The UK's New Minister For Magic 526
An anonymous reader sends this depressing excerpt from New Scientist:
"A serious blow to science-based medical practices has been dealt in the UK with the appointment of Jeremy Hunt as Health Secretary. The fortunes of the UK's National Health Service (NHS) are about to be transformed with the help of the magical waters of homeopathic medicine. Top marks to The Telegraph's science writer Tom Chivers for quickly picking up on talk that the UK's new health minister, Jeremy Hunt – who replaced Andrew Lansley yesterday in a government reshuffle – thinks that homeopathy works, and should be provided at public expense by the NHS."
I propose... (Score:5, Funny)
The NHS should begin a program of providing him with a homeopathic salary. The less they pay him, the more motivated he will become!
Re:I propose... (Score:5, Funny)
No, you just pay him in a currency of significantly diluted value. Zimbabwe dollars should work since they are worth about .0017 GBP each.
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A fifth minus 3 hundredths of a penny saved is...
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A fifth minus 3 hundredths of a penny saved is...
...is 3 hundredths of a penny and one heck of a party.
Re:I propose... (Score:5, Funny)
A fifth minus 3 hundredths of a penny saved is...
According to homeopathy, approximately equivalent to the USA defence budget.
Re:I propose... (Score:4, Insightful)
Since there is no trace of the original substance, paying him zero is the correct analogy.
Re:I propose... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I propose... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I propose... (Score:5, Interesting)
EU just rolled out a new directive. Traditional (also herbal) and homeopathic medicine has the burden of proof now for safety and quality. If the EU does one thing well, it's consumer protection.
You can apply for funding to be able to afford the clinical trial. This is an excellent move sorting out the effectiveness and at the same time preserving traditional "household" medicine. In the end, that's what science is about: Whether it is aesthetically pleasing or illogical that drops are diluted in a huge amount of water is irrelevant. All you have to answer is does it work (better than placebos in a double-blind trial)?
Re:I propose... (Score:5, Informative)
All you have to answer is does it work (better than placebos in a double-blind trial)?
This seems terribly unfair, given the increasing effectiveness of placebos over time.
Seriously. http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all [wired.com] Given that particular standard, current drugs be more effective than they would have in the past in order to successfully pass clinical trials.
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Re:I propose... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, a wired article about a know clinical process that they don't understand.
Hint: Placebos are not increasing effectiveness.
In fact, they have no effectiveness.
They just decrease the perception of pain or other subjective symptoms.
Re:I propose... (Score:5, Insightful)
So placebo is, in fact, an effective remedy for pain and other subjective symptoms. This is a perfectly correct formulation. Pain is an entirely subjective phenomenon. If a sugar pill causes a person to perceive less pain, it is an effective form of pain relief, pure and simple.
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placebo is a method, not the substance. and it could be ethically applied by a doctor, without extracting money from the patient.
grabbing money for inefficient substances and claiming that "it's ok because that's placebo" is unethical, pretty much stealing from those who have a health problem.
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The point here is that while placebos may have an effect when taken, the extent of that effect should be no greater than that of targeted medication.
If medication designed to cure depression works better than a placebo does (ie. MORE people are cured, or symptoms are reduced FURTHER), then the medication is considered to "work". If the medication doesn't work, it will either be AS effective as a placebo (likely the case for homeopathic medicine) or LESS effective (adverse effects).
It really doesn't matter
Re:I propose... (Score:5, Informative)
perception of pain
I don't think that word means what you think it means. Pain is the perception of injury. Pain is a psychological entity. You cannot be wrong about the amount of pain you feel. If you feel pain from an amputated limb, the pain is completely real.
Anything that reduces pain is effective in treating pain. It may be useless in treating injury, but a lot of modern medicine is around pain management for the vast array of problems we can't actually cure.
Re:I propose... (Score:4, Funny)
So if pain is psychological does this mean paracetamol and codeine phosphate are just placebos?
Re:I propose... (Score:4, Interesting)
A neurologist went into the emergency room, saying he was in great pain. "Where does it hurt?" he was asked.
"In my head."
