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Comment by grandalf | Hacker News Reader

homeopathy is as much bunk as the placebo effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

Why would anyone choose to ingest powerful pharmaceuticals if they could experience significant improvements simply by believing that homeopathy works?

Even when you take advil for a headache, some/all of the effect may just be the placebo effect.

note: placebos are used by many modern doctors who write prescriptions for a drug called "Obecalp" routinely to harness the placebo effect:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/health/27plac.html

The human mind/body healing process is too complex to dismiss placebos offhand.

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"Why would anyone choose to ingest powerful pharmaceuticals if they could experience significant improvements simply by believing that homeopathy works?"

Because if you want to perpetuate a widespread belief that homeopathy works, you have to require an equally widespead ignorance of how real chemistry works. Then, to have a modern civilization at all, you have to also have an elite that does understand how real chemistry works.

I'm sure you can understand how much of a problem this is going to become.

Well, the placebo effect is also due to real chemistry ... just not chemistry that anyone understands enough to start designing actual patentable pharmaceuticals to harness it (yet).

I would counter that just as many people naively take advil when they get a headache. I think many doctors would say that OTC NSAID abuse is probably at least as big a problem as people not getting rid of their ailments b/c they took homeopathic remedies.

Most people don't have a clue what is really happening when they flip on a light switch in their home ... so by your argument they should avoid electricity, appliances, etc.

The difference is, the light switch switches on the light regardless if I believe in light switches. Thus it is comparable with conventional medicine rather than homeopathy.

And even though - just like with regular medicine - I don't have to know exactly how it works for it to function, I also don't have to have false beliefs how it works.

Do you think mainstream pharmaceuticals are 100% effective? They are analogous to a light switch that switches the light on/off about 60% of the time at best.

The placebo effect works 10-20% of the time. So we're talking about something that is almost as effective.

Most people taking advil OR those little homeopathic tablets know/understand nothing about how they work.

In the case of homeopathy, you don't need to know why it works -- in fact, knowing that it works via the placebo effect might undermine its effectiveness :)

Just to back you up, naloxone blocks placebo morphine.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=567913

The placebo effect only works if you have a false belief, though, and spreading false beliefs is generally something to be avoided.

Ask someone on the street how Advil works. Just because a placebo works only because of a false belief and not just in spite of a false belief does not make those who take it any dumber. :)

Going to become?

By giving them a voice, you encourage stuff like this: http://www.smh.com.au/national/parents-guilty-of-manslaughte...

Sorry I don't buy the idea that free speech/expression is bad.

Many people are quite foolish, and they are this way in spite of much information that would prevent ridiculous things like the link you posted.

No homeopathy is bunk. The placebo effect is psychological in the sense that by unwittingly taking a sugar cube instead of an advil causes your mind to ignore the pain. While homeopathy may induce some wellness via the placebo effect the premise of a former solute having an effect on a solvent is ridiculous.

Of course the premise of homeopathy is ridiculous, as would be the typical person on the street's explanation of how Advil works.

Also, some percentage of the effectiveness of Advil is also due to the placebo effect.

Why would anyone choose to ingest powerful pharmaceuticals if they could experience significant improvements simply by believing that homeopathy works?

Because believing isn't a choice.

Why would anyone choose to spend his life in existential crisis, when he could experience significant improvements by simply believing there is a God?

Because I don't believe there is a God and I don't have a choice in that. If I had a choice, I would gladly believe there was a God: it would make my life a lot easier.

Your example brings up a good point.

Consider the basis for which most atheists believe in any complex piece of engineering or science. At best, most people have a kindergarten level understanding of most of the natural world, and they pat themselves on the back for trusting authority figures.

But all they are doing is trusting authority, not actually understanding anything.

My point is that this sort of "truth" is on equal footing with religion... just because someone in a white coat tells you something doesn't mean your belief is of any better quality than if someone in a clerical robe told you to believe it.

This is true for most people anyway... Please note that I am an atheist, but I try to avoid patting myself on the back for what amounts to nothing more than bowing to authority.

Well, you don't just trust the authority figures: you trust whole communities of authority figures, that consist of persons that differ in about every imaginable aspect. I do not believe something is right because a few authorities say so, but because their arguments are checked and criticised by a wide variety of scientists, including such varieties as Chinese Christian biochemists, Gay Ethiopian surgeons, White French scholars in Hindi and Argentinian female anthropologists. People of different backgrounds, with different values and ethics, that are yet all persuaded by sound evidence and reasoning. I cannot believe that is just coincidence.

Edit: (And of course because the arguments seem plausible to me, with the limited understanding I have of the subject)

Physicians do not routinely gives patients placebo (except in research), nor would it be ethical to do so routinely in clinical practice.

The article you linked really talks about parents who are trying to market "Obecalp". Neither I nor any physician I know has ever heard of it.

There is a significant "mind/body healing process", but neither homeopathy nor placebo is a legitimate or ethical part of healing.

> Physicians do not routinely gives patients placebo (except in research), nor would it be ethical to do so routinely in clinical practice.

Wikipedia says otherwise (and here is its source):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=retrieve&db...

"The authors sent a questionnaire to 772 randomly selected Danish clinicians and asked them about their use of placebo interventions. Sixty-five percent responded. Among the general practitioners, 86% (95% confidence interval 81-91) reported to have used placebo interventions at least once, and 48% (41-55) to have used placebo interventions more than ten times, within the last year"

Given the number of cases GP's handle, most people wouldn't call 10 times a year 'routinely'. They would call that 'rarely'.

Someone else beat me to refuting your comment. The nytimes article was just chosen as a quick example. Use of Obecalp is taught in major medical schools and it is used routinely though not frequently by doctors.

Think of it this way, any pharmaceutical treatment you have undergone was probably only 80-90% as effective as you think it was :)

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