Homeopathy

[Skybird]

Do you believe in it (or variations of it) as an effective cure, or not?

Myself, I cut it short, I think it is quackery.

I see a chance of it being effective in the meaning of a placebo being effective. I also can imagine that this placebo effect can be transported via a mediating person (a mother orders homeopathic treatement for her child, and the child responds to her expecation and behavior by showing a placebo effect). However, I cannot ignore that I was unable to find hints for any serious study prooving the effectiveness of the method, but that many studies that were claimed to deliver evidence in the past years, have been withdrawn by their authors, or have been called back by publishers, or that the homeopathy fan group itself even admitted were extremely faulty. I also cannot ignore the many inherent inconsistencies of the theory, and the almost superstitious thinking behind the "Gleichheitsprinzip" (similiarity principle?), which reminds of the wearing of flower amulettes in the medieval. I knew people long time ago, who treated the "depressed mood" of their cat with Bachblüten, and swore that the cat became better and behaved differently. I knew those people quite well for some years, and their cat as well, and I did not see any change at all, i also did not see any depressed basic mood in that cat. I think the people just saw what they wanted to imagine into it.

In that a patient maybe denies regular medical treatement over attempts of trying homeopathy first, I even see risks involved.

The idea of information being written into water and carried by water molecules when the agents get deluded to ratios that finally not even one molecule would be left in all of earth's oceans, I cannot believe at all. I find Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields theory very interesting and fascinating (not proven wrong but also not proven right, however), but when comparing to homeopathy's basic assumptions, Sheldrake has presented a model and theory with hierarchic argument that compares to homeopathy like a Ferrari compares to an oxcart.

What do you think?

[Sailor Steve]

Don't know. I'm always ready to dismiss things, but my dad thinks it helped with his Parkinson's. Did it? If it did, was it the placebo effect?

I don't know.

[tater]

Quackery.

Homeopathy is to Medicine

as

Astrology is to Astronomy.

[Platapus]

First of all, in order for this poll to be useful, one should define what homeopathy means and does not mean. There is a big difference between homeopathy and herbal medicine, but some confuse the terms.

[tater]

I'm referring to the "medicine" practiced by "homepaths."

It's quackery.

[antikristuseke]

Its to medicine as bat**** is to sanity

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Platapus

First of all, in order for this poll to be useful, one should define what homeopathy means and does not mean. There is a big difference between homeopathy and herbal medicine, but some confuse the terms.

Homeopathy is not herbal medicine, not by name, and not by practice. I also never met anybody confusing the two. Even those who maybe did not know what homeopathy is, did not assume it was herbal medicine.

there are local variations of homeopathy, though, but all depend on the same set of basic assumptions, though they are called ifferent: Bachblüten in Germany, Caliornian Essences in America, and so on. That's why I mentioned "and variations".

Herbal essence uses cures that have actual chemically/physiologically more or less effective ingredients, while homeopathy from relatively early dilution-ratios on has none. It's two totally different things.

For a quick shot at what homeopathy is: German or English Wikipedia do a sufficient job on it.