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Seriously, how are you going to judge the effectiveness of a drug, if you don't test it in humans and how are you going to discriminate the placebo effect from the real effect?
At present we cannot totally rely on animal testing or computer models, so just what do you want to use?
If we didn't use humans in testing in a double blind test then we couldn't say for sure that the drugs are effective and then we would be open to the same empty promises and shenaniga
Re:I propose... (Score:5, Insightful)
When my mother was dying of Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), she volunteered for a double-blind trial, knowing that there was an even chance she would get the placebo. This did not bother her in the least - she was hoping that it would ultimately result in some benefit for someone else later on. Unfortunately, her disease had already progressed too rapidly and she was not accepted into the test cohort.
I don't think there is anything unethical or inhumane about making a valid statistical trial. Many of these substances have serious side-effects and very prohibitive costs - it is better to make an informed and valid comparison of the pros and cons of any treatment.
Re:I propose... (Score:5, Insightful)
These trails require the informed consent of the participants, and any well designed trail takes into account that if a new treatment turns out to be very effective it would be unethical to continue, but must be ended and the treatment supplied to all.
As is often the case, the experts have actually though of these things before you.
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So is it better to not do the test and never be able to learn which treatments are safe and effective for the millions of other people suffering from the same illness?
It's unfortunate that not everyone can receive a treatment we think has a good chance of working, but we can''t take shortcuts on such a vital part of the drug discovery process.
Re:I propose... (Score:4, Interesting)
Hold still (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hold still (Score:5, Interesting)
At least leeches actually *do* have genuine and well-demonstrated medical applications [wikipedia.org].
Homeopathy doesn't.
Re:Hold still (Score:5, Insightful)
Homeopathy doesn't.
Sure it does. And I'm no fan of homeopathy. The areas listed in the "Mote Prime" article are areas strongly influenced by the placebo effect (pain, fatigue, depression, anxiety, etc.). I assume that Homeopathy would have the same influence as any other placebo in treating those problems.
Re:Hold still (Score:5, Insightful)
Mummy's kisses fixes my toddler's owies. All better!
Re:Hold still (Score:5, Insightful)
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My daughter, as a toddler, had one earache after another. Every time the doctor examined her ears, there was nothing wrong. Eventually he prescribed homoeopathic pills, on the NHS, it's not a new thing here. The pills looked and tasted like mints. The earaches stopped.
I'm no fan of magic and witchcraft. I know it was something other than earache but those pills worked.
Re:Hold still (Score:4, Insightful)
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Or maybe the parents assumed it worked and quit applying there bias to the toddler.
And by maybe, I mean definitively.
.
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Re:Hold still (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm no fan of magic and witchcraft. I know it was something other than earache but those pills worked.
I don't mind utilizing the placebo effect.
What I do mind is that the NHS could've paid 1/100th for the same thing by simply setting up its own sugar pill factory and labelling the product with whatever strikes their fancy.
or m&m's (Score:4, Insightful)
My mother used to work as a home health aid, she said that she worked with an older couple where the senile husband would demand pills from his wife; rather than argue or tell him no the wife would hand him is ww pills that came in red blue yellow brown and green, she told him that they were candy coated to hide the bad flavor and that he would need to swallow them quickly. It worked every time
Re:Hold still (Score:5, Funny)
Homeopathy doesn't.
It's a perfectly valid treatment for dehydration :P
Don't worry, Murdoch will tell him what to do (Score:4, Insightful)
Rupert Murdoch is best buddies with Hunt, and all of his actions are "guided" by what News Corps wants, so as long as Sky doesn't believe in homeopathy then we'll be fine.
What a sham (Score:5, Informative)
There is zero scientific evidence homeopathy works. Absolutely none.
I can only assume this guy is either a moron who believes in homeopathy, or, more likely, he is receiving bribes from companies that make homeopathic products. If the NHS were to pay for homeopathic medicine there would be a huge amount of profit to be made.
What he is doing is a disservice to all the UK citizens who will need real medical care in their lives and may be misdirected to rely on homeopathy, which cannot ever heal or cure them in any way.
It's like having government-funded exorcisms or voodoo rituals to cleanse the bad mojo out of a person. Sounds crazy, right?
