Proponents of homeopathy like to confuse the issue by citing some of their own badly done studies. Explaining to the layman that proving the efficacy of homeopathy would earn you a Nobel Price in physics helps to bring some context to that.
If homeopathy failed to conform to accepted theory but consistently beat placebos in a wide variety of good clinical trials, it would be good medicine; if it worked in theory but not in tissue, it would not be. Theory is generally constrained by observation.
Homeopathy is wrong because it doesn’t work. Conceivably it could have turned out to work in some way that violated previous medical understanding. Lots of things have done this – it’s one of the main ways understanding is refined.
Besides which, as far as I know (which is not far) there is no fundamental principle of biology, chemistry, or physics that it breaks. It just so happens that water molecules and immune systems don’t work the way homeopathy would need them to. While you could see this in terms of a violation of principles (in the same way that you can rewrite any false math theorem to 1 = 0 if you work hard enough), that doesn’t seem like a very productive perspective to me.
But I’m not a doctor, biologist, chemist, or physicist, so I guess it could be.
Homeopathy is squarely in the latter category. The whole concept of water memory is pseudoscientific nonesense.
Note that they're not just claiming that water has some special effect on the human immune system. They're claiming that molecules are capable of transmitting and retaining information in a manner that violates our understanding of chemistry and physics.
There's a large chasm between things that might potentially work, and things that couldn't even work in theory.
Can you characterize this chasm? I think that there’s a fairly continuous range of possibility. When we say that “theory” precludes something, we might mean any of a variety of kinds and strengths of theories. It is a very strong theory that you cannot accelerate at the speed of light. Is there something as strong saying that water categorically cannot preserve information of that kind? I suspect the theories there are more statistical and harder to test.
Mind you, I believe those theories. For one thing, the idea of water memory violates my intuitions about entropy. But it seems incautious to see it as a violation of principle. This kind of thinking tends too far in the direction of thinking that airplanes violate gravity, or that there could be no brown dwarf orbiting the sun because that would “violate our theory of how the solar system works”, etc. – scientism, not science.
Of course, as I said, I have no special knowledge here. Maybe water memory is categorically rather than empirically impossible. If this is so, I’d be interested to learn why.
Or, to put it another way, tptacek once said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that if you were to choose a cryptographic algorithm, you would tend to want to bet on the one that can only be broken by a fundamental new discovery in mathematics. In the case of medicine, the opposite is true: we're currently discussing a medicine that would require fundamental new discoveries in several sciences in order to work.
> Conceivably it could have turned out to work in some way that violated previous medical understanding.
That's the thing: no, it couldn't have, not even conceivably. I'm really not generally pessimistic about the possibilities of new discoveries in sciences, but we're talking here about violating not just "previous medical understanding" but the violation of our current understanding of the foundations of chemistry, physics, and biology. This is not just "medical understanding", this is "our understanding of almost everything".
> Lots of things have done this – it’s one of the main ways understanding is refined.
This is mentioned often by laypeople when debates over our scientific understanding of the universe comes up, and it's wrong because it ignores the way in which our understanding has changed throughout history.
Science tends to refine its understanding of the universe towards a narrower and narrower minima. Since people like to point to relativity as an example of a radical change in understanding, let's take that as an example: let's start with Copernicus, who started with the hypothesis that the Earth revolved around the Sun, and then move on to Galileo, who further observed and refined the movement of the planets and other objects in the sky, and then find ourselves at Newton, who began to formulate the theories of gravity that described the laws of the universe behind Galileo's observations. When Einstein described relativity, his discovery didn't violate Newtonian mechanics or the entire body of 700 years of scientific observation and understanding. Rather, it refined it: the observed differences between relativity and classical Newtonian mechanics only show up at very large velocities or very large scales. Otherwise, everything actually works pretty much the way Newton described it.
Likewise with quantum mechanics: it's likely going to further refine relativity, but only on very, very small scales.
The proposed mechanisms for homeopathy don't require a refinement in our understanding of science, they require a complete contradiction of its very foundations.
