“Truth? You can't handle the truth!”

[The Legendary Shark]

'can't say whether water is capable of holding "memories" '

if it does we're all drinkling pish! not to mention every other thing that water has been in contact with  

Er, whereabouts does it say that water memory (if such a thing exists) lasts forever and can be neither erased nor re-set?  


Edit: Yes, absolutely - I can only speak from my opinion. And in my opinion, it's possible that water has a "memory" - it does, after all, "remember" how to be a solid, a liquid or a gas. (A spurious point, I know, but used here just to illustrate that the very word "memory" may not be exactly the correct one in the first place.)

[Peter Wolf]

Curiously Codex Alimentaris does not require that GM food should be labelled.Nothing untoward about that either.

You also fail to mention that it is voluntary and countries have no obligation to follow it.

http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/food/codex-alimentarius/

Well i do apologise as it is voluntary on a governmental level but the EU has already fully signed up to it[so has the US] and its now been implemented by the EU through its directives.Every EU country is a member of the CODEX commission but the EU has been making something of a stand against GM which is ongoing so it may be that it is subject to a certain amount of discretion or autonomy which depends on how long any particular country can withstand pressure from corporate lobbyists and pressure from other CODEX members as a whole and from the organisation itself which is the WTO/WHO.

It has been adopted by 120 countries worldwide but i dont know if countries can adopt parts of its directives or wether or not by signing up to it they have to adopt it wholesale.

As for being obliged to follow it there is no wording in it that stipulates that any country has to follow its directives to the letter as the wording in it uses the word "shall" which doesnt in itself state that something is either voluntary or mandatory so in time this may be subject to legal battles.Its what is known as an agreement which is a contract of sorts and is therefore binding in that respect.All trade agreements are contracts.

Its only now being implemented so what happens in the long term remains to be seen as in how aggressively govt agencies like the FDA and the UK equivelant decide to implement it and wether it will be abused.

[The Legendary Shark]

"Every mystery ever solved has turned out to be not magic." Tim Minchin. Now, this I can agree with - so long as we accept that, so far, not every mystery has been solved.

[Richmond Clements]

"Every mystery ever solved has turned out to be not magic." Tim Minchin. Now, this I can agree with - so long as we accept that, so far, not every mystery has been solved.

It'll be a sad day when we run out of mysteries...

[Eric Plumrose]

I'm not so sure:

Evidence disagrees with you, I'm afraid.

http://www.dcscience.net/?p=129

From that article:

It is sad that an organisation with a respectable sounding title like the Institute of Science in Society is being used to propagate some pure pseudo-scientific gobblydegook. Is it any wonder that journalists and the general public get confused?

Respectable as its title might sound, the Society's acronym is suspiciously esoteric: ISIS, the Egyptian goddess of nature and magic.

[TordelBack]

There seems to be an implication that no-one has even tried to investigate homeopathy - nothing could be further from the truth.  The demonstrable facts are that in all scientifically conducted tests, homeopathy has scored no better than placebo time and time again - for the simple reason that it is a placebo: at the dilutions proposed it is water.  

Coupled with no coherent scientific explanation being presented for its claimed effects (timey wimey memory stuff notwithstanding), a clear historical path from outright 18th C quackery of Hahnemann to the pseudo-science of the present day for its practice, and its dismissal as anything other than a complex administration of placebo is not a matter of 'opinion' - it's a matter of rigorous scientific conclusion.  Take it by all means, if it makes you feel better (I do, and it does), but it does not have any value as medicine beyond a sugar pill or flavoured water labelled 'Cure'.

And again, I'll say:  if this stuff worked, if there was a 'molecular memory' to investigate, scientists  would be all over it - new discoveries, practical applications, this is what their dreams are made of.  Scientists do not conspire to hide the secrets of the universe, they shout them as loudly as they can to anyone who will listen - makes for very dull parties, but there you go.

[The Legendary Shark]

It'll be a sad day when we run out of mysteries...

Amen!

[The Legendary Shark]

Scientists do not conspire to hide the secrets of the universe, they shout them as loudly as they can to anyone who will listen - makes for very dull parties, but there you go.

Absolutely - but accountants are not scientists and corporations are not scientists. As with most things in this day and age, he who pays the piper calls the tune and if the multinational you're doing science for isn't going to pay you to thoroughly investigate something like water memory then you're either going to have to investigate what you're told to investigate or do it on your own dime as an independent researcher with limited resources.

And we all know how society tends to view independent researchers who "shout ... as loudly as they can to anyone who will listen". Scientists are not paragons of virtue who will put their lives and careers on the line for something they don't have the resources to properly investigate - they're just people like you and me and if they get told not to do something enough times, most of them will comply. Science is a job as well as a vocation, so scientists go where the money is - which is generally in big corporations with an interest in maximising the profits of science, not the benefits of science.

Now, I'm not saying that science should accept every theory or hypothesis that's thrown at it, but it seems to me that good old fashioned skepticsm is in danger of being replaced entirely by pointless, automatic denial.

