Re: The Enemies of Reason Part 2 (Channel 4, 20/08/2007)

michael adams goes:

"Alan Hope" <usenet.identity@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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michael adams goes:
"Neil Hopkins" <neil_hopkins@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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michael adams wrote:
"Neil Hopkins" <neil_hopkins@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Anybody out there anywhere with anything positive to say about
homeopathy? Any positive proof that it works? Any scientific studies
into how it is supposed to work?

Anyone at all? No?

In that case can we have back the ten million quid of NHS money that the
London Homeopathic hospital got to fit nice wooden floors, please and
thank you.

Dawkins explained that one in three of the population uses alternative
medicine. So why shouldn't the taxes of those one in three of the population
be used to fund the Hoemeopathic Hospital ?

Twenty five percent believe in astrology, but that doesn't mean that we
should spend public money on it with no proof that it works.

I think you and Dawkins should count yourselves lucky that the 25% of the
population who you say believe in astrology, don't demand that some of the
their taxes are spent on astrological projects. It's no more silly than
spending money on a lot of other ultimately useless projects. Both yourself
and Dawkins happen to live in a democracy, 25% funded by believers in
astrology, despite Dawkins best efforts to persuade them otherwise. He's
failed, end of.

As I said we live in a democrarcy not a scientocrarcy. A situation which
has remained largely unchanged since the Great Reform Act.

Democracy doesn't work that way, as you well know.

No of course it doesn't. Us ordinary punters have to believe what telly
experts like Richard Dawkins tell us is good for us.

You don't have to believe anything. You're free to swallow any
mumbo-jumbo that takes your fancy, including the ludicrous idea that
water has a memory.

Him and the Coca Cola selling us bottels of coloured water at £1 a throw,

While we pay out taxes so as to enable more experts to buy all these neuclear
weapons so as to as safeguard democracy - so as we can believe what telly
experts like....er

Still just so long as they don't waste any on this silly inneffective
alternative medicine eh ?

It's not one thing or the other, it's both. I'd be happy to save money
on missiles too, but not so we can use it to pay for the support of
woo-woo merchants selling bottled bee-sting.

If either
Dawkins or yourself are unhappy with the situation then I'm sure
both of you know your way to the airport.

"Love it or leave it" is usually a sign of a position that has utterly
crumpled. I take it you have no argument at all, if that's what you're
reduced to.

I'm happy for them to give some money to this daft Homeopthic Hospital.
Better than wasting it on missiles which a) they're never going to use
or b) will kill millions of people.

Yes but it's not a question of choosing one or the other. The money
for the Homeopaths comes on top of the money for the missiles. They're
also not connected in any way.

Unless of course these missiles really are just cardboard tubes, as
sometimes suspected. In which cas who's trousering all the money.

Dawkins is the one who's whingeing. Not me.

He's the one with no argument, the one doesn't want to discuss much
more useless way of wasting taxpayers money.

That's not his brief. Pitch your own TV series.

Maybe his brother in law works in Defence or something, eh?

If in doubt, smear.

Dawkins also admitted that much alternative Medicine quite possibly worked
because of the placebo affect. The "healers" convinced the patients they would
recover and in many cased they did. He also stressed that alternative
practitioners spent far longer talking to patients - an hour - than
do conventional doctors. Seven minutes,

Hint:patients may gain a theraputic benefit merely in having someone to talk
to, rather than simply making appointments to be given prescriptions
for pills.

Not exactly rocket science is it, when you think about it ?

Shame the point seems to have been lost on Dawkins though.

Quite the contrary. He was very clear that the placebo effect is well
known and can be very effective. He made the the point that it would be
better to have these sympathetic, listening doctors working in
conjunction with scientifically proven medicine to get the best of both
worlds. If the NHS can only afford to give average patients 7 minutes of
a doctor's time, then why on earth is it blowing huge sums of money on
unproven therapies and a hour of sympathetic time for the privileged few?

Beacause they're often more effective, that's why.

Cite?

Are you saying this is totally implausible then ?

It's implausible that the placebo effect of water that's been diluted
billions of times is more beneficial than conventional medicine? Of
course I'm fucking saying that.

Its a shame Dawkins chose not to dwell on the statistics as to the number of
patients who never actually finish taking their courses of antibiotics.
And thus who never actually reap the entire benefits of this wonder
drug of the 20th century.

Oh but they do. You don't need to finish your course to get better.
Though you ought to do so in order to prevent mutation of the few
remaining bacteria. Or do you not believe in mutations in your woo-woo
world of magic, Michael?

Or the fact that many patients no longer trust doctors at all.

Chicken and egg. That has nothing to do with science.

And science has shag all to do with everyday medicine.

Silly comment.

Dawlkkins is like some little kid who's only just discovered the scientific
method and peer reviewing. So f*cking what ? If patients don't trust
their doctors then they're more likely to visit quacks who make
the sort of friendly noises they want to hear.

Chicken and egg. Circular logic. If they get a touchy-feely reception
from the mountebanks and snake-oil salesmen, then of course they're
going to be a bit disappointed in their GP, who has no vested interest
in stroking their egos. That's where your loss of trust comes from.
Not because the drugs don't work.

It's not that alternative medicine is so good rather that conventional
medicine has lost touch with patients by appearing remote and unfeeling.

Funnily enough they come running back fast enough when they spot a
lump in the breast or a suppurating mole.

A lot of quacks operate in the field of inoperable or untreatable cancer.

Yes, where they exploit gullible and desperate people with nothing
left to lose, and provide them with no appreciable benefit whatsoever.

Which if you actually had a clue, you'd know.

I know that crackpot remedies have no success in those cases at all.
None at all. The charlatans are happy to milk the dying for all they
can get, however, by stoking up false hope in the sick person and the
family.

I always found John Diamond a bore when alive which is whey I never read
his book on the subject "C". But at least I know he wrote it.

So what? What's your point?

That's the problem Dawkins singularly failed to address. Its noticeable
that he avoided asking any "ordinary patients" what they thought of the
conventional treatment they were given. He avoided all mention of
contemporary orthodox medical practice altogether - waiting lists
targets etc etc and simply wheeled out the same old sacred cows of
antibiotics and the eradication of smallpox.

None of that has anything to do with science, which is what his
programme's subject is. You're talking about politics, which is
further from reason even than the ju-ju you so eagerly espouse.

Which simply goes to show that science, and the scientific method is
totally irrelevant to everyday medical treatment.

No it isn't. It isn't the only consideration, that's all. It's a
necessary, but not a sufficient element.

Another question which Dawkins neatly dodged - as he does - are the ethical
dilemmas posed by increasingly expensive and sophisticated drugs as
brought to us by the wonders of science. Just how much of our money
should we hand over to scientists so as to enable them to conduct research
in order to discover increasingly expensive treatments.

That's as you say a question of ethics, not of science.

Nar! Don't even go there ! Lets just concentrate on slagging off the
loonies instead.

You seem to want Dawkins to produce a Series About Everything. Do you
not know how telly works, then?


--
AH
http://grapes2dot0.blogspot.com



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