Conspiracy theories against alternative medicine

[brokenhut]

So Ben Goldacre links to a homeopathist gloating over the result of David Colquhoun’s legal set-to with a couple of snake-oil peddlers. (Keep an eye on Goldacre’s Delicious links at http://del.icio.us/begoldacre. There’s some good stuff there.)

The outcome was reasonably good for the forces of reason, but as I

Comments

On Homoeopathy

[anonymous]

If you dont want to see anything around you, you have you have some choices. One is simply close your eyes.If you are not sure with this method and you feel this may not prevent the light from the object you do not want to see may still be felt then tie a thick cloth over the eyes and tie it around it. Now you have perfectly achieved the objective

Re: On Homoeopathy

[brokenhut]

You seem to be working under the assumption that medicine works like politics; and that having "one type of system" means there will be some kind of dictatorship --- but that if we have a nice liberal system where no-one gains the upper hand everyone can be accommodated. The fact is, we are already living in that "one party system" and the ruler is Nature. We cannot subvert her and we cannot overthrow her. As Richard Feynman said, "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled". So it is with medicine.

I notice that you invoke "fundamentalism". This would seem a strange thing for a homeopathy supporter to do, since a fundamentalist is someone who maintains "strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles". Medical knowledge is almost nothing like it was 200 years ago: it has evolved and advanced beyond recognition. By contrast, homeopathy has stayed true to the "basic ideas or principals" of Samuel Hahnemann. Homeopathists fit the description of fundamentalism