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It's like having government-funded exorcisms or voodoo rituals to cleanse the bad mojo out of a person.
Man, I could have used that for some people I've worked with! The only thing was that I was waiting for the government to pay for it...
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In the US, they just use a handgun. Don't be a pussy.
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Homeopathy DOES work - the placebo effect is well documented!
Re:What a sham (Score:5, Insightful)
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Then it's not homeopathy which works - it's the placebo effect which works. And for that we don't need overpriced sugar which has danced around the table twelve times at midnight or somesuch nonsense.
The placebo needs to be credible in order to work - if the patient can easily distinguish it from "real" medicine (by name or by price) it won't work as well,
There are a lot of real and imaginary diseases where a placebo is really all the patient needs - while use of homeopathy to "treat" severe diseases should of course be prohibited indiscriminately destroying its public credibility does probably a lot more damage than good.
If there is one thing that "school medicine" has learned from all the "alternative
Re:What a sham (Score:5, Insightful)
In a medical context, "Working" means performing better than a placebo. By this definition, homeopathy DOES NOT work.
Re:What a sham (Score:5, Funny)
There is zero scientific evidence homeopathy works. Absolutely none.
Wrong. Your problem is in your definition of "works". Works mean achieves some goal you were trying to reach, and perhaps the goal you are thinking of is not the one NHS is trying to reach. Their job is not to cure everyone of everything. Their job is to *control expenses* while *minimizing complaints*. And it is very likely that providing homeopathy will help achieve those goals. Therefore it "works". Remember, even the homeopathy supporters admit that often treatments do not contain even a single molecule of the diluted substance. (cite [wikipedia.org] ) I cannot think of a more cost effective treatment than water, maybe with a bit of food coloring. Even a small reduction in whining would make it cost effective. From an institutional health perspective it's pure genius!!
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There is zero scientific evidence homeopathy works. Absolutely none.
There is plenty. Control groups improve better than untreated. Why? Placebo effect. Homeopathy is professional placebos. They do work. Proven to work. Maybe not any better than a placebo, but if you walked out of your doctor's office with a prescription for "sugar pill placebo - generic" that wouldn't work as well.
Again, there is scientific proof that placebos work, and homeopathy, if medically ineffective, is still an effective treatment scientifically proven to work
Well, that and "homeopathy" doe
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" They do work. "
Wrong.
"Proven to work."
False.
" Maybe not any better than a placebo, "
Do you even know What The FUCK the placebo effect is? No, you don't.
" there is scientific proof that placebos work,
no, no, NO. shut the fuck up you ignorant SOB.
By DEFINITION, they have no effect on the disease. Was that sentence to hard for your tiny stupid egocentric brain?
" chiropractors (mostly) don't believe that spinal adjustments will cure cancer"
70 percent do. 90 percent believe in a 'magical' method of some sort
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Placebos don't work when you've got a real disease.
Evidence, please? Or is that just an assumption you made because the conclusion seems obvious?
That would be ironic coming from someone who is clearly championing empiricism.
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Go wave your dead chicken elsewhere, shaman.
Show me that placebos cure actual illness.
-- BMO
I don't need to show you anything. You are the one who made a positive statement. You said "Placebos don't work when you've got a real disease".
I didn't even disagree with the statement. I simply asked you if you had evidence, or if you were forming a conclusion based on what you expect to be the case.
That's ironic for at least two reasons, and this irony is only further compounded by your calling me a 'shaman' for asking for evidence of your positive statement.
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Then give people a script for sugar pills with a funky medical-sounding fake name in a regular pill bottle. And when people cotton on to it change the name to something else.
It's far cheaper and more ethical than propping up an industry that relies on bogus science and fleeces sick people without providing a cure.
The sooner homeopathy is terminated the better.
The real lesson (Score:5, Interesting)
And this is why all centralized power is dangerous. Eventually an idiot WILL be put in charge. If it were one hospital, insurance provider, pharma company, whatever it is bad but survivable. But when it is a government with a virtual monopoly on something important like medicine and a real monopoly on the use of force to back it up, shit gets serious.
