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Anyway, UFOs...

Mr Benneth is a homeopath. A quick google search would have told you that. So if he is what he claims to be, then it would be reasonable to think he is speaking from a position of knowledge on the subject, don't you think?

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.

If you get anywhere near a coherent position, please let me know   

Science does not know as much as it pretends.

I take offense at this. Science does not pretend to know anything. The default scientific position on many subjects, homeopathy included, is 'We really just don't know'. The only people claiming to 'know' anything, while citing a scientific basis, are people with an agenda.

Fair enough, I retract that and replace it with "Science does not know as much as laypeople tend to believe."

The brain as the seat of memory.

On that one I'm fairly convinced by the well-documented case studies of brain injuried people suffering loss of memory. There's a good correlation between Alzheimer's and loss of memory too. I don't know much about astrophysics and cosmology. They're not in my field and I'm not very interested in them, so I tend not to worry about it too much.

In Lashley's experiments (1929, 1950), rats were trained to run a maze. Tissue was removed from their cerebral cortices before re-introducing them to the maze, to see how their memory was affected. Increasingly, the amount of tissue removed degraded memory, but more remarkably, where the tissue was removed from made no difference.

(My statement "The brain as the seat of memory" was incorrect - I should have said "the unknown seat of memory in the brain." Apologies. There is also some suggestion that the heart may also store memories.)

Yes - but that's a bonus!

PS, Carlos told me that he based Sharkman on me - so I'm the one looking up Anderson's skirt! Woo hoo! Also, last time he was in the Yap Shop, jut a couple of weeks ago, Carlos told us he was working on both Strontium Dog and Koburn strips...

What this all amounts to is an untested hypothesis...

There are many untested hypotheses in science. The Big Bang theory, black holes, the brain as the seat of memory. Science does not know as much as it pretends.

Was science before 1991 all wrong and science after 1991 all right?

I'm assuming here that you are again deliberately misunderstanding and misrepresenting what I said for some reason, but doing so does make debating the subject with you very difficult.

No, no. I'm not having that.

You said "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 cited three references where homeopathy has not been found wanting and you complained that I didn't cite anything after 1991 (even though a December 10, 1994 issue of the Lancet was also cited). You implied that homeopathy has never, ever been shown to have any positive effects whatsoever and I presented data that would seem to indicate the contrary. How is this deliberately misunderstanding and misrepresenting what you said?

In 1991,

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

No idea. I'm sure more recent studies could be found but, what's the point? Was science before 1991 all wrong and science after 1991 all right? (A very quick search yielded "Effects of homeopathic medications Eupatorium perfoliatum and Arsenicum album on parasitemia of Plasmodium berghei-infected mice" (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1475491606001019) - although this was published in 2006 and may also be too old to be relevant.)

It's not my job or intent to defend homeopathy or convince anyone that it works or doesn't work. The examples I cited in my last post were merely an attempt to demonstrate that your assertion of homeopathy being repeatedly found wanting may need some revision.

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.

Okay, I won't. Anyone can make a YouTube video and without closely examining his content, qualifications or methods I'm not in a position to pass any kind of judgement on Mr Benneth or his claims.

Would it be possible for you to just make one ECBT2000AD thread so I can click on "Notify me about this topic"? That way, I'll get notified every time there's a new podcast to download because I keep missing these announcements because I am a lazy bugger.

Just a thought!

Looking good - I'm especially liking that Robo-Hunter pic!

...because Carlos Ezquerra just told me that "Shark Man" from Cadet Anderson is based on yours truly! Wo-hoo!

The preparation:

Finished:

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.

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.

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

Amen!

I seem to remember reading about "the hummadruz" in Fortean Times many years ago. IIrc, the phenomena was variously explained as UFOs, psychic shenanigans, the movement of the Earth's molten interior, the noise of the oceans reverberating through the planet's crust or the spin/motion of the Earth as it hurtles through space. All very intriguing, but I can't say I've ever heard it.

If it puts a stop to Coronation Street, though, it's fine by me!

"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.