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

I apologise for the dreadfully bad grammar in that last posting

Do you think everthing that's profitbale is patented?

How about staples at the grocery store, e.g. milk, bread, eggs?


I don't know why you're relating the fundamentalist christian attitude of condemning everyone to h**l in the afterlife with sientific scepticism towards homeopathy. Guess what? Those fundie christians aren't too keen on the scientific method either (creationism/intelligent design, intelligent falling, etc.)

Exactly! Herbal medicines have definite active ingredients that can be isolated and compared with artificial pharmaceutical active ingedients to show that they are very similar to each other and proven to work and indeed can be tested to show they work.

Homeopathic medicines have yet to be shown to work to the same degree.

Could the people singing the praises of homeopathy have a rethink here and state whether they are talkig about homeopathy or herbal medicine.

>>"Invariably, they have had a major emotional blow in that time (death of a parent, partner or child; serious legal, work or relationship problems or even a lottery win(??). This is an example of an emotional state having an eventual effect on the physical body."

Well, I guess that must mean my parent's first child had a particularly stressful time being born, or during his first few months of life, and that the cancer that killed him wasn't just the result of some genetic f*&^-up?
Maybe if my [other close relative] had had a luckier few years, his immune system could simply have shaken off his advancing mesothelioma?

>>"And also to dismiss millions of Indians as a bunch of credulous morons. Could this be a somewhat racist attitude??"

Even ignoring the posibly significant issue of whether homeopathy may be one of the few paths financially open to many Indians, if someone *were* to consider people taking homeopathic medicine as credulous, it wouldn't be racist unless:
a) They concentrated on the *Indian* people who chose homeopathy.
b) Their attitude to homeopathy had developed *because* they saw it as being an essentially non-white thing.

I'm not sure either of those conditions are fulfilled. I don't even think it was a skeptic who brought up numbers of Indian subscribers to the belief in the first place.

>>"Indeed, we’re now encouraged to have no faith in commonsense until it is scientifically proven."

Well, I'm pretty scientific in outlook, and I have confidence in my own common sense (since I'm aware it generally works), and the common sense of other people who seem to have a history of good common sense. I lack confidence in the common sense of people whose common sense has a history of not working. That seems a sensible approach.


>>"And one of the major flaws in the scientific model that dominates is that is relegates a person’s individual experience to the anecdotal."

An individual's experience *is* anecdotal by definition. People who talk abou *relegating to the anecdotal* seem to have themselves adopted the position that the anecdotal is inferior, rather than being different.

There's nothing *wrong* with individual experience as a means of understanding individuals. However, it is a very common error to overgeneralise from individual cases and make assumptions about the world on the basis of one's own experiences.
The point of science is to make useful descriptions of the world. If one understands that a general description doesn't necessarily apply to all individuals, and that a few individuals aren't necessarily representative of the whole world, there is no problem with using science *in the appropriate context*.

A good scientist is quite capable of making a distinction between generalities and specific cases.

>>"Science is content with the average without studying the exceptional. It speaks only of ‘groups of people’ and lacks interest in the individual’s experience."

Any method of systematising information will have a tendency to lose information about individuals, except where a few individuals are the specific subjects of study.
Presumably in the case of things like astrology, *whether one believes in it or not*, one must accept that the system couldn't have been developed simply by looking at individuals, but only patterns amongst individuals, or some kind of mystical inspiration subsequently compared with general reality.

>>"Traditional knowledge (which you can argue successfully is empirical in the "eat, die and learn" school of life) is often dismissed as "superstition". Annoying for those of us who are Indigenous."

Well, bu&&er me - I'd kind of assumed that *I* was indigenous, at least to the place I was born (ie here). Where would I have to be born and live to be indigenous?
Empirical knowledge (ie knowledge which can be tested against reality) isn't likely to be dismissed as superstition.

Regarding patenting, testing and profit-making:

I don't think it's possible to patent the idea of making beer or cheese, yet if brewers or cheesemakers actually believed that beer made people healthier, I don't think the lack of patents would stop them funding research to prove their point if they thought sales would increase.

Indeed, even if increased sales wouldn't cover the costs of the research (which seems pretty unlikely), if a philanthropic company or individual actually had *real* faith in a substance, one might wonder why they wouldn't fund the research *even if they didn't stand to gain personally*, if the result would be many more people being given healthier lives.
Possibly there just aren't any philanthropists around these days, or they keep being diverted to fund unconvincing research?

>>"I have actually just been asked to help set up a series of tests on homoeopathics in a clinical setting. I'm not sure I want to participate on a number of levels. One being that I am not happy about double blind testing in this environment."

Assuming one had actual faith in homeopathy, I'd have thought that the potential short-term disbenefit of some people missing out on the remedies in good double-blind trials would be massively outweighed by the anticipated longer-term increase in the number of people choosing homeopathy.
There should be no ethical problems if one informs people in advance that they are part of a trial, and gives them the choice to participate or not, especially if the treatments concerned are not for immediately life-threatening conditions.

>>"I am more in sympathy with the Chinese and Russian research construct that gives the remedy to all participants, for the very good reason that if the remedy does some good, then why should everyone not benefit??"

The very good counter-reason is that without controls, it is not going to be possible to show that the remedy actually does have any effect beyond any effect obtained by simply having a consultation and thinking one is being treated.
The secondary reason is that whatever one's reasons actually *are*, it's pretty clear that a refusal to undertake double-blind trials will be seen by many people as showing fear of what those trials may show.

The reason for double-blind trials in medical research is that it is clear that even well-intentioned and honest people can still have unconscious biases that can reduce or eliminate the value of trials.

Even in the cases where outcomes are fairly clear (disease is cured or is not cured), double-blind trials are still useful.
In cases where a patients opinion of their own bodily state is a major factor in evaluating the success of a treatment, non-blind trials will not produce results that are trustworthy. If patients are actually self-selecting (choosing treatment X because they believe it *will* work), that's even more reason to be very careful about methodology.

"believed that beer..." -> "believed that beer (or cheese)..."

mmm....beer.

I think that some double-blind trials are concluded early if it becaomes obvious quickly that the drug is very effective, so that those on the placebo can also get it. Similarly they get wound up early if bad negative effects show themselves.