> Besides which, as far as I know (which is not far) there is no fundamental principle of biology, chemistry, or physics that it breaks. It just so happens that water molecules and immune systems don’t work the way homeopathy would need them to.
I don't even know how you could put those two sentences next to eachother. :-) If "water molecules and immune systems don’t work the way homeopathy would need them to", then "there are fundamental principles of biology, chemistry, or physics that it breaks". You can't say, "it doesn't break anything, except that everything would have to be broken for it to work."
> While you could see this in terms of a violation of principles (in the same way that you can rewrite any false math theorem to 1 = 0 if you work hard enough)...
Actually, you can't. Every example I've seen of the "1 = 0" proof contains a very subtle mistake which violates mathematic principles. Sometimes, finding those mistakes is really really hard, but they're always there.
But, just to further drive the point home: if we were to argue that water could contain "memory", we would have to try to figure out how. First, are we talking about ordinary tap water, which contains trace amounts of various other chemicals? Or are we talking about "hypothetical" water, which contains only molecules of H2-0? If we assume the latter, for simplicity's sake, then we next have to determine where the energy for this "memory" is stored, how it's encoded, and what form it might take. Let's propose the simplest possible explanation -- which violates everything we know about cellular biology -- and say that this "memory" is basically some theoretical "frequency" that the "medicine" resonates with. All we have to do then is propose that atoms of hydrogen and/or oxygen can somehow store a frequency ...
If that happened in nuclei, I'm pretty sure it would break spectrometry, which would make it really hard for astronomers to observe the atmospheres of planets. If it happened in the electron shells, I'm pretty sure it would break the entire concept of ionization, since changes in frequency cause changes in energy levels of electrons, which cause them to interact with other atoms in various ways.
This is just one example; in fact, there is a huge body of scientific knowledge, built by hundreds of years of experimentation, postulation, and observation, that would all be directly contradicted by any proposed mechanism for homeopathy.
> But I’m not a doctor, biologist, chemist, or physicist, so I guess it could be.
This is bugging me more and more, lately. If someone isn't a doctor, biologist, chemist, or physicist, then I don't see how that person could say, "...but I think they might be wrong!"
Good post overall, but this kind of stance always gives me pause. The reason we know that Homeopathy doesn't work is because it can't be made to work beyond a normal placebo in testing.
As far as "does water have any kind of memory", it doesn't seem to in any way that affects us but in general? To me, excluding the possibility because we can't come up with a way to detect such a thing is going to far [1]. It wasn't so long ago that we couldn't see what was in cells. Any theories we built on that ignored cells based on the fact that they were opaque to us could only coincidentally end up correct.
[1] Note this doesn't mean I think we should be spending time or money trying to find such a thing. Just that saying anything more than "at present, we've seen no evidence to suggest such a thing" is going to far.
> The reason we know that Homeopathy doesn't work is because it can't be made to work beyond a normal placebo in testing.
That's true, but it's a separate point from what was being discussed. As someone else pointed out in this thread, there's the "we tested it and it doesn't work" argument, and there's also the "it violates the current body of science" argument. These are two different, but related, things, and they reinforce each-other. I was focusing on the "it violates the current body of science" approach.
You do have a fair point about unknowns in general; a good example is the germ model of disease, which is a relatively recent development.
However, one of my big beefs with homeopathy is that it doesn't say, "we don't know what the mechanism is" -- which would be OK with me, because "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer in science! -- and it doesn't provide a plausible mechanism that fits within the current scientific body. Rather, instead it presents a "scientific-sounding" mechanism that actually flies in the face of what we do know.
Even if I were to concede that water could have a "memory" of some kind -- and that would be a terrible and involved battle -- I would be unwilling to concede that that particular explanation could possibly work within our current understanding of biochemistry, because this particular aspect of biochemistry is fairly well understood. And, as DaveChild keeps pointing out, a homeopathic proponent would also have to explain how the "memory" from the water ends up in a sugar pill which contains no water. :-) (I would require some kind of explanation there simply because otherwise it would make no sense as a delivery method.)
