The Curious Case of Oxford University Press, Homeopathy and Charles Darwin

Waiting….

…..for DUllman….

Excellent article.

The fact is that Ullman knows that there is zero evidence that Darwin was a homeopathy convert; this has been pointed out to him on numerous occasions. And yet he repeats the claim constantly regardless.

Of course the same is true of all his claims, but the Darwin one is so transparently false I cannot believe he believes it himself. One may take a view on what this says about his motives for his ceaseless pushing of homeopathy.

It might help if Mr. Duck actually read my peer-review article rather than make-up things out of thin air.

Actually, I acknowledged in my article that Darwin was a skeptic of homeopathy…and I gave appropriate references to this…and THAT is also what makes Darwin’s story so compelling. He proves that belief is NOT necessary to get real benefits from homeopathic treatment and hydrotherapy (water-cure). Are you ACTUALLY saying that Darwin did not get therapeutic benefits from Dr. Gully’s treatment? Are you actually re-writing history?

Is it a “coincidence” that wrote that he was dying just prior to going to Dr. Gully and that he was unable to work 1 in every 3 days…and yet, within a couple of weeks, he was able to walk 7 miles in a day and he called himself “an eating and walking machine.” Oh, and what happened to the symptoms that he was experiencing for 2 to 12 (!) years, including heart palpitations, fainting spells, spots before his eyes, body-wide boils, and extreme fatigue? Darwin never again mentioned ANY of these symptoms after the first couple of weeks under Gully’s treatment.

Mr. Duck, you’re good at leaving out information…but I do want to thank you for reference my comment about your yellow journalism. At least I have a sense of humor…

As for Darwin’s experiments with the Drosera plant…can you, Mr. Duck, tell me if Darwin was or wasn’t surprised at the significant effects that he observed from exceedingly small doses of ammonia salts? Tell me, Mr. Duck, why did he have BOTH of his sons repeat his experiments and continue to express amazement? Oh…and tell me, did Darwin express concern that he would then have to report about these experiments that shocked him so much? C’mon…man up and say what is true.

I provide references to my information. You provide a thin review that is full of misinformation. I encourage readers to actually read my article and not blindly accept Mr. Duck’s weak summary of it.

Am I convinced by Ms Ullman’s riposte? Only 10^23 much.

Oh, what a magnificent idea. I’m gonna butcher a rich widow with an axe and then proceed to sell the axe to my neighbour. Surely noone will make a connection.
In my eyes, Oxford University Press has tarnisher its reputation for years.

I take it that Daniel is Dullman’s new sock puppet?

I wonder if this anachronistic revelation that an insectivorous plant’s “nose” is sensitive to very dilute (~10⁻⁹?) but certainly not very homeopathic solutions means that Ullman has at last seen the light as far as homeopathy is concerned and ditched it in favour of aromatherapy (albeit a new and even less plausible version of it)? 😉

Ullman’s article couldn’t have been peer-reviewed. For unscientific nonsense, he is peerless. In any event, his article is not science and certainly not evidence of the effectiveness of homeopathy.

Ullman’s article is the most mendacious piece of English prose I have ever read. He said, as Vicki already noted:

“After just a month of treatment, Charles had to admit that Gully’s treatments were not quackery after all.” He didn’t have to admit any such thing, and I doubt very much that he did make any such admission. If he had, I’m sure Ullman would have mentioned it.

There is no basis for believing that homeopathy was of any benefit to Darwin. Ullman can’t even identify Darwin’s condition; therefore Ullman didn’t, and can’t, point to any scientific evidence that homeopathy is an effective treatment for it, or indeed any specific non-self limiting condition. Any study he might choose to cite has already been thoroughly debunked.

Ullman has no basis for claiming that homeopathy cured Darwin. How could he know that it wasn’t the hydrotherapy, or, more likely a remission or resolution of a chronic or self-limiting condition? He can’t. The fact that he makes the claim shows that Ullman will say anything to support his belief in homeopathy, the epitome of quack medicine. Ullman is wrong. Homeopathy has had 200 years to prove itself. It hasn’t. There is a growing body of evidence that shows it does not work. The more Ullman attempts to defend the indefensible, the more foolish he reveals himself to be.

