Labels: Ben Goldacre, chiropractors, edzard ernst, evidence based medicine, Gillian McKeith, quacks

 

Merry Christmas!

Last Christmas, we looked at the quackery surrounding myrrh. This year, it is time for me to have little whine about mistletoe. Christmas would not be the same without a little cheeky kiss under this herb - usually with someone you really ought not to. But, its role at Christmas undoubtedly stretches back in time to more paganistic practices.

According to Pliny the Elder, it was central to Druid rituals:

After due preparations have been made for a sacrifice and a feast under the tree, they hail it as the universal healer and bring to the spot two white bulls, whose horns have never been bound before. A priest clad in a white robe climbs the tree and with a golden sickle cuts the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloth. Then they sacrifice the victims, praying that the gods will make their gifts propitious to those to whom they have given it.

They believe that a potion prepared from the mistletoe will make barren animals to bring forth, and that the plant is a remedy against all poisons.

Nowadays, the web is full of claims about how injecting cancer patients with mistletoe extract can have remarkable effects. In many European countries it is not really seen as part of alternative medicine but as part of the oncologists repertoire. In 2002, mistletoe extract was the most frequently prescribed therapy in German outpatient cancer clinics. You may find that it goes by the trade name Iscador when you look for it online.

But the evidence for its effectiveness is rather weak. This year, the Cochrane review published the result of a thorough investigation into the evidence. They noted the high usage in Europe saying, "Proponents claim that mistletoe extracts stimulate the immune system, improve survival, enhance quality of life and reduce adverse effects of chemo- and radiotherapy in cancer patients. "

However, after reviewing the evidence, they concluded,

The review found that there was not enough evidence to reach clear conclusions about the effects on any of these outcomes and it is therefore not clear to what extent the application of mistletoe extracts translates into improved symptom control, enhanced tumour response or prolonged survival. Adverse effects of mistletoe extracts were reported, but appeared to be dose-dependent and primarily confined to reactions at injection site and mild, transient flu-like symptoms.

Not very good news if you were thinking that mistletoe could be the answer.

So, how did the popularity of mistletoe come about? The answer is quite strange. The idea that injecting mistletoe to cure cancer is homeopathic in origin. For those of you who know something about homeopathy, this may come as a surprise. After all, homeopathy is all about infinite dilutions and magic sugar pills. Well, homeopaths would say, not really. Homeopathy is first and foremost about 'like-cures-like'. If a substance has some sort of resemblance to an illness or can induce the symptoms of an illness in healthy people, then it can be used to cure that illness (their idea, not mine). As ideas, dilution and succussion are reduced to being merely a common delivery mechanism of homeopathy. Again, a rather strange idea where the delivery mechanism does not actually deliver any medicine. However, you may remember, that modern homeopaths invent new delivery mechanisms all the time that do not deliver anything, such as mp3 files. Some can transmit homeopathy through emails, or just write the name of a remedy down on a prescription pad. Anyway, sugar pills are just a common delivery mechanism as found in Boots or Holland and Barrett.

That ultimately eccentric and bizarre homeopath, Rudolf Steiner, came up with the mistletoe thing. As it is Christmas, I must point out that it is unreported if he had a red nose, although he did have some funny grooves above it.

Rudolf noted that mistletoe grew like a cancer on other plants; its yearly rhythms so at odds with the rest of nature. He said,

Mistletoe provides, beyond question, a means which — when given in potencies — should enable us to dispense with the surgical removal of tumours. The point is only to find out how to treat the mistletoe fruit in combining it with other forces of the mistletoe plant, in order to arrive at a remedy.

Steiner was a mystic. His rather strange thoughts have developed into the fields of anthroposophical medicine and biodynamic farming. His ideas made Pliny's druids look perfectly rational. For example, if you wish to enrich your compost you can stuff oak bark into the skull of a dead cat and then bury it in peat for a while, or if you have an infestation of field mice, then catch a few, ceremoniously burn the little buggers, and then sprinkle the ashes around, but do this only when Venus is in Scorpio. (I am serious.) Biodynamic farming has evolved a little since into the slightly less batty form of farming known as 'organic'. There are some practitioners who still see this as a sell out and stick to the cat-skull-burning-mice-wicker-man original formulas. Buy your biodynamic wines in Waitrose.

So, why is mistletoe therapy still going? Especially in the UK? The Cochrane Review did note:

In the absence of good quality, independent trials, decisions about whether mistletoe extracts are likely to be beneficial for a particular problem should rely on expert judgement and practical considerations

So, where do you go for your "expert judgement?"

The answer, of course, is your local NHS Homeopathic Hospital.

Dr Elizabeth Thompson MRCP MFHom, in an article entitled, When orthodox medicine has nothing more to offer ..., notes that the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital (paid by your taxes) is seeing an increasing number of cancer patients and notes that they have "experience in using Mistletoe which is given by injection and has been shown to stimulate the group of white cells whose numbers can be depleted." Another NHS Hospital, the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital is said to spend "5 million pounds on treatments such as Indian head massage, hypnotherapy and mistletoe, each year."

Of course, if you do not want to use public facilities, you can spend your own money privately. Harley Street is the place to go, where you can find doctors like Dr Sosie Kassab MB BS FFHom MRCGP, who is also Director of Complementary Cancer Services at Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital, offering mistletoe treatment through the private London Oncology Clinic.

Whether or not patients receive any benefit from these public and private services looks rather doubtful. Of course, doctors should be free, within ethical guidelines, to explore new treatments and develop new therapies. Patients obviously need to be fully informed though of what is going on. My concern is that anyone who has bought into the whole homeopathy thing may not be objectively evaluating the rationality and evidence-base for such treatments. But, this may not be too big an issue for too much longer. 2009 will see one of the NHS Homeopathic hospitals closing for good, and the others are struggling to stay open. They claim patient choice is being eroded by these decisions and the 'campaigns' against homeopathy. Patient choice though is about more than having available whatever bizarre treatment available anyone can dream up.

And, as it is Christmas, it would be rather Scrooge-like to end on such a down note. Myrrh might be rubbish, mistletoe doubtful, but a review in the BMJ by Edzard Ernst, just a few days ago, concluded that the evidence for treatments containing frankincense (B serrata) extracts is "encouraging, but not compelling".

Results of all trials indicated that B serrata extracts were clinically effective. Three studies were of good methodological quality. No serious safety issues were noted.

Not too bad then. Maybe we will look at that next year.

Have a peaceful Christmas, good luck under the mistletoe, and may Santa spare you the mad Aunt giving you a selection of Neal's Yard Remedies toiletries.

