is no a multi-million dollar business - surely it is not beyond your reach to actually fund a test (or series of tests) that would shut the skeptics up once and for all.

Until you've done this and proved that homeopathy works above and beyond placebo, you have no credibility and no evidence to back up your assertions, so you might as well be preaching your make-believe to a wall, for all the good it will do.

I, for one, am glad that the NHS is reviewing the use of homeopathy in this country, as it is diverting funds from genuine medical treatments that have shown themselves to be effective at treating diseases. Until homeopathy can show that it is the equal of these treatments, it does not belong in a medical environment.

[bobdezon]

I seriously thought you were joking when you said you were a homeopath vbloke .

Wonders never cease to amaze, an "anti homeopathic homeopath". Who needs woo when you live in a universe as wonderful as this?

Vbloke we should have babies

[vbloke]

I seriously thought you were joking when you said you were a homeopath vbloke .

Wonders never cease to amaze, an "anti homeopathic homeopath". Who needs woo when you live in a universe as wonderful as this?

Vbloke we should have babies

It's only step one in my wooducation.

Next up is astrology and then maybe psychic school.

[bobdezon]

The planets are not yet in alignment for you so I would suggest giving astrology a miss for at least two months. Also the psychic school already knows your interested and are mailing you a prospectus at some undefinable point in the future. If you hear nothing from them, ask around your family, they will know whats going on.

[Mojo]

We'll just refer to them in the small print as "Minor side-effects which may be experienced by a small number of users.

No, you need to call them "aggravations". That way you can claim they show that the non-puddings are working.

[Blue Wode]

I, for one, am glad that the NHS is reviewing the use of homeopathy in this country, as it is diverting funds from genuine medical treatments that have shown themselves to be effective at treating diseases. Until homeopathy can show that it is the equal of these treatments, it does not belong in a medical environment.

Hear, hear! And no doubt many here will be pleased to learn that the wheels might be falling off the ‘Homeopathy worked for me’ campaign which has been attempting to retain provision for homeopathy on the NHS.

The campaign’s Chair, Michelle Shine, who was working to get 250,000 signatures to take to parliament in June 2008 for Homeopathy Awareness Week, has just resigned:
http://www.hmc21.org/phdi/p1.nsf/supppages/2555?opendocument&part=8

Perhaps the paltry 6,527 signatures collected to date had something to do with it.

The responsibility for finding 17,391 new signatures every week until June appears to have passed to ‘classical homeopath’ Ursula Kraus-Harper. You can read more about her here:
http://www.homeopathymiltonkeynes.co.uk/

[exile]

To the original point:-

Build a VERY VERY SMALL hospital - a couple of lego bricks perhaps - and that should work as well as the hospital that's being closed......

[Janot]

To the original point:-

Build a VERY VERY SMALL hospital - a couple of lego bricks perhaps - and that should work as well as the hospital that's being closed......

[SkepticReport]

What did Tunbridge Wells do with their "medicine"?

Flush it down the toilet?

[Blue Wode]

According to this report from the BBC today…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7437962.stm (1 min 38secs)
the Bristol Homoeopathic Hospital is in trouble as well because not enough patients are using it.

[bindeweede]

According to this report from the BBC today…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7437962.stm (1 min 38secs)
the Bristol Homoeopathic Hospital is in trouble as well because not enough patients are using it.

At the end of the clip, the commentator uses the word "fear". I think I would have used "hope".