The Supernatural vs the Theoretical

The blog Starts With A Bang has an interesting post about some of the theorised potential of black holes. It is nifty.

More than just nifty, this presents me with an excellent opportunity to highlight the difference between trusting science and believing in the supernatural -aside from the obvious (ie: medicine works, homeopathy doesn't :P And no, I haven't forgotten about WHA?? Week, but crap it's draining to write about that garbage).

Some critics of scientific thinking put forward that trusting in information such as the above blog presents is akin to believing in god. They assume this makes science-minded folk just big hypocrites who have a vendetta against religion (I'm sticking with religion as a comparison, as it's more often where this argument comes from. Feel free to substitute ghost-chasers or psychics).

The difference is glaring once you're aware of it: when theories like the one mentioned in Starts With A Bang are presented, they are taken with a grain of salt (to use a phrase that is completely incomprehensible to me). They are nifty thought-experiments that mathematicians put together using formulae that test out, even while the actual physical testing remains an impossibility. They remain an intellectual curiosity until the day that they are refuted by further mathematical proofs or verified by actual testing. On that day reasoned, informed people change their minds.

Religion, meanwhile, maintains a strict dogma, budging as little as it can afford to while still remaining an influential power in society. For fucks sake, there are people who still believe the earth is less than 6000 years old! There are demonologists working for the vatican! Exorcists! Faith-Healers! These people refuse to let scientific evidence influence their beliefs, instead holding to outmoded codes of self- and other-repression.

What it boils down to is that science admits its mistakes, even if not all scientists do. Religion and the supernatural turn a blind eye to any evidence that does not support their view.

WHA?? Week continued

Sunday and Monday have come and gone without the WHA??? Week posts I promised. Well, that's moving for you. I will not be attempting to make up for the missed posts, as writing about this garbage is stressful enough without doing multiple posts on it per day.

Today I'm going to be addressing what I think is arguably the largest problem with homeopathy: the indifference of the majority. While speaking with my father, who is a pretty good sceptic for someone who doesn't work at it (this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. People who work at it, like myself, are likely putting too much thought into it, obsessing if you will), a major misconception was aired.

It goes something like this: if some people find homeopathy works for them, then what's the harm, and why should we get upset over it?

Anyone who's talked to me on this subject knows what I'm about to say, but I don't think they've heard it without the cursing and fuming that usually surrounds me at this point.

The problem is that homeopathy is not a harmless practice. One of homeopathy's tenets is that modern medicine is going about healing all wrong; in the majority of the large homeopathic websites this is presented subtly, but conversations with homeopathic supporters often reveal a more vitriolic opinion.

This opinion leads easily deluded individuals to scorning medicine in favour of witch-doctory -a practice that could get them killed. Even worse, parents deceived by even well-meaning homeopaths attempt to medicate their children with nothing more than water. Within the last few years a good example of this has been anti-malarial homeopathic remedies: pills supposedly effective at completely eliminating any chance of contracting malaria. Anyone with a basic knowledge of what homeopathy is should be appalled by this. Homeopaths are selling water pills to people who will be travelling to malaria-prone areas of the world. They are risking these peoples' lives.
For more wonderful examples of the immediate, physical harm homeopathy can have, check out one of my favourite websites:
http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

In addition to the direct harm to the consumers of homeopathic "remedies", there is a more subtle effect on the nature of medicine itself. Homeopathic practitioners' views on medicine undermine the work that real doctors have been doing for the last hundred years -namely convincing people that this whole "medicine" thing is a good idea. Homeopaths (and other CHNWoo adherents) instil a fear and distrust into the common person by claiming that doctors are only out for their money, or that medicine is ineffective by treating only the "symptoms and not the cause" (a misconception that I think deserves its own post).

That is the harm. When they are not outright killing their patients, homeopaths are bilking them out of their money for useless vials of water and sugar pills.


[get it? WHA??? Week... I thought it was clever]

WHAW: Introduction to Homeopathy

As claimed, I attempted to write a breakdown of just what homeopathy is, but do you know what? I can't stomach it. Check out wikipedia for a nice, reasoned detailing. You can also look up pretty much any homeopathic institute, college, or centre to find the same information in a more masturbatory tone.

Here's the breakdown of what homeopaths believe:

• Law of Similars: Treat ailments with substances which cause said ailment (coffee for insomnia, poison ivy for itching, etc).

Wondering why on earth anyone would think drinking coffee would make them sleepy? Well, it's because... 

• Dilution unlocks the power: Homeopaths believe that a substance must be diluted several times at a 1:100 dilution. To illustrate: a homeopath takes 1mL (millilitre) of coffee and mixes it with 100mL of water, making a 1:100 solution coffee:water. Then they do that again, so for every 10 000mL of water, there is one lonely mL of coffee. They do this to excess, usually to the point where not a single molecule of the original substance remains, wikipedia claims this is 24 times at a 1:100 dilution. Oh, and you have to shake, or "potentise" it properly, using specific motions and actions.

How could people buy this? Well:

• Water has a memory: Their theory is that, since there's obviously no real reason for this to work in science, water must have a memory. Of course, to unlock the memory one must prepare the solution with serial dilutions and proper shaking techniques.