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Because when medicine was left to individual practitioners, things were sooooo much better.
Re:The real lesson (Score:5, Funny)
*expecting to meet surgeon before procedure, patient walks into empty room*
*voice comes out of nowhere*
"Do not be afraid, for I am the invisible hand of the free market. And I shall be operating on you today."
Re:The real lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
The Libertarians can't help but mod me down even when I don't directly reference them.
Well, it's bloody we'll true. Medicine in ye olden days where you could only judge a doctor's fitness by how many patients lived or died (in other words pure market forces) wasn't exactly a stellar success, and it's only when certification boards and similar bodies, with the force of legislation behind them, did you at least gain some trust as to basic credentials and competency, and some way to remove doctors who failed to maintain that competency.
A pure free market in health care would be a nightmare, where the worst aspects of the current system would be magnified in horrific fashion.
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The US recognizes homeopathy as valid, but still doesn't recognize the medical efficacy of cannabis. Fuck this country.
Re:The real lesson (Score:4, Interesting)
But there is such thing as law hard to get rid of, which I expect is what your parent meant.
For example, the EU Parliament has veto on creation of laws, but does not have any power to repeal laws. So even if the directly elected representatives of the people are entirely opposed to some law, it cannot be repealed without the consent of the Council, unless it can somehow be declared invalid by the Court of Justice (e.g. secondary legislation outside of the EU's jurisdiction).
While I'm here, it's fairly common for various powermongering interestings to want laws to be easier to implement than to repeal. Consider patents: international patent agreements are such that a patent made in one country has to be recognised in many countries; yet an invalidation of the patent in one country does not propagate.
Re:The real lesson (Score:5, Informative)
No, not really.
0) The NHS is excellent - far better than American healthcare. I say that using all the data I have seen and from personal experience of both systems.
1) The UK government does not have a "virtual monopoly" - it has no exclusive right to provide healthcare at all. It does provide some forms of healthcare so well (e.g. emergency) that alternative providers are fairly rare, and other forms of healthcare with waiting lists (e.g. elective hip replacements) such that there's a healthy variety of private providers. I belong to a mutual much older than the NHS which provides discretionary treatment for elective conditions.
2) Thatcher was an idiot put in charge, but the NHS soldiered on. Blair was an idiot put in charge, but the NHS soldiered on. Major and Brown stuck their dicks in a bit but didn't do anything remarkable compared to their superior predecessors. It was Lansley who has done the most damage to the NHS with the Health and Social Care Act 2012, not because he is an idiot but because he's a fucking smart and fucking nasty man. Cunt, already widely known in Britain as corrupt, silly little man, is just pissing on the wreckage.
3) The NHS didn't really exist before 1948, and that was in the wake of something far worse than we're facing now. If things get shit, we regroup, re-educate and rebuild. It's not like history has a linear progression - we're always repeating the same mistakes and having to correct them.
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You make an interesting, but unsubstantiated, claim. It works on the hidden assumption that idiots put in charge is the exception and in general, the people in charge are not idiots.
I fail to see how you can support that assumption.
We now know how he plans to save £20 billion (Score:5, Funny)
No need to buy thousands of doses of penicillin or heart medication. Just buy one dose and it'll serve the entire population.
Shouldn't be too expensive... (Score:3)
[homeopathic remedies should be] provided at public expense by the NHS
Why didn't I think of this? Give away bottles of water, er, "remedies", and take the profit away from the snake oil salesmen.
Genius.
He might not think it works, but IS a politician. (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, Jeremy Hunt is a politician. He made a calculated determination that people who like homeopathic treatments are more likely to be supportive of him due to this decision than others are to be against him for deciding the other way. I can see why, since most scientists will think of him as a "typical stupid politician" (not much of an insult for an actual politician) while most homeopathic believers will see him as a "defender of their cause."
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Re:He might not think it works, but IS a politicia (Score:4, Interesting)
If the hospital sticks a pretty label on a bottle of tap water and utilises the placebo effect then it's a worthwhile treatment and will add benefit.
