Michael, obviously I too much appreciate your activism, and I hope your talk at CFSAC goes well / went well (I'm missing it all this year, I'm afraid, but hopefully I'll catch the replay).
I have to take issue with your responses to Esther12's comments though. I can appreciate that you have a strong personal attachment to homeopathy, and personally I'm very open-minded towards it, but what Esther12 has said, quite politely actually, is pretty much mainstream scientific opinion in the UK at least; it's a very widespread opinion, right or wrong. And Esther12 has asked for scientific evidence of homeopathy's effectiveness, which hasn't been forthcoming yet.
My own openness towards it comes from this personal experience: my own mother suffered from depression and a variety of related issues, for many, many years, and was prescribed all manner of pills through her GP, none of which had any positive effect that I could discern. Quite late in life, sceptically, and on the recommendation of a friend, she tried homeopathy. That was many years ago, and the transformation was obvious, sudden, dramatic and undeniably positive. So that, for me, is my own first piece of evidence, and I'm not overly concerned that it isn't scientific evidence, but human evidence, gathered from a real-world observation, since I also live in the world, and not in a laboratory (as far as I know).
The next piece of evidence I take into account is that over many years while I have been ill, the most consistent treatment that friends have suggested to me, based on their own experience with friends and family, is homeopathy. People of a rationalist and scientific bent, who I did not at all expect to recommend alternative therapies, have spoken highly of its efficacy, and that too comes from the non-scientific evidence of popular real-world observations of what works for many people in a real-world setting. This too counts for something in my eyes.
The next thing I look at is the general behaviour, demeanour and assumptions of those who are currently aggressively trying to stamp out the availability of homeopathy on the NHS. I see young students carrying out publicity stunts, mockingly imbibing large quantities of homeopathic remedies as a supposed proof that they can't have any effect because they don't get poisioned by consuming them in a different way from the recommended usage. I saw hardline pro-science lobbyists aggressively pursuing practitioners and anyone who believes in homeopathy, using spurious arguments that don't engage whatsoever with the actual theories of homeopathy. I see rude, condescending, arrogant behaviour from those sceptics as they constantly repeat well-worn arguments that don't touch on the actual issues, but just repeat a dogmatic position that everybody actually understands quite well enough already. And I see anything that smacks of being 'green', 'alternative' or 'spiritual' mercilessly and sneeringly mocked using tired cliches about "yoghurt-weavers" by people who have no experience or understanding whatsoever of this realm, and seem perfectly happy to abandon reasoned argument when they attack such matters, and to resort to mere abuse and appeal to arguments that amount to saying "everybody knows these hippies are just a bunch of sandal-wearing loons".
And it strikes me quite strongly that the rabid and unthinking people who have abandoned reasoned argument and lost sight of humanity and decency, are those who claim to speak for 'the scientific method'.
I see that the main argument of those people is that "it can't possibly work when you think about what is going on with dilution", and that doesn't strike me as very intelligent reasoning, and yes, I do understand the relevant physics and chemistry and it really has nothing to do with anything frankly, though I realise sadly that the sceptical mind is too closed to admit the possibilities of what is currently unknown. And I see that the secondary argument is "we can't prove it in controlled trials", which is equally irrelevant, again for reasons which, somehow, can never be conveyed successfully to such people.
Then I see the same people dismissing all forms of alternative, eastern, and traditional healing. I see them casually dismiss traditions that have thrived as healing methodologies for thousands of years, on the basis that they have not been subjected to random double-blinded controlled trials and therefore are inadmissible no matter what millions of people might believe strongly. I see such people dismiss acupuncture and traditional chinese medicine with a wave of the hand, based in all certainty on no personal experience: these things, to them, are so transparently weird that they are obviously not worth trying and anybody who thinks otherwise is obviously a nutter.
And then when genuine scientists pop up and start isolating highly beneficial compounds from traditional remedies, the sceptics wait until those compounds have been distilled, refined, concentrated, manufactured, packaged, and sold by big corporations, before finally accepting that this stuff does actually work, in its pharmaceutical forms...but without questioning the fact that their previous assertions that it was all garbage have been proved wrong...and of course without going back to the source and querying whether it's worth investigating further.
So: that's my personal take. I don't take any of the "alternative" (once called "complimentary") therapies at face value, but I'm not arrogant enough to dismiss them out of hand either, especially when they can quite clearly deliver real-world solutions to human problems that science cannot yet answer.
But I don't think Esther12's comments above were at all unreasonable or impolite either. I don't bracket those comments with any of the attitudes I've described above. And I don't think her request to see some scientific evidence is unreasonable either: I'd like to see that too, even though a scientific paper describing a carefully controlled double-blinded study is not an essential requirement for me to believe in something. For example: I believe it's a good idea to try to live in harmony with the ecosystem that gave rise to us and supports us, rather than attacking and destroying that foundation, but I don't expect to see any definitive proof of that principle either, unless hardline scientific rationalists succeed in destroying something fundamental and proving the point by wiping a great proportion of us out. Which doesn't sound like a very smart experiment to me, but then again, I'm no Prof....
