Posted: Jun 13, 2010 2:02 pm
Shrunk wrote:TMB wrote:I am not in a position to comment about homeopathy in terms of how it works etc, except for the fact that it works for me and my family and has done many times. You might ascribe this to placebo, and perhaps you are correct, but thats just anecdotal to.
Wrong. Your family's experience of getting better with homeopathy is an anecdote. The question of whether homeopathy is any more effective than placebo can only be determined by controlled trials, not by anecdote.
I agree, however since you have lost the context of my post by cherrypicking, let me restate. I sad that if I were to attribute any benefit I got when using homeopathy, it would be anecdotal for me to state that this must be the placebo effect, just because there have been arguments that show placebos to be as efficacious as homeopathy. I accept that my experince is anecdotal, however my post pointed out the issue with evidence based, repeatable systems in that there is much that gets missed, just because its not possible to capture all of reality in a neat bundle and describe it in its completenes. This does not mean "therefore homeopathy etc must be correct, it just means that placing faith in the system of SM to be 100% or even close, is akin to the placebo effect.
No issue with allopathy being able to smash bacteria with the wonders of antibiotics, but how will it deal with the oversue of the drug and the inevitable arms race that ensues when treating this way, as bacteria become increasingly resistant. Not only this, also the damage caused by using antibiotics on the overall person. Allopathy is shortsighted as a result of the approach it takes, and is almost unable to treat the entire person. Even homepathy falls short of this ideal, to treat the entire person, simply due to logistics and lack of complete knowledge about any patient.