Even the NHS now recognizes that homeopathy doesn’t work, as shown by its progressive withdrawal of funding. It is not surprising that Ullman can’t see what more and more people are seeing once they look carefully at the evidence relating to homeopathy. As Uptown Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Just a little reminder to all that abuse diluted by a great deal of reasoning is more potent.

“Dr Jütte notes that in the introduction to this book (p. xv) Koch explains homeopathy scientifically by including it in a more general ‘Grundgesetz des organischen Lebens’, which could be translated as ‘law of spirality’.” – from the article we are discussing.

Who would translate ‘Grundgesetz’ as ‘Law of spirality’? My native tongue is not German. Anyone?

Ah yes, the wonderful Darwin drosera experiments. Kudos to Dana Ullman for once again succussing the dimwit and making fools of the anti-homeopathy tribe.
Hey, I did video on it:

The mark of pseudoscience is a lack of specificity. Same with liars and Andy Lewis. You ask for details, and they suddenly go blank. And of course the case against homeopathy is just the same. They keep saying that there is a growing body of evidence that disproves it, but you look for the specifics, references, cites, and they aren’t there. Shang refuses to name its references as well, and if that weren’t enough, comes to a somewhat vague conclusion, contradicted by every other major meta analysis.
The Lewis’ of the world can’t even tell you reallywhat a placebo is, much less cite any psychogenic studies for their action. Oh, they say homoeopathy isn’t much better than placebo, then in the net breath are defending placebo as a powerful effect.
Yes, its true, the effects of homeopathics are not stable, but there are effects beyond placebo, and Darwin’s drosera rotund flora proves it, because logically a plant would not be subject to placebo. But Heavens to God, Lewis will never put it to the test with a real homeoapthic dilution of ammonia carbonicum 12c or more, nor will he ever consider trying it on a bean other than his own, which he won‘t do either. But it has been proven on beans, and it has been tried on wheat extensively. Plants make excellent test subjects for demonstrating the action of homeopathic remedies beyond palcebo, numerous, cheap, easily controlled, no ethical considerations, and according to Vaikunthanath das Kaviraj, author of Homeopathy for Farm and Garden, there are over 60 studies now for the action of homeopathics on plants.
Run Andy, run. Run away from this proving, it does nothing but epose you for the fool you are.
Here’s an example of work that has been done at one of the world’s oldest and most respected universities:
“Statistical analysis of the effect of high dilutions of arsenic in a large dataset from a wheat germination model” Brizzi M, Nani D, Peruzzi M, Betti L. Dipartimento di Scienze statistiche, University of Bologna, Italy Br Homeopath J. 2000 Apr;89(2):63-7 This has been rep[eated ad nauseam. Google it!
Of course they’ll rip this one apart because it wasn’t published in THEIR review, it was published in the peer review of the doctrine. Such will always be the reaction of those who replace the opportunity to experience something for themselves with maligning extrapolation of the reports of others who have. But where else would you expect to find it? Nothing so controversial as this is go0ing to easily find it’s way into a general science magazine like Scientific American, and so it speaks volumes that Ullman’s article has been accepted in such a publication, as have, by my count, about two dozen others.
But what will they do when they face the stack of replications?
The evidence for homeopathy is of course concordant, as it would be for any real effect, and that’s why it has withstood two centuries of vicious opposition, like Lewis’ here, because there will always be those like Darwin who, after being totally dismissive, have been dramatically affected by it. Lewis and those like him are doing nothing more than simply using the appearance of what they think is an anomaly as an excuse to malign those who find application for it. They do the same thing to Christianity or any spiritual belief whenever they can sneak it in.
The homeopathy denier, in order to fund his disbelief, has to think that those who report favorably on it must be suffering from gullibility. Such is not the case. The best supporters of homeoapthy are usually those who are the most critical thinkers and who in the beginning of their investiagtion attacked it on the same grounds as Lewiset al does. The difference is that real skeptics put it to the test . . On themselves and other test subjects, like plants. I have. I found Staphyssagria had astounding effects on the growth of oat coleoptiles.
It doesn’t stand to reason, to a thinking man, that extrapolation by a few should trump direct observation by many, even though what is being observed doesn‘t make any sense. But after you see so much thought and effort into indexing its effects by true medical doctors, you have to consider that maybe, just maybe, there is a logical explanation for it. Supramolecualr chemistry provides that, and recent experiments have demonstrated the structure, radiant signal, biochemical and biologicial action of the homeopathic remedy that makes criticism by the likes of Lewis and company seem absolutely puerile and vituperatively ad hominem, as one can read here repeatedly in Lewis’ libel and tortious interference.
Ullman presents a startling array of evidence for homeopathy in his book “The Homeoapthic Revolution,” but most damning to the case against homeopathy is the phytopatholgical illustrated in the Darwin imbroglio, and it reveals the pseudoscience in the criticism against homeoapthy.
Three cheers for Dana Ullman!
John BENNETH 101610