I have to take issue with your responses to Esther12's comments though. I can appreciate that you have a strong personal attachment to homeopathy, and personally I'm very open-minded towards it, but what Esther12 has said, quite politely actually, is pretty much mainstream scientific opinion in the UK at least; it's a very widespread opinion, right or wrong. And Esther12 has asked for scientific evidence of homeopathy's effectiveness, which hasn't been forthcoming yet.
My own openness towards it comes from this personal experience: my own mother suffered from depression and a variety of related issues, for many, many years, and was prescribed all manner of pills through her GP, none of which had any positive effect that I could discern. Quite late in life, sceptically, and on the recommendation of a friend, she tried homeopathy. That was many years ago, and the transformation was obvious, sudden, dramatic and undeniably positive. So that, for me, is my own first piece of evidence, and I'm not overly concerned that it isn't scientific evidence, but human evidence, gathered from a real-world observation, since I also live in the world, and not in a laboratory (as far as I know).
The next piece of evidence I take into account is that over many years while I have been ill, the most consistent treatment that friends have suggested to me, based on their own experience with friends and family, is homeopathy. People of a rationalist and scientific bent, who I did not at all expect to recommend alternative therapies, have spoken highly of its efficacy, and that too comes from the non-scientific evidence of popular real-world observations of what works for many people in a real-world setting. This too counts for something in my eyes.
The next thing I look at is the general behaviour, demeanour and assumptions of those who are currently aggressively trying to stamp out the availability of homeopathy on the NHS. I see young students carrying out publicity stunts, mockingly imbibing large quantities of homeopathic remedies as a supposed proof that they can't have any effect because they don't get poisioned by consuming them in a different way from the recommended usage. I saw hardline pro-science lobbyists aggressively pursuing practitioners and anyone who believes in homeopathy, using spurious arguments that don't engage whatsoever with the actual theories of homeopathy. I see rude, condescending, arrogant behaviour from those sceptics as they constantly repeat well-worn arguments that don't touch on the actual issues, but just repeat a dogmatic position that everybody actually understands quite well enough already. And I see anything that smacks of being 'green', 'alternative' or 'spiritual' mercilessly and sneeringly mocked using tired cliches about "yoghurt-weavers" by people who have no experience or understanding whatsoever of this realm, and seem perfectly happy to abandon reasoned argument when they attack such matters, and to resort to mere abuse and appeal to arguments that amount to saying "everybody knows these hippies are just a bunch of sandal-wearing loons".
And it strikes me quite strongly that the rabid and unthinking people who have abandoned reasoned argument and lost sight of humanity and decency, are those who claim to speak for 'the scientific method'.
I see that the main argument of those people is that "it can't possibly work when you think about what is going on with dilution", and that doesn't strike me as very intelligent reasoning, and yes, I do understand the relevant physics and chemistry and it really has nothing to do with anything frankly, though I realise sadly that the sceptical mind is too closed to admit the possibilities of what is currently unknown. And I see that the secondary argument is "we can't prove it in controlled trials", which is equally irrelevant, again for reasons which, somehow, can never be conveyed successfully to such people.
Then I see the same people dismissing all forms of alternative, eastern, and traditional healing. I see them casually dismiss traditions that have thrived as healing methodologies for thousands of years, on the basis that they have not been subjected to random double-blinded controlled trials and therefore are inadmissible no matter what millions of people might believe strongly. I see such people dismiss acupuncture and traditional chinese medicine with a wave of the hand, based in all certainty on no personal experience: these things, to them, are so transparently weird that they are obviously not worth trying and anybody who thinks otherwise is obviously a nutter.
And then when genuine scientists pop up and start isolating highly beneficial compounds from traditional remedies, the sceptics wait until those compounds have been distilled, refined, concentrated, manufactured, packaged, and sold by big corporations, before finally accepting that this stuff does actually work, in its pharmaceutical forms...but without questioning the fact that their previous assertions that it was all garbage have been proved wrong...and of course without going back to the source and querying whether it's worth investigating further.
So: that's my personal take. I don't take any of the "alternative" (once called "complimentary") therapies at face value, but I'm not arrogant enough to dismiss them out of hand either, especially when they can quite clearly deliver real-world solutions to human problems that science cannot yet answer.
But I don't think Esther12's comments above were at all unreasonable or impolite either. I don't bracket those comments with any of the attitudes I've described above. And I don't think her request to see some scientific evidence is unreasonable either: I'd like to see that too, even though a scientific paper describing a carefully controlled double-blinded study is not an essential requirement for me to believe in something. For example: I believe it's a good idea to try to live in harmony with the ecosystem that gave rise to us and supports us, rather than attacking and destroying that foundation, but I don't expect to see any definitive proof of that principle either, unless hardline scientific rationalists succeed in destroying something fundamental and proving the point by wiping a great proportion of us out. Which doesn't sound like a very smart experiment to me, but then again, I'm no Prof....