On top of this, homeopaths dump a truckload of "we look at the whole body, not just the symptom", implying that real medicine focuses only on symptoms. Homeopathy is a repulsive practice that not only does no benefit, but does immense harm in its condescension of necessary medical practices such as vaccines, antibiotics, and other treatments which are actually based in reality. As to the true harm this deplorable practice is capable of... well, I'll save that so I have something to write about another day this week.

World Homeopathy Awareness Week

Sometimes I think the homeopaths are out to get me. They've scheduled their awareness week to start the first weekend of my move, and continue through to the 16th. This is terribly inconvenient.

Well, in honour of their absurd remedy, I'm going to be taking part in their awareness week as best I can with a daily short post on the science behind homeopathy. Like I said, short posts. I'll start tomorrow with a rundown of how it is claimed to work, and address on Sunday why it doesn't. Following that I have no idea, but I imagine the rest of the week I'll focus on particular points the homeopaths push, and maybe highlight a few studies as well.

Perhaps this will finally have me getting off my ass and presenting a properly cited report to my boss as to why we should eliminate that crap from the clinic entirely, instead of just ignoring it.

Western Medicine

Not long ago on Reptiles Canada, one of the members posted a piece about the wonders of fruit and the dangers (yes, dangers) of eating it AFTER MEALS (cue scary-voice)! It seems that the wundercure that is fruit turns nefarious if eaten on a full stomach. Also: drinking cold water after a meal causes cancer. Needless to say, I was not impressed. I replied that the piece lacked any sort of evidence and was simply making dramatic claims, and that I was sceptical. The piece also brought out some of the less informed among the board, who began extolling the wonders of organic and chemical free diets, as well as the evils of the food and drug industries. Of course, their primary complaint was "Western Medicine". My reply was perhaps more antagonistic than necessary, but thankfully several other members of the forum were able to state the case in more reasoned manners. The thread quietly died, and I won an argument on the interwebs. Obviously a huge life accomplishment.

Unfortunately the believers in food-magic couldn't leave it there, and a few days ago the discussion was kicked up again. Back into the ring they threw their despicable terminology, and we once more are rallied to the defence of science. 

All of the above is, of course, my long winded way of stating that I'm going to talk about the term Western Medicine, and why I hate it so much.

These proponents of Chinese/Herbal/Natural/Woo (CHNWoo) medicine would have us believe that this is a simple issue. There are those who trust the evil Western Medicine, which is a money-hungry industry, and those who put faith in the planet, chakras, xi, and magic plants. This, of course, is just another aspect of fanaticism being filtered through a persecution complex. They want to believe in the simplistic quick-fix of food-magic so badly that they invent an entire industry of greedy doctors who want nothing so much as to make money and indirectly kill babies.

Western Medicine is either a misunderstood concept or downright made up, depending on how extreme the opposition is feeling. It is supposed to be based around treating only the symptoms of illness, being corrupted by greedy corporations who are jealous of CHNWoo's true ability to heal. All of which is bollocks. Evidence based medicine is what CHNWoo supporters label as WM, and it has nothing in common with the latter. Evidence based medicine is a scientific process based around testing theories and applying them to practical applications in managing and curing human ailments. At times it treats symptoms, but the true focus is the eradication of illness through understanding its processes. Nor does evidence based medicine discriminate against natural remedies. If a substance in nature can be co-opted for healing the body, and can be shown to do so with empirical evidence, it becomes medicine. The reason that CHNWoo is not accepted by evidence based medicine is that... it's not medicine. Studies done on the majority of herbal remedies, acupuncture, chiropractic therapies, and -gag- homeopathy, consistently show that there is little to no effect. In the case of the more extreme CHNWoo such as homeopathy and water therapy (sorry... hydrotherapy) not only is there no measurable effect, but there is no scientific basis for the "remedies" themselves. If these absurdities were to actually be viable scientific therapies they would pass into the realm of real, evidence based medicine, and cease to be woo.

Hopefully this is more an informative piece than an outright rant. My ability to explain is far behind my ability to understand at this point, but hey, that's why I'm wasting my time here :P

Those who know me know that -to put it lightly- I get annoyed by pseudoscience. At least pseudoscience portrayed as real science. Fictional pseudoscience includes mad science, and that's just cool.

Many are the times my father and I have earned harsh remarks from my mother when bashing the church, and I have been embroiled in numerous debates-turned-arguments over spirituality and the harm even base mystical beliefs can have with a certain someone. I do think that over the last year or so my knowledge on these topics has grown along with my tolerance for those who espouse what I feel are ridiculous beliefs, but I do still need to consciously check myself often when someone mentions religion.

And then there's homeopathy. When mentioned at work I rarely have the will to resist a derisive snort, and often I'll chime in with an ironic comment about its efficacy and worth. Thankfully the majority of my fellow employees recognise now the true inanity of this quack treatment, but unfortunately I have not yet rallied myself to approaching the higher-ups. My comments are usually greeted with a knowing chuckle "oh, there's Kenneth being irate again".

Issues with religion aside, pseudoscience tips me off for one real reason: false hope that does harm.