Homeopaths: Win a Piano!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
It looks like we have a new comic sceptic genius in our midst. Welcome to the UK, Tim Minchin.
Tour dates available here: http://www.timminchin.com/
Tour dates available here: http://www.timminchin.com/
Labels: homeopathy
posted by Le Canard Noir at
12:14 PM
20 Comments:
g'donya Tim Minchin!
That's so funny - I saw him on the Secret Policeman's Ball doing this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gaid72fqzNE
Which I think is hilarious. I'd not heard of him before....
Oh come on, it doesn't even scan.
:D
BillyJoe
Fantastic, Christmas number 1 for sure :-)
It might not scan very well but who cares.
It is witty and sums up my philosophy in a nutshell.
As they used to say in the old police series "the facts maam, just the facts".
However, if the mumbo-jumboists will not take the Randi shilling (or even his 12 million shillings)or the commensurate Nobel prizes why would they bother for this guys leg.
And why would they bother for his wife because in the other clip he doesn't even seem that interested in her himself.
C*****mass No 1? No doubt some appalling effort from Cliff Richard would sell far more.
TO: All...and especially our 'host'
RE: A Simple Experiment
Here's a little experiment on the efficacy of homeopathy you can do in your own home.
[1] Buy a bottle of cantharis, 6X to 30C 'miracle dilution' should work.
[2] Bring your oven to 400°F.
[3] Put a stainless steel skillet or pan in the over.
[4] Bake the skillet at 400°F for one hour.
[5] Remove the skillet from the oven and put it on the top of the stove.....USING YOUR BARE HANDS.
[6] After you've stopped dancing around the room and screaming obscenitites, take four tablets of cantharis of the 'miracle dilution' you've purchase. The process is to put them UNDER your tongue and let them dissolve on their own. Do NOT swollow them.
If your experience is the same as MINE—and this has happened to me on four occasions, but strictly by accident—the pain will go away in 15 minutes and there will be no scar tissue.
First instance while cooking for an Alpha Course dinner. Someone put a stainless steel pan in front of me to dish up food from without telling me where the pan had been; straight out of the hot oven. Instant 2d degree burns. Since I had no cantharis with me at the church, I had to wait until I finished the supper and drove home. All the while in very interesting pain in both hands. Fifteen minutes after the cantharis, no pain. Blisters went away without any scar tissue.
Another instance, a small fire in my candle making shop. Hot wax got on the electric burners were had been red hot. I tried to put the small fire out by smothering it with a towel. Unfortunately, I had not covered my hand completely and a pinkie finger came into contact with the burner element. Instant 3d degree burn. But a nice crispy mahogony brown.
Took cantharis. Pain gone in 15 minutes. Pain tried to return two hours later. More cantharis, no more pain. No scar tissue.
Try it yourself....
However, I DO recommend you try it in treating an accident instead of on purpose.
A bottle of cantharis can be had at any good Vitamin store, e.g., Vitamin Cottage, for about $7. Is that too much to invest in first aid? Or an experiment?
Enjoy....
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at October 14, 2005 08:19 PM
P.P.P.S. If anyone can tell me how scar tissue not forming after a severe burn is a psychosomatic response or a placebo effect, I'd REALLY like to hear it.
Well, number [5] above seems exceedingly stupid even for an experiment. Who would do anything like that on purpose? Oh wait! Probably someone that uses diluted Cantharis as a first aid...
And for this experiment to be fair, you need another one stupid enough to burn his hands. Then the two of you would randomly choose one of two pills on the table put there by a third person: one Cantharis and one sugar pill (wait, aren't these the same?!?).
Then do this a number of times and run a statistical analysis on the resulting data. Of course by then you will probably have no more hands.
Let me think for a while. Chuck, you know what? Similar experiments *have* been performed (they are called clinical trials ;-)) And you know what the results were? Come on now, of course you do...
Chuck, what makes you think that the plural of anecdotes is data?
