Contrarian would not have thought it possible for a defense of quackery to set me chuckling and nodding my head, but my old pal Warren Reed has done it. [Previous installments here and here.] Knowing that the best defense is a good offense, Reed began by catching me in the act of scientific error:
[caption id="attachment_4217" align="alignright" width="230" caption="Amedeo Avogadro"]avogad[/caption] One of the few things I remember from Nat. Sci. 3 is Avogadro's Number — 6.023 x 10**23.  So it isn't roughly 10**23 as you state — it's actually 6 times that.  Six is called The Republican Constant - any Republican can stretch the truth by a factor of six without raising an eyebrow on Fox News.  Journalists often get the same exemption. But we don't read Contrarian just for the science.  More puzzling is the notion that a group of pub-crawling Brits is claiming to know what constitutes "proper medical assistance."  Of the reasons for healing—the passage of time, the placebo effect, natural defenses—"proper medical assistance" is on the list, but is an evanescent concept at best.  It depends on many of the same principles for success as Homeopathy.  Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.
More after the jump.
22 January, 2010

A British group calling itself 10-23* will stage a mass self-inflicted overdose of homeopathic remedies to protest the Boots pharmacy chain's continued sale of the worthless** nostrums. At 10:23 a.m., January 30, 300 protesters will down a whole bottle of homeopathic pills each. The joke is that homeopathic mixtures have been diluted so many times, they no longer contain any of the original putative active ingredient. From an open letter to the Boots chain: The majority of people do not have the time or inclination to check whether the scientific literature supports the claims of efficacy made by products such as homeopathy....

19 January, 2010

Speaking of bad science, here's an early, poetic screed on  homeopathy attributed* to Rev. George Washington Doane (1799-1859), professor of belles-lettres at Washington (now Trinity) College, Hartford, Connecticut; rector of Christ church, Boston; and, later, Episcopal bishop of New Jersey: Take a little rum The less you take the better Pour it in the lakes Of Wener or of Wetter. Dip a spoonful out And mind you don't get groggy, Pour it in the lake Of Winnipissiogie. Stir the mixture well Lest it prove inferior, Then put half a drop Into Lake Superior. Every other day Take a drop in water, You'll be better soon Or at least you oughter. * A few sources sources attribute Lines...

20 December, 2009
Pills - 1 - strip
Skeptic magazine documents our current (somewhat frail) understanding of placebos:
We not only know placebos “work,” we know there is a hierarchy of effectiveness:
  • Placebo injections work better than placebo pills
  • Capsules work better than tablets
  • Big pills work better than small
  • The more doses a day, the better
  • The more expensive, the better
  • The color of the pill makes a difference
  • Telling the patient, “This will relieve your pain” works better than saying “This might help.”
05 July, 2009