Labels: homeopathy, mistletoe, NHS

 

After two weeks of silence from ten UK academic homeopaths, I get a response to my recent challenge.  The challenge was simple: can any of the Universities offering a BSc in Homeopathy tell six different homeopathic pills apart if they do not know which is which to start with. Several emails to them and not a single response from any of the academics.

However, last week I got an email from Harald Walach of Northampton University. Professor Walach works in the School of Social Sciences and is a well known researcher in Homeopathy. He was not on my original list as Northampton does not award a BSc in Homeopathy. But his involvement was welcome.

I shall let the correspondence speak for itself and let you decide if his response meets the requirements of the test.

(The email was copied to Lionel Milgrom, a previous Director of the Society of Homeopaths, and Peter Fisher, Director of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital and physician to the Queen.)

 

 

to comments@quackometer…

cc Lionel Milgrom <lionel.milgrom@…>, peter.fisher@…

date 18 December 2008 12:07

subject homeopathy challenge

 

Although I am too busy going to websites, because I am a researcher, and neither a quacker nor someone writing about quack, I heard about your challenge regarding a simple proof of homeopathy. Although I believe that from an only marginally informed history, theory, psychology and theory of science point of view even the positing of such a challenge shows that the one doing it does not really understand what science is about, I do believe that I have at least put a foot into the door of your challenge. I am not interested in money, and 100 $ would normally not even move me to open my email, because I really have a lot of work to do. But I pose my challenge to you:

 

If you do not think, our study answers your question, I would want to hear a really good argument. If you do, keep your 100$ or give it as a gift to a charity, I suggest the Faculty of Homeopathy, and announce this publicly on your website, ideally with a copy of your letter to the Guardian and Ben Goldacre.

 

By the way: I might need to point out the following: although the publication contains two graphs there should be only one. The reason for this being two is that the copy-editor forgot to slot it into the proofs, I resent both graphs telling them to use the one which is better, and they put in both… so much for scientific publishing.

 

[The Study]

Homeopathic pathogenetic trials produce more specific than non-specific symptoms: results from two double-blind placebo controlled trials

H. Walach, H. Möllinger, J. Sherr, R. Schneider

Best

Harald walach

Prof. Harald Walach

Research Professor in Psychology

University of Northampton

School of Social Sciences &

Samueli Institute for Information Biology (www.siib.org)

 

from Andy Lewiscomments@quackometer…

to Walach Harald <Harald.Walach@north…

cc Lionel Milgrom lionel.milgrom@hotmail.com,peter.fisher@…

date 18 December 2008 13:16

subject Re: homeopathy challenge

Dear Professor Walach,

Thank for for this paper. I will read it and examine the results carefully. There are a few  things I would like to point out to begin with. My challenge is not offering a prize. The mention of $100 is my rough calculation of the experimental cost of such a test. It is designed to show that a dramatic demonstration of homeopathic principles does not require access to resources beyond most practitioners. All that is required is a willingness to subject beliefs to test and to think a little.

I would be interested to understand why you believe my test is not 'scientific'. I go to great pains to ask for homeopaths to suggest how they might improve the test. Recently, I have written to the Universities offering a BSc in homeopathy asking them if they would like to conduct the test and maybe even use their students to take part and critique it. To date, not one of the academics has made any response. Perhaps you, or Dr Milgrom and Dr Fisher, could encourage the Universities to undertake a simple but dramatic test?

A quick glance over the paper does make me think the test has been overcomplicated and allowed much room for data dredging. I will look further into this. It also worries me greatly that you attempt to explain away the discrepancies in your results as a function of quantum mechanical effects. The idea that quantum entanglement can take place between the participants is absurd and shows little appreciation of this subject.

But, thank you for contacting me. I hope you can help see my simple test successfully completed by someone.

Regards,

Andy Lewis

 

from Walach Harald

date 18 December 2008 13:37

Dear Andy Lewis,

Thanks for this. Here are a few points regarding your questions and remarks:

1. Although intriguingly simple to just say: do an experiment and you know, it is a bit more complicated. Experiments are simple questions within a highly complex machinery of theories. As long as there is no good theory, experiments are blind fishing expeditions. The one which you seem to have in mind makes a crucial presupposition: that the way how molecular pharmacology is looking at things is the only one that is right and possible. While this might be the case, there is no a-priori reason why it should be so. Hence all experiments done along those lines will make that presupposition, and it could well be that this is the wrong presupposition. This is, why it is more complicated than just doing a simple experiment. If you did only a small amount of reading in the history of science, you would know. I suggest you read a bit into Larry Laudan, Hilary Putnam, Bruno Latour, Colin & Pinch, to name but a few and you will see the problem. Every a-historical approach to science and the experimental background is in my view fundamentally flawed. I am happy to be convinced otherwise, but I have not seen much evidence in the way you write that you are even aware of the problem, let alone have a solution. It is always easy to presuppose one way of thinking as the only correct one and then argue from this vantage point, and for most purposes this is sufficient. It is not, if problems are more intricate, and my suspicion is: this is the case with homeopathy and a few other things in our world. I recommend to my students reading the good old philosopher Collingwood, who already in 1944 has pointed to this issue. The fact that he has been reprinted recently shows you, how relevant his ideas are. He was, by the way, the major source for Kuhn and others.

2. The way we did our experiment did not leave any room for “data-dredging” as you call it. We had a clear protocol, it was followed through to the end, and the outcome was a very simple, quantitative variable. The fact that Journal of Psychopharmacology published it after a tight peer review shows you that at least the peer reviewers have understood what we did and found it valid. Do you have similar or even more credentials than the average reviewer for such a scholarly journal?

3. The fact that the outcome is not easy to understand makes the point I was making earlier clearer: it is more difficult than you, and in fact most homeopaths, assume. And the fact that we are using a quantum-mechanical type of reasoning does not mean we are talking about quantum mechanics; we are not (and I have enough knowledge about this background to know about this problem, believe me; and if you read carefully you will see that we have made exactly this point). We are using theoretical structures that are similar to the quantum formalism, but that is a bit difficult to understand. Let it suffice here to say: if you want to be true to the phenomenology of things then you see very quickly that a simple Newtonian approach does not work. But that means: you need to listen carefully to the data. This is what science is about. Not about opening a cookery book on page 25 and say: simple, stupid, just do it.

Kind regards

Harald walach

P.S. I attach some publications regarding these issues…

 

 

from Andy Lewiscomments@quackometer….

Dr Walach

Thanks for your prompt response. I do intend to look at the paper in due course - but other work is pressing right now.

But to respond to some of your comments,

1) I think you are making a lot of assumptions about me. I make no claim in my test that it should follow the paradigms of 'molecular pharmacology'. Indeed, if you read the test, I go to great lengths to avoid any such assumptions. The mechanisms and practices of homeopathy are immaterial. I simply ask the following: "Given six bottles of homeopathic pills, can homeopaths tell the apart?". Anyone taking the test is free to choose any method they like: re-provings, analytical, quantum divining - it does not matter. The protocol is also open - as long as the statistical power is not diminished or blinding compromised.

