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Homoeopathic Star Wars: If you dilute me I shall become more powerful than you can ever imagine.

Seriously, you may as well drink your own urine for all the homoeopathic good it'll do. Just remember to dilute it until not one molecule of the original wee wee exists.

Contempt prior to actual investigation I'd have to say...

The claim made does have some sense of legitimacy (though I don't agree with what's being "sold" in this presentation) as do certain homeopathic concepts, many of which have been used in mainstream medicine for years. The problem (as with most things) are the zealots who become to blind and deaf to get honest with themselves about the what & why and thus, buy into the idea that this and that flavor of snake oil is the perfect elixir of life bar none.

I've used homeopathic thinking coupled with my understanding of herbs and other natural remedy methods in that they "help" a condition... I stress that point, they "Help" but they are rarely a "cure" or complete remedy. This is the point of view many detractors of alternative health tend to ignore; the fact that the majority of folks who use homeopathy and similar treatments use it in combination to traditional western medicine and most typically hand in hand with their MD as well as a trusted and learned pharmacist who would be aware of possible interaction issues.

Maybe if folks looked at the more broad scope of things they'd be less prone to damn a book because of its cover?

Craig Browning wrote:The claim made does have some sense of legitimacy... as do certain homeopathic concepts, many of which have been used in mainstream medicine for years.

Sorry what concepts are these?

Well I don't know. There's been research into the number of people undergoing cancer treatment who use alternative medicine and the majority of them don't mention it to their GP. Also there have been recent troubles over homeopathists promoting remedies for malaria over innoculation, and a (Western) guy who has taken it upon himself to research the possibility of using homeopathy on AIDS patients in Africa. If homeopathy was confined solely to making gran feel a little less down (and wasn't the multi-million dollar industry that it is) then it would be less of a problem.

And you're right, the homeopathic remedy produced in the video is unlike most remedies, in that the pill is the more popular form. Here you have the inert pill remembering the water remembering the active ingredient.

Anyhew, either way, no quality research has ever shown homeopathic remedies to be more effective over placebo. No quality research has ever been able to distinguish homeopathic water from water. Homeopathy consists of a treatment with no proof of effectiveness and no proven or even feasible mechanic.

Who needs empirical data proving it to be effective when you have the far more compelling "It worked on my mate Steve's Hayfever" argument


I'm going with the "Water has memory" hypothesis.

Obviously no homeopath wishes to prove as all the Nobel Prizes for Chemistry, Medicine and Physics would just be a complete drag to have to travel ALL the way to Sweden to pick up.

The history of homoeopathy makes for quite interesting reading. As they weren't accepted by the mainstream medical practise they introduced a lot of the practises that have become central to mainstream medicine. There was little in the way of research showing data on how effective particular doses of any drug was. So they carry a lot of that out to try and prove their theories. This leads to measured doses becoming the norm.

They gained a lot of popularity through the 19th century as they listened to their patients at a time when the mainstream wasn't. Sounds a bit bit familiar.

Whilst it is possible that homeopathy has some basis, in that the original tincture may have some healing properties (I'm afraid I don't really know the sorts of things they us, so couldn't comment with authority), the dilution process is what makes the whole idea so farcical; anyone who believes that such dilute solutions (beyond 12C they are most likely to have not a single molecule of the original substance left) clearly has no understanding of scientific principles and shouldn't be allowed to give give health advice.

Homeopathy is more than just harmless quackery. It is dangerous. One Irish homeopathist took a cancer sufferer off his medication. He died. She refused to attend the inquest.
Did she learn her lesson? The hell she did. A few years later she took another patient off his medication, and he died as well. Once again she refused to attend the inquest.
This murderous haridan is still able to practice her quack medicine. She should be behind bars.
All the scientific evidence shows homeopathy is no more effective than a placebo. Homeopathy is a fraud. Twenty years ago we were not sure. Now we know. There is no excuse for it.

When my friend Kate was fighting a realy agressive cancer this year her chemo was realy rough on her. Every one pleaded with her but because she felt better (or not as bad as on the chemo) she dumped it for alternative medicine. She got her diagnosis at christmas and died in may. It was only five months. Now I've talked to other people with cancer (and they realy are living with it!) and the MacMillan nurses I think I understand a bit better and I can see how chemo can realy extend people's lives. I realy think alternative junk robbed her of the time she would have had to say good bye and do more things she wanted to do.

Tomo wrote:Homoeopathic Star Wars: If you dilute me I shall become more powerful than you can ever imagine.

Seriously, you may as well drink your own urine for all the homoeopathic good it'll do. Just remember to dilute it until not one molecule of the original wee wee exists.

Well you CAN drink your own urine. Bear Grylls has done it a few times and so has Les Stroud. The main problem being tho that your wee tends to house things in it that you don't to want to ingest and should ONLY be done if you are in the middle of nowhere and have no water around you.

It's also gross.

Randy wrote:Well you CAN drink your own urine. Bear Grylls has done it a few times and so has Les Stroud. The main problem being tho that your wee tends to house things in it that you don't to want to ingest and should ONLY be done if you are in the middle of nowhere and have no water around you.

According to QI, urine is actually quite safe. But I have no proof other than QI :p

I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that fresh urine is sterile unless you have a bladder/kidney infection. I suspect you'd mess your kidneys up if you keep drinking it in the long term, but let's face it, it's overwhelmingly water so in an open boat waiting for rescue (or in Blackadder*) you'll survive significantly longer than if you don't drink anything. There are far easier ways of getting at water on dry land - including the desert!

* "Aaaaaah! You have a woman's bladder!"

if i take a widdle into the ocean and give it all a jolly good shake, does all the ocean become my wee?

I'm with dara obrian on this - all these age old cures that have been around and generally do good - they eventually turn into....

medicine...the rest is the placebo effect...

Memory serving me right, it is the consumption of YOUR OWN urine that is "safe" but only at a very limited level... it is actually taught in survival training but suggested as a last resort. Similarly you can use your own Urine to help cure your own athletes foot conditions and even scalp flaking (use it as a rinse after shampooing, let it sit for about 3 minutes then rinse it out with clean water).

The consumption of someone else's urine however, can become quite dangerous, fast!


Several of the comments made here about Homeopathy supports what I was talking about when I mentioned "zealots" -- fanaticism -- in that it makes people do some very STUPID stuff like getting off proper medical treatments and NOT working with their legally recognized and trained MD... YOU HAVE TO HAVE THAT OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVE IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE WISE AS WELL AS SAFE.

We've all heard the stories of people walking away from proper medical care and all too often it is because of the encouragement of a snake oil peddler or faux faith healer. A wise person understands said conditions, realizing that such is not the norm but the exception and like that knit sweater grandma made, one shouldn't pull at the loose nits or you devalue all of it rather than repairing the parts that are obviously broken.

Harry... I'm not going to bite that hook. No one here needs to go through that kind of back and forth game again. BUT, if you would actually look outside the Skeptic's approved study materials on this topic and talk with folks other than those you know favor your existing point of view, you may very well learn to see a much greater picture and gain a better understanding of this or most any similar topic. The habit of doing such is why I can't slam the door and weld it shut on this sort of thing or the paranormal... there's just too much to it all and "man" hasn't all the answers....yet.