Video on Darwin’s experiments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj82FReWmF0

If you actually read Darwin’s accounts of the Drosera experiments in Insectivorous Plants (see Chapter 7 on pp.136-173) you will find no mention of serial dilution or succussion being used in the preparation of the solutions Darwin used.

You will also find that Darwin established something like an orthodox dose-response curve (Note for example the comment on p.171 that “It is to be especially observed that the experiments with the weaker solutions ought to be tried after several days of very warm weather. Those with the weakest solutions should be made on plants which have been kept for a considerable time in a warm greenhouse, or cool hothouse; but this is by no means necessary for trials with solutions of moderate strength”) and a limit beyond which no response was observed. Note also p.170, with the footnote in which Darwin notes that in the detection of dilute substances “the spectroscope has altogether beaten Drosera.”

I worry that the edifice of science is being eroded by the persistent, arrogant, denigrating, knuckle-headed denials of alt-med champions. It has taken centuries to build such an edifice, but so many people seem to be helping tear down such wonderful work. Will we see homeopaths trying to defend their profession against spiritualists claiming that their blessed waters are cures, not the dilutions of the homeopaths? There is potential irony that one system may displace another because systems of proof were discarded. At this rate will we face a declining science based civilization? I hope not.

There doesn’t seem to be any level of embarrassment that an alt-med promoter cannot withstand. Are these people sociopaths, misguided, or driven by greed to delude people to take useless potions and avoid science-based cures? Sure there are no cures for many things, but to unknowingly or worse to knowingly flim-flam people and prey on false hopes is just sick.

JimR

I think that your analysis is not quite complete. Yes we have over the last several centuries been building an “edifice of science” however I would presume that it never penetrated the whole population of say the UK for example. I don’t see any need to believe that “we face a declining science based civilization” to explain alt-med phenomenon. Perhaps our modern media (TV, and now internet) has allowed alt-med evangelists a platform that they did not to have access to previously and this is giving the perception that the general level of understanding of nature is declining.

It is surprising to me that so many people seem to have such a poor understanding of what it takes to “know” something but perhaps it shouldn’t be given (just to take an example) the number of people who seem to believe the bible and other arbitrary ‘good’ books. I think that the early indoctrination of children into unquestioning belief using the tools of religion is a good candidate for explaining this poor understanding and that research into “religion as a phenomonon of nature” is urgently required for this and now for other if anything more pressing reasons (in a word – jihad).

“Are these people sociopaths, misguided, or driven by greed”
I would think mostly misguided, with some along for the money and a handful possibly “driven by greed”.

There is some material on how hard it is to “know” something and much else on the Scientific Method in:-

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/
Richard Feynman: The Messenger Series.
The Character of Physical Law.
About 10 hours of video made by the BBC at Cornell University in 1964.

The videos are wrapped in a rather clunky interface that takes a while to load but WELL worth the wait.

I had never seen or even heard of these excellent videos until last month.

Bill Gates seems to have bought the rights from Cornell University where they have been hidden for

45 years.

Sadly I can’t recall exactly in which of the seven, hour plus, lectures he discusses these matters.

I thought these might be good viewing for the alt-meds however I then realised that they would likely merely quote mine it to support their off the wall mumbo jumbo. “Scientists don’t really know anything with certainty” is my feeble attempt to recall something like something he said.

@Michael5McKay
“Ullman’s article couldn’t have been peer-reviewed. For unscientific nonsense, he is peerless”

Well played that man *rises out of chair clapping politely*

Deniers deny denialism.

It is a historical fact that Darwin’s favorite physician was James Manby Gully, MD, a physician who specialized in water-cure and homeopathic medicine and who believe that they complemented each other in the treatment of people with chronic diseases.