If the hospital prescribes a branded bottle of tap water that costs the NHS £480 a bottle then it's fraudulent and I'd be looking for links between the "manufacturer" and Jeremy Cunt*
*Yes, that's the name used to introduce him on BBC Radio 4
It does work (Score:5, Funny)
The homeopathc process activates placebetrinos in dihydrogen monoxide. Ordinary DHO can be deadly, but in the proper hands it works wonders. The placebetrino hasn't actually been observed, but future upgrades to the LHC are expected to run with high enough energies to reveal it as well as the anti-placebetrino.
The placebo effect works (Score:3, Interesting)
The placebo effect works, and homeopathy should be a tremendously inexpensive way to induce it. The placebo effect does not mean that people do not get better--it is that people get better even when you give them something inert! How better to generate something inert that feels like it should help than to take something that should help and dilute it? Granted, the effects of placebo are limited, but if you only need something limited anyway, why not give them a microcent's worth of water in a 20-cent vial, sold for $2, to make the patient feel as much relief as they can generate from their own beliefs? (How different is this from bottled water, anyway? The tap water in most places affluent enough to afford bottled water is perfectly safe.)
I'm only partly joking.
(Blasted democracies, requiring informed citizenry and spoiling all our plans to dupe them into thinking they're fine!)
Are they having the same conversation? (Score:3)
I think I've heard two definitions for homeopathic. The first is the silliness of infinite dilution creating a water with some non-water quality. The other is more what I'd call folk medicine, which is simply a greater willingness to assume that traditional, low-cost solutions such as various teas for various ailments work until proven otherwise.
Re:Are they having the same conversation? (Score:5, Interesting)
The latter is more correctly categorized as "naturopathy". For some ailments, it can work as well as traditional medicine because plants do have various chemicals that can cure disease.
Now there's the issue of those chemicals not being "clean" (i.e., mixed with other undesirable substances), not knowing the dosage (because the amount of the useful chemical varies from plant to plant), and, of course, misidentification of plants (which can lead to one ingesting the wrong chemical). And though all of the issues mentioned can arise when a chemical (which, in this usage, is referred to as a drug) in pill, elixer, injection, or suppository form is prescribed by a physician and used as directed by the patient, the likelihood of an undesired outcome is lowered considerably when the forces of science and modern manufacturing technology are brought to bear.
Of course, feel free to chew on a willow branch instead of taking an aspirin for your dose of acetylsalicylic acid - I certainly won't stop you. But when you end up with your muscles still aching because your jaw muscles and teeth gave out before the pain was gone, don't come crying to me.
Consistency in action (Score:3)
Serves the brits right for voting for this nonsense.
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Unfortunate lumping (Score:5, Interesting)
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There's plenty of research on herbal medicine. Searching pubmed for arnica alone gives me 15 pages of results. Among which I find this one [nih.gov] which shows arnica to be less effective than placebo on muscle strains: it makes muscle strain worse.
With all the hundreds of billions a year that are spent on drugs there should be government testing on herbal remedies if for no other reason than saving money. The problem comes in the form of resistance from drug companies.
Companies which produce herbal remedies also have huge piles of money, why don't they spend some of that proving their remedies work? Hint: it's because they largely don't work.
Many effective pharmacological do compounds come from plants. These are isolated, tested for sa
Reshuffles (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yes. At that level it's apparantly all about leadership and vision, not actual knowledge or qualification. I worked at a bank where the CEO (who was actually quite good) used to work for a biscuit firm and went on to run a high street shop chain. WTF?
Why is it wrong? (Score:3)
Placebo Effect (Score:3)
Even if homeopathic med. does absolute nothing, the placebo effect would still make it better, and in some cases more effective, medicine than many mainstream medicines.
And let us not get too cocky, most people have thought they, or at least society in general, have known everything there is to know since the beginning of time. Do you really think we are actually their yet?
Most disproofs of most homeopathic med. is entirely based on "this cannot work in theory" logic, and only valid if you really think we know everything there is to know.
Great Idea... From a Budgetary Viewpoint (Score:4, Funny)
People will die much more quickly saving National Health billions of pounds.