2) I was just a little surprised that you could only get a statistically significant result by combining the results of two trials. This looked rather post hoc. Had you published each independently, things would look rather different. As for my credentials- are they not irrelevant? But for the record, I bet the reviewers knew nothing of quantum theory.

3) I am not sure what a "quantum-mechanical type of reasoning" means if you are not talking about quantum mechanics. You make no mention in the paper that you are not really talking about quantum entanglement. I see you are into the philosophy of Latour - someone horribly confused by physics. In common with such french pomo nonsense, are we to read your paper in the same light of the First Rule of Interpretation of Postmodern Academic Writing- "No sentence means what it says"?

To repeat, I would welcome your involvement in my simple test. Please look at the latest challenge to the Universities.

http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2008/12/homeopathy-university-challenge.html

I think you will find that my test is open and free from radical assumptions about what I think homeopathy is. If you believe that such a simple test could be compromised by some sort of quantum-like 'non local' effects then I am sure some change could be made to accommodate such effects. After all, non locality can be demonstrated in physics and many tests  have been done that show a clear violation of Bell's inequality. You claim to be able to show non local effects in your paper. Could this be replicated?

Regards,

Andy

 

 

from Walach Harald

Well, thanks for that. Just briefly:

There is no such thing as a statement or an experiment without assumptions. Here is an analogue: Here are six bottles of red-wine. Give them to someone and ask them: can you tell them apart. Now, depending on the context, you will find people who can and those who can’t. If you are a sommelier, you can. You might even be able to tell the vintage and the growing area. If you are not you cannot. So, nothing is as simple as it seems really.

As to Latour: He might have been mistaken in some points, but his sociological and historical analyses, especially regarding medicine and chemistry, are surely very interesting. And no: I am not into postmodern nonsense, if you think I am. I simply think it is necessary to be well informed about the history, theory and sociology of science, else one is confusing things. And if you are not and are pulling up websites like that with seemingly and supposedly simple test that, if you look at it more carefully, are not that simple, then I find it does matter.

And you are wrong: we did specify the combination of data in a protocol apriori, just as we reported. And this we did for a very specific reason. And if you read carefully, you will see that we did not talk about quantum entanglement, because this is surely stupid in such a context. We don’t have to talk about this. And it might be true that the reviewers of J Psychopharm do not understand a lot about quantum mechanics, but they know what a good study is. And the reviewers of Foundations of Physics know what good physics is, normally, and this is, where we have published our Weak Quantum Theory formalism. And when I say quantum type or quantum analogue reasoning I mean reasoning that takes the central insight of quantum mechanics on board in the way how it conceptualises things: the insight about the fundamental nature of complementarity. For if you do that, then you reach some interesting conclusions.

As to credentials: yes, I do find it matters. I would not want my heart operated on by someone who does not understand about open heart surgery and does not have the necessary credentials. And in the same way I do not want people who do not have enough credentials about science, its historical background, its sociological and theoretical ramifications talk about complex issues in a simplistic way, because this is misleading, I find. That is all. No harm meant, no implications in this, just a piece of clarification, and like you… I am quite busy and will have to turn to other matters

 

from Andy Lewiscomments@quackometer…

Well maybe something to think about: what are my assumptions? 

Of course I would not ask non-wine experts to tell wines apart. That would be daft - they do not claim to be able to do so. But homeopaths claim remedies have distinct and repeatable effects, and so I ask homeopaths to tell them apart. I do not really see your point unless you can be specific about an assumption that I have missed.

I would appreciate your thoughts in the new year: is my test reasonable? And if not, why not?

 

from Walach Harald

Well, they do in their practice: they use different remedies and tell their effects apart in the reaction of patients. The assumption you are making is that you can use remedies as such, without the appropriate context, and tell them apart. Of course you can’t. This is a daft assumption, so I am not surprised no one has taken up your challenge.

 

from Andy Lewiscomments@quackometer…

Well, they do in their practice: they use different remedies and tell their effects apart in the reaction of patients.

Do they? The point is that we need the evidence for this.

The assumption you are making is that you can use remedies as such, without the appropriate context, and tell them apart. Of course you can't. This is a daft assumption, so I am not surprised no one has taken up your challenge.

My test springs from many statements of homeopathy web sites. I quote from the Society of Homeopaths

"therapy is based on the theory of treating "like with like". Homeopathic remedies are diluted natural substances that if given to a healthy person,would produce the symptoms the medicine is prescribed for."

http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/

I also quote from Wallach. Mullinger, Sher and Schneider 2008. :

So which bit of the "appropriate context" am I missing?

from Walach Harald

Well, it is the fact that the remedies seem to operate exactly in the context between a patient/healthy volunteer and the symptoms, as we did show in our study. So the context you are missing is the fact that there is no such thing as the remedy in itself. It is only a remedy, when it is used appropriately, else it is, as is easily spotted with a basic chemical education, only a simple dilution with a lot of different stuff in it, none of which is likely to be very exciting. And this is the bit you are missing. Taking bottles won’t do. You will also need the appropriate set-up, and in our study we showed how it can be done. But unfortunately for you and many others, it cannot be done for 100$. Our study cost roughly 20.000 € at least, if you want to do it properly, likely a bit more, and if you do two studies and combine the data, it is more expensive. If I find another 120k € to do a replication I will do several of these studies and combine the data in a joint analysis. I am still not sure it will work, but we have at least a way to proceed.

If you want to tell aspirin apart form some fake thing you also need a lab, the appropriate equipment and knowledge, etc. As it happens, a lab won’t do for homeopathic stuff, it seems, so the detection system has to be more complex, if there is anything to detect in the first place. Some stupid folks like me think there is. But what we see is: it is not simple.

Hope that clarifies things

Best

hawa

 

from Andy Lewiscomments@quackometer…

PS I started reading your paper on 'Weak Quantum Theory' but I must admit I did not get past:

Yet, both aspects of a pair of complementary observables are needed to give the full picture of what we are able to say about reality. In other words, complementary variables are not only maximally incompatible in the sense that the knowledge of one precludes the knowledge of the other variable (in the same measurement experiment), but they are also both needed to describe the full picture and thus are both requirements for a holistic view of reality [5].