Just prior to Darwin’s first visit with Dr. Gully, Darwin said that he was dying and was unable to work one in three days. And yet, within a couple of weeks, his health was totally revitalized, and it stayed vital through the next 25+ years (he never again complained about the vast majority of the serious health problems he had when he first sought Gully’s care!). These benefits are not debatable…they are historic fact that Darwin’s own letter verify.

I never said that homeopathy alone was the result of this extreme therapeutic benefit, though isn’t it interesting that no one at this site has proclaimed that water-cure is an effective method of treating complex health problems that Darwin experienced (the fact that a really stupid person above critized me for not “knowing” the disease that Darwin suffered–and that no one (!) here called him to task for his proclaimed stupidity–is itself strong evidence to a fundamentalism that blinds you all to evidence.

And Darwin’s experiments with Drosera were so shocking to him that he had his 2 sons replicate his work…and he then express real displeasure at having to publish that such extremely small doses of ammonia salts could have such a dramatic effect on the plants. Some daft folks above proclaim that it is not surprising that such small doses could have profound biological effect, even though these assertions fly in the face of Darwin’s worldview and experience…and if such people are serious about their assertions, then where is their advocacy for exploring how to operationalize the use of extremely small doses of agents to create profound biological effects (I’m waiting for this and other support for homeopathy!).

Come on out of the medicine closet and voice your advocacy of homeopathy AND/OR simply admit that you’re wrong and blind and simply daft in your ignorance of the science and art of homeopathy and hormesis.

“Deniers deny denialism.”

Defintion of a denialist:
Someone who is shown arguments against his point of view and, instead of refuting those arguments, merely continues to espouse his point of view.

Dullman anyone?

Firstly I would like to thank Andy Lewis and the Quackometer as I find the reading most interesting albeit very technical at times. Andy you seem to be a lot like me what I call myself a “conversation catalyst” open minded but mischievous. I am well known for listening to debates and then putting in a “what if” adding my ingredient then standing back to watch the pot boil sometimes to overflowing. Some people cannot except that nobody is correct about everything all of the time. More often than not those arguing are both right but in a lesser degree than they thought they were. Unfortunately it is not in human nature to admit you were wrong. I believed that the only 100% certainty was that you were born and then you die but even this seems up to debate as more people get themselves deep frozen! So after looking at the many pages above I had to ask myself where I stood on the subject and to keep it simple I asked myself if I was told by my doctor that I had a terminal illness that could not be cured by his medicine, and I was approached by a Homeopath would I take his medication? Of course I would with everything to gain. But that would still leave me with two unanswered questions. Firstly Andy if you were in the same situation would you try it? And secondly if it is indeed working at the present instead of all this technical stuff where are all the people who have been cured and there testimonials?

@Peter Marsh

There’s loads of ‘testimonials’ from people who think they’ve been cured by homeopathy and other magic-based therapies. That’s the trouble. Even reputable news programmes have been known to give air time to someone who claimed homeopathy sent their cancer into remission and unscrupulous homeoquacks will point to these as proof that their magic works.

I know you addressed to Andy but my answer to your first question would be ‘no’.

Why do I think that being called “extremely stupid” by Dana Ullman is a compliment? I shall use it as a blurb on my magnum opus “The Bloody Revolution: Why Famous People And Cultural Heroes Choose Bleeding”

If Darwin wasn’t suffering from a disease, there was nothing for him to be cured of, so homeopathy did nothing for him.

Another way of articulating my ignorance would be to say that Dana Ullman claims that homeopathy cured Darwin, in circumstances where he (Ullman) is unable to give either a diagnosis or identify the treatment other than to say it was homeopathic. That is the argument from ignorance doubled.

Nor can D. Ullman rule out hydrotherapy as the beneficial treatment. Not only was it initially given at the same time, but Darwin continued to use it, and, according to Ullman, had a cessation of symptoms, at a time when he WASN’T also undergoing homeopathic treatment. There is just as much good evidence for the efficacy of hydrotherapy as for homeopathy, and at least hydrotherapy has greater prior plausibility, not violating the basic laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, and all.

