My dad has done MSc in Analytical Chemistry he is well educated and a wise man, Me/My Family and Even some doctors cannot debunk his trust on Homeopathy
I want some clever and factual explanations which I will forward to him
Thanks in advance
In: Biology
If a Master of science degree in chemistry cannot debunk homeopathy for him, I am afraid nothing ever will.
No, it’s pseudoscience. There’s no evidence that it actually works, and in fact there’s evidence that it’s physically incapable of working.
Why people use it? Because people believe in a lot of stupid stuff.
Unfortunately you cannot forward him anything that can change his mind as people in real life have not been able to do it. You are thinking the problem through the lens of logic and rationality, look at it through faith and belief. If you are a religious person I can provide you hundreds of arguments against the existence of God but you still will continue to believe because it is your faith and no rationale argument can change that. The way homeopathy works is it acts like a placebo over a long period of time. People will swear by it as they have belief in the system and will continue to hold on it unless and until they experience first hand how ineffective those treatments are.
Given that the human mind can accept the healing power of a placebo, then for minor ailments (that may heal themselves over time anyway) or mental health and well being, I say leave it alone.
If he’s an intelligent man let him make up his own mind and believe in what he wants to.
If he wants to use arnica to speed up healing bruises or decide arrowroot is best for his toothache, fine.
Consider steve jobs died much earlier that he perhaps would have, if he had been more accepting of modern medicine, however, that was his choice.
Whilst we know placebo’s work, I haven’t seen ‘regression to the mean’ mentioned in the thread.
This is a rule where everything returns to average/normal. So, if you have a chronic illness (such as multiple sclerosis), or a self limiting illness (viral chest infection), you seek out healthcare when you are at your absolute worst.
If you take a placebo or homeopathic treatment, the disease returns to normal (if a chronic illness) or resolves (if self limiting), and you attribute that change to the treatment. People have bad days with chronic illnesses and viral illness resolve on their own.
It doesn’t work, but it also does. There is this thing called the ‘placebo effect’ when the fact that you know or believe that you are being treated helps you independently of whether or not the actual treatment is directly doing anything. That is why new drugs are tested by giving half the subjects something innocuous like sugar pills and not telling anyone who is or is not getting the real drug. If you just gave half your test subjects the drug and gave the other half nothing, you would see a positive effect out of drugs which are ineffective. So you make it that both groups experience the placebo effect and only attribute whatever improvement happened on top of that to the drug.
Now this placebo effect works only if you actually believe in the ‘drug’ you are given. Homeopathy is very good about selling the idea that the sugar pills you are taking are special. They have specialized stores, they have practitioners who act like they are doctors, the pills have fancy names, they look vaguely drug-like, in some countries homeopathics are even sold in regular pharmacies alongside actual medicine (which is extremely shady and should be illegal, but it often isn’t). This provides for a strong placebo effect and because of their widespread use there will always be plenty of people to ‘back up their effectiveness’, because ‘they worked for me’, which enhances the placebo effect even further and also prevents any legislation against them from being passed. Sometimes it get’s really ridiculous. In the EU, you can’t advertise a positive health effect of a drug or supplement unless you have actually proven it, so what they do is that they just play an advert in which there is the sound of a sneeze, then they say the name of their homeopathic ‘drug’ and say ‘ask about it in your local pharmacy’. Which obviously strongly implies to anyone that their ‘drug’ treats colds and stuff, but they didn’t outright say it, so they avoid legal action.
What is crazy is the body’s potential to create drugs inside of itself. Especially pain killer opiate like stuff. When they administer ppl a placebo, but tell them it’s a painkiller, they don’t feel as much pain. OK, so it’s subjective, they’re kidding themselves. Right? Nope. When they administer an opiod blocker, they DO feel pain again! All tested double blind. So the placebo triggers a real effect in a person’s body. Real opoids are beeing produced. And it’s just ppl brains that trigger it, a concious idea of “I’m going to feel less pain now”. So based on that, yes, I think homeopathy can “work”. Whether it’s just tapwater or magic in the bottle doesn’t matter, you just have to believe in it. The “believe” is also relative I think. I’m scared of ghost movies even though I don’t believe in ghosts. Somewhere I apparently do though, otherwise I wouldn’t be scared. Homeopathy/placebo might work the same way, you can’t really NOT believe in it. Getting it at a store, seeing it in a medication bottle, paying money for it (very important!) all prime your subconsciousness into thinking it’s real.
Homeopathy says it works by diluting some ingredient like gold or silver or even plant extracts to such an extent that it is undetectable. So take a drop of some plant tincture and pour it into a huge lake like Geneva lake or lake Superior. Then mix it up properly and make some pills out of the water from the lake, and you have your meds.
This is of course complete nonsense because these great lakes already contain every possible element and chemical that exists. So you might as well just drink the water from those lakes and it should cure you from any ailments that exist.
Basically homeopathy is a scam worth billions per year and it has the same healing effect as a placebo. Go to your local pharmacy and ask for a placebo. I was really surprised by the professional packaging and high price of the placebo pills. The interesting fact was also that the placebo contained the same ingredients as homeopathic globuli: lactose and sugars.
And finally if homeopathic “medicine” works, tell your father to overdose on homeopathic sleeping pills. He will not be able to overdose, but he will get one hell of a sugar rush and feel sick after 5-10 packs ingested.
You cannot reason someone out of a position he or she was not reasoned into. Homeopathy is not supported by science and reason, and its adherents have mastered the ability to dismiss science and reason while sincerely believing they’re the ones being scientific and reasonable. It’s a lost cause and likely harmless unless your dad forgoes regular medicine as well. I’d ignore it. He might come to his senses one day, but not because of anything you put in front of him.
Homeopathy is no more or less effective than a placebo. It’s precisely *because* of this that people have a tough time accepting that it’s nonsense. At the end of the day, someone suffering from constant headaches is absolutely going to swear by it if their one attempt with Homeopathy finally quelled their headache. No amount of explaining to them it’s the fact the water hydrated them is going to change their mind.
It’s entire premise is that water molecules have a “memory” that allows it to copy the properties of other molecules it comes into contact with. So, for example, if you put an Onion into a beaker of water and shook it, the water molecules would carry forth the properties of onion molecules while still being water molecules.
In order to produce mass amounts of their treatment, homeopaths then mix that beaker with the equivalent of another 100 beakers of water. Because they believe that these onion/water molecules will also transfer those properties to other water molecules. Anyone who is familiar with even basic High School Science should recognise this process is *actually* called dilution. A process which accomplishes precisely the opposite effect a Homeopath is after.
I’ve watched a series of videos on YouTube about this from a guy called [Cool Hard Logic](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmWeueTF8l80Hu9sxMDr9rpht2ghePFWq) and they are incredibly easy to follow and understand even for an unqualified pleb like myself. I wholeheartedly recommend them.
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