This is quite clearly wrong. Complementary variables in quantum mechanics can be measured in the same experiment. Quantum Mechanics merely forbids both being precisely specified. We can have knowledge of both, but their commutator is a nonzero constant and so we cannot know both with arbitrary precision. This is far from being 'maximally incompatible', but simply places a fundamental limit on what we can know about the world. This has got nothing to do with 'holistic' views as spoken about in homeopathy. Are you not just confusing and conflating ideas? Is it worth me reading on?

from Walach Harald

Well, up to you, whether you want to read it, but briefly:

If you follow the discussion on complementarity, not just as a technical term, but as an epistemological, you will see that it’s meaning is indeed about maximal incompatibility, as you cannot, formally, use a term or a concept, negate it, and arrive at a complementary concept. They are, graphically speaking, orthogonal. Technically speaking they cannot be measured at the same time, and you need different measurement set-ups to do this. This is what is described in the algebraic formalism by the non-commutativity of the operators. And this is, what is meant by the Heisenberg uncertainty, that you cannot measure both with precision. This is the whole point. And if you follow the formalism through, or the discussion around the EPR-paradox that Schrödinger started, you can easily see that it is exactly this that is in fact creating the so called holism of quantum theory until measurement occurs. Now, all we do is stipulating that the formal structure might be useful for other systems as well. This is a theoretical and axiomatic statement. Whether this is true or not, is a question of phenomenology, and, ultimately, of conceptual analysis and experimental test.

from Walach Harald

I can’t help your struggle here: perhaps you need to struggle more?

 

from Andy Lewiscomments@quackometer…

Harald - it is just not true that you cannot measure complementary variables with the same measurement set-ups. Take a medical positron emission tomography (PET) scanner. When detecting coincident events it is necessary to measure both the timing and energy of photon arrival in the instrument - energy and time being conjugate,. The larger the windows on both variables, the greater the noise. One cannot crank down the measurement precision on both parameters indefinitely- mostly for instrumental reasons, but ultimately quantum mechanical reasons. I am not sure where you get your ideas from.

You appear to be guilty of overstretching a metaphor. Just because you use the word holism in he context of quantum mechanics and homeopathy does not mean you are using equivalent terms or can apply equivalent theoretical frameworks. 

 

from Andy Lewiscomments@quackometer…

Harald - to come up with a comprehensive set of reasons why my experiment would not work would be a worthy outcome in itself. No one has managed to do this yet and I am afraid that neither have you. In principle, my experiment is no different from your own except it makes far fewer assumptions and has a much higher statistical power. If you have reasons to believe that my experiment would fail then your explanation would be good. If not, then I would welcome help in encouraging homeopaths to take part. So far, you have just made a few hand waving suggestions that I am missing things. Frankly, I do not believe you.

from Walach Harald

Well, look, Andy:

I don’t see the point of this toing and froing: you have put out a challenge for a homeopathic remedy proving to work. I have given you a clear example that it does (and we have in stock another one which is just in the process of peer review). This publication has been

a) well described

b) done according to all standards of methodology (triple blind even)

c) published in a peer reviewed journal

and you come back with the simple “I don’t believe you – you have to do it my way for me to believe you”. Now I cannot and won’t force you to believe me, as belief is a complicated issue. But it confirms two things, and these were, in essence, the ones I was making in earlier comments implicitly:

This whole debate is not about data, it is about belief.

And science is not about data either, it is about a very complex mix of theories, a-priori reasons (Bayesian, if you like), politics, power and social psychology of groups. Any approach that fails to see this is simply inappropriate. And in order to find that out, you just need to do the appropriate reading, which you obviously haven’t done, otherwise you would see my point. 

I have been doing work and put thinking into this since my PhD in 1992. I am not going to waste my time explaining to you, why your approach won’t work, since, as you said: you don’t believe me anyway. So why bother. Here is one, but only one, of many, many reasons, why your experiment is in fact not such a good idea as you think:

You can use a homeopathic remedy and give it to volunteers, and nothing at all might happen with 19 out of 20, but one might be very sensitive and produce symptoms. There is not a good way of knowing who will react, as this reaction is an individual one. This is, why we use very experienced provers who know their reaction well and have a reasonable chance at detecting their symptoms as different from background noise. And as you can see from our data: not everyone reacts, but enough react to produce a meaningful difference.

Simplistic provings, such as you are suggesting, have been done already and published. They do not work, because the methodology is too crude. And a more subtle reason is: homeopathic remedies are likely not simple, causal agents, such as a classical pharmacological substance is, but this is a point, where even most homeopaths would disagree with me, let alone you.

But really, this discussion is growing too complex for an internet debate. I have really written a lot about this and I am not going to repeat that for the sake of an individual tutorial here. If you want to keep your money, your belief system and your posture, please go ahead and do. But don’t say: no one has come up and answered your challenge. Say: someone has, but I don’t believe him. And perhaps you should also say: And this is, because real science is not about data, but about belief.

I will think about your previous mail about complementarity, and perhaps answer that one, but this will be the end from my point of view, unless you do two things:

Give me a better reason than your belief and trust for not accepting our data as meeting your challenge;

Give me a reason, by way of your credentials, why a further dialogue might be useful, not only for you, but for me.

And if you want to be a real scientist, then my suggestion is the following: try it out yourself. Purchase some higher potencies of the following remedies (you can take the money from the 100$ you are not willing to give to me): platinum, stramonium, sulphur, and perhaps lycopodium; I would use 30 or 200. Take 5 globules, each hour, for a day or so, perhaps three in a row, but stop, as soon as you detect symptoms. If you don’t get symptoms, leave a couple of days space in between and take the next. If you do get symptoms, and mind you, they can be very subtle, take note and observe, write them down, and consult a homeopathic material medica afterwards to find out, whether you find them there. If the symptoms become too strong, let me know and I will find the appropriate antidote for you.

Cheers, and happy Christmas

from Walach Harald

Andy,

You are of course correct that complementary variables can be measured, even at the same time. But they cannot be measured with arbitrary precision, because then the Heisenberg uncertainty comes into play. I don’t think, this is at all the point. Formally, though, this means that complementarity, as a category, produces entanglement, or, entanglement is a special case of complementarity, namely the complementarity between the description of the whole systerm, and the description of the local variables. In the classical EPR measurement set-up this comes about because the superposition for the whole system, say of entangled photons has a joint probability of say the polarisation angles to be measured, but the single photons don’t until one is measured, and then the description of the whole system defines immediately what the according measurement of the other polarisation angle has to be. So much for the EPR case.

All we have done is the following: We have used this formal structure. We have put out an axiomatic framework. This is similar to using a type of algebra that is already known and used to describe the situation in quantum mechanics. We have then stated that IF this axiomatic framework is applicable to a system, THEN it is the same structure as the one in quantum mechanics proper, and THEN entanglement correlations can be expected also in systems other than quantum systems.

