h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Homeopathy Explained - A87771630
Author: Dr. Nancy Malik - U14997432

Dear Editors

I wish to submit an entry of mine titled "Homeopathy Explained" for a peer-review.

If I need to do anything I forget, kindly do tell me.

Regard
Nancy

Hi Nancy,

Welcome to Peer Review in h2g2! You've picked an often controversial topic for your first entry, but I'm sure that everyone here is concentrate on what Peer Review is for and leave the debates to other forums and always stay within the House Rules

I like how this is nice and simple, a quick reference as it were. Often when you get people explaining things they go into a *lot* of detail.
Having said that though, it might be an idea to expand upon each of the sections a bit. Mostly they're short sentences, sort of as though you've got the idea in your head and need to write it down as an aide memorie, but I think that you might need to flesh these out so that others know what you're describing. For example, Arndt-Schultz Law is just the statement of the law. But what did they actually mean by it? What were they trying to get across, has it been proven etc?

I think that if you can get the balance between the simple, quick reference, with some more in-depth descriptions of the points to explain them to those coming to the topic for the first time, then this could be a good article.

Hi Nancy

I need to point out that h2g2 is a place for truly well written entries that are interesting to read. They should not be copied from other blogs, and pasted here. If you've already written this material yourself in other places on the web, you should ensure that the text is presented in a style suitable for h2g2.

Please make sure that your entry is well balanced. In a case such as 'Homeopathy' you must present both sides of the argument. ie speaking for those that have faith that homeopathy is effective - *and* the opposing case. This is one of our basic tenets for accepting any Entry into the Edited or Approved part of h2g2.

Lanzababy

Guide Editor

Additional information.

The Edited Guide already has a well written Entry on this subject: A954740. We're sorry but we do not take articles on the same subject, unless they are providing information that is not previously covered, and from a completely new angle.


h2g2 Guide Editors.

This is interesting. The Entry cited above is a sceptical view. Is that a balanced view?

Demanding a balanced view is a bad idea, as a criterion. We had 'balanced' information leaflets issued by the government of Ireland before a few referendums, giving both sides of the argument (even when all the major political parties favoured the same outcome) and all they produced was confusion. A debate cannot convincingly be carried on in one voice; even when presenting alternatives, a writer will normally sum up and come down on one or other side.

By the way there is an egregious statement in A954740, questioned but not answered in 2003, even though the Entry was updated in 2007:

" ... to get even one single molecule from a solution diluted 30 times, one would have to drink 7,874 gallons of the solution. This would be roughly equivalent to a container 30 million times bigger than the Earth itself."

The Earth is not that small.

The best way forward is to ensure our current Entries are updated
and that they are in fact unbiased.

I'd be interested in hearing Z's pov.

*zooms in...*

I believe that as a 'Guide' we are primarily interested in publishing things that are true, and not things that are false.

When it comes to matters of fact there is no need for balance. If something has been demonstrated to be true then there is no need to provide an alternative point of view saying that some people that it is not true. Therefore an article on the subject of geology does not need to state that some believe the world is flat, an article on the evolution of the hippopotamus does not need to say that some people believe that the evolution is not true.

If we are writing about something where there is a genuine scientific debate about what is true, then we should publish both sides of the argument. If we are writing about something where there is a matter of opinion, or morals, where there is no right answer then we should publish both sides of the argument.

Homeopathy has been demonstrated to be ineffective in clinical trials, and this is not surprising, given that the remedies are just water, with none of the active substance in them. Yes, you may claim that water has memory but if it does we would need to over turn physics and chemistry, and it's never been demonstrated to exist.

There have been numerous scientific trials of homeopathy, and whilst some seemed to be positive those were the smaller and poorer conducted ones, and when you combine them together they seem not to be effective.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12492603

That said many people do feel that they get benefit from homeopathic treatments, and many other treatments which are ineffective when tested properly. This is a combination of attribution bias, regression to the mean, the placebo effect, and reporter/observer bias. (I have a half written entry on this very topic). Homeopaths have a nice bedside manner, and many people feel seeing one to be a therapeutic experience in itself.