Oh I agree, I just put a lot more weight in the "testing" side than the "it violates our current understanding" side because our current understanding is constantly changing. It is more additions and amendments than rewrites, as you mentioned earlier but if there are components out there that we currently can't detect then some of our foundations could be wrong.
I was just addressing one part of your post. I had no intention of defending Homeopathy nor anything they say. I was specifically thinking of some extra "dimension" or realm that is effected by what we can currently observe. I can't point to any evidence that such a thing might exist but I wouldn't dismiss the possibility since I have no way of saying it doesn't (nor would I spend much time thinking about or trying prove/disprove it).
>However, one of my big beefs with homeopathy is that it doesn't say, "we don't know what the mechanism is" -- which would be OK with me, because "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer in science! -- and it doesn't provide a plausible mechanism that fits within the current scientific body. Rather, instead it presents a "scientific-sounding" mechanism that actually flies in the face of what we do know.
Agreed. I would only add the amendment:
"and it doesn't provide a plausible mechanism that fits within the current scientific body, nor demonstrate where the current body of science is in error".
That is, I don't think they must stay within the current scientific body but they must either show conclusively that the current scientific body is flawed in some way, or simply show something conclusive that seems to contradict that body and leave it to others to work out why.
I expect it to happen in my lifetime that some discovery will be made that demonstrates a large body of science is built on foundations that were misunderstood. But I expect this to happen scientifically based on observation/tests, not by a group fantasizing about what they would need to prop up their beliefs and then claiming it to be true.
I don't address any more of your post because I think we're in agreement.
i.e., whether it "would be" good medicine or not is completely irrelevant, because we're talking about a treatment that doesn't fit at all within scientists' observation of the universe.
Whether it’s good medicine is an observation of the universe. If it worked and violated models, the models would have to change. If you disagree with this, then we really do disagree.
Many drugs have been used successfully before their mechanism was fully understood. They have, on occasion, driven arguably fundamental discoveries. They were in one sense outside our models, although our models were known to be incomplete. Our models of the behavior of water are also known to be incomplete. p != 0 that something odd could be going on there. We know that the particular odd thing that homeopathy claims does not occur in any significant way, but we only knew that when we tested it. (Of course all the smart money would have been on its not working. But expert opinion is not exactly the same as science.)
Can you put a categorical upper bound on liquid water information storage over time that’s lower than a categorical lower bound on the information needed to, say, lower blood pressure? I doubt anyone can yet. Could be wrong. Until then, it will be possible to put forward a million loopy theories – microcrystals, whatever – that do not obviously violate specific laws, but which can still be shown, by experiment, to have nil predictive power. And the smart money, obviously, will be overwhelmingly against all of them. But that by itself is not a scientific principle. It’s just how science works.
Your point about science as a refining process is quite true in the sense you use it, but it’s not really addressing the sentence you quoted. If you want a broader picture that synthesizes what you’re saying with what I’m saying, you might try Wikipedia’ing Karl Popper’s theories as a starting place and following the various derivative and competing ideas. Believe it or not (are you hinting you’re a working scientist?), how scientific knowledge progresses in practice is a topic of much interest from the outside.
The proposed mechanisms for homeopathy […] require a complete contradiction of its very foundations.
Two points. First, what is the contradiction? I’m curious, because in my amateur’s understanding it’s not obvious. Second, that’s actually a slightly different point from the sentence I objected to. The original said that for it to work, it would have to violate etc. You’re saying that for it to work in the way claimed, it would have to violate etc. That’s significantly narrower. (Back to drugs that have worked with incompletely understood mechanisms.)
I don't even know how you could put those two sentences next to eachother.
Because my whole point is that theories follow data (in principle, not in time). Water molecules behave in ways that we cannot yet derive perfectly from our theories alone. So we’re not in a position to categorically rule out certain kinds of behavior – even if, in casual speech, we say we know they cannot happen. Disproof is hard except by statistical methods like clinical trials. That’s another key sentence where if you disagree then we really do disagree ;). So I think you’re confusing having an accurate theory with having a proven theory.
Every example I've seen of the "1 = 0" proof contains a very subtle mistake which violates mathematic principles.