You can, of course say, we are guilty here of stretching a metaphor or an analogy too far, if you like. This is a matter of scientific temperament. For if no one is probing the field at the borders we would never have had progress. My standard example is Harvey discovering the heartbeat: because of Aristotelian physiology that had no room for a beating heart, people were virtually not hearing the heart beat, until Harvey said it did, based on hard experimental evidence. But people did not even want to listen, because their theoretical model did not allow for such a perception.

So I disagree with you here: Any rational analogue, extrapolation, or formal-axiomatic framework that is consistent and makes interesting explanatory moves possible or new predictions is a good heuristic. Whether it is in fact true that such systems exist, whether it is in fact useful to talk about complementarity outside QM proper is an altogether different matter. And whether our prediction of a generalised form of entanglement is true is also a matter for empirical and experimental testing. Schrödinger discovered the oddity of entanglement in 1934. Einstein used it in 1935 to ridicule QM. It was not until Bell, roughly 30 years later, came up with his operationalisation that, again about 15 years, led then to appropriate experimental testing that entanglement was proven a fact, and even nowadays, after a tight series of highly inventive, extremely expensive, and unbelievably clever experimentation, there are still people who say, yes, but perhaps we can see it differently still…. So it will take a while, if our suspicion is correct, until proper experimental set-ups are created, and some empirical evidence is produced. And I do not believe in experimental proofs for convincing sceptics. Already Planck had seen that this is not how science works. It is rather a progress by dying out. So we will see who will survive in the end. For the time being we have produced some ideas how such a model can help in understanding phenomena that cannot be explained within a classical frame of thinking and reference, homeopathy being just one of them. If you do not see the need for their explanation, then fine. If you happen to see this need: here is a potential way forward.

And I think the misunderstandings or misgivings about the way how we formulated the concept of complementarity stems from the fact that you can think about it either practically; then often it is not really a problem, as you say. Or you can think about it from a fundamental conceptual point of view, and then complementary variables are a different category of concepts, because you cannot use a negation of one to express the reality of the other, and yet you have to apply them at the same time to explain a unity. The formulation in the paper came from my physics colleagues, who are not so stupid as you think they are. One is a chair of theoretical physics and has published widely in the field, and has received quite a few positive feedbacks from some of his physics colleagues about this approach, and the other one is a more junior but very well published physicist who has put a lot of thinking into this. But as you know, quantum mechanics can be approached from different points of views, you can use different formalisms to express it, and the one we have used is the more modern one of the C* algebra, which is not normally used, as far as I know, for the practical application purposes, but more for theoretical modelling and clarification. That might explain the differences. And should you have the need for a good reference regarding the basic, fundamental, and irreducible property of complementary variables: here is a good publication by Prof. Mahler, another colleague of ours who has published widely and who has a while ago produced an interesting paper regarding the fundamental nature of complementary variables: Kim I, Mahler G (2000) Uncertainty rescued: Bohr's complementarity for composite systems. Physcis Letters A 269: 287-292.

Cheers and have a good break

harald

from Andy Lewiscomments@quackometer…

Harald,

It is not fair to quote me out of context about the "I don't believe you' This was a statement made in the context of our discussion about 'weak quantum theory' and my challenge. I do not believe that WQT has any bearing on the subject and you were being rather evasive, if I may say so.

Now, on a preliminary reading (and I intend to go into more detail over xmas) your paper is not equivalent to my challenge. One wing (the distant untrained) of the trial quite clearly failed. The other wing (the local practitioners) passed when pooled with the other wing. Hardly ringing endorsements. Given the a priori unlikelihood chance of success, one would want to be see unambiguous evidence before accepting a weak pass. Also, one must be slightly sceptical and wonder why someone with a direct and rather large financial interest in a successful outcome was keeping the codes to the test. The other reason I am sceptical, as I have said, is the rather bizarre way the paper turns anomalous results into 'evidence' for extremely speculative hypotheses for extending quantum formalism into arbitrary areas. Normally, it is more parsimonious to assume that your experiment has gone belly up. Do you do this because 'science is not about data'? I am afraid, in my training, data was central to science. It told me what was right and what was wrong. Science without data is pathological science and pseudo-science and I fear you are wading into both.

I find it odd that you feel that the fact that you got your PhD in 1992 and have put a lot of thought into your subject is a reason not to engage more fully with my experiment. Coincidently, 1992 was the year I was awarded my PhD and I too have put a lot of thought into this. Surely, this is a good reason to engage? (BTW, your CV says 1990 for one PhD and 1995 for another??? )

But anyway, thanks for supplying a reason why my test will not work. However, I find it very unconvincing. I cannot believe that such a proving will fail 19 times out of 20 - especially when you then go on to say that if I am a real scientist, why do I not try it out for myself? Would this be convincing with only a 5% chance of success? You tell me that I might need an antidote from you!!

If homeopathy is as subtle as you suggest, then surely it means there are two very important questions that then are raised: is the materia medica reliable? Probably not, given the slap dash approach the vast majority of provings took. And secondly, is it a viable modality of treatment if it is so unreliable? Reminder: there is no good evidence that it is reliable. Is this not an admission of defeat if my test cannot be passed?

Now, reasons to continue:

I do not accept your paper as better than my test for the reasons given above and that I am quite clear in my challenge that  I want statistical power equivalent to my 1:720 or better. My test is simple, unambiguous and powerful.

You want to know my credentials? Which particular exams that I have sat and vivas conducted and institutions worked at would suffice? What would rule in further discussion and what would not? I have demonstrated I know more about quantum theory than you? Is that enough?

I would suggest that the biggest reason to continue in constructive discussion is that homeopathy is under threat and its critics are not going to go away until homeopaths and their apologists engage in critical appraisal of what they do. Most do not want to see homeopathy banned, just responsibly practised within the limits that evidence suggests is reasonable. And if it is to be funded by the tax payer in the NHS and taught as a science degree then homeopathy needs to engage with fully with scientific discourse and step away from pseudoscience, denialism, obsurantism and quackery.

What I have seen so far in my challenge from the most unsophisticated lay homeopath is really no different to yourself. Obfuscation and excuses. I really would hope there would be a more engaging and questioning attitude amongst academics. After all, that is what we pay you to be. I hope you can find a way to do this test. Even a negative result might tell you something.

Have a good Xmas

A

from Walach Harald

Harald,

It is not fair to quote me out of context about the "I don't believe you' This was a statement made in the context of our discussion about 'weak quantum theory' and my challenge. I do not believe that WQT has any bearing on the subject and you were being rather evasive, if I may say so.