Thank YOU, Michael! You’ve proven to not know ANYTHING about Darwin, his life, his health, and just about anything else…and I’ll even have your own ilk try to defend you. I challenge ANYONE to defend Michael. Come on, make my (his) day! You’ve been dared.

I love it that Michael actually thinks that if a diagnosis cannot be made on a person, then the person is not really sick…WOW, daft to the max!

Dana – Michael did not say “if a diagnosis cannot be made on a person, then the person is not really sick”. That is your invention – just like everything else you write.

And in any case, it is not up to Michael to have to defend himself about anything on this blog. The onus is on you to explain why you continue to make absurd claims about Darwin that even a child can see are nonsensical.

The weaknesses in your arguments have been pointed out to you numerous times. And yet you continue to deny these criticisms exist – instead you just resort to bluster and continuing your silly claims. You have, yet again, been busted. We know the truth about the ‘peer review’ of your article and so further claims that your article has any academic merit can be quite justly be met with howls of derision.

It is your call how much you keep digging.

Fab…Mr. Duck!

Let’s quote Michael. He wrote: “If Darwin wasn’t suffering from a disease, there was nothing for him to be cured of, so homeopathy did nothing for him.”

So, is it REALLY your opinion that Charles Darwin was NOT suffering from any disease AND that there was “nothing for him to be cured of”? Come on, defend that…dare ya.

Mr. Duck, you’ve proven nothing. You’ve never gotten anything of yours published in a peer-review journal. Just because you write a critique of something I wrote does NOT mean that your critique is meaningful. By the way, which doctor is Darwin appreciate more than any other? To which doctor did Darwin say that his work was NOT quackery after all? Ya gotta do more and better homework than just spewing your garbage…

Mr Ullman. Note the first word: ‘if’.

Some have speculated that Darwin’s illness was psychosomatic. And it is possible that stress played a role in his perceptions of health. I am not sure. And the point is: neither can you.

And we have now proven that the peer review in the journal you got published in was horribly broken. To claim you have been ‘peer reviewed’ is now hollow and laughable. Yes, you were reviewed – and rejected – but the journal in its commercial wisdom saw fit to publish.

And so you continue to distort – you want to imply that Darwin came round to thinking that homeopathy was not quackery and so you cherry pick his quotes about other matters to flatter your own fantasies. It is the scholarship of the propagandist and you have been exposed time and time again.

“Just because you write a critique of something I wrote does NOT mean that your critique is meaningful.”

On the other hand, the fact that you are unable to respond to the critique with anything but a repetition of the original claims which were discredited by the critique, and an assertion that your article was peer-reviewed, rather suggests that you are unable to rebut it.

Dana,

You say I’ve “proven to not know ANYTHING about Darwin, his life, his health, and just about anything else” [sic]. Pretty general conclusion you’re leapt to there on the basis of only a couple of comments.

Do you really think I know nothing about Darwin. How about this? Darwin never admitted that “Gully’s [homeopathic] treatments were not quackery after all.” I dare you to prove me wrong. However, let me say this now, acceptable proof consists of verifiable evidence from a reliable source other than yourself. You made the claim in your “peer-reviewed” article. When I pointed out that the evidence you offered in support did not do so, your response was to substitute invective and wilful or ignorant distortion of my position for evidence to support your own.

I never said that Darwin wasn’t suffering from any disease; I simply pointed out that your claim that Darwin’s condition was successfully treated with homeopathy was fanciful speculation in light of the facts that you did not identify, and presumably don’t know, either the homeopathic treatment given, or the condition Darwin had that was treated.

If I’m wrong and you do know, what are those facts, and why didn’t you mention them in your “peer-reviewed” article?

Must we assume that we’ve witnessed Dullman’s usual hit and run technique?

He ineluctably reminds me of my old cat who would show off by climbing up to some awkward vantage point then writhe about nonchalantly to display his cleverness only to slip and plummet to the ground. He would then strut off with his tail in the air as if to say that was exactly what he intended to do.

I think we can now see Dana’s single rear eye disappearing over the horizon.

Mr. Monkey…Thanx (again) for proving my case…and for PROVING that you never read my article! That quote you cite above is in my article. What I have to say about that letter is not important. The letter speaks for itself. The fact that Hooker (or Hooker’s wife) filed it in “odd letters” is no big deal to anyone.

