Few people seem to know what homeopathy is. They assume it means natural medicine, when really it’s far more quack.
In a nutshell, homeopathy is the belief that the more diluted a substance is, the stronger it becomes. To treat a symptom, they dilute a substance that would normally cause it, which magically makes it have the opposite effect. So a homeopathic cure for insomnia is to drink diluted caffeine water.
The idea is ridiculous and unproven, but what makes it even more ridiculous is that the dilute amounts are so extreme that the original substance no longer exists in the water. So they say the water has “memory” of the diluted substance. Another unproved claim, and one that would have severe implications (could water ever be “purified”?).
Here’s a funny sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Look about what it would be like if doctors used homeopathy in an emergency:
And if you haven’t seen it, be sure to watch Tim Minchin’s “Storm,” a beat poem about homeopathy.
Isn’t a vaccine a sort of diluted form of a viral infection though? You’re exposed to an inert or mostly non functional virus and your body is allowed to develop the antibodies it needs to fight it?
Doesn’t this follow the same logic as homeopathy?
No, because we don’t think the vaccine is stronger than the virus itself. Because it is weaker, we can develop the antibodies.
A vaccine does not work by dilution, it works by exposing you to the surface proteins in the viral coat without the genetic material that would normally insert into your cells and hijack your replication machinery to reproduce itself. The surface proteins of the virus act like a lock and key mechanism with the surface proteins on your cells. When the key enters the lock (ie the virus protein connects with the cell surface protein) it triggers your immune system to think that you are infected. Thus, antibodies are produced.
See how that worked? I gave you a molecular mechanism of how vaccines work. Can practitioners of homeopathy do the same with their diluted stuff? I seriously doubt it.
(Sorry Daniel, that was for Jolly)
Actually, most homeopathy practitioners will happily provide you with molecular mechanisms for homeopathy. Some could probably even point you to physics papers that puport to explain it.
Doesn’t make them any less wrong though.
Really? Do you have any references for me to look at? And are these so-called papers peer reviewed and published in academic/medical journals? (I doubt it.)
ps. They’ll have to overcome Brownian motion if they really want to show that water has “memory” and I doubt they can.
How about this: The octave potencies convention: a mathematical model of dilution and succussion (Abstract on pubmed if you don’t have a subscription to Elsevier, Ben Goldacre has the full text at Bad Science).
Gets through peer review by going to the Journal “Homeopathy”. i.e., by having a peer review board of Homeopaths. Although a little research and I see that not everything on pubmed is even peer reviewed, although I don’t see how it makes much difference.
Also, this one, and… well, about anything else by Milgrom.
There was another paper which (supposedly) described “memory” of water using physical chemistry, which I suspect got through peer review because the reviewers had no idea what homeopathy was or what the scientists were actually trying to suggest. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find it.
Oh no, here it is: This, from “Physica A”. I have no idea what impact factor that is, or whether it’s peer reviewed, but I’ve come across it touted quite a bit as evidence of a mechanistic explaination for homeopathy.
I should emphasise – the only reason I’ve heard of these papers is because I read Respectful Insolence, which frequently debunks claims of quacks, including homeopaths. These are bad papers that dress up nonsense in science-y sounding terms – but they do constitute a “molecular mechanism”, even if it’s a broken one.
I just mean it as a caution against encouraging an “if it has a mechanistic explanation it’s probably true” rule of thumb, because most alternative medicine practitioners will happily make stuff up.
About the first paper, well, it is a mathematical paper published in a medical review.
First, I thought that it was ok from a mathematical science point -in fact, I had only read the abstract- but it didn’t prove anything (a correct model with a wrong application). It would be a way to publish in science journals: either doing a paper who can’t correctly be peer-reviewed (maths is not the focus of a the journal) either proving a general abstract concept and linking it to homeopathy. You can also write about quantum physics, pass the peeer-review, and then link your paper to whatever you want.