TO: All
RE: Nameless-Gutless Stravos and Experiments
"Well, number [5] above seems exceedingly stupid even for an experiment. Who would do anything like that on purpose?" -- stavros
Who'd a thunk someone as gutless as an 'anonymous' poster could have anything worthy of discussion over such thinks as health.
However, here he/she/it is and they can't quite conceive of an idea as spending less than $10 for a cure for common kitchen burns.
So be it, for stupid people such as stavros....
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Stupid, adj., Ignorant and proud of it.]
P.S. When bird-flu, or some other mass killer of the viral persuasion rolls around....
....those who are not willing to step OUT of the 'box' that the AMA has put them into.....
....are welcome to their end.
After all...
....it was an end they invited.
Chuck, you are a funny guy. You talk about stupidity? You accuse me of posting anonymously when I have provided my name and my personal blog address!
My irony sensor has exploded...
And I would be glad for you to refrain from insulting me for no reason at all. Unless you are simply demonstrating your incapacity to comprehend valid (albeit sarcastic) arguments and a reasonable experimental protocol.
TO: stavros
RE: Insults
"And I would be glad for you to refrain from insulting me for no reason at all." -- stavros
I do believe that you were the one who couldn't grasp 'sarcasm' in the first place.
You don't have to DELIBERATELY burn yourself to prove the efficacy of homeopathic materia medica.
You can just spend $7 to buy the cantharis and keep it in your medicine cabinet against a time when you DO seriously burn yourself. And THEN use it.
But I guess that sort of concept is difficult to grasp.
If you thought I was insulting you with something so simple, well.....
RE: Experiment vs. Experience
"Unless you are simply demonstrating your incapacity to comprehend valid (albeit sarcastic) arguments and a reasonable experimental protocol." -- stavros
I've encountered the sort of mentality manifested by our gracious host and you on a number of occasions. The last major such experience when the Skeptics in Colorado Springs came to argue against homeopathy for the local chapter of Mensa.
They behaved the same way you have. All blow and no show. This despite my giving each of them a vial of cantharis.
That was several years ago. I think it would be interesting to see what they did with their 'gift'.
As for the 'valid experiment'....
I do believe that's what I'm offering you. If you don't care to experiment yourself, maybe it has something to do with an unwillingness to 'step out of the box'. And one has to wonder just 'why is that'?
What's the matter? Can't afford to spend $7? Or afraid you might learn something that goes against everythink you've known?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Sometimes you have to whack people up side the head with a daring thought before they'll even begin to think.]
Chuck you have some serious comprehension problems: do you think I was insulted about the ridiculous experiment you proposed or, say, when you called me stupid?!?
You say: "I do believe that's what I'm offering you. If you don't care to experiment yourself"
you cannot even keep a consistent opinion: if this is an experiment then you kind-of *have* to deliberately burn your self! Otherwise it is not a proper experiment.
But in any case, I think I have wasted enough time for someone who will simply get back with another ad hominem attack, will do nothing to respond to criticism, will completely miss the point of my comment, and will ultimately once again demonstrate he cannot make his neurons work together long enough in order to understand some very simple concepts...
Oh, and just to clarify something: I *have* tried both acupuncture and homeopathy a couple of times before I became a rational person and opened my eyes to the ridiculousness of these modalities, and another couple of times afterwards as an experiment. And once again, you already know the results...
TO: stavros
RE: Rational? REALLY!!!!?!
“I *have* tried both acupuncture and homeopathy a couple of times before I became a rational person and opened my eyes to the ridiculousness of these modalities....” -- stavros
How very odd it must be, then, that the US government has approved the use of acupuncture for treatment of certain medical problems. Maybe you should explain how irrational they’ve become on that matter.
But your welcome to your ‘rationality’. In the meantime, you make an excellent foil with statements like that.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Stupid, adj., Ignorant and proud of it.]
Chuck, I suggest you stop embarrassing yourself as soon as possible. You are only making clearer to everyone that you have limited cognitive functions...