[Squints, scratches head.] Perhaps you thought I said “can’t” instead of “can” in the sentence you quoted? If not, I’m afraid I completely miss your point there.
if we were to argue that water could contain "memory", we would have to try to figure out how
Scientists would have to. Doctors merely ought to.
Your debunking of water memory by vibration is good, but you had to propose a pseudo-plausible mechanism to debunk. Someone else could propose another one. When you say “any known mechanism” (my emphasis), I think you’re departing from falsifiability. (If not, again, I’m curious. My known unknowns about chemistry are large.)
Eventually, in practice, we’ll want to come at the issue from the other end and check results as well as principles. This is what a clinical trial does. Homeopathy failed. And so I’m saying that describing homeopathy as something with no results is rhetorically stronger than describing it as something with no known mechanism.
If someone isn't a doctor, biologist, chemist, or physicist, then I don't see how that person could say, "...but I think they might be wrong!"
Oh dear. I get the sense that you’re trying to cure me of mistrust in the scientific process. There’s no need. I’m not trying to say that I know better than qualified experts. I’m criticizing a detail of a cartoonist’s phrasing. “X doesn’t fit some unspecified principle” is not as strong to me as “X does not work”. That’s all.
The second part though, is to point out that our current theoretical understanding of how the world works suggests that homeopathy is just bunk, that there is no known theoretical underpinning that could explain a response to a homeopathic medicine (well, apart from the placebo effect).
Both responses re-inforce the other. If we just had a theoretical justification for refusing homeopathy, we might be wrong about the theory, or have overlooked a crucial factor. If we just had the experimental results, we might be tempted to conclude that the experiment wasn't well-enough designed. But when the experiment and the theory agree with each other, we can start to have a very high level of confidence that we know what we are talking about. If homeopathy does actually work, we would have to conclude that today's theories of physics and chemistry are wrong, and that all of the well-conducted experiments that have so far been done have had some fatal flaw in them. That's a highly improbable situation, which is the important information that politicians need to understand. It is important to explain that multiple lines of reasoning indicate that homeopathy just doesn't work.
"Memory" requires some form of information storage, in this case in one of the simplest molecules known to man. Not only would any physicist be stumped to even propose some form of information storage (i.e., "we don't know how it might have memory"), but any such proposal would contradict the current body of knowledge of chemistry (i.e., "we know that it can't have memory -- there's nowhere for it to hide").
...and that's just one little part. Even if there was some kind of "memory" possible in water, you would have to explain how that memory would act on cells.
"It is against the laws of physics" sounds a bit like "most authorities agree that...", which doesn't cut it.
Nature seems to do a lot of weird information storage, btw (quantum entanglements? I am not a physicists myself...). I don't think we should be on the lookout for little flash drives embedded in the water molecules.
Ignorance is not a shield that protects you. Being open-minded to the point of incuriousity doesn't make you wise, it just means that you've stopped seeking the answers to questions.
Now, all that said: "spooky effects" like quantum entanglements are indeed very cool, and I'm looking forward to seeing some testable hypotheses on the mechanisms for that. However, experiments so far have only been able to make quantum effects at a distance work under very controlled conditions, and I'm pretty sure none of those conditions involved "shaking it back and forth 10 times". So, no, I'm not willing to buy that as a possible explanation for a mechanism for homeopathy -- even if homeopathy worked, which it doesn't.
Also, is there debate about gravity working? I think it has been tested, so it is not at all the same thing. It would be more like saying "anti-gravity is impossible" (maybe it is, no idea).
I am not interested in Homoeopathy, just in proper arguing.
OK, you're right. I need to be more careful in what I'm saying, then.
My claim, specifically, is that science does not have a large enough lack of knowledge about water -- or any other simple chemical -- in the specific areas of chemistry or particle physics, to suggest that there is even an unknown mechanism by which extra-molecular information might be stored in such a chemical, "extra-molecular" here meaning any information which wouldn't otherwise be included naturally as a part of that chemical. Furthermore, I'm saying that, in the absence of such unknowns, and given current knowledge of basic chemistry and physics, such hypothetical information storage would violate the already-accepted principles of those fields.