One other strong bit of evidence that Mr. Monkey and others have not read my article is that you continually assert that I claim that homeopathy cured Darwin. Please provide the specific and exact quote where you claim that I said that. C’mon, here’s one more dare for ya…

I previously dared ya to assert that Darwin’s disease was “psychosomatic.” Prove it.

I previously dared ya to assert that Darwin wasn’t really sick. Prove it.

Mr. Michael Duffus actually asserted, “If Darwin wasn’t suffering from a disease, there was nothing for him to be cured of, so homeopathy did nothing for him.”

There is NO strawman on my part. This question assumes that Darwin wasn’t ill…despite ALL of the evidence to the contrary…and Darwin experienced a SIGNIFICANT improvement in his health by the care of Dr. JM Gully who gave him water-cure and homeopathic medicines. Which part or parts of the above are not correct? That’s another dare to ya.

Dana, “thanx” for proving that you didn’t read my comment well enough even to identify its author. Where the letter was filed is not relevant (in fact it was described as “odd” by Francis Darwin, as your article manages to identify, and, yes, I am well aware that your article quoted it – see my comment at 11:02 pm on October 16). It doesn’t support the claim you cite it to support. It is not, as you claim, a letter to Asa Gray about a book Darwin had read, expressing admiration for a German homoeopath; it is from a letter to Joseph Hooker about a letter Hooker’s wife had forwarded to Darwin, reporting its contents, and perhaps suggesting that Darwin had no intention to have anything to do with translating and publishing the quack’s book (note that “&c &c?!” at the end, which appeared in the original letter but not in the source you quoted from). I agree with you that what you say about the letter is not important, but if you think this why do you make such a big deal of it in your article?

Your claim that homoeopathy cured Darwin is implicit in everything you have written about this matter. See for example the comments in your article that “[h]ardened skeptics insist that homeopathic treatment could not have helped Darwin”, or your statement that “[d]espite Darwin’s greatly improved health, he never publicly attributed any benefits directly to homeopathy” and your claim that that Darwin failed to publicly support homoeopathy because it would damage his credibility. These make no sense at all unless you are also claiming that homoeopathy did in fact help Darwin, and that Darwin actually thought it was effective. It doesn’t matter whether or not you have written the specific phrase “homoeopathy cured Darwin”; your implication is clear.

The comment that “If Darwin wasn’t suffering from a disease, there was nothing for him to be cured of, so homeopathy did nothing for him” (actually made by “Michael5MacKay”) needs to be read in the context of his comment in the same post that “Ullman claims that homeopathy cured Darwin, in circumstances where he (Ullman) is unable to give either a diagnosis,” and his earlier statement that “Ullman can’t even identify Darwin’s condition; therefore Ullman didn’t, and can’t, point to any scientific evidence that homeopathy is an effective treatment for it”. Your misreading of the comments about speculations that Darwin’s condition may have been psychosomatic have already been commented on. Your “dare ya” comments are an attempt to introduce strawman arguments.

Darwin’s condition appears to have improved while he was under Gully’s care, but this does not necessarily mean that it was Gully’s quackery that caused this improvement. You are falling into the same error (the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy) that you also make when you claim that Darwin’s letter of September 4, 1850 “noted the case of a specific woman who had been cured by Dr Gully and his team.” All the letter says is that “the girl recovered” after Gully’s use of hydropathy, homeopathy, mesmerism and clairvoyance. This doesn’t mean that this load of cobblers actually cured her. You’re making the same basic error in reasoning that Homer Simpson made when he offered to buy Lisa’s tiger-repellent rock.

Mojo…great…so, after Darwin had most of his symptoms for 12 years and had tried many different treatments, his symptoms sharply diminish within 2 weeks of Gully’s treatment, and you are now saying that this is just a coincidence and that it had nothing to do with what Gully did. THANK YOU for proving your deaf, dumb, and blindness. You’re epic in your masterful denialism.

Homer Simpson said it best, “Doh!”

Dana, without any control there is no way of knowing what would have happened to Darwin without Gully’s treatments. It is known from Darwin’s letters and other writings that his condition waxed and waned.

All you can establish here is an unknown degree of remission from an undiagnosed condition, occurring at the same time as a course of treatment, but without any way of establishing any causal relationship between the two, and all of this from sources a century and a half old. That might count as evidence in homoeopathic circles, but judging from Le Canard Noir’s blog post above it apparently didn’t as far as eCAM’s reviewers were concerned.