************ okay

Now, on a preliminary reading (and I intend to go into more detail over xmas) your paper is not equivalent to my challenge. One wing (the distant untrained) of the trial quite clearly failed. The other wing (the local practitioners) passed when pooled with the other wing. Hardly ringing endorsements. Given the a priori unlikelihood chance of success, one would want to be see unambiguous evidence before accepting a weak pass. Also, one must be slightly sceptical and wonder why someone with a direct and rather large financial interest in a successful outcome was keeping the codes to the test. The other reason I am sceptical, as I have said, is the rather bizarre way the paper turns anomalous results into 'evidence' for extremely speculative hypotheses for extending quantum formalism into arbitrary areas. Normally, it is more parsimonious to assume that your experiment has gone belly up. Do you do this because 'science is not about data'? I am afraid, in my training, data was central to science. It told me what was right and what was wrong. Science without data is pathological science and pseudo-science and I fear you are wading into both.

*********** well that is simply wrong: it was an apriori hypothesis, and you do not belief it, I can’t help it. I am not turning the results into evidence for a speculative hypothesis, as you say, I am just using the phenomenology of data and try to understand what happesn here. Parsimonious strategies are all very well, but sometimes not sufficient. I agree: science without data is not science; but science without theory is blind data mongering. The challenge is: an appropriate theory for the current data; by the way: it was not a “test” as you say, but a simple study; keeping the code by the randomisation centre that does the distribution is standard practice and can hardly be done otherwise; no one accuses anybody in standard pharmacology research for this very same practice, or am I wrong here.

I find it odd that you feel that the fact that you got your PhD in 1992 and have put a lot of thought into your subject is a reason not to engage more fully with my experiment. Coincidently, 1992 was the year I was awarded my PhD and I too have put a lot of thought into this. Surely, this is a good reason to engage? (BTW, your CV says 1990 for one PhD and 1995 for another??? )

********* I find it odd that you should not accept my experiment; but up to you. I have given you a couple of reasons why I think it is a bit simplistic to go this way; I have published a lot of stuff about this, and I am not going to repeat my reasons in an email; and the 1992 date was because this is, when the book containing my thesis was published; the date of the exam was in 1990; and in 1995 I did a PhD in the Theory and History of Science; as you can see: contrary to you, I am quite transparent with my credentials (that tell you also something about what I likely cannot do well). I am happy to engage in dialogue, always, otherwise I would have hardly bothered to communicate with you. But a good dialogue has a simple precondition, which I do not find much evidence for in the way you write and put your stuff out: openness.

But anyway, thanks for supplying a reason why my test will not work. However, I find it very unconvincing. I cannot believe that such a proving will fail 19 times out of 20 - especially when you then go on to say that if I am a real scientist, why do I not try it out for myself? Would this be convincing with only a 5% chance of success? You tell me that I might need an antidote from you!!

******** why not try out? The best science always comes from primary, personal experience, if you have studied your own science well… and I am not saying you might need an antidote, I am just saying if you need one, contact me. Standard practice…

If homeopathy is as subtle as you suggest, then surely it means there are two very important questions that then are raised: is the materia medica reliable? Probably not, given the slap dash approach the vast majority of provings took. And secondly, is it a viable modality of treatment if it is so unreliable? Reminder: there is no good evidence that it is reliable. Is this not an admission of defeat if my test cannot be passed?

*********** Reminder: Homeopathy has been around since the early 1800s; it was nearly extinct in the States around 1950 and has seen a remarkable revival. Why, I wonder is this so, if it is so unreliable? Because all these patients were stupid and gullible, all these doctors who have all done their medical degree where sods? And this, although at the same time as Hahnemann invented homeopathy there were a multitude of other medical models around, Brownianism for instance, that have all disappeared because they did not help people. So why is this, I ask? Placebo effect? Perhaps? Then why here, and not elsewhere?

Now, reasons to continue:

I do not accept your paper as better than my test for the reasons given above and that I am quite clear in my challenge that  I want statistical power equivalent to my 1:720 or better. My test is simple, unambiguous and powerful.

You want to know my credentials? Which particular exams that I have sat and vivas conducted and institutions worked at would suffice? What would rule in further discussion and what would not? I have demonstrated I know more about quantum theory than you? Is that enough?

********* I am very happy to accept that you know more about quantum theory than I do, in fact, this is the reason why I always team up with real physicists before I make any comments in this area. And it is not very difficult to know more about quantum physics than I do, because I have not studied a hard-core science subject, as you can see from my CV. But contrary to you, I do find credentials important: They tell you something about the training, the history someone has, the potential bias and the potential lacunae, because no one can know everything. And I find: if you pose yourself with that posture of post-modern inquisition then the public also has a right to know: what are your credentials.

I would suggest that the biggest reason to continue in constructive discussion is that homeopathy is under threat and its critics are not going to go away until homeopaths and their apologists engage in critical appraisal of what they do. Most do not want to see homeopathy banned, just responsibly practised within the limits that evidence suggests is reasonable. And if it is to be funded by the tax payer in the NHS and taught as a science degree then homeopathy needs to engage with fully with scientific discourse and step away from pseudoscience, denialism, obsurantism and quackery.

********* I am not sure this dialogue can be constructive, if you start up with misreadings of straight forward experimental work, dismissing it, because you do not seem to understand it in the first place. And, by the way, it is an interesting coincidence that the critics of homeopathy seem to be voicing their critique at a time, when prozac comes under pressure, when NICE takes off its list the new antidementia drugs, etc. Do you not find, this is a remarkable coincidence. You are really naïve, if you believe that this coming out of pure intellectual curiosity. And I say once again: the problem is the term “evidence”, for this is not a neutral, clearly defined notion. It is highly dependent on the context. And if you say, the only evidence is superiority over placebo, this is one way of going about, but not a very intelligent one, I am afraid.

What I have seen so far in my challenge from the most unsophisticated lay homeopath is really no different to yourself. Obfuscation and excuses. I really would hope there would be a more engaging and questioning attitude amongst academics. After all, that is what we pay you to be. I hope you can find a way to do this test. Even a negative result might tell you something.

********* Well I find, the one who is doing the questioning here is really me. I may not always be right. I may not always have the right answers. But at least I seem to have more questions than you. And this is, in my view, the function of an academic.

Have a good Xmas

******** same to you

 

Today Prince Charles visited the Nelson's Homeopathic Pharmacy manufacturing laboratories in London. He was supposed to be turning up with his wife, Camilla, but unfortunately she has not been taking her magic sugar pills and was too ill to inspect the identical tubs of white sugar pills.

It looks like Charles and his spin off commercial enterprises, "Duchy Originals" is getting into bed with the magic pill manufacturers to produce his own range of "herbal products." Charles, destined to become King, is also becoming the nation's healer.

We scoff and scorn third world leaders who in feats of pure derangement and power proclaim their bizarre healing powers. In Gambia, President Yahya Jammeh announced he had discovered a cure for AIDS. Gambian Health Minister, Tamsim Mbowe, a trained doctor and obvious sycophant, supports his president's belief that he can cure AIDS in three days with his secret medicinal herb concoctions.