Frankie Boyle of course (Score:3)
"Seems strange that Jeremy Hunt is getting a hard time for believing in homeopathy. The Education Secretary believes in God. " - http://twitter.com/frankieboyle/status/242964690030960640 [twitter.com]
Cured of headaches (Score:3)
The placebo effect of homeopathy cured me of headaches for life, I didn't even believe in homeopathy at the time and only went at the insistence of my parent. I guess the placebo effect fooled some part of my subconscious as I went from having several headaches per week to approx' 1-2 mild headaches per year.
I think it is worth leaving homeopathy in place, just because you don't understand the value of placebo doesn't mean homeopathy doesn't have value.
Drugs don't cure you, they help the body heal itself, many drugs don't even do that, they just mask the symptoms rather than deal with the cause of the symptoms.
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Please laugh harder sir, it may be our only chance! :'(
Re:Laughing stock (Score:4, Insightful)
France too (Score:3)
France is the place where the (in)famous experiment was done of blastocyte degranulation, supposedly demonstrating homeopathy, which then (of course) could not be duplicated anywhere else in the world, while its acceptance in the science review Nature costed its head to the director there.
France indeed is special because there is a big factory (I don't dare say "lab") that produces tons of homeopathic products, and is visibly very profitable since it finances the above kind of research.
So, up to now, as a F
Re:Devil's advocate here... (Score:5, Informative)
That is not how it works.
They must prove it actually does work.
The placebo effect is well known and that they why they must test their magic water against a control group given normal water in a well controlled double blind trial. The problem with that is ethical. Since there is no evidence that homeopathy works testing it on sick people would not survive any ethical review if it interfered with real treatment.
Re:Devil's advocate here... (Score:4, Informative)
If the illness is not too severe, it's not terribly unethical to test ineffective treatments.* And some such studies have been done. Here's one on warts [nih.gov], and another on migraines [nih.gov]. Needless to say, there was no statistically significant effect.
Re:Devil's advocate here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Devil's advocate here... (Score:5, Funny)
I was flipping through some book of Eastern medicine, and wanted to read the section on type 1 diabetes (since I have it), and it was hilarious. Everything else could be cured or treated with various things, but for this they recommended seeing a doctor.
Re:Devil's advocate here... (Score:5, Informative)
A basic precept of science is that you can't prove a negative.
Can we please stop circulating this little bit of folk "wisdom" now?
Proofs of non-existence by reductio ad absurdum are common. Euler's proof of the non-existance of a largest prime number is one notable example.
More discussion here [bloomu.edu].
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Re:Devil's advocate here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What's Wrong With Holistic Methodology? (Score:4, Insightful)
it is well known that a good, strong and colorful sugar pill administered with a tall glass of water can go a long way to curing many reported medical conditions.
Yep. Hypoglycemia for one.
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I'm not sure I follow. What does Prince Charles have to do with the government?
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He is the future head of state of England
Yes.
i.e. the top cheese, where the buck stops. etc.
no.
He will hold a similar position to Barack Obama in the United State
wtf?
or Queen Elizabeth II of Canada.
yes
Now, of course, he is going to have to consult with parliament on some issues â" but remember â" he only needs to consult.
huh?
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Re:Insulting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Homeopathy does work (Score:5, Funny)
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Not only does homeopathy work (for some people, at least), but it doesn't have the nasty side effects of most (all?) pharmaceutical drugs. It's also considerably cheaper. There's an insane amount of over prescription of pharmaceuticals in developed countries - wasting billions of dollars every year and causing untold harm to the people who take them unnecessarily, and to the population in general (think superbugs). It would be much better if most of them were replaced with homeopathic placebos.
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Flamebait? Really? So it's ok to snicker at medicines and treatments which have no body of evidence to stand on and are rooted solely in mysticism and belief, but it's not ok to shine the same light on religion? /.
I expected better of you,
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Religion: the study of the God that created the universe.
Science: the study of the univese that God created.
OK, that fits better with Deism than modern Christianity, but there you go. I'm sure there have been 100s of religions that would eb OK with that definition.
Also, for many:
Religion: the study of the good.
I dont myself think ethics and religion are tightly coupled, but they are for many people. As far a "circular": every logical system includes a set of axioms. That only becomes circular if you try