Merely repeating your claims, which have been shown to be unsupported by your cited sources, does not address the criticisms of your article.

Perhaps instead of hearing Ullman repeat his unfounded claims time after time we could leave the last word to Charles Darwin himself…

Letter 2085 — Darwin, C. R. to Fox, W. D., [30 Apr 1857]

My dear Fox.

Farewell, my dear Fox | Yours most truly | C. Darwin

One can only hope it is farewell D Ullman too. Somehow, I doubt it. He shall continue to pretend to explain much with all the rubbish of homeopathy.

the foot note from the Letter 2085 — Darwin, C. R. to Fox, W. D., [30 Apr 1857]

“f5.Emma Darwin had taken her daughter Henrietta Emma to Hastings on 9 April 1857 to see whether her health would improve at the seaside. Henrietta returned home on 12 May. The family did not go to Malvern for the summer; instead, Emma took Henrietta to Moor Park on 29 May where she remained until 7 August (Emma Darwin’s diary). CD returned to Moor Park for two weeks in June (‘Journal’; Appendix II).”

i will give you a hint: The family did not go to Malvern for the summer.

more clues: Emma took Henrietta to Moor Park on 29 May where she remained until 7 August

really big clue: CD returned to Moor Park for two weeks in June.

so did they go to Malvern or not that summer?

@Dana Ullman on October 26, 2010 at 2:44 am

“but in another respect, RESULTS, he and his famly went to Malvern for Gully or Ayerst and their weird stuff that got GREAT RESULTS.”

I don’t think Dana bothers to read anything that he writes, provided it satisfies the need of the moment.

The other funny bit is Dana’s persistent misattribution and counterfactual interpretation of the letter about the German homeopath. I can’t count how many times Mojo has pointed this out to him yet Dana blunders wilfully onwards saying the same erroneous things.

(Still not read your idiot-reviewed article, Dana. Still not going to)

Yes, it is obvious that Mr. Monkey and others has not and will not read my article about Darwin because it’ll blow your allegience to ignorance and arrogance. And I have responded to Mojo’s stuff, but Mr. Monkey has not evolved enough to read or understand it…no big surprise.

And I’m STILL waiting for someone here to tell us all what happened to Darwin’s serious symptoms that he had had for 3-12 years prior to seeing Dr. Gully? And what happened to Darwin’s such serious fatigue that he was “unable to work one in every three days”? C’mon, tell us all…I’m still waiting.

And is anyone going to suggest that Darwin “may” not have been really ill.

Has anyone seen the film Groundhog Day? It’s one of my favourite films.

It’s about a smug, self-centred buffoon of a man trapped in an endless loop, destined to repeat his errors and unable to learn, and unable to comprehend what is happening to him.

In the film, he eventually finds redemption by realising that he has to learn and grow and not keep repeating the same mistakes. I am not sure if that is possible for some people in real life.

Anyway, just thought I would bring it up. Carry on as normal, everyone.

Yeah…I liked Groundhog’s Day, and Mr. Duck seemed to have a starring role in it.

Mojo…please clarify when and where Darwin ever mentioned having fainting spells or spots before his eyes or body-wide boils…OR did ALL of these symptoms disappear under Gully’s treatments? Please cite these references.

And how surprised was Darwin in his Drosera experiments when he witnesses effects of extremely small doses of ammonia salts…and did he or did he not have his 2 sons replicate his work…and what results did THEY get? What did Darwin say about having to publish this extraordinary results?

C’mon…give us dem quotes and references…or STFU.

Or continue to deny deny deny…

Mojo, while Dana’s not here, let’s talk about Drosera.

@Mojo: “You will find no mention of serial dilution or succussion being used in the preparation of the solutions Darwin used.”