Ex South African president Thabo Mbeki wallowed in his own murderous AIDS denialism and allowed his health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, to promote her own cure of garlic and beetroot whilst actively preventing a roll out of antiretrovirals to the vast HIV+ population. The University of Cape Town estimates that 340,000 deaths could have been prevented if the government had not been enthralled by quack alternatives.

In both cases, delusional health beliefs were allowed to reach murderous proportions because no one dared question authority, without fear of reprisals. In Gambia a UN representative pointed out that there was absolutely no evidence that Jammeh's cures worked. She was given 48 hours to leave Gambia.

We are shocked at such 'backward' antiscience and quackery. But we have own chief witch doctor a heart beat from being head of state. Charles' views on alternative medicine are well known. When Professor Edzard Ernst criticised his views, Sir Michael Peat, Prince Charles's private secretary, made an official complaint about him which resulted in his employers at Exeter University spending a year running disciplinary hearings and investigations.

As Ernst remarked, "I have repeatedly been told he cannot tolerate advice which is not 100% in line with his opinion ... I think his advisors are all sycophants".

Charles talks of 'Integrated Medicine'. It is a euphemism. There is no way you can integrate nonsense with reality - and that is what homeopathy is. The real agenda of Charles is to promote alternative medicine and force it upon the NHS at all costs. His main vehicle for this is his Foundation for Integrated Health and his involvement with ensuring new bodies are set up to give official sanction to quacks, such as the newly emerging Ofquack.

At his tour of Nelson's today, he praised them for their efforts in "leading the way to integrate natural and conventional ‎healthcare". Again, it is difficult to see what Nelsons are doing to integrate with conventional healthcare. It is difficult to talk about a homeopathic pill manufacturer without calling it a fraud. The picture above shows Charles inspecting a number of vats containing wing of bat or hyena saliva. No matter what is in those vats, after it has gone through the magic rituals of homeopathic preparation, the pills leaving the factory are to all purposes identical and contain no meaningful active ingredient. They then ship them off to pharmacies like Boots where they are sold in packages and given nice names like Teetha - a remedy for teething babies which contains no medicine.

I have sometimes wondered if all they do is scoop out pills from one giant pot into little pots and just label them differently. The effect would be exactly the same. Nelson's manufacturing process is indistinguishable from a fraudulent activity in its output. And here we see Charles endorsing it.

I have recently asked each of the Universities offering a BSc in homeopathy in the UK, to see if they can do a simple test to tell one homeopathic pill from another. I have written twice now to ten homeopathic academics and none have seen fit to reply to me yet. The only academic studying alternative medicine in the UK who is willing to put such beliefs to objective test is Edzard Ernst and his team at Exeter. And for doing so, it causes nothing but contempt from the homeopathic community and their royal patron.

Charles is set to be King. His constitution role is being stretched to intolerable levels by his insistence to move into commercial exploitation of quack products. We may think we live in a sophisticated and developed nation, but Charles may play a useful role of reminding us we are still easily enthralled by authority and magic. We risk a health despotism in the UK no better than a failing African state run by a self aggrandising mad man.

Labels: homeopathy, Prince Charles

 

Hey! The Quackometer is back on line and so many of you have been using it. I've seen a few problems but just need some time to fix them. Work. Christmas rush and all that.

But while the quackometer was down, I came across some academics who were taking the Quackometer rather seriously. Yin Aphinyanaphongsa and Constantin Aliferis of the Vanderbilt University Nashville have written a paper entitled, Text Categorization Models for Identifying Unproven Cancer Treatments on the Web. They have presented their paper at Medinfo 2007 and it is available in the Proceedings of the 12th World Congress on Health (Medical) Informatics. Building Sustainable Health Systems. (Full text here).

Now, when I started the Quackometer, I naively had no idea that there were people in the world who did this sort of thing for real. Actually, that is not quite true. I used to go out with a woman who ran a company that did email spam filtering. It's the same sort of problem. Given an arbitrary bit of text, can you classify it into one of two sorts? Spam or real email. Quackery or not quackery. People make money out of this sort of stuff and so it is no wonder that there are academics looking at the problem. And so there is a whole world out there of Medical Informatics.

But as Aphinyanaphongsa and Aliferis say in their intro "To the best of our knowledge, there is no research on automated techniques for identifying web pages that make unproven claims". I have always treated the quackometer as something of a bit of fun, but the authors in their abstract are quite clear that there is something very serious that needs addressing,

The nature of the internet as a non-peer-reviewed (and more generally largely unregulated) publication medium has allowed wide-spread promotion of inaccurate and unproven medical claims in unprecedented scale. Patients with conditions that are not currently fully treatable are particularly susceptible to unproven and dangerous promises about miracle treatments. In extreme cases, fatal adverse outcomes have been documented. Most commonly, the cost is financial, psychological, and delayed application of imperfect but proven scientific modalities. To help protect patients, who may be desperately ill and thus prone to exploitation, we explored the use of machine learning techniques to identify web pages that make unproven claims.

The researchers wanted to see if standard text categorisation methods could be made to spot bogus health claims. They use a set of mathematical techniques called a support vector machine that is a form of supervise learning. The SVR is told in a learning set which set of text is in class A and which is class B and it finds ways of separating them in a multidimensional mathematical space. To see how effective their learning algorithm was, they compared their results with to other approaches:

• Google Page Rank
• Quackometer Canards

Smashing.

They say about the Quackometer,

We compared our algorithm to a heurisitic, unvalidated, and unpublished quack detection tool available at http://www.quackometer.net/. The exact details of the detection tool are proprietary. In general, the algorithm counts words in web pages that quacks use, and sorted the words into at least 5 dictionaries [27]. It looks for altmed terms such as homeopathic and herbal, pseudoscientific words such as toxins and superfoods, domain specific words such as energy and vibration, skeptical words such as placebo and flawed, and commerce terms such as products and shipping. The algorithm counts the frequency of terms, applies a user-defined frequency threshold, and generates a corresponding score from 0 to 10.

With Google they just used the PageRank of each page as a measure of quality.

Now, well done to them. Their approach did very well. But, as always, I would like to point out a few flaws to these hoity-toity, know-it-all, ivory-tower eggheads. (I am not bitter.)

The main problem is that they considered only a very narrow subset of quackery subjects - i.e. pages with the words “Cure for all Cancers”, “Mistletoe”, “Krebiozen”, “Metabolic Therapy”, “Cellular Health”, “ICTH”, “Macrobiotic Diet”, and “Insulin Potentiation Therapy” in them. This list was taken from Quackwatch on a page about bogus cancer treatments. This is likely to be very heavily biased towards American forms of quackery for cancer and not be representative of the wide range of everyday bogus claims made on the web. The quackometer claims to be much broader than this, but cannot claim to be comprehensive across all regional forms of minor quackery.

