Understand that a question like, “But how do you know homeopathy works?” is an odd question from a homeopath’s point of view. It’s like asking, “But how do you know that color is gold?” It’s not a belief or a theory or an interpretation, it’s just experience.
People who ask that kind of question, or talk about “believing in homeopathy,” haven’t experienced what homeopathy is capable of. When they use the word “homeopathy,” they are talking about the lite version, like getting rid of a headache or shortening a cold, things that might happen anyhow. But that’s barely scratching the surface. The results from well-practiced homeopathy simply can’t be explained away by placebo effect or even some new age positive thinking mind-body effect, which covers what most people who don’t have the experience seem to believe about homeopathy.
If I talk about my experience, skeptics will dismiss that as “anecdotal evidence.” I understand their point of view. It’s where I started out. But look at it from my point of view for a moment. It’s like if I start a new garden. I plant some seeds and later plants come up. How do I know that any single plant is where it is because I planted it there? Maybe an animal moved that seed. Or maybe I’m sharing the garden and my neighbor planted that seed on my side. Perhaps. But when I look at my whole garden I can clearly see that it’s the garden I intended, or not. That’s how it is with homeopathy, both when considering a single improved symptom and a single successfully cured patient. Collective anecdotal evidence can be that obvious and compelling.
Of course, I would be disappointed if anybody just took my word for it. I don’t believe everything I read either. (Not even when it comes from a peer reviewed scientific journal.) However, many people have this odd idea that unless something is supported by controlled studies it isn’t real, and that their own observations are somehow unscientific. Individuals can dare to think for themselves, and be scientific all on their own, for their own uses. People can find out the truth about homeopathy on their own, if they are willing to take the time to understand it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that controlled studies are bad, but that they are just a tool that should fit the application. They are not a tool that I need to personally validate what I can clearly experience for myself.
Comments:
Interesting. This is very much along the same lines as something I’d been thinking about. Trial takes a year. A dozen remedies are chosen by a panel of homeopaths for their clearly distinct symptom pictures. Potency 30C, so we’re clearly dealing with dilutions beyond the Avogadro limit. The remedy labels are replaced by the panel with numbers 1-12, and a list of the 12 remedies and their numbers is sealed and passed to an independent adjudicator. The bottles are then passed to another independent party who replaces the numbers on the bottles with a different coding system. The key to the codes is sealed and deposited with the adjudicator.
Of these 12 coded remedies, 6 are selected at random by another independent party, and the remaining 6 destroyed. The 6 coded bottles are passed to the trial coordinator. Every 2 months, testers are sent one remedy from the set of six at random (ie. the testers will not all be testing the same remedy at the same time, though will have tested all six by the end of the year) and the record of who got which code every 2 months is sealed and passed to the adjudicator.
At the end of the year, the adjudicator opens the original list of remedies and notifies the testers that they each were testing 6 of these 12 remedies. The testers then identify which 6 remedies they tested in what order and the adjudicator then breaks the codes and testing records and matches these to the testers’ submissions.
The 6-out-of-12 protocol reduces the likely role of chance guesswork or of any possible cheating that might be implied by sceptics.
Obviously the more testers the better, but it would be preferable to recruit experienced provers. I’d be up for this.
So maybe someone will actually perform this experiment…
I still don’t see why this experiment would convince homeoapthy’s skeptics when the randomized double-blind controlled trials that have already been done do not. Perhaps it seems odd to me that you would prefer this because I know that it would really be testing the education and skills of the homeopaths in the test, not just testing remedy effects. But it is also a more interesting test to homeopaths because it involves full remedy “pictures,” whereas normal clinical trials focus on just a single symptom.
I am a clinician, not a researcher, and this would be a large undertaking. Not my thing at all. However, if some prominent “skeptics” like Goldacre were to offer to publicly admit that homeopathy might work if such an experiment succeeded, I would personally find a way to perform it.
There is a huge amount of wiggle room there. Perhaps we could agree on a more precise definition for a given case, but I have the feeling that I couldn’t meet your standard unless the patient was monitored 24/7.
That example is based on an actual case. I said “hypothetical” because I wanted the discussion to be about the value of personal experience, not about me trying to convince you with yet another anecdote. And I got the answer that I was looking for in your comment here.
Looks liek the quackometer has made a challenge…
http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2007/12/simple-challenge-to-homeopaths.html
I left a comment on “quackometer” in support of the idea. I have to say that I have very mixed feelings about doing so.
Whenever I look at blogs like that I don’t see science or anything resembling an open mind, I see scientistic zealotry, where conventional medicine is unfairly portrayed as “good” and homeopathy as “evil.” (See For the sake of science or Now They Tell Us if you want to read more on the subject.)
I continue to hear so-called skeptics repeating false statements such as, “there is not one jot of evidence” about homeopathy. (See Lies, damn, lies, and socks or Null Balance, Null Fairness.) When you constantly hear your position misrepresented (putting it mildly), there’s not much reason for trust.
With all this as a background, it’s extremely hard to believe that there is any good faith behind this “challenge.” I fear the rules of “acceptance” will change before the end and homeopaths will once again be falsely accused of not being willing to test their claims. Nevertheless, while the meanness and politics around it make me uncomfortable, I have no fear of the actual experiment.
Well I think we ought to do it. When we succeed, or if the kwakman changes the rules, then we can expose him as a fraud.
Here’s another anecdote for you. One of my teachers talked about the importance of using trusted pharmacies. There had been a fire in this person’s office and they had to buy new remedies. After that, they were not getting good results with the high potencies (200C and up). So they switched to a different pharamacy and voila, the results improved. And this wasn’t the wrong remedy, it was just a pharmacy using poor methods for running the remedies up to high potency.
John, firstly, thanks for pointing me in the direction of this thread.
Your anecdote regarding the use of trusted pharmacies, I have to admit I’m missing the point which could be down to my ignorance but I assume is down to a typo. Anyway, that is an aside. What I am interested in is how quality control is achieved with homeopathic remedies. If I were to visit a homeopath I’d want to know that the remedies were manufactured by one of these pharmacies using good methods and not one using poor methods. I’d also want to know that they were using repeatable methods and that they knew when there process wasn’t working as they intend.
(Typo in my last comment fixed...)
Countries usually have an official standard, called a Homeopathic Pharmacopeia. In the US, it’s part of the FDA. The pharmacy where most of my remedies come from is FDA licensed.
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