[Richmond Clements]

Now, I'm not saying that science should accept every theory or hypothesis that's thrown at it, but it seems to me that good old fashioned skepticsm is in danger of being replaced entirely by pointless, automatic denial.

I'd agree with this if homeopathy (as that is what we're talking about) had not already been tested under scientific conditions- repeatedly- and found wanting every single time.
How many times must something be tested by science before the results of that testing are accepted?
I would suggest that the billions of pounds being made every year by people selling this stuff is the reason for the denial of evidence..

[Proudhuff]

'can't say whether water is capable of holding "memories" '

if it does we're all drinkling pish! not to mention every other thing that water has been in contact with  

Er, whereabouts does it say that water memory (if such a thing exists) lasts forever and can be neither erased nor re-set?  

that would be a very handy (wavey) solution 

[The Legendary Shark]

I'd agree with this if homeopathy (as that is what we're talking about) had not already been tested under scientific conditions- repeatedly- and found wanting every single time.
How many times must something be tested by science before the results of that testing are accepted?
I would suggest that the billions of pounds being made every year by people selling this stuff is the reason for the denial of evidence..

Every single time? Really?

In 1991, three professors of medicine from the Netherlands, none of them homeopaths, performed a meta-analysis of 25 years of clinical studies using homeopathic medicines and published their results in the British Medical Journal (1) This meta-analysis covered 107 controlled trials, of which 81 showed that homeopathic medicines were effective, 24 showed they were ineffective, and 2 were inconclusive.

The professors concluded, "The amount of positive results came as a surprise to us." Specifically, they found that:
--13 of 19 trials showed successful treatment of respiratory infections,
--6 of 7 trials showed positive results in treating other infections,
--5 of 7 trials showed improvement in diseases of the digestive system,
--5 of 5 showed successful treatment of hay fever,
--5 of 7 showed faster recovery after abdominal surgery,
--4 of 6 promoted healing in treating rheumatological disease,
--18 of 20 showed benefit in addressing pain or trauma,
--8 of 10 showed positive results in relieving mental or psychological
problems, and
--13 of 15 showed benefit from miscellaneous diagnoses.

A recent clinical trial evaluating homeopathic medicine was a unique study of the treatment of asthma(2). Researchers at the University of Glasgow used conventional allergy testing to discover which substances these asthma patients were most allergic to. Once this was determined, the subjects were randomized into treatment and placebo groups. Those patients chosen for treatment were given the 30c potency of the substance to which they were most allergic (the most common substance was house dust mite). The researchers called this unique method of individualizing remedies "homeopathic immunotherapy" (homeopathic medicines are usually prescribed based on the patient's idiosyncratic symptoms, not on laboratory analysis or diagnostic categories). Subjects in this experiment were evaluated by both homeopathic and conventional physicians.

This study showed that 82% of the patients given a homeopathic medicine improved, while only 38% of patients given a placebo experienced a similar degree of relief. When asked if they felt the patient received the homeopathic medicine or the placebo, both the patients and the doctors tended to guess correctly.

A study of the homeopathic treatment of migraine headache was conducted in Italy(3). Sixty patients were randomized and entered into a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Patients regularly filled out a questionnaire on the frequency, intensity, and characteristics of their head pain. They were prescribed a single dose of a 30c remedy at four separate times over two-week intervals. Eight remedies were considered, and prescribers were allowed to use any two with a patient. While only 17% of patients given a placebo experienced relief of their migraine pain, an impressive 93% of patients given an individualized homeopathic medicine experienced good results.


I could go on and on and on, and I too would like to ask the same question you did: "How many times must something be tested by science before the results of that testing are accepted?"

(1) J. Kleijnen, P. Knipschild, G. ter Riet, "Clinical Trials of Homoeopathy," British Medical Journal, February 9, 1991, 302:316-323.
(2) David Reilly, Morag Taylor, Neil Beattie, et al., "Is Evidence for Homoeopathy Reproducible?" Lancet, December 10, 1994, 344:1601-6.
(3) Bruno Brigo, and G. Serpelloni, "Homeopathic Treatment of Migraines: A Randomized Double-blind Controlled Study of 60 Cases," Berlin Journal on Research in Homeopathy, March 1991, 1,2:98-106.

[The Legendary Shark]

[Richmond Clements]

In 1991,

And... the twenty years of research since then?

[Matt Timson]

I know a GP that uses St. John's Wort. He also admits (as do two other GPs that I know) that his main function as a GP is to get people out of the door as quickly as possible.  They're not bad people and wouldn't, as far as I'm aware, ever do you wrong on purpose- but all agree that if they'd really wanted to help people, then they'd have been nurses instead.

I have my own thoughts on placeboes- and homeopathy in general- but nothing that hasn't already been covered.

[Richmond Clements]

Here is the science behind homeopathy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpC8BvHyorg&feature=related

Please- do not try and tell me this in in any way a real science.