But, well, here explains why that paper is wrong from a mathematical point of view:
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/08/bad_homeopathic_differential_e.php
From a comment: “This is a work that shouldn’t have been done. Nobody models the needed population of tooth fairies. And why should science lend credence to homeopathy?”
I studied Physics for 5 years.
If homeopathy works, my degree is junk.
If someone could prove the water memory effect, it would be instant-Nobel.
But for some reasons, this “memory effect” cannot be measured or detected but by living beings.
How much does it lasts? Mystery.
How do they calculate the shelf life of an homeopathic treatment? Mystery.
It’s magic, no more no less.
Weakened or dead virus more than dilute (I imagine there’s a similar amount of virus particles in a vaccine as gets breathed in or touched onto a vulnerable surface to kick off an infection). The other key difference beyond what Daniel mentioned is that there are actual viral particles in a vaccine while many homeopathic solutions have been diluted to the point where it’s unlikely a single molecule of the original substance remains.
No since the vaccine contains actual virus parts or dead virusses.
If this would be homeopathy then the vaccine would contain absolutely not even an atom of a dead virus or part of it.
I remember seeing a Randi video where he does the math on the dilution level claimed by the makers of the homeopathic product.
At their claimed dilution, if you had a bowl of water the side of our solar system, it would have one atom of the original material in it.
People who are into homeopathy just make me point and laugh.
You can work this out on the back of your hand if you know what you’re looking for. You’ll normally see homeopathic doses as either “X” or “C” – it’s the roman numerals for the dilution step (10x or 100x). A “low” potency (i.e. relatively high concentration) might be 6X – that is 10^6, or a million times diluted. A more normal potency might be 200C – diluted one in a hundred, two hundred times. Gives a dilution of 100^200, or 10^400 (that is, 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. ) Bear in mind that the avogadro number is around 10^24, so depending on the concentration that you started with you’re some 10^375 times more dilute than your “one atom in the whole bottle” step.
So, yes, you can start to see where the whole “one atom in a sphere the size of the orbit of neptune” comes from.
Damn, it kept writing the number of the screen. That shoulda been:
1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000.
As Tim Minchin said, water’s memory of onion juice is infinite, but it somehow forgets all of the poo it’s had in it.
Silly Custador, you have to shake it just right or the water for the water to remember.
That was a great video! Now if it could get televised. lol
I assume you’re in America? The Mitchell and Webb Look is a prime-time show on the BBC.
In the last show of the current season they did a sketch bemoaning the fact that all of their sketches are immediately posted on youtube, meaning they didn’t have the money from DVD revenue to continue making the last episode.
Obviously it was tongue in cheek, but frankly I think they’re missing a trick – youtube has opened them up to an audience in america, and if everyone who likes TM&WL goes out buys a copy of Peep Show (do it, do it now!) they’ll be minted.
On a side note, they were the actors in the UK version of the Mac vs PC adverts – which hilariously backfired because everybody loves David Mitchell (playing the PC, obv) – so Apple were basically funding PC adverts.
The Naughty Step is always serious.
Every time you drink a glass of water, there is a high probability that it contains a molecule that passed through Albert Einstein.
“Storm” is excellent. I really enjoy it each time I watch it.
It’s so hilarious…
Whenever I encounter someone who buys homeopathic product, I like to perform a demonstration that I first saw James Randi do at TED 2007: swallow an entire bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills. I then show the instructions directing one to take one or two pills at bedtime, and to contact a poison control center immediately in the event of an accidental overdose (which doesn’t apply to me, since my overdose is never accidental). 30 minutes after the demonstration I do experience a bit of abdominal distress from the disgusting fillers they put in those pills, but I never feel even the least bit drowsy!
UR DOIN IT WRONG! You had an accidental underdose. If you took 1/10th to 1/100th of a pill, now that would be an accidental overdose. ;)
That was freakn fantastic, thx for sharing.
saving that vid.
Mitchell & Webb -and- Tim Minchin in one post?
This could be the best blog post ever. Bravo.