Naturally, the Quackometer has now been updated to spot these forms of quackery. This is quite a laborious excercise and undoubtedly it would be simpler if some sort of automated machine learning was helping with the grunt work. Both the quackometer and the support vector machine rely on manual identification of quack web sites and subsequent manual classification. There are always new forms of quackery and much new learning to be done. Building the perfect Quackometer will always be hard work.

Is it worth it? And who will pay? Aphinyanaphongsa and Aliferis make their case,

In regards to cancer patients, Metz et al. reported that 65% of cancer patients searched unproven treatments and 12% purchased unconventional medical therapies online. In another study, Richardson reported that 83% of cancer patients had used at least one unproven treatment. Compounding the problem are consumers who are ill-equipped to evaluate treatment information. The language and quality of web pages with unproven treatments is also highly variable. With a growing internet, the ease of publishing unproven claims, and susceptible and often desperately ill patients, the chance for further adverse outcomes, patient and family despair, and sunk costs is inevitable. It is the mandate of the medical profession to protect patients from inaccurate and poor medical information.

Even if the perfect quackometer were to be developed, what would you do with it? The missing element is that people would need to know about the tool and recognise a need to use it. For so many, that need does not exist. Firstly, so many have bought into the idea that there are alternatives to real medicine and accept the quack propaganda that doctors may have vested interests and not want you to know about 'natural' alternatives. Secondly, people with cancer may well be desperate and drop all forms of critical appraisal.

Maybe, such an improved tool would be useful in some areas - journalism, teaching, government.

It has been suggested to me that a browser could have a quackometer built in! (My quackometer toolbar button gets close). That might be too authoritarian. One are where I think some automatic quackometer function would be good is in Google's acceptance of adverts. Google proclaims to 'do no evil' and not accept adverts for Cancer Cures: "Advertising is not permitted for the promotion of miracle cures, such as 'Cure cancer overnight!'" It blatantly breaks this rule.

Getting rid of such adverts would not be net censorship. The pages would still be there and discoverable by search engines. It would just remove the possibility of quack buying their way onto the from pages of search results - a major source of revenue. And it is this revenue that keeps them going. Without their paid for search results, their business would be that much more difficult, if not impossible. And that ought to be an achievable goal of quackometrics.

Labels: quackometer

 

It is now one year since I issued a simple challenge to the homeopathic community to provide a simple and clear demonstration that what they say is true. If homeopaths could provide basic evidence that their beliefs are demonstrable, then much of the criticism of the trade would disappear.

But not one homeopath has been willing to give it a try. I bent over backwards to make it easy, cheap and accessible. Despite much bluster and hot air, on this site, and homeopathic discussion boards, no homeopath had the balls to come forward.


The test I proposed was simple: homeopaths claim that their pills have specific effects. In particular, each type of pill can induce specific and repeatable symptoms in healthy volunteers. (See the Society of Homeopaths explanation.) This is called a 'proving' in homeopathy and it is how homeopaths determine what each sort of pill is good for curing - 'like cures like.' For example, if a pill makes you feel tired when you are healthy it can be used to cure lethargy. Homeopaths routinely do provings on new substances, record the symptoms in groups of volunteers, and then add the new pills to their medical store cupboard. My test was simply this: given six different homeopathic pills, could a homeopath identify correctly which pill was which if all they know were what the six remedies were, but not which pill was which? The homeopath could choose whatever remedy they liked - to make them as distinct from each other as possible - and to take them in any 'strength' (remember homeopaths believe that the more dilute a substance, the more 'potent' it is). Just tell six pills apart. Simple.

I extended my challenge in a number of ways. I was quite happy for groups of homeopaths to do the 're-proving'. Some complained that this was too much of a burden for one homeopath. I was also quite happy for anyone to do anything to determine which pill was which. They could perform a re-proving, they could use any analytical technique (physical or chemical), they could dowse the pills or subject them to anything else they could think of. But not one homeopath wanted to end the controversy and prove homeopathy was real.


The reluctance of anyone to do this is fascinating in itself. But maybe I am making a big ask of homeopaths. Maybe it is a lot for just one or two homeopaths to do. And maybe it will take up more resources than I anticipate. Maybe it is more the sort of experiment that can only be realistically be done in a University. I don't believe any of this, but I want to give homeopaths the benefit of the doubt, and so I am now asking Universities to take up the challenge.

There are a small number of UK universities that offer a BSc degree in Homeopathy. These courses have been heavily criticised for being unscientific and not worthy of a science degree. At least one of the Universities is struggling with its course and is holding an internal review to see if it should continue to offer the course. I am asking these Universities to take up the challenge and encourage their students to do this test.

This ought to be easy. In any science degree, students spend many hours in laboratories, doing experiments, repeating the classic results that underpin their subject and learning about experimental technique and communicating their results. Why do BSc homeopathic courses not do simple tests like this as part of the learning programme? Why do students not take part in fundamental empirical tests of their subjects, like all other science degrees? If the universities want to deflect criticism of their courses, then surely demonstrating that their courses contain basic laboratory training in the fundamental scientific aspects of the subject would remove all criticism?


This test would undoubtedly be a great way for students to think about the scientific method and the nature of evidence. More than that, if the test was successful then it would be one of the biggest breakthroughs in homeopathy in 200 years. If such a test could be replicated across the Universities then I am sure criticism of homeopath would turn to amazement and excitement.


So, what I am proposing is the following:

1. I am writing to course heads and lecturers in five universities (details below) to invite them to take part in this test.


2. If they accept the test, I will post them six bottles of remedies. I propose to use standard High Street 30C remedies available from Boots, Holland and Barrett etc. However, the University may propose any remedies in any potency they like and I will source them from online homeopathic pharmacies.


3. The names of the remedies will be published on this site. The remedies will be dispatched in identical homeopathically ready bottles obtained from homeopathic supply companies. I will pay for the pills.
   
4. Each of the six bottles will only be identifable by a code letter (A-F).


5. I will post online an MD5 hash message digest of the code that relates each letter to each remedy with a salt to minimise attack. (Technical, but it means I cannot deny the results if they work out positive.)


6. When the university has completed whatever test it likes, I will post the code so that all can check this matches the hash and that I have not cheated.

I am quite willing to entertain all sensible proposals to modify this protocol as long as the statistical power of the test is not weakened and that the test remains blinded. I am happy for participants to try to make the test as easy as possible for them to pass in any way without compromising blinding.


And of course, the challenge is still open to any other individual or organisation that believes can prove homeopathy is not just plain sugar pills.


*************************************************************

In the morning, I am sending the offer to the following Universities and staff members:

Labels: $100 challenge, homeopathy