To ask whether or not people here believe in homeopathy - at the risk of floggin a dead horse...

[MistyB]

Winter: Homeopaths are not unqualified - they follow 3 or 4 year degree courses including anatomy and physiology.

Alistron1: The principle of Homeopathy has been known since the time of Hippocrates from Greece, the founder of medicine, around 450 BC.

I am tempted to answer the bottles falling on the floor question but feel that you would ridicule the answer in the way that the Spanish Inquisition determined that the theory that "the sun was imobile and at the centre of the universe" was "foolish and absurd".

I'm assuming I've hit a nerve as you are not even answering my points.

-- you didn't make a point?

are you referring to but what the feck is the point of supporting homeopathy so vociferously, including congratulating people on their anecdotes, if you know it's just lies + placebo effect + People Just Sometimes Getting Better Anyway."?

is this what you refer to as " a point"?

I am defending homeopathy from a vitriol and abuse because there's an enormous amount of hypocrisy on this thread and I'm more than happy to highlight it.

People who trouble themselves so violently about homeopathy but really can't conceded that the harm done by conventional medicine is something that needs to be more urgently addressed -- well they ought to be made aware of their double standards.

So, -- that's what the feck is the point.

sooo Homeopathy is rubbish, but 'conventional' medicine isn't perfect so that's ok?

and that makes us hypocrites for not supporting Homeopathy?

It's so hard to know what you want. Beyond saying "it doesn't work by the claimed mechanism" er that's it. You can't think beyond it.

Obviously you aren't all the same person and you would want different things. Stata wants the whole thing banned. Others want it banned from private but want the deception removed to state hands. Others want it banned from state provision but find it acceptable in private hands. Some of you think conventional placebo offers the same benefit, some of you recognise that would come with unpredictable side effects (so, in effect, it doesn't). Some of you don't want anything except to say "it's shit". Some of you recognise placebo but want nobody to benefit because it's also unpredictable. All of you are happy to pour scorn but few of you are enthusiastic with your acceptance of the costs of conventional medical harm and doctor-induced illness. You all imagine you are somehow more rational and even intelligent than many doctors and scientists.

So, yknow. It's difficult to find cogency. At least Misty and I know where we differ. I don't think you even know where you differ at all.

No, you're hypocrites because you use complaints about homeopathy ("placebo/h is unpredictable") ("placebo/h causes harm") and so on without thinking for one second that these criticisms also apply to conventional medication. It doesn't even give you pause oh perhaps we should apply the same standards elsewhere?

And because some of you even refuse to accept that it's relevant.

not sure if we're reading a completely different thread here sometimes.

There is no such thing as conventional medicine. There is medicine and there is stuff that doesn't work.

Can I direct you to tim minchins 'storm'

The ethics re 'big pharma' are strawmen. Medicine works, science works, homeopathy doesn't.

A-fucking-men.

Well I do think that's the problem. I think many of you post and don't read.

The ethics re big pharma are straw men? May I direct you to this thread?

Can I suggest that you read it, unless you want to be accused by Strata of failing to research because you already think you know the answer.

Conventional medication doesn't always work. Science doesn't always work. We both know this. Both can do great harm. We both know this too.

A-fucking-men.

well I own up to not having read the whole thread - ffs it's friday night and there are 10 pages!!! - suffice to say I don't approve of homeopathy because apparently it doesn't work if you a) drink coffee or b) drink wine.

what kind of useless medicine is that????

By the way -- I'm not sure you know what a straw man is. Do you want to prove me wrong?

OK Gooseberry, maybe your actual agenda is 'Bwaaaa! Everyone's selling out to The Man! Medicine is Mind Control!' That would make about as much sense as anything else you've posted.

I don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Alsitron -- "I don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." How frightfully scientific. Strata will be grinning at your failure to investigate what you don't know about. According to her/him, you can't know if it's true until you've researched it. As you haven't, I think we can safely say you don't know whether what you're saying is true or not. You could read Callous Disregard as well. No harm in being fully informed.

Which, translated, means you don't know which way the wind blows, you don't care if you know, but you're going to tell as many people as possible which way you imagine it to be blowing.

Reading the pathetic defence of a struck-off and disgraced ex-doctor who no-one with a grain of sense will touch with a bargepole is not generally considered research. Not only do you not need to do research since you already know the truth but your sources of information are rather suspect.

It's not pathetic at all. Have you read it?

Bet you haven't. You really ought. Until then, you don't know enough about it.

It's absolutely shocking but you wouldn't know that, would you. And he hasn't been sued over it, so you can draw your own conclusions.

Try the Cry Shame diaries too. Gosh there's quite a lot of the ethics of pharma.

Ooops sorry. Forgot. You couldn't be less interested could you?

So it seems the double standards are in place here for sure. Researching both sides of the argument doesn't seem to apply to some people. So when you complain about the ethics of homeopathy -- put your own house in order first.