The funny thing is that when it suits him, Dana gets very heated about the absolute need for there to be “potentisation” not merely dilution. He took this to extremes at Wikipedia where he tried very hard to get the enormous volume-equivalences removed when referring to the homeopathic process of serial dilution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:DanaUllman&diff=prev&oldid=187152611

To clarify, homeopaths do NOT use “dilutions” of anything! We use “potencies,” and our medicines are “potentized,” that is, they undergo sequential dilution, vigorous shaking, dumping out of 99% or 90% of the original liquid in the same glass vial or in a new glass vial, and the repeating of that process. The vast majority of medicines that are sold over-the-counter are in the 3rd to 12th potency (3X/3C to 12X/12C). The more a substance is potentized, the less number of molecules of the original substance remain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:DanaUllman&diff=prev&oldid=186838484

Once again, I never said that 12C means 1 drop in 12 test tubes; it is MORE than that (and it has no relationship to an ocean of anything, except perhaps a “homeopathic ocean”). 12C uses 1% of sequential test tubes. I think that you and 88 are thinking that we need to increase by a 100-fold the amount of water in each dilution. No, that is not the case, and here is where you, 88, and Oliver Wendell Holmes have misunderstood homeopathy (the good news here is that YOU are getting clear of the facts, while Holmes prided himself on never talking to or consulting a homeopath, proving that ignorance is bliss). After doing the 1:100 dilution, the drug manufacturer dispenses with 99% of the water and adds more water into the test tube (some homeopathic manufacturing practices use the same test tube and other use a new test tube). Do you get it now? What I now want to know is how did you come to believe your statement above: “After 12 times the container would be 100^12 (1000000000000000000000000) times bigger than your test tubes. If your test tube holds a decilitre, then the equivalent test tube size to get the same concentration in, from the same starting amount, is 10^23 litres.” In NO homeopathic literature has it ever said or implied that a larger container is needed for each stage of the potentization process. FINALLY…you’re realizing how much you (and others) have misconstrued homeopathy.

Q: When is a dilution homeopathic?
A: When the results suit Dana Ullman for the purposes of the moment.

Having been prompted to look at Darwin’s Drosera report by Mojo, I found this bit;

“The solution, moreover, in these experiments was diluted in the proportion of one part of the salt to 2,187,500 of water, or one grain to 5000 oz. The reader will perhaps best realise this degree of dilution by remembering that 5000 oz. would more than fill a 31-gallon cask; and that to this large body of water one grain of the salt was added”

A normal person would regard that as a fair description of making a quite dilute solution, but as can be seen from my previous post Dana utterly rejects such a normal description when he sets off on one his bonkers tirades about the semantics of what constitute a homeopathic dilution…when it suits him to do so.

Has Dana gone? Obviously he’s a busy man. Homeopaths’ fantasy castles don’t build themselves; someone needs to keep filling them with hot-air and that someone can’t spend all his time answering our tricky questions.

On the other hand, perhaps he’s gone off to conduct LCN’s simple test of homeopathy;

http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2007/12/simple-challenge-to-homeopaths.html

If he performed that honestly and successfully then he really would have something interesting to say.

Darwin’s Drosera experiments seem to have entered the homoeopathic mythology, much like the claim about the four allegedly psitive meta-analyses. I’ve seen them referred to as evidence for homoeopathy by several people, but it looks as if they are just relying on accounts from homoeopaths without bothering to check the sources. Several of them, for example, have stated that Darwin’s account of his observations of the effects of dilute solutions on Drosera is in “The Power of Movement in Plants 1875”, which suggests that they have a common source for this error.

Dana seems to have gone away. I’ll see whether I can get him back. 

Dana, Dana, Dana!

Has it worked worked?

It doesn’t seem to have worked. Perhaps LCN’s challenge is more time-consuming than I thought it would be.

Black Duck,

A thought experiment. Let’s say my name was “Dana Ullman”. Let’s further suppose that I was so interested in my public profile that I put my own name into Google Alerts. If the phrase “Dana Ullman” keeps appearing on blogs like Quackometer or ScienceBasedMedicine that are charged up with loads of googlejuice then there must come a point where “Dana Ullman” could not help but notice that he is being talked about.

Given that there is evidence, from continued appearances on the web, that he has neither fallen under a truck nor been rendered incommunicado when do we get to declare that he is actually hiding from us?

Talking of Google, I just put “Dana Ullman” into it as a search term. Here is what appeared in the paid-for adverts on the right hand side of the page.

“Cheap Ullman Dana
Huge choice of Ullman Dana –
Compare prices & save up to 49%!
http://www.uk.best-price.com/Ullman+Dana“

It seems even Google’s bots find him funny.