In other words, I'm placing the burden of proof squarely on the shoulders of the people making the fantastical claim, and I'm justifying that by claiming that we have a large enough body of evidence to support labeling their claim as "fantastical".
Now, if this was the 17th century, and I appeared out of nowhere and proclaimed, "water cannot have memory!" -- then maybe you'd have a point. Instead, there's this wonderfully large body of understanding of chemistry and physics which, while incomplete, is not so incomplete as to leave any room for a method of information storage in basic chemicals without contradicting current knowledge. Thus, "water can not have memory."
If you want to press further on this and challenge my assertion anyway, then I present as evidence the entire body of science. Your move. :-) If you can successfully disprove enough current chemistry or physics to leave the door open for any kind of "memory" in water, then there is probably a large amount of fame and acclaim waiting for you.
(And yes, there is some debate about how gravity works. While general relativity does a neat job of modeling gravity, it is somewhat unsatisfying as an explanation for its mechanism. And also, yes, I would be inclined to say that "anti-gravity is impossible", although with somewhat more reservation, because so far the best explanation for gravity is that it is in fact some kind of side-effect of mass on a space-time environment, so "anti-gravity" would require negative mass, which last time I checked doesn't even make sense -- although I haven't been watching the journals as closely as I used to.)
It doesn't work that way, and you know it :-)
It seems the guy from Nature was not as well informed as you, because rather than arguing that it is impossible because of established laws of nature, he actually did the experiments. Weird.
As for gravity, I know there is debate about HOW it works. I meant there is probably no debate that it "works" (by whatever mechanism).
It seems scientists felt the need to invent "dark matter" and other esoteric stuff at times to explain their theories, so I am not sure how established some of our modern theories really are (some weeks ago I think there was an article on HN presenting a theory that would explain away dark matter). It also seems difficult or impossible to prevent particles from affecting each other. So I suppose "no memory" means "all effects are washed out in chaos" or something like that?
> It seems the guy from Nature was not as well informed as you, because rather than arguing that it is impossible because of established laws of nature, he actually did the experiments. Weird.
Cute. Do I really need to point out why, or are you just being deliberately snarky? Because the article pretty well covered all of this.
> It seems scientists felt the need to invent "dark matter" and other esoteric stuff at times to explain their theories, so I am not sure how established some of our modern theories really are...
And this is where it suddenly dawned on me that debating this further, instead of going to bed, would be foolish.
Physicists: "Hmm, this is odd. Given our current understanding of gravity, observations supporting an expanding universe, and current mathematical constants, we appear to be missing a huge amount of mass in the universe."
Astronomers: "Hey, don't look at us. We're woefully underfunded, but I'm pretty sure we would've seen a hint of that much stuff by now."
Physicists: "Maybe there's some other kind of exotic form of mass that we haven't seen before?"
Other physicists: "Well, that doesn't really violate any other principles of physics. It's worth a check. Let's see if we can find it."
The under-educated public: "LOL they invented dark matter!"
How about, instead of playing debate-hit-and-run by making weak accusations against science ("they felt the need to invent dark matter") and then immediately hiding behind ignorance ("I am not sure how established some of our modern theories really are"), you actually do some reading and find out? The internet is amazing, you can find an answer to pretty much any question you have on any topic. So I'll just leave this here then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter
G'night.
I am not arguing for it, though, so don't downvote me just because you don't like Homeopathy - I didn't invent or advocate it.
Edit: According to Wikipedia there seems to be a memory of a fraction of nanoseconds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_memory (they seem to measure a specific kind of "memory", though). But what for example about waves, are they not also a kind of memory? Some waves last longer than a nanosecond.
The next time anyone offers a homoeopathic drug, ask them how long the medication is good for. There is no sensible answer to that question, because homoeopathy is gibberish.
Even if water could absorb influences from the homoeopathic medicine, what about all the other things that this water has been in contact with over the centuries? It's not even internally self-consistent.
In the words of W.CV. Fields "I never drink water, fish fuck in it."