Once again you have failed to reply to my comment, you have bypassed what you didn't like, you have produced irrelevant comments (I talk about my experience, you mention the government), and you have insulted me.
And homeopathy is approved by the National Health System in the UK. Does that mean it works? No. It means that the government has succumbed to lobbying and the public demand for "choices". Whether something works or not is for science to determine. And science has determined that neither acupuncture nor homeopathy works better than placebo. Can you understand this very simple statement? If not, try searching PubMed for related research and then get back here. But seriously, stop producing foolish comments. It is very embarrassing...
(Oh, and "your" does *not* mean "you are".)
The burns you describe don't seem incredibly serious, painfull yes but not serious and are unliky to leave scars afterwards.
Also you say that $7 is a small price to pay for this burn prevention. I would say that buying a decent set of oven gloves would be very useful in prevention and a much cheaper treatment for those occasional accidents would be to pour water onto the wound for a short time, the pain tends to relive itself much sooner than 15 minutes, (most people would usually have got used to the pain by then) and is much cheaper and quicker than using a homepathic remedy.
P.S. i am somewhat anonymous in this post but i would rather not post my details on an open forum at this time.
Here is a simple challenge, chuck;
Please, explain to us the purpose of experimental controls and why case anecdotes, even multiple anecdotes, prove nothing.
I await the deafening silence, though I do sit ready to be amused by any of the usual evasions.
Over to you, chuck.
This is very unfair but my remote dowsing diagnostic capability tells me that Chuck is a moron.
I am ideally placed to comment on this experiment because I have unwittingly undertaken it a number of times.
I like cooking. Unfortunately I like alcohol even more - especially if it is red, 13.5% alcohol and comes in a bottle labelled Pinot Noir. You could almost say that cooking and drinking are two of my main hobbies.
Regrettably they make poor bedfellows as hobbies.
My current experiment involves a four inch burn on my right forearm. This was partly the result of not really looking at what I was doing whilst removing a roasting pan from the oven (for experimental purposes this was roast lamb and roast vegetables at 200 degrees C) and partly because I had a glas of wine in my other hand at the time.
Pain went away in less than 15 minutes. Burn is healing up nicely with no scarring evident. Picture available on request.
No woo mumbo-jumbo involved at all. No magic pixy dust pills. Possible minor anaesthesia from wine but not excessively so.
I think a burn of this nature is almost by definition of a self limiting illness (or in this case, injury to be precise).
None of my previous catalogue of drinking and cooking related injuries has left a scar nor did they hurt for more than about 15 minutes.
Burns to the hand also seem to heal up remarkably quickly (as do injuries to the feet as well - possibly some evolutionary thing at work hers).
Although I insulted you in the first paragraph (I felt entitled to as you insulted my intelligence) I am more than happy to give you some good advice. if you ever burn yourself seriously please seek medical assistance and do not rely on a HY cure for cystitis.
""""Cantharis
No. 1 Remedy for the intense pain of burns.
Often effective in the treatment of cystitis, where there are burning pains before, during and after urination. Intense mental and physical irritation. Onset is sudden and violent. Pains are cutting and burning. Patients have a burning, intense thirst, but are worse after drinking (especially cold drinks). Better: cold applications.
Worse: touch."""""""
Maybe I should try it for the intense mental and physical irritation you have caused me.
Isn't cantharis Spanish Fly ? I can see why a heavy dose would distract you from the burn. But there again I suppose 30C is not as heavy a dose as 200C or am I confusing wooish dilution with the temperature of my oven.
Just another thought - apart from possibly changing my name to Cynical Bastard.
Loopy Woo said """""A bottle of cantharis can be had at any good Vitamin store, e.g., Vitamin Cottage, for about $7. Is that too much to invest in first aid? Or an experiment?""""""
Does he have any financial interest in this shop/pill.
Because seven bucks a shot from many thousands of other cynical bastards is a nice slice of wedge to stick in the bank.
I might as well go for it. I can do this pixy dist for £4 a pop which will save you 66p at todays exchange rate.
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