However there is no reason why we should not have an article on the principles of homeopathy, as long as it does not claim to be an effective treatment system. It may of course say something along the lines that 'many people still use homeopathy, and gain some benefit, though it has not been demonstrated to work when properly tested.

I personally would rather that A954740 was entitled a 'scientific view of homeopathy' as it really is just a statement of facts.

I do recognize the name Nancy Malik, as someone who is active in the skeptic v homeopathy debates on twitter, and guardian online.

By way of conflict of interest I too an involved in those debates on the opposite side, I am an active member of Edinburgh Skeptics, and I have spoken on alternative medicine, and why it seems to work when it is ineffective at Edinburgh, Cork and Sydney Skeptics in the pub.

However I only formed my opinion on homeopathy after reading the evidence for and against it. When I was at university I was attached to a GPs practice which prescribed homeopathy and I was impressed with their approach. But when I sought out the evidence I found it was ineffective.

Certainly A954740 gives a lot more information than A87771630 (the new Entry). And certainly the latter has less objectivity. Still, might there be a place for an Entry that gives the arguments for, if better fleshed-out?

Perhaps not. The main arguments for homeopathy are listed and pretty convincingly demolished in A954740. This Entry (if it is to make it through) will need to take cognizance of that.

http://www.skepticcanary.com/2012/02/28/nancy-malik-shows-us-how-not-to-conduct-a-poll-on-homeopathy/

http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk/tag/nancy-malik/

http://www.thinkhumanism.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=63

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/political-science/2011/jan/05/homeopathy-ban-prescription-pets?CMP=twt_gu

Do not feed the troll.

I have not checked all of the article and much may be attributed to yourself.

The following part definitely needs atributation for it not to be plagiarism.

Appeal to Thinking Philanthropists Respecting the Mode of Propagation of the Asiatic Cholera, 20 pages, 1831, republished in The British Journal of Homoeopathy, Oct 1849
He said, "On board ships – in those confined spaces, filled with mouldy watery vapours, the cholera-miasm finds a favourable element for its multiplication, and grows into an enormously increased brood of those excessively minute, invisible, living creatures, so inimical to human life, of which the contagious matter of the cholera most probably consists millions of those miasmatic animated beings, which, at first developed on the broad marshy banks or the tepid Ganges– on board these ships, I say, this concentrated aggravated miasm kills several of the crew ... “

Atributation for the above should be included:

(translated by R E Dudgeon, M.D. in The Lesser Writings of Samuel Hahnemann, 1851 edition, B Jain Publishers, reproduced edition, 2002, p. 758)

and can be found on
http://homeoking.blogspot.com/2011/09/scientific-research-in-homeopathy.html

Further check should be made at
http://www.copyscape.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.h2g2.com%2Fdna%2Fh2g2%2Fclassic%2FA87771630

all the best
vegiman

my appologies
I note that the attribution has been placed at the foot of the page
which I missed the first time of reading

sorry veg

Not sure how linking to the author's, ahem, presence on the web is against house rules, but who knows? Who ever did? Google the author's name and see what you find, and judge accordingly.

Wow.

Hi Nancy

We've taken a decision to move this Entry back to your personal space to allow you to work on it further. In its present form it is not suitable for inclusion in the Edited Guide.


best wishes

h2g2 Guide Editors

If you wish further information we suggest you email us at

[email protected]

Thank You Editors and and Thank You everyone for your valuable time.

I don't see much of a possibility of getting through the peer review process of the review experts here at this moment. I leave it here only at this moment of time and will submit it again for a peer review at a future time.

Regards
Nancy

You might think about perhaps changing it to meet the guidelines of being "well written, factual and informative".

In its current form it falls down rather badly on at least one of those, and the guidelines have been the same for the best